North Atlantic Books Blog

Do you teach martial arts to kids? Ever considered writing about it?

Blue Snake Books, an imprint of North Atlantic Books, is now actively looking for manuscripts in a new area: martial arts books for children. Staying true to Blue Snake’s mission of publishing in-depth books on a wide variety of authentic martial arts traditions, Blue Snake Kids will publish sophisticated, intelligent books to help foster young martial artists. We are especially interested in publishing books on single arts or disciplines (karate, tai chi, aikido, muay thai, jujitsu, etc.) but also encourage submissions on slightly broader topics: grappling arts, internal arts, practical self-defense, etc. Authors are also encouraged to submit books on multiple arts that are closely related.

WHAT WE WANT: Books that speak to kids in a language they can understand—without being condescending; training manuals with illustrations or high-quality photos; books designed to be interactive and entertaining (e.g. suggestions for training games, questions for the reader to think about). We especially want books that are intended to be used as a supplement to, not a replacement for, regular training with a teacher.

WHAT WE DON’T WANT: Books that are overly simplistic and broad (e.g. “Respect your teacher; practice your forms every day; bow before entering the dojo.”); fiction, picture, or coloring books; books on obscure or not-widely practiced arts.

If you have a quality manuscript that you’d like to submit, here are our submissions guidelines. Feel free to forward and repost!

Mail a cover letter, proposal, and partial manuscript to:

Blue Snake Books Acquisitions Board
2526 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley, CA 94704

Or email Terri in Marketing Communications: tsaul@northatlanticbooks.com

Send a self-addressed stamped envelope for all responses!

The proposal should include:

1. Table of contents
2. At least three sample chapters
3. Sample illustrations or high quality photos
4. A 75-word statement describing the book’s intention
5. Statement of your qualifications in this area
6. A marketing plan
7. Review of comparable titles: What are the two leading titles to which your book will be compared? How do they differ from your book?
8. The length of your manuscript in double-spaced pages
9. A few suggestions for foreword writers, and your ideas for back cover endorsements
10. Your plans for promoting the book, including your ability to travel to workshops or speaking engagements with relevant organizations

We aim to respond to every submission we receive within three or four months. Submissions received without S.A.S.E.s (self-addressed stamped envelopes) may not receive responses.

Best of luck from the Blue Snake Books Acquisitions Team!

CLICK HERE to learn more about Blue Snake Books.

CLICK HERE to visit the Blue Snake Books Blog.

Greetings from sunny Berkeley, California! There is never a dull moment in world of book publishing, and this summer proves no different. This July, the new releases from North Atlantic Books are sure to please with fantastic works in the genres of Martial Arts, Cooking, Fiction, Homeopathy, Channeling, Poetry, and Alternative Health. Happy reading!

To order, please visit www.northatlanticbooks.com
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On the Warrior’s Path: Second Edition
By Daniele Bolelli

On the Warrior’s Path connects the martial arts with the larger perspective of developing body, spirit, and awareness, and merges subtle philosophies with no-holds-barred competition, Nietzsche with Bruce Lee, radical Taoism and Buddhism with the Star Wars Trilogy, traditional martial arts with basketball and American Indian culture. At the center of all these phenomena is the warrior. Though this archetype seems to manifest contradictory values, Daniele Bolelli describes the heart of this tension: how the training of martial technique leads to a renunciation of violence, and how overcoming fear leads to a unique freedom. On the Warrior’s Path brings fresh insights to why martial arts remains an enduring and widespread art and discipline. This second edition includes two new chapters that focus on spirituality in the martial arts and the author’s personal journey in the field.

$16.95/$20 in Canada
Trade Paper
978-1-58394-219-2
200 pages, 6 x 9
On Sale July 8, 2008

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Homeopathy for Your Cat: Remedies for Common Feline Ailments
By H. G. Wolff

Homeopathy for Your Cat offers detailed, authoritative information on a wide variety of homeopathic treatments available for common cat ailments. This book is written in an engaging, empathetic style by a respected German veterinarian H.G. Wolff, and covers both acute and chronic problems in the ears, nose, and throat, the heart and circulatory system, the digestive organs, the ligaments, tendons, and joints, the reproductive system and urinary tract, and the skin. Homeopathy for Your Cat includes an introduction to basic first aid, diagnostic reviews, and information on how to treat various dangerous viral and bacterial diseases. This is a concise manual that explores everything the concerned cat lover or professional needs to know, from symptoms and illnesses to remedies and general care tips, and addresses a growing market for alternative treatments for pets.

$14.95/$16.95 in Canada
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-739-7
136 pages, 8 x 9
On Sale July 15, 2008

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Soul Shift: Finding Where the Dead Go
By Mark Ireland

Businessman Mark Ireland’s father was Richard Ireland, a deeply spiritual minister and renowned psychic and medium who counted Mae West among his famous clients. While he loved his father, Mark followed a more conventional path in pursuit of mainstream success—until the wrenching death of his youngest son. This unexpected tragedy plunges Mark into the spiritual world of psychics and mediums in a frantic attempt to communicate with the dead. His defenses and pragmatic mindset begin to fade as he remembers premonitions on the day of his son’s death. He consults a number of well-known mediums and is struck by the remarkably accurate information their readings provide. Mark then enters a new dimension of personal paranormal experience, and his own psychic awareness begins to unfold. Soul Shift is the dramatic story of a father’s unbearable loss and his discovery of life after death.

$16.95/$20 in Canada
Trade Paper
978-1-58394-251-2
185 pages, 6 x 9
On Sale July 15, 2008

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Sweetpea’s Secret
By Renay Jackson

Renay Jackson’s previous books in this series introduced the curious character of Sweetpea, who’s not exactly what he seems. By day he’s Horace Boudreaux, mortgage broker and sometime playboy who likes nothing better than getting down with his girlfriend Harriette. Other times, he’s one of Oaktown’s more successful hitmen. He not only kills for pleasure, he also kills for revenge. Oaktown’s notorious gangster Big Ed Tatum is one of Sweetpea’s clients and normally immune from Sweetpea’s wrath, but Big Ed crosses the line when he courts Sweetpea’s older sister, and his henchman almost kills Sweetpea’s little sister. The hitman is happy to slash Big Ed’s throat in a Vegas parking lot. But Sweetpea soon learns that the dead don’t always stay dead.

$14.95/$16.95 in Canada
Trade Paper
978-1-58394-224-6
224 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
On Sale July 15, 2008

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Health Is Simple, Disease Is Complicated
By James Forleo, DC

In this breakthrough book, Dr. James Forleo proposes a return to the body as the site of self-healing. The problem, he says, is that we don’t understand the language of signs and symptoms it uses to communicate its healing messages. Health Is Simple helps readers decipher that language and access the great realms of health and vitality the body contains. The book takes a systems approach to health, and walks readers through the basic design and function of each major organ system, and offers a set of simple practices to boost performance. Forleo emphasizes simple correctives to diet and lifestyle, a new perspective on digestion and elimination, and the alignment of the spine and structural system. Forleo offers case studies to demonstrate successfully resolved conditions from chronic headaches, anxiety, and respiratory disorders to exhaustion, autoimmune disorders, and allergies.

$22.95/$25.95 in Canada
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-718-2
400 pages, 7 x 9-1/4
On Sale July 22, 2008

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Acupuncture and the Chakra Energy System: Treating the Cause of Disease
By John R. Cross

Acupuncture and the Chakra Energy System is an accessible guide to using the chakra energy system for acupuncture healing. By comparing the traditional approaches of Chinese medicine and modern Western acupuncture with the chakra energy system of Ayurvedic philosophy, author John R. Cross offers clinically proven strategies for treating the causes of conditions, not just the symptoms. The book describes the seven major and twenty-one minor chakras in detail and explains how each is related to the body’s aura, meridians, key points, endocrine glands, autonomic nervous system, and varying symptomatology. Acupuncture and the Chakra Energy System focuses on how one can use the chakras in the treatment of chronic physical and emotional conditions—osteo-arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, low back pain with sciatica, insomnia, hypertension, depression, menopausal symptoms, and frozen shoulder, among others.

$22.95/$25.95 in Canada
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-721-2
208 pages, 7 x 9-1/4
On Sale July 29, 2008

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Belonging: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World
Translated by Niloufar Talebi with Zack Rogow and Daniel O’Connell

Belonging is a rich collection of contemporary poetry by Iranians living throughout the world. Each expertly translated essay varies dramatically in style, tone, and theme. The works include erotic divertissements by Ziba Karbassi, rigorously formal poetry by Yadollah Royaii, experimental poems by Naanaam, powerful polemics by Maryam Huleh, and the personal-epic work of Shahrouz Rashid. These vibrant poems deepen the limited awareness of Iranian identity today by introducing readers to contemporary Iranian poetry, and also expanding the canon of significant writing in the Persian language. To learn more about The Translation Project, whose mission is to bring contemporary Iranian literature to worldwide audiences in multiple languages and media, please visit www.thetranslationproject.org.

$18.95/$22 in Canada
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-712-0
128 pages, 6 x 9
On Sale July 29, 2008

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The Blue Heron Ranch Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from a Zen Retreat Center
By Nadia Natali

The Blue Heron Ranch Cookbook blends 126 tasty, healthful recipes with lively tales of the Natali family’s adventures living close to the land—in the wilds of California’s Los Padres National Forest. Each chapter opens with a vivid account of the family’s trials and triumphs at Blue Heron Ranch, followed by a particular category of recipes, arranged in seven groupings. Each page is adorned with whimsical illustrations, and the personal stories are sometimes poignant and often hilarious accounts of raising a family in the wilderness, running a meditation center, and facing nature’s seemingly endless challenges—with the Blue Heron kitchen being the center around which these events unfold.

$21.95/$25.00 in Canada
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-717-5
224 pages, 8-3/8 x 10
On Sale July 29, 2008

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Hurricane Katrina: Response and Responsibilities
Edited By John Brown Childs

A timely re-release, Hurricane Katrina is a collection of insightful essays that shed critical light on this devastating natural disaster and address its far-reaching consequences. From how to make sense of such mythic tragedy, to questions of political and personal accountability, to navigating the complex issues of race, gender, age, and social class—the essayists train a careful and attentive eye on all of these issues. A diverse sampling of authors lend a wide range of thought-provoking perspectives and intriguing suggestions for how American society might move forward and heal. All essays were donated; all proceeds will go to the Follow Your Heart Action Network.

$10.00/$12.00 in Canada
Trade Paper
978-1-55643-792-2
224 pages, 4-1/2 x 7
On Sale Date: July 29, 2008

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The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger
By Cecil Brown

The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger is a legendary novel that reimagines the Bible’s prodigal son as a young black man in 1960s Europe. George Washington—one of his many aliases—starts out as the classic trickster figure, a blend of con artist, deep thinker, and willing object of white women’s sexual fantasies. Fed up with life in racist America, he leaves the rural South for Denmark on a curious quest, determined to discover if there is “any mother fucker in this despiteful world who ever told himself the truth.” In Denmark he spends his days bantering with fellow black expatriates and his nights bedding a series of white women who project their desires on him. Inevitably, these worlds collide, with Washington, aka Anthony Miller, aka Paul Winthrop, aka Mr. Jiveass Nigger, increasingly alienated in a world of opportunists. A return to America after his self-imposed exile promises transformation, but is Washington too far gone?

$15.95/$18.95 in Canada
Trade Paper
978-1-58394-210-9
224 pages, 6 x 9
On Sale July 29, 2008

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Ori Hofmekler is the author of The Warrior Diet, The Anti-Estrogenic Diet, and the recently released Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat. Every Wednesday, at 9am PST, on VoiceAmericaHealth, Ori offers a live podcast as a part of The Warrior Within: Your Guide to Nutrition, Energy, Sex, and Survival. Past podcasts include “The Three Hidden Obstacles to Weight Loss,” “Diet Solutions,” “Protein Products/Fallacies, Fraud and Failure,” “The Skinny on Aerobics,” “Food Combining and Fitness,” “Fat That Heal, Fat That Kill,” “Hunger—How to Deal with the Chronic Desire to Eat,” “Food for Recovery and Healing,” “Best Training and Nutritional Regimens for Weight Loss,” “The Power Principle—The Hidden Factors Behind Muscle Power,” “Best Foods and Recipes for Leaning & Strengthening the Body,” and many more.

To listen to The Warrior Within, please visit www.modavox.com/VoiceAmericaHealth and simply follow the links to Hofmekler’s podcast series. Enjoy!

After serving with the Israeli Special Forces, Ori Hofmekler attended the Bezalel Academy of Art and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he studied art, philosophy, and biology, and received a degree in Human Sciences. As founder, editor-in-chief, and publisher of Mind and Muscle Power, a national health and fitness magazine, Hofmekler introduced The Warrior Diet to the public in a monthly column. Later, The Warrior Diet was published, followed by The Anti-Estrogenic Diet and Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat. Nutritional and medical experts, scientists, champion athletes, martial artists, and military and law enforcement instructors have all endorsed Hofmekler’s dietary and training methods. The Warrior Diet, LLC and Defense Nutrition, LLC currently provide nutrition and training workshops and certification seminars.

CLICK HERE to visit VoiceAmericaHealth and The Warrior Within.
CLICK HERE to visit Ori Hofmekler’s blog.
CLICK HERE to learn more about (or order copies of) The Warrior Diet, The Anti-Estrogenic Diet and Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat.

Paul Pitchford is the author of the bestselling book, Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition, as well as the Spanish language edition, Sanando con ailmentos integrales (North Atlantic Books). Pitchford is a leading authority in the field of nutrition and foundational healing. In the following article, Pitchford explains how one can balance their daily diet in order to consume a healthy amount of protein. He also explores the important connection between mind, body, and nutrition.

Protein Perspectives: Modern Nutrition & Eastern Traditions
By Paul Pitchford

There’s been a flurry of media response to the mega-protein diets, and for good reason: the largest selling books worldwide in the past couple years have focused on these diets. And due to this widespread information, virtually everyone I know with an interest in nutrition, both vegetarian and omnivore, has re-assessed personal protein needs. Why has dramatic interest in protein surfaced at this time? We might surmise it’s from stress at this frenetic point in our history, as protein foods antidote stress with stabilizing, relaxing and strengthening therapeutic actions.

Yet despite all the talk about protein, rarely does anyone eat an unrefined food that is more than 25% protein by weight. Thus “eating protein” most often means eating foods that are especially protein rich. Examples of such foods are nuts, seeds, beans, soy products and most meats, including the red meats, pork (sometimes considered a white meat), fish, and fowl as well as eggs.

However, all plants also contain protein, and convincing human studies in the 1950’s by Wm. Rose indicate that when energy needs are met with a food, protein needs are automatically satisfied. For example, potatoes or rice easily meet our protein needs when one simply eats enough to obtain sufficient calories for energy. Nevertheless such foods alone rarely satisfy those who crave “protein.” Research by the world’s foremost protein expert, Dr. Scrimshaw, head of the Nutrition Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, provides an insight. His cross-cultural studies reveal that, given the opportunity, people will consume three times more protein than their true needs. In the poorer countries, this rarely manifests, but in first world countries, protein over-consumption is commonplace, being most easily accomplished with animal products.

If true protein needs are so easily satisfied, even by complex carbohydrates such as grains, what is really being craved? I feel that when meat is craved, it is the rich, highly assimilable matrix of nutrients in meat that is desired. The animal has performed the work of converting vegetal foods into tissues not so different from our own. Thus many individuals will assimilate iron, certain vitamins, and other nutrients from meat more readily than from grains and beans. This is especially true of those with cultural heritages characterized by meat-centric diets. According to the Ayurvedic healing system of India and Chinese traditional healing arts, meat strengthens us, but only when eaten in moderation. And “moderation” generally means 3-4 ounces a day. This figure corresponds to what many nutritionists now suggest for healthful meat consumption.

When meat, seafood and fowl intake exceeds eight ounces a day, the resultant protein can cause more calcium excretion than is assimilated, thus promoting osteoporosis or bone loss. In fact, osteoporosis is widespread in the developed countries, more so than in poorer areas. Thin, underfed people in India often have stronger bones than big, beefy Americans. This is due to our eating patterns: research over the past 40 years has shown that the single greatest contributor to bone loss is the acids from too much dietary protein. Other research over the same time frame suggests that kidney failure is most frequently a result of excessive protein consumption. Interestingly, traditional Chinese medicine unifies these health concerns with the view that the kidney-adrenals rule the bones. Furthermore, the kidney-adrenals are said to rule the brain—sometimes referred to as the “sea of marrow”. Can Alzheimer’s disease also be traced to protein excess?

Perhaps. In Ayurveda, a sticky, toxic residue known as “ama” is associated with eating animal products. Uncannily, recent research finds that a sticky protein polysaccharide called amyloid plaque obstructs brain pathways in those with Alzheimer’s. (The ancient teacher Gautama Buddha suggested that those interested in developing their higher faculties should avoid meat.) This same plaque obstructs the arteries in most forms of heart and vascular disease and is also implicated in the genesis of cancer.

The most comprehensive nutrition studies in history were performed in China in the latter part of the Twentieth Century. These studies, sponsored by Cornell and Oxford Universities and the Chinese government, showed that Americans, particularly American men, had a 1700 percent greater incidence of heart disease than Asians eating a grain and vegetable based diet. Ninety percent of the protein in these diets is from plant sources. Wealthy Chinese eating rich diets had heart disease similar to the Americans. Not surprisingly, other degenerative diseases, including diabetes and cancer, were less likely in those eating traditional Asian fare.

Nevertheless, I find myself, a vegan for 30 years, recommending animal products to some of my clients with signs of deficiency and weakness. For the many who don’t do well with dairy foods, I often suggest a moderate amount (4 ounces or less, several times a week) of quality meats, meaning organic and free range. The negative, ama/amyloid-forming aspects of meat, fish and fowl can be countered with a vinegar-water marinade as well as cooking them into soups and stews with common spices (e.g., marjoram, rosemary, thyme, fennel, ginger, or sage). Cooking or eating animal foods with abundant vegetables and bean sprouts also reduces ama pathology.

Individuals who over-consume meat may have short term weight loss and fewer sugar imbalances (protein controls sugar cravings), but at the risk of bone loss and kidney degeneration. Additionally meat is extremely high in inflammatory prostaglandins of the type PGE2, which greatly contribute to infections and degenerations such as arthritis. Popular books by the late Dr. Atkins and others who recommend protein-rich diets tell us that carbohydrates need to be restricted in order to lose weight and control blood sugar swings. In my experience they are partially correct. Refined carbohydrates should be restricted. These include the “white foods” such as white pastas, pastries and breads that contain white, refined wheat flour and refined sugar. Also included is white rice.

All such foods are not completely utilized as they are missing minerals, fiber, precious oils, enzymes, and a plethora of phytochemicals needed for proper breakdown and metabolism, not to mention their need in supporting vital immunity. Therefore, refined food residues may stay in the tissues and promote weight gain, among other imbalances. Whole carbohydrate foods—brown rice and unrefined grains, whole grain breads, unrefined sugars (e.g., Rapidura)—do not have this effect.

It should be noted that refined oils that constitute hydrogenated fats found in common peanut butter, candy bars, margarine, and shortening also cannot be fully metabolized and thus are often stored in various tissues and organs, setting the stage for cellulite, carcinomas and other degenerations.

One would expect the protein diets to receive support from mainstream dietitians who, over the years, have been promoters of meat-based diets and recipients of funding from the meat industry. Surprisingly, however, even the American Dietetic Association sees the Atkins diet as extreme beyond reason, calling it “a nightmare.”

Many people know to avoid poor-quality foods as well as the non-foods, yet continue to ingest them. This is because our mind, body and nutrition are closely related. A mind full of toxic desires may all too easily crave toxic foods. Therefore the best starting point in our regenerative process is the mind and its intention. Food and awareness practices have historically been unified, e.g., in both the ancient Orient and Occident, prayer and meditation have always accompanied dietary purifications such as fasting. When people begin with real emotional and spiritual healing, dietary upgrades tend to be second nature and effortless. There are few things more dissatisfying than eating a diet that does not match one’s current mental outlook.

Thus the first priority in my nutritional work is to recommend quieting the mind. This brings mindfulness to all we do, and through such self-awareness, one tends to change toward balance in all life activities.

The second priority is activity. In Far Eastern tradition, without adequate exercise our digestive fire becomes weak, and even the best organic foods may not help us. So I feel that one ideally develops good mental and physical habits before undertaking serious dietary change.

A message from Rumi, ancient Middle Eastern poet:
“Let that which we love
Be what we do
There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.”

Paul Pitchford studied and apprenticed with masters of pre-Revolutionary Traditional Chinese medicine, nutrition, and Tai Ji and Chan (Zen) meditation. His landmark book, Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition, forms the foundation of his unique dietary teachings, which unify Eastern and Western therapies. Over the past 12 years, Paul has been a key lecturer with the prestigious Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City. His work has become a primary impetus behind the most fundamental, clinically effective and innovative dietary movement today, widely known as “whole foods nutrition.” He sees a universal shift to whole foods nutrition as essential for overcoming ecologic ravages to the Earth as well as quelling pervasive disease and degeneration among her peoples. Paul has been teaching nutrition in the context of foundational healing for 38 years. This approach prioritizes three basic integrative steps in a person’s pathway to enduring health: a) awareness practices, b) mindful movement including yoga, Tai Ji and Qi Gong, and c) nutrition based on regional, unrefined (whole) foods. He has designed and taught programs at Heartwood Institute regularly for the last 25 years. He currently receives invitations to teach worldwide and has given seminars at colleges, schools of acupuncture, nutrition and various healing arts, and on major radio shows.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Paul Pitchford.
CLICK HERE to order a copy of Healing with Whole Foods.
CLICK HERE to order a copy of Sanando con ailmentos integrales.

Paula Moulton, North Atlantic Books’ author of Seasons Among the Vines: Life Lessons from the California Wine Country was recently featured in the Press Democrat in an article is entitled “A Writer’s New Chapter: Journey Through Grief.”

Meg McConahey writes,

[Seasons Among the Vines] is equal parts philosophy and science, laced with personal anecdotes, tiny confessions and tips for everything from composting to pruning, maintaining wells to managing wild critters.

Along with a brief review of Seasons Among the Vines, the article explores how Moulton has coped with the loss of her husband and the important role that her family plays in her everyday life.

Moulton runs her own winery in Sonoma, which she and her kids named Midnight Moulton, named after her deceased husband’s nickname to honor him. She remarried a year ago and has a second book on the way, aimed at helping people who have lost something — be it a job, a friend, or a spouse. She hopes people can learn from her experiences that life is uncertain and the best you can do is make the choice to move on.

Seasons Among the Vines explores the pleasures and pitfalls of following a lifelong dream. For Paula Moulton it was the dream of leaving the city for the California wine country to take up viticulture and gardening. In the process, she finds unexpected frustrations in running a farm and seeks help from some skeptical farmers who initially challenge her. As she finds her stride, her story resonates with her passion for the outdoors and the rewards of risk-taking. Organized by the seasons, the book shows how experimenting with vines can be a joyful reality, not simply an unattainable fantasy. Moulton’s enthusiasm and “you can do it, too!” attitude add an inspiring touch to a compelling story of the rich rewards that authentic living can bring. This enchanting memoir is accompanied by photos and illustrations.

CLICK HERE to read the complete article from the Press Democrat.
CLICK HERE to learn more about Paula Moulton.
CLICK HERE to order a copy of Seasons Among the Vines.

Casson Trenor, North Atlantic Books author of Sustainable Sushi: A Guide for a Changing Planet (January 2009) is an expert in oceans management and sustainability. Trenor is a top consultant for the new Tataki Sushi & Sake Bar in San Francisco. Along with chefs Raymond Ho and Kin Lui, Trenor is a forerunner in the effort to create ecologically sustainable options for San Francisco diners.

I recently had the opportunity to dine at Tataki. I was not sure what to expect, never having dined at a sustainable sushi restaurant. I was blown out of the water! The food was amazing, the wait staff well learned, and everything inside of the restaurant (not just the seafood) was sustainable! Overall, it was a great educational opportunity to compare and contrast Tataki to the conventional sushi restaurants that I habitually patronize.

The dishes that I tasted were quite tasty and many of the flavor combinations were unlike any I’d ever tried. On every table (which are lovely and made from sustainable bamboo) there was a Seafood Watch reference card, and only seafood from the “Safe” and “Moderate” categories is offered to diners at Tataki. As each dish was served, the waitress explained where the seafood came from and happily answered any sustainability questions that I had.

Here’s what I tried:

Appetizers:
- Cold spinach
- Baked mussels
Not traditionally a Japanese dish, the mussels gave a San Franciscan flare to the dinner.
- Ahi Tuna poke
There were three mounds of delicious Ahi, each with it’s own marinate – garlic (mild), sesame (slightly spicy), and chili (hot).

Main Dishes:
- Sashimi deluxe
I tasted the Wild-caught New Zealand Tai Snapper (Kodai), Closed-containment Farm-raised Striped Bass (Suzuki), Australian Farm-raised Yellowtail Amberjack (Hiramasa), Suspension Farm-raised Hokkaido Scallop (Hotate), Trap-caught BC Spot Prawn (Amaebi), and Wild Pacific Horse Mackerel (Aji). I was encouraged to enjoy each piece of seafood without ginger or wasabe to really savor the complex simplicity.
- Tataki deluxe
I tasted the Closed-containment Farm-raised Arctic Char (Iwana), Farm-raised Hawaiian Almaco Jack (Kona Kampachi), Net-caught Australian Skipjack Tuna (Katsuo), Handline California Albacore Tuna (Shiro Maguro), and Handline Hawaiian Yellowfin Tuna (Maguro), all lightly seared and with individual dipping sauces to compliment each unique seafood flavor.
- Nigiri special
I tasted the Wild Atlantic Mackerel (Saba), Wild Texas White Shrimp (Ebi), Wild Pacific Conger Eel (Anago), and Wild MSC-certified Alaskan Salmon Roe (Ikura). Trenor snatched up the last Ikura roll saying, “I can’t let it go to waste. Each of these would have become a fish!”

Rolls:
- Mix it up
- Raymond Special
This was a treat because the roll is the chef’s VIP special. Not listed on the Tataki menu, the ingredients are top secret. This was my favorite dish of the night.
- Extinguisher
By far, the #1 crowd pleaser and not for the weak of heart! This roll consisted of spicy Kampachi topped with avocado, habanero Tobiko (where the Tobiko was marinated in habenero chili), and topped with hot sauce. And then they set the whole thing on fire!

Dessert:
-Green Tea Cheesecake
This was very tasty and unique and a great way to cleanse the palate.

In addition to all of the information that I’m still digesting, I learned that wild seafood is not necessarily more sustainable than farm-raised, Arctic Char really does taste like Salmon, and a happy conscience is attainable while enjoying sushi.

Tataki Sushi & Sake Bar is located at 2815 California Street in San Francisco.

Tataki’s Mission: to showcase the beauty and delicacy of Japanese cuisine while respecting the sanctity and fragility of our environment. If we are to preserve the art of sushi, we must also safeguard the health and biodiversity of our oceans. With this in mind, Tataki strives everyday to integrate the concept of sustainable dining into its menu options.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Tataki Sushi & Sake Bar.
CLICK HERE to pre-order a copy of Sustainable Sushi: A Guide for a Changing Planet.

Sergei Boutenko, co-author of recently released Fresh: The Ultimate Live-Food Cookbook, is the founder of Harmony Hikes, an organization that coordinates hiking trips to forge for wild edibles. In his new video series entitled Stalking Wild Greens, Sergei helps to identify the most common wild edibles, explains their health benefits, and shows where they grow. He concludes each video by preparing a raw food recipe with the ingredients he has collected. The videos are short, lighthearted, and very informative.

I was fortunate enough to grow up with alternative parents who exposed me to nature at an early age. When I was nine, my family adopted a raw vegan diet to heal us from physical illness. This helped me to understand the value of good health and nature’s ability to providing it.

At the age of 13 I hiked from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail with my family. We initially underestimated how much food five hungry hikers could eat in a week and started running into food shortages. Because it was not very pleasant to hike on any empty stomach we had to find a way to improvise if we were to finish our cross-country adventure.

Our salvation was the realization that nature is full of food if you know where to look. Foraging for wild edibles became out daily ritual. At times we supplemented as much as 60 percent of our diet with plants we found on the trail. We successfully completed our walk in September of 1998, in full health and happiness!

Since then, I’ve hiked in nearly every state, and in 20 countries. I’ve guided and helped guide many expeditions of children, teens, and adults.

After graduating from Southern Oregon University in the summer of 2006 I decided to invest my energy into Harmony Hikes so that I could share my passion for foraging and the outdoors with others.

“Episode 1: Miner’s Lettuce”

“Episode 2: Dandelion”

“Episode 3: Fool’s Onion”

“Episode 4: Wild Strawberry”

“Episode 5: Wild Violet”

Sergei Boutenko began his live-food practice fifteen years ago, when he became seriously ill. Since then, he has seen dramatic improvements in his health and now travels worldwide sharing his gourmet raw cuisine and his inspiring story of change, faith, and determination. Sergei is the co-author of Fresh: The Ultimate Live-Food Cookbook, Raw Family and Eating Without Heating, and has lectured and presented around the world on the benefits and pleasures of the raw foods diet. Together with his father Igor, mother Victoria, and sister Valya, Sergei is a leader in the raw food movement and his works are recognized for their profound impact on the development of raw foods communities throughout the world.

CLICK HERE for more information about Harmony Hikes.
CLICK HERE to order a copy of Fresh: The Ultimate Live-Food Cookbook.
CLICK HERE for more information about the Boutenko Family aka the Raw Family.

2012: Crossing the Bridge to the Future is an engaging personal narrative through Mark Borax’s apprenticeship with master astrologer William Lonsdale, who teaches him how to access a source of great power and creativity buried within the human soul.

2012 begins in August 1987 on the slopes of Mount Shasta as author Mark Borax witnesses the Harmonic Convergence. This famous astrological event sparked a 25-year countdown to 2012, the year that marks the “end of history” in the Mayan calendar. Borax tells of his apprenticeship with a master astrologer to study how the period between 1987 and 2012 can be used for a cosmic purging of negativity to release humanity’s core forces and restore universal balance. Borax and his fellow students discover truths about life after death, karma, reincarnation, past lives, human evolution, and the purpose of existence on Earth.

The following interview with Mark Borax gives an inside look into what inspired him to write 2012, how he became interested in astrology, who his mentors were and how they shaped his life, and what he hopes readers will learn from reading 2012.

CLICK HERE to order a copy of 2012.

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2012 is a unique title that holds appeal for different kinds of readers. Which audiences do you think respond most to the book? What will readers find?

I’m surprised by the diversity of responses I’ve received from readers since the book came out last month. I’m hearing from people in all walks of life, each of whom seem to find something different in the book. It’s quite striking—they might almost be describing twenty different books! Stockbrokers, artists, photographers, astrologers, people in the deep South, in the country, or in big cities, old and young, living many different lives in many different countries are emailing to tell me how the book is changing their lives. Many of them are folks who don’t necessarily know much about astrology or metaphysics, but are open to new ideas. People all over are responding excitedly to the book’s message of hope, to the main theme of our need to become fully embodied and fully human before transcending our humanity and departing the material world for higher planes. It’s very satisfying to me as author to see that my struggle to bring cosmic principles down to earth seems to be working.

What is the significance of the year 2012? What does it mean for different cultures and religions?

The Maya view 2012 as the coming of a new Sun, which marks the start of a whole new cycle of time-keeping. I think time is of the essence here. I haven’t studied the prophecies of all the different cultures, because my book presents a very here-and-now personal human being’s journey through these mysteries. Nevertheless, I believe we’re all being offered a new way to think about time, to conceive time, to use time, that isn’t so limiting. For our culture and many others who live in the present, the present is becoming more than the present. Obsolete ideas about how to use our lives, and about how life itself flows, how earth moves through time and space, are going to give way to radical new forms of perception.

Ultimately I see 2012 as a vital choice point in human evolution. We’re all being asked to find a life that honors our innermost truth, rather than living life at the expense of our inner truth. It comes down to asking yourself: What world am I creating with my thought forms and acts? Is it the world I truly dream of, or am I settling for less? What the hell am I doing with my life? Instead of being hamstrung by the dominant paradigm, can I dream some new dream here, and get to work on it, recruiting others who see similarly?

You are an astrologer by trade. Are there specific planetary events and physical hallmarks that will mark 2012? How is the universe preparing for this transition?

In March of 2010 the transcendent planets Alpha-Omega (Chiron) and Neptune come together in late Aquarius, a strong harbinger of the Aquarian Age. The Aquarian Age is where the slumbering consciousness of the collective awakens and realizes it has power to change things, power to redirect civilization along more enlightened lines. Alpha-Omega unbinds time and ushers multi-dimensional awareness into the normal perception of linear events. Neptune stretches the personal human ego to become more in service of collective evolution. When these planets conjoin in Aquarius, the low ceiling on species awareness that keeps us going around in circles is raised. High dreams flood into our normal consciousness.

Suddenly we’re aware of more than we used to be. Our vision of what we’re capable of as a mass organism expands, and this is very contagious. The more people band together to challenge the status quo, the more support we each get from the awakening Aquarian force of the collective.

Then, in 2011, Neptune enters Pisces, sounding a great collective cry for the human being to take its rightful place in the unfoldment of world policies and events. The machine-like existence that has replaced human beings in recent centuries will be challenged by the deeper need to speak up from the soul and be heard. This Cry for True Belonging will no longer be content to be swept under the rug, but will seek out its true place in the role of world policies.

Finally, at Winter Solstice 2012 a yod is formed with Jupiter at the point. A yod occurs when two planets, 60 degrees apart, each form a long pointer toward a third planet which is 150 degrees from both of them. Yod means “Finger of God,” and is the word for the pointer Jewish scholars use when studying the Sacred Texts. In this yod, Jupiter (Species Awareness) is hurtling into fresh territories of seeing and being that serve the living future, while Saturn and Pluto yank back hard, reminding us of everything in the way of change. This will create a powerful wrestling match between those visionaries who know the world is changing and all those who say it can’t be done. Evolutionary forces will wrestle with ego.

The purpose of these three planetary timings, in 2010, 2011, and 2012 is to create a three-stage upending of our limited assumptions of normality, and usher in a more optimal future. At the same time our species stretches toward inhabiting its higher consciousness, the low end of humanity will cry out for belongingness in a world that’s becoming very isolated from its own heart force. This drama of species alienation and isolation is going to play out to its fullest before giving way to something new. It won’t come easy, though. There’s always a price to pay. We have to be willing to sacrifice who we think we are, in order to become who we really are. We have to challenge our own assumptions. Most of all we have to get past archaic belief systems that pit this against that, you against me, all things divided up in opposition against all other things. The next five years will be a very juicy, frictional, and potent period on Planet Earth!

How do you interpret and understand the meaning of 2012? What does the bridge to the future look like?

In 1987 when I witnessed the Harmonic Convergence, I learned of the twenty-five year purging period from then to 2012. In order to bridge our time to the post-2012 future, we’re being asked to clear everything in the way of Truth. We have to purify. We have to be bold enough to face our fears and develop a heart-centered, mystical and very real way to care about this world we live in. Let’s face it—very few of us are living the lives we were born to. To usher in the optimal future for humanity, which awaits us on the other side of 2012, we must confront ourselves rigorously and get out of our own ways. I mean, what are we all doing here anyway, spinning our wheels, making money at the expense of the soul? How has humanity gotten stuck like a dinosaur in such a tar pit? Isn’t there a whole other way to be that uplifts the soul toward the rapture of being? To create a bridge to this future, we have to overcome deep set feelings of helplessness, underlying depression at not being able to live a life that matters. We have to get past our clinging to the idea that someone somewhere is better than someone somewhere else. We have to bust through the Trance of Normalcy that each day leeches soul force out of us, that leaves us drained and numb at the end of the work week.

What began your apprenticeship with Ellias Lonsdale? What about this teacher encouraged you to follow through with the entire apprenticeship?

In 1979 in Ashland, Oregon, for my twenty-fifth birthday a girlfriend got me a surprise astrology reading with a female astrologer who blew me away with the truth of her perceptions, and made me take a deep long look at the ancient art of astrology. In 1984, a later girlfriend, in Burlington, Vermont (called “Elizabeth” in the book) gave me my first astrology book, for my thirtieth birthday, which I studied for four years. At the end of that time my friend Susan (called “Sita” in the book) got a reading from Ellias, (called William then) which astounded me. I stood in line to get a piece of what she’d just received. At the end of that reading, soaked in tears, I got into my car and said, “I want to do for others what this guy just did for me.” Within two days I performed my first professional astrology reading. Ellias led me in a “graduate” course in Star Genesis, the new branch of astrology he was then birthing. I couldn’t get enough. For seven years we pushed the envelope of all that astrology had been. There was revolution in the air, in that little cabin under the redwoods that worked underground in me for twenty years, until I finally found a way to let the genie out of the lamp and spill the story, let others in on the mysteries we studied.

Ellias is one of those big men who carries an enormous resonance in the things he says. You get the feeling that his truths bubble up from some bottomless well of the ages inside him. It’s hard to resist the lure of those teachings at source point, when they come from such a profound place. I hope that the retelling of these mysteries in my own voice does them justice. I labored for six years of rewrite to get the manuscript right in this regard.

Also, and perhaps even more to the point, since the day we met, Ellias has stood guard over my right to take forever to become who I am inside. I’ve seen him do this for hundreds of others over the years. This is what he taught each of us to do—locate a center point, a soul source in each person that deserves to find its place in the sun, no matter how long it takes. No matter how many times through the years I came running to him for insight, he never gave up on me, never lost sight of this soul place. He taught me to paint pictures of the soul, to get past the endless posturing of ego, and expose the deeper version of who we each are. Every person has their own favorite ways of hiding out from themselves. At this point human nature has become a distorted fragmented version of something unified and whole that lies within.

Ellias became the champion of my inner nature. He held out in front of me a soul picture of who he saw me as. He holds out a clear depiction of the man I’d be if I was fully being who I was meant to be. This form of star work is addictive. It’s given me a powerful self-image to live up to, a magically real life to inhabit. No matter how long it takes, no matter how many backslides occur in me and you and all of our species, that stubborn wizard will not give up on humanity! It’s uncanny, how deeply he’s pulling for our race to win through its blindness, and become the species we were born to be. And he holds this picture in such a deep place that heaven and hell themselves could not move it. Could you walk away from a teacher like that?

What practices and teachings did Lonsdale encourage? Who were his teachers and mentors?

Ellias and Sara Lonsdale didn’t encourage any practices, so to speak. It was rather that they themselves were the embodiment of the teachings. The one thing they grinded into us, over and over, is the need to dig our heels into the dirt and release the vast creative force locked inside us. They hammered it into us that there was a soul purpose we had in first choosing to incarnate into these bodies. That each of us has a role to play in the Grand Design.

Ellias, along with his wife Sara—who was very instrumental to the teachings—lived and taught in a way that was positively infectious. Their beliefs were their lives, and everything they did partook of this. Cosmos was infused into earth, and life inseparable from cosmos. Whether you go far enough out into the stars, or plumb deep enough down into your own inner nature, you always get to the same place. The mysteries were brought down to earth, and as such, did not require any special practices to make use of them. Unless my whole life became the spirit practice, in other words, what good was any of it?

The Lonsdales’ belief in alternate planes of existence that coincide with our plane, was immovable, unshakeable, completely contagious and inspirational. That level of faith rubs off on you. Just to be around such devotion to the mysteries once a week gets into the blood and stays there. It got into me so deeply that it took twenty years before I could write about it.

As far as influences, Ellias was greatly influenced by the massive body of spirit work of Rudolf Steiner, who, along with Ellias’s dream of Atlantis, forms the main basis of Star Genesis. In mystery school we studied the twelve senses discovered by Steiner, and linked each to a different sign of the zodiac. Steiner had a vast incomparable intellect that ranged far and wide through physics, metaphysics, education, color theory, chemistry, economy, dance, theater and politics. His contributions to each of these fields were of genius quality, which is hard to fathom.

Ellias was also influenced by his personal work with his former teacher Ann Re Colton, a highly developed psychic who lived and taught in southern California. He also mentioned Sri Aurobindo occasionally. Then there were his two astrology mentors Marc Edmund Jones and Dane Rudhyar, whom he worked with closely for a short time in the 1970s. Beyond these key figures, there’s the usual gang of suspects from spirituality and metaphysics: Krishnamurti, Rumi, various historical Christian mystics, science fiction writers, philosophers, Herman Hesse, Gurdjieef, playwrights and filmmakers of various kinds. Ellias wasn’t just influenced by metaphysicians but by all kinds of writers, thinkers, and historians. He was also very shaped by 1960s spiritual vision, poets, musicians, Beats, and others.

What do you consider the most important things you learned during your apprenticeship? Could you have learned them any other way?

The key piece of my apprenticeship was the idea that the more important part of becoming enlightened is the human part, rather than the transcendent part. Many spiritual teachers get this one backwards, accenting ascension over simply being human. The Lonsdales taught us that it’s all about incarnation rather than transcendence—that in order to evolve we have to become more, not less, fully human. Over and over we kept coming back to the crying need to embody ourselves, to find a way to fully show up in the physical plane, rather than trading Earth for some higher plane. We probed the idea of a limitless source of power hidden inside even the most commonplace human being, which can remake the world. The best way to tap this source power is by daring ourselves to dream bigger, and to learn how each personal dream can link into a cosmic design.

I suppose I could have learned these things in other ways. I was already hot on their track through my personal studies of writing, art, music, love, sexuality, and metaphysics. But the fact is that just as Ellias and Sara were bringing a whole new form of star wisdom into the world, I was hungry for mastery, as a man, a spiritual seeker, and an astrologer. They were in the right place at the right time for me, and I rose to the fullest of my abilities to make use of their teachings.

It has been twenty years since your relationship with Lonsdale first began. How did you know that 2007 was the right time for a book about your spiritual apprenticeship?

I began conceiving this book way back when I was still in mystery school during the time periods in the book. In the years immediately following I tried, once or twice, to put everything into words, but it was too big and unwieldy. I wasn’t sure what story I was trying to tell—a karmic bugaboo that’s haunted me on and off during the years when I’ve picked up the pen. I tried again somewhere around 1995, but it didn’t come out right then, either. Then I took another crack at it in South Starksboro, Vermont, where I was about to become a father, in 2002. It took six years to go from that initial draft, which was later completed and thrown away, to a couple following drafts that also ended up being canned, before I was able to zero in on what became the final draft and published version. In the final years of rewrite, the more I sank into my story, creating and destroying and then composting down whole chapters, bit by bit separating the wheat from the chaff, the more I was captured by the link between 1987 and 2012. As I sifted my own personal experiences for meaning, a greater arc of history took shape in my mind’s eye, stretching even further back through my entire life, and the life of our species. Things we’d discussed in class took on new meaning. Certain statements of Ellias or myself or classmates began to haunt me. Atlantis and modern politics became linked, as I recalled the Lonsdales’ tale of our first fall from grace that set human karma in motion—the karma of the corrupt few lording over the many. I began to feel that I could draw these threads through from my own adventures as a young man, into some clear body of work that could be of service to readers currently striving to make sense of some of the same things.

How do you hope that reading about your journey will provide instruction and inspiration for readers?

There are two main ways my book is intended to work. Firstly, I met Ellias and Sara at a time of great turmoil in my life. The cosmic paradigm they offered me framed life and time in an elegant pantheon of planet gods and historical significance. They kept coming back to a sense of divine order. That cosmic design has fueled humanity’s crazy-quilt journey through the ages. They turned astrology into a fascinating star art with layer upon layer, dimension upon dimension. One of my aims with the book is to ignite the same force in readers that my teachers ignited in me. To inspire others to break out of modern apathy, numbness, isolation, and alienation, and take an active hand in the course of the future.

Secondly, any reader who is left inspired by my tale and hungry for more is welcome to contact me for a soul level reading, so they can receive the legacy of my apprenticeship in the form of deep counsel for their own life. Ellias taught me to champion the right of others to fulfill their place in the grand design, just as he championed mine. And so the cosmic tale of the book can leap off the pages and be of service in your own personal life.

Do you have any recommendations for readers who are inspired to begin or continue their own spiritual journeys in earnest?

I pass on Maestro Rudolf Steiner’s advice: for every step you wish to take to achieve psychic mastery, you must take three steps toward becoming a better human being. Early in my apprenticeship I stumbled upon this saying, which has been my approach to metaphysics and spirituality ever since. I’m firmly convinced that the purpose of magic and metaphysics is to make us more, not less, human. I learned from William and Sara the truth of what this means. In the last twenty years of applying this to my daily existence, it’s true I don’t always succeed. I still tend to get caught in my own karmic traps, and then freed. I’ve been spending less and less time in the karmic tar pits, lately, though, and have come to enjoy life more than ever, especially my role of fatherhood, which has become more satisfying to me than everything else I do. I love my little boy!

Apart from this, read Herman Hesse – his nonfiction is as good as or better than his more well-known novels, and Miracle of Love, by Ram Dass, and Autobiography of a Yogi, by Yogananda. Read anything you can by Rumi, and The Duino Elegies, by Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell. Seek out what the sages have said through the ages, but don’t settle for anyone else’s truth. Wrestle with those high concepts until you make them your own.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Mark Borax.