Once Upon a Time is Now

<p> <strong>Fifty years after her first</strong> <strong>fieldwork with Ju/'hoan San hunter-gatherers anthropologist Megan Biesele has written this exceptional memoir based on personal journals she wrote at the time.</strong></p><p> The treasure trove of vivid learning experiences and nightly ponderings she found has led to a memoir of rare value to anthropology students and academics as well as to general readers. Her experiences focus on the long-lived healing dance known to many as the trance dance and the intricate beliefs artistry and social system that support it.</p><p> She describes her immersion in a creative community enlivened and kept healthy by that dance which she calls one of the great intellectual achievements of humankind.</p><p> From the Preface:<br /> A few years ago I finally got around to looking back into the box of personal field journals I had not opened for over forty years. I found a treasure trove. It was an overwhelming experience. So much that I had forgotten came vividly alive: I laughed wept and was terrified all over again at my temerity in taking on what I had taken on. To do justice to the richness of these notebooks I realized I would have to do a completely different sort of writing from anything I had ever done before.</p>