Maria Sabina: Her Life and Chants (New Wilderness ... (ISBN 091552032X)

A Natural Pathfinder:
I spent time with her in the early 70's. Before I was introduced to her, I had no idea who she was. Fancy that. I went to Huautla de Jimenez because a beautiful young woman, in Tampico, had told me to go there if I wanted to "see God". I was in the ministry of tourism, looking at a big map of Mexico. She saw me and remarked, I can see that you are looking for a "very special" map. I said, yes. She said, I can tell you where to go. I followed her advice, met someone who was well acquainted with Maria Sabina, and spent some time with her, participating in and learning about her Velada. Maria was in possession of a very special map, whose pathways she followed when she sang. At that time, I felt as if my entire journey had been conditioned by Strange Attractors to deliver me to this encounter at just this particular moment in time. In the Christian spiritual tradition, which Maria was apart of, there is a concept of a specific moment in time when history is swallowed up by eternity. This book is important for someone who wants a little more background information about her and wants a good translation of one of her veladas. The woman was an existential Saint. The significance of this is hard for sophisticated urbanites to entirely grasp. She was an extremely advanced and individuated master of spiritual healing. When she sang, it was as if her voice shaped space and time in such a way as to draw the perceptible boundary of another, superluminal, dimension. This book provides a little insight into her personal history, but if you are unfamiliar with her original cultural context, you will not be able to read between the lines, which is essential to understanding.

Life & Chants of a Mexican Shaman:
From back cover: "Maria Sabina, visionary and shaman, has long been celebrated in her native Mexico as an extraordinarily gifted woman. She emerges as a living practitioner of religious customs stemming from pre-Columbian times, and is the fount of wisdoms long thought lost to the world. She was born in Huautla de Jimenez - by her own reckoning over 90 years ago. She still lives there, speaking only her own native Mazatec dialect." About the author: "Alvaro Estrada, born to the same village as Maria Sabina, now resides in Mexico City where he makes his living as an engineer and as a journalist. His work in this book is direct oral testimony based on conversations with Maria Sabina in Huautla de Jimenez and on the shamanic chants which she recited in ritual ceremonies."