Audiobooks by Steven Charleston

Sacred Migration: An Indigenous Elder's Vision for Our Future

"It's time for a spiritual migration, says Choctaw elder Steven Charleston. Two million years ago, our earliest ancestors undertook the first migration. Now, in a time of upheaval and chaos and dread, we must move again. Around us, things are shutting down. We are moving backward in our evolution. Brutality and passivity, greed and xenophobia reign. Tools and technology will not save us. While our ancestors knew their survival depended on our relationship to Mother Earth, we act as if the Earth were a resource to be exploited rather than a relative to love. But across Turtle Island, Indigenous people are inviting others to join them on a sacred migration. It's a journey rooted in perception, imagination, humility, and kindness. In this book, the beloved author of Ladder to the Light, Steven Charleston, draws on Native spirituality to show us the way. Charleston is not content to let the Trail of Tears define the history of his community. With his trademark mix of gentle warmth and piercing vision, he offers the story of a kind of migration that arises from the deepest parts of ancient human culture. In Sacred Migration, Charleston shows us how his ancestors understood migration as a spiritual journey. He reveals holy places, like kivas and mounds and the medicine wheel, and points us toward the hope that will orient us. And he shows us how to create an altar to sustain us. This journey is life-giving and restorative, and it's one we take together. Migration is a process by which people not only travel but transform, Charleston says. We do not need to sit still in our despair, and in this much-anticipated book, he invites us to travel, together, toward a new home."

Steven Charleston (Author), Curtis Michael Holland (Narrator)

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Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigenous Elder

"When the Spirit speaks to him in his daily prayers, Choctaw elder and spiritual explorer Steven Charleston takes a pen and writes down the messages. He then shares these thoughts with thousands on social media. In these musings, Charleston taps into the universal questions that draw us to prayer, no matter our spiritual background: Why am I here? Where do I belong? Where am I going? This stunning collection of more than two hundred meditations introduces us to the Spirit Wheel and the four directions that ground Native spirituality: tradition, kinship, vision, and balance. The life we inhabit together has been called many things by Indigenous people: the Spirit Wheel, the hoop of the nations, the great circle of existence, the medicine wheel. We are all on that ever-turning wheel, Charleston says—all of creation, people and animals, rocks and trees, the whole universe. Together we can turn toward the wisdom of our ancestors, kinship with all of Mother Earth's creatures, the vision of the Spirit, and mindful balance of life. We are all searching for belonging and a vision of the world that makes sense. We can meet those longings as we ponder the blessings of Spirit Wheel, in the breathtaking moments when insight becomes an invitation to wonder."

Steven Charleston (Author), Jason Grasl (Narrator)

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The Four Vision Quests of Jesus

"A unique look at Christian biblical interpretation and theology from the perspective of Native American tradition. Steven Charleston's The Four Vision Quests of Jesus focuses on four specific experiences of Jesus as portrayed in the synoptic gospels. It examines each story as a “vision quest,” a universal spiritual phenomenon, but one of particular importance within North American indigenous communities. Jesus’ experience in the wilderness is the first quest. It speaks to a foundational Native American value: the need to enter into the “we” rather than the “I.” The Transfiguration is the second quest, describing the Native theology of transcendent spirituality that impacts reality and shapes mission. Gethsemane is the third quest. It embodies the Native tradition of the holy men or women, who find their freedom through discipline and concerns for justice, compassion, and human dignity. Golgotha is the final quest. It represents the Native sacrament of sacrifice (e.g., the Sun Dance). The chapter on Golgotha is a discussion of kinship, balance, and harmony: all primary to Native tradition and integral to Christian thought. This audiobook is masterfully read by Kaipo Schwab, and was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont. Audio engineering by Matthew Kulewicz, MPSE."

Steven Charleston (Author), Kaipo Schwab (Narrator)

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We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope

"From the moment European settlers reached these shores, the American apocalypse began. But Native Americans did not vanish. Apocalypse did not fully destroy them, and it doesn't have to destroy us. Pandemics and war, social turmoil and corrupt governments, natural disasters and environmental collapse—it's hard not to watch the signs of the times and feel afraid. But we can journey through that fear to find hope. With the warnings of a prophet and the lively voice of a storyteller, Choctaw elder and author of Ladder to the Light Steven Charleston speaks to all who sense apocalyptic dread rising around and within. You'd be hard pressed to find an apocalypse more total than the one Native America has confronted for more than four hundred years. Yet Charleston's ancestors are a case study in the liberating and hopeful survival of a spiritual community. Charleston points to four Indigenous prophets who helped their people learn strategies for surviving catastrophe. Through gestures such as turning the culture upside down, finding a fixed place on which to stand, listening to what the earth is saying, and dancing a ghostly vision into being, these prophets helped their people survive. These ancestors' words reach across centuries to help us live through apocalypse today with courage and dignity."

Steven Charleston (Author), Jason Grasl (Narrator)

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Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder's Meditations on Hope and Courage

"They were as troubled as we, our ancestors, those who came before us, and all for the very same reasons: fear of illness, a broken heart, fights in the family, the threat of another war. Corrupt politicians walked their stage, and natural disasters appeared without warning. And yet they came through, carrying us within them, through the grief and struggle, through the personal pain and the public chaos, finding their way with love and faith, not giving in to despair but walking upright until their last step was taken. My culture does not honor the ancestors as a quaint spirituality of the past but as a living source of strength for the present. They did it and so will we. In the same voice that has comforted and challenged countless readers through his daily social media posts, Choctaw elder and Episcopal priest Steven Charleston offers words of hard-won hope, rooted in daily conversations with the Spirit. Every day Charleston spends time in prayer. Every day he writes down what he hears from the Spirit. In Ladder to the Light he shares what he has heard with the rest of us and adds thoughtful reflection to help guide us to the light. Native America knows something about cultivating resilience and resisting darkness. For all who yearn for hope, this is a book of comfort, truth, and challenge in a time of anguish and fear."

Steven Charleston (Author), Jason Grasl (Narrator)

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