By Susan Suntree
A historical past that's equivalent components technology and mythology, Sacred Sites bargains a unprecedented and poetic imaginative and prescient of an international composed of dynamic ordinary forces and mythic characters. the result's a unique and remarkable account of the evolution of the Southern California panorama, reflecting the riches of either local wisdom and Western clinical thought.
Beginning with Western technological know-how, poet Susan Suntree incorporates readers from the massive Bang to the current as she describes the origins of the universe, the moving of tectonic plates, and an evolving array of vegetation and animals that supply Southern California its exact beneficial properties this present day. She tells of the migration of people into the quarter, the place they settled, and the way they lived. Complementing this narrative and reflecting the local people’s view in their personal background and lifestyle, Suntree recounts the construction myths and songs that inform the tale of the 1st humans, of unforgettable shamans and heroes, and of the origins and migrations of the human beings.
Featuring modern images of hardly visible landmarks besides meticulous study, Sacred Sites presents strange perception into how normal historical past and mythology, and medical and intuitive considering mix to create an ever-deepening feel of a spot and its humans.
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Example text
In the cloud’s seething shrinking center protons melt together and melt together again and again: hydrogen into deuterium into helium. Copious radiation from the fusions flows forth as starlight. li g ht, spac e, m atter or The largest stars pull themselves together hotter, harder than all the others 10 Bigger the star, faster the burn. Life as short as ten million years. western sc i enc e As hydrogen fuses into helium the core of a giant star grows heavier Gravity holds down the lid and the temperature heats up.
Somewhere, in warm blue bays by mutation (or mystery) a nerve cord down the back of wormy sea animals girdles in cartilage: vertebrates are born Star-made calcium, phosphorus, and carbon crystallize in the cartilage: bones are born. 450 million years ago In the temperate oceans encircling North America the first little fish: Astraspis six inches long, scaled sucks its food from the shallow sea floor along the coast of Colorado where its body settles into silt after a lifetime skimming the west coast, mating and feeding (to one day be dug up from its dirt bed, discovered by joyful scientists).
30 Cooling as it rises, the mantle contracts and sinks back toward the center to heat and rise again expanding and contracting over and over in slow cycles (Martha Graham, cool milk swirled by hot coffee) western sc i enc e magnificent secret wheels cracking, heaving, carrying the crust’s giant plates. Magma mother of rock the mantle’s primal mineral mix hot, viscous, dark fount of all the rocks on earth (prison walls, garden paths, pebble in the horse’s hoof ) gushes up through cracks in the crust when the plates pull apart filling the gaps thickening the crust where it collects and cools.