Other Within

<b>Reveals myth and otherness as keys to restoring self nature and society</b> <p/>- Shows how myths contain medicine to restore wholeness amidst trauma exile sudden life change disability illness death or grief <p/>- Synthesizes lessons from shamanic practice quantum physics alchemy soul poetry wildness social justice and the author's lived experience <p/>- Discloses the blessings of outsiderhood and the gifts and insights gained and contributed to culture by those who are marginalized and outcast <p/>There is an other that lives within each of us an exiled part that carries wisdom needed for ourselves and the culture at large. Having survived disabling polio as an infant Daniel Deardorff knows the oppressions of exclusion and outsiderhood. He guides readers on an initiatory journey through ancient myth literature and personal revelation to discover our own true identity. <p/>These 10000-year-old stories contain sacred medicine with insights that release imagination and restore wholeness amid trauma exile climate chaos disability illness death and grief. Illustrating how archetypal figures of the Other--the Trickster Daimon Not-I etc.--hold paradox Deardorff teaches us to reframe disparities of self/other civilization/ wilderness form/deformity and transform the experience of being outcast. Synthesizing lessons from shamanic practice quantum physics alchemy social justice and his own lived experience Deardorff affirms the disruptive and transgressive forces that break through dogma conventionality and prejudice. He discloses blessings of outsiderhood and gifts to culture by those who are marginalized. Through mythmaking (mythopoesis) the experience of Otherness--cultural racial religious sexual physiognomic--becomes one of empowerment a catalyst for human liberation.