Beyond the Ordinary Dot Net-Martin Prechtel

~~~ Martin Prechtel ~~~
"Spirituality is an extremely practical thing, it's not just something you choose to do on the weekends...
It's an everyday thing, as essential as eating or holding hands or keeping warm in the winter."

Eloquent and delightful, Martin Prechtel makes you happy to be in his company. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting he and his lovely wife Hanna. His interesting and unique experiences are the subject of his books. He is a half-blood Native American from a Pueblo Indian reservation in New Mexico, but his intuition took him to the village of Santiago Atitlan where a strange man came up to him and said, "What took you so long? For two years I’ve been calling you. Let’s get to work!" So began his apprenticeship to Nicolas Chiviliu, one of the greatest of the Tzutujil Mayan shamans.

One of his roles with the Tzutujil was instructing the young people in the meanings of their ancient stories that took place in the rituals of adult rights of passage. All human beings come from the other world, but we forget it a few months after we’re born. This amnesia occurs because we are dazzled by the beauty and physicality of this world. We spend the rest of our lives putting back together our memories of the other world, enough to serve the greater good and to teach the new amnesiacs — the children — how to remember." Often, this lesson is taught during the initiation into adulthood. "If this world were a tree, then the other world would be the roots — the part of the plant we can’t see, but that puts the sap into the tree’s veins. The other world feeds this tangible world — the world that can feel pain, that can eat and drink, that can fail; the world that goes around in cycles; the world where we die. The other world is what makes this world work. And the way we help the other world continue is by feeding it with our beauty."

Martin's insight and wisdom are not clouded by, though it pains him deeply, what so many indigenous people have endured at the hands of those that do not understand the beauty and richness of traditions different from their own. Through his writing and workshops Martin is helping people reconnect with their own sense of place and the sacredness of ordinary life. Robert Bly describes Martin as “A short kind of pony that gallops through the fields of human possibility with flowers dropping out of his mouth.” We like this description, it suits him.

Martin's Website: www.floweringmountain.com< See Martin's books which include, Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, Honey in the Heart, Ecstasy and Time... his art and exquisite music, which you hear on BTO.

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Listen Now	January 19th, 2007 "The Nature of Ourselves" Martin speaks of his life, his Spanish Mustang horses (an almost extinct breed) some with blue eyes, and the beautiful land - his is a small town that welcomes the people that come from all over the world to his school and fills the town! "I try to get the people not to connect with nature, but be nature." What does he see for 2007? He is maintaining a way of being useful in keeping people alive no matter how things may be. "The idea of being comfortable is not necessarily being happy ...it's being intact, and discovering your own instincts... this year, very, heavy." Many people don't really feel at home, many are spiritually fleeing from reality; everybody has an indigenous soul, it's not in the brain but we need the brain to manifest. His amusing story about the Gated Community, what took him to studying history at age 6, a way to keep a culture alive, and Rumsfeld's dead trees. (Look here soon for information to help get Martin's book published without being dried up by editing!)
Listen Now	August 18th, 2006 "Being Naturally Interdependent" A view into tribal ways, like building an adobe hall for his school. A gradual process, but it will serve as long as it is maintained and when it isn't, will fall apart into the earth leaving no debris. From the time of the atom bomb, the world has developed from a scared civilization, into instant gratification, push a mouse and click the button, people figure there is no future and believe in only their own comfort. Even the language of today is dictated by hysteria, generations who thought there would be nothing more. The Mayan language is very different, you are here to be beautiful, your body is the Earth, this takes away the neurotic, the loneliness... "become part of the natural world, your nature IS natural, and necessary, when you are in that world you are not alone, go outside and listen, there is teaming life everywhere." "Use those beautiful hands! Craftsmanship has been demonized" ...and speaking of craft, how Martin created his first instrument from discarded tennis rackets and taught himself, developing his own form of music.
Listen Now	April 24th, 2006 "Indigenocity: Spiritual Intactness" Martin calls his school a "Bolad's Kitchen" ...as a little 3-year old wondered why people coming from other places overrun indigenous people, then understood it isn't the people but a syndrome. Being indigenous is having spiritual intactness, a natural aspect of all beings "the war between what we have become and who we really are is great now, that is why I made the school." Instead of medicating, or ignoring it, he teaches ways to metabolize the grief into something beyond with compassion and beauty, art and music. "I don't fight with guns or swords, I fight with beauty." And a love story in an unusual place with music that made all the flowers open...
Listen Now	May 13th, 2003 - 57 mins How true culture is preserved, plus Martin's Flaming Guitar!	MP3's & CD's Comming Soon!
Listen Now	April 11th, 2002 - 52 mins "Find your indiginosity, everyone has this!"