Turtle Was Gone A Long Time, Volume One: Crossing the Kedron ISBN: 1874675635 Link to Amazon

This work describes a mystical quest or journey, from form to void and back, enacting a significant theme of European literature, that of paradise lost and paradise regained. In a centruy in which a human being first set foot on the moon, this seeking is an attempt to come ashore upon the Earth in its perennial first morning. The "Turtle" of the title derives from the diver myth found in Siberia and North America, in particular among the Maidu Indians of California. Diving to the floor of the abyss to find intuitions of the world to come ashore upon, "Crossing the Kedron" [John 18:1] offers a series of texts describing one individual's spiritual initiations and transformations, Gethsemane self-encounters and purifications. Prepared over 12 years, the work enacts a Dantesque, shamanic journey, a vast voyage across Hindu, Buddhist and Christian waters. It invites readers to plumb their own depths and emerge renewed.