Audiobooks by Martín Prechtel

The Canyon Wren is the continuation and beautiful punchline of the full tale of Martín Prechtel’s trilogy, The Story of My Horses, and picks up right where The Wild Rose leaves off. The Wild Rose ends with the dramatic Barn Fire Incident in which the author and his steady new young Barb stallion, Punk, pull a flame stunned mare out of a burning barn just seconds before the whole burning structure collapses, then together they both drive straight out of that book and into a new life in the next book. This third book in the trilogy brings the story far away from all those troubled times, ins and outs, and hardships and betrayals involved in the author’s effort to gather up those old style Indian Ponies of his youth, and heads us back out into the wild land and the beauty of ranchito New Mexico, where as an integral part of the lives of his new family, their family herd of rare Spanish/Native New Mexico horses play out a series of unexpected peculiarities and surprising horse antics that push the envelope of what mainstream culture has come to assume defines horses and the people that have them. If the first book, The Mare and the Mouse, is like finding a closed treasure chest, and the second book, The Wild Rose, is the retrieval of the lost keys to that chest, then The Canyon Wren is the treasure itself. 'If this book doesn't make you want to ride, talk to animals, eat well, and close the angry, slack-jaw and shamelessly jump up and try to kiss the sky, then I've failed, but I will always try again. Everyone wants life to be simple, but a simple life cannot be lived in a simple way: it takes a lot of simple skills. To see the humor and beauty in the world is one of those skills.' The vision in this book is simply beautiful.

Martín Prechtel (Author), Martín Prechtel (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Mare and the Mouse

Beautiful and hilarious, tearful and rambunctious, very real, ironic and magic-filled, Martín Prechtel’s book 'The Mare and the Mouse' is a series of lyrical sagas in tribute to each of the native New Mexican horses that carried him through his youth on the Reservation and then again during the difficult times following his return home after over a decade in the Mayan Highlands of Guatemala. First in the Stories of My Horses Series, The Mare and the Mouse is meant to be read aloud to crowds around campfires, especially to people who are mistaken that only rich people or rednecks ride horses, Prechtel credits both his own physical and spiritual survival in “modernity’s mad rush to nowhere” with the sanity of riding and living with his natural-born Southwestern horses. Not raised for show, performance, status, or money, these little horses allowed a way of living that took him flying over ravines into deep-mountain Holy places, backwards over streams, and in general keeping alive a sparkier, older spirit in an age where horses have been grossly de-natured and sadly removed from our own everyday lives after three millennia as the closest companions of our ancestors’ dreams and mythologies.

Martín Prechtel (Author), Martín Prechtel (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Wild Rose: Stories of My Horses: Volume II

'Carrying on from The Mare and the Mouse, this series, The Stories of My Horses, is not just a compendium of imaginative romantic narratives written to casually entertain the horse loving public. As romantically remembered as they might seem to be, they are actually straightforward historical accounts of what happens when a life-loving fool like me, a native of that beautiful land-locked, cultural island called Northern New Mexico, who in the latter half of the 20th century, decides he must live his everyday life in direct defiance of the soul-shrinking threat of modernity’s earth-wrecking ugliness and mediocre existence, by keeping some modicum of the bright shine and outrageous living passion of our real souls alive by flying free and beautiful on the backs of flesh and blood horses over a live unpeopled, unmanicured land… I’ll admit I’m a romantic and heroic. But to be honest, it’s not my fault: it’s the fault of all the horses I’ve ever known. For horses since forever, real horses I mean, have always been romantic, noble and heroic by definition of their very existence, and to be with them well, you too have to develop a soul that corresponds! In my romantic struggle for beauty in an unromantic mechanical age, my horses, simply by how they were, and how we looked, and how we were together, although no more than a tiny broadside against the ghost ship of mediocrity of this crazy age was some kind of victory just by the fact that we still existed. Horses inspire courage against hopeless odds just by their courage and beauty.” –from the Introduction to The Wild Rose

Martín Prechtel (Author), Martín Prechtel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Long Life, Honey in the Heart

Martín Prechtel continues the narrative of his unique life in Santiago, Atitlan in Long Life, Honey in the Heart, an eloquent memoir replete with the subtle intelligence and sophistication of Mayan culture. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Guatemala's political upheaval in the 1980s, this heady mix of magic, humor, and spirituality immerses the reader in the experiences of Mayan birth, courting, marriage, childrearing, old age, death, and beyond, using the true story of Prechtel's own family and friends.

Martín Prechtel (Author), Martín Prechtel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Rescuing the Light: Quotes from the Oral Teachings of Martín Prechtel

A collection of quotes and sayings from the oral teachings of a leading thinker, writer and teacher of indigenous spirituality. Martin Prechtel is widely recognized as a profound and beloved teacher for our times. Raised in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, he has dedicated his life to the preservation and promulgation of indigenous spirituality. Rescuing the Light is a collection of Prechtel's quotes and sayings spanning the course of fifteen years, and recorded at Bolad's Kitchen, a four-year course in New Mexico where students from all walks of life gather to receive hands-on training in language, history, cooking, farming, and crafts. Artist, musician, and storyteller, Prechtel teaches and initiates with passion and eloquence, awakening his students to the sacred realities present everywhere and at all times. The quotes of wisdom and inspiration collected in these pages are earth-centric and animist. Divided into thematic sections, they range from the poetic and witty to the serious and direct. Sharing his deep shamanic wisdom within a grand overview of human history, Prechtel shows us how we can reconnect with the unique and unsuspected manifestations of our own sacred selves.

Martín Prechtel (Author), Martín Prechtel (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun: A Mayan Tale of Ecstasy, Time, and Finding One's True F

Author and illustrator Martín Prechtel is internationally known for his explorations of ancient folklore and uncovering the lessons therein for modern readers. In The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun, he revives a hitherto unknown Guatemalan Tzutujil Mayan tale of the beginnings of the world with a poetic retelling of the story and a critical analysis that both enlightens and entertains. Having lived with the Mayans and learned their language, Prechtel authoritatively retells the powerful tale of the Tall Girl who weaves the world in a loom, her parents the Sun and the Moon who repudiate her suitors, and the mysterious man who disguises himself as a hummingbird to lure her away. Prechtel expands this archetypal story with five layers of commentary, each teasing out a different wisdom and revealing its relevance to the world today.

Martín Prechtel (Author), Martín Prechtel (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive

Martín Prechtel's experiences growing up on a Pueblo Indian reservation, his years of apprenticing to a Guatemalan shaman, and his flight from Guatemala's brutal civil war to life in the U.S. inform this lyrical blend of memoir, cultural commentary, and spiritual call to arms. The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic is both an epic story and a cry to the heart of humanity based on the author's realization that human survival depends on keeping alive the seeds of our "original forgotten spiritual excellence." Prechtel relates our current state of ecological crisis to the rapid disappearance of biodiversity, indigenous cultures, and shared human values. He demonstrates how real human culture is exterminated when real (not genetically modified) seeds are lost. Like plants that become extinct once their required conditions are no longer met, authentic, unmonetized human cultures can no longer survive in the modern world. To "keep the seeds alive"-both literally and metaphorically-they must be planted, harvested, and replanted, just as human culture must become truly engaging and meaningful to the soul, as necessary as food is to the body. The viable seeds of spirituality and culture that lie dormant within us need to "sprout" into broad daylight to create real sets of cultures welcome on Earth.

Martín Prechtel (Author), Martín Prechtel (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise

Inspiring hope, solace, and courage in living through our losses, author Martín Prechtel, trained in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, shares profound insights on the relationship between grief and praise in our culture--how the inability that many of us have to grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living. In modern society, grief is something that we usually experience in private, alone, and without the support of a community. Yet, as Prechtel says, 'Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.' Prechtel explains that the unexpressed grief prevalent in our society today is the reason for many of the social, cultural, and individual maladies that we are currently experiencing. According to Prechtel, 'When you have two centuries of people who have not properly grieved the things that they have lost, the grief shows up as ghosts that inhabit their grandchildren.' These 'ghosts,' he says, can also manifest as disease in the form of tumors, which the Maya refer to as 'solidified tears,' or in the form of behavioral issues and depression. He goes on to show how this collective, unexpressed energy is the long-held grief of our ancestors manifesting itself, and the work that can be done to liberate this energy so we can heal from the trauma of loss, war, and suffering. At base, this 'little book,' as the author calls it, can be seen as a companion of encouragement, a little extra light for those deep and noble parts in all of us.

Martín Prechtel (Author), Martín Prechtel (Narrator)

Audiobook