The Raven's Gift
A Scientist, A Shaman, and Their Remarkable Journey Through the Siberian Wilderness

Jon Turk
St. Martin's Press

I have kayaked around Cape Horn, traversed the Northwest Passage and paddled across the North Pacific Rim.  But, the strangest trip I ever took was the journey I made into the realm of the spiritual.  In 2000, in the remote Siberian village of Vyvenka, I met an elderly woman named Moolynaut, a Koryak shaman, and learned about her voyages to the spirit world.  A year later, Moolynaut entreated the spirit of a great, black raven to help mend my pelvis, which had been previously fractured in a mountaineering accident.  When the healing was complete, I was able to walk without pain. As scientist, I could find no rational explanation for the healing and the experience changed my life, irrevocably altering my view of the connectivity between the natural and spiritual worlds.  Searching for the Raven Spirit, I traversed the frozen tundra where Moolynaut was born, camping with bands of reindeer herders, and recording stories of their lives and spirituality. Framed by high adventure across the vast and forbidding Siberian landscape, The Raven's Gift is a life-altering vision of the ties between the natural and spiritual realms, informed by one man’s awakening and guided by the ancient Spirit Bird with wide black wings and the power to heal.

 

Siberia is a harsh, frozen land so you might think that it is a place where survival depends mainly on left-brain logic and pragmatism. But it is here that I learned that magic and dreams underlie strong deeds. It is here that I learned that magic flies around us all time, waiting only to be recognized -- to be realized.

 

The Raven's Gift will be released by St Martin's Press on January 19, 2010.  You can either preorder the book through Amazon, your local bookseller, or directly through my store.

Praise for: The Raven's Gift

From Henry Pollack, Co-Winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore:

"The tension between his own logical scientific background and the mysterious shamanistic wisdom of his healer is at the heart of this wonderfully-told story of Koryak life, and of his own personal transformation."

From Donna Seaman, of the American Library Association:

Turk writes with prowess, nerve, and precision…[He] attests to the innate powers of the body, mind and soul that are awakened when we immerse ourselves in "Wild Nature." 

From Kirkus Reviews:

"A moving account worthy of shelving alongside Vladimir Arsenyev’s Dersu Uzala (1923), Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams (1986) and other explorations of native ways of life in the Far North."

From Maria Coffey, Author of "Explorers of the Infinite:"

"Jon Turk is a true explorer, a curious traveler and a gifted writer who shares his remarkable journeys with wisdom, insight and compassion."

From William Fitzhugh, Director, Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution:

"Harrowing back-country mountain skiing, avalanches, and equally traumatic ski-trekking in the vast Siberian tundra where he searches for the last remnants of an ancient Koryak reindeer-herding people parallel Turk’s personal search for his own inner balance. This is a tale of loss and rebirth brought about by faith, reflection, and trust in a part of the world that has not been visited or described by Westerners for nearly one hundred years."

Opening Few Lines

Misha and I paddled our kayaks toward shore and then paused when we felt the waves steepen as they touched the sea floor.  Dense, saucer-shaped clouds raced across the Arctic sky, piling up against one another as if there wasn't enough room to dissipate across the vast tundra.

From my Readers

     It is my fond hope, that when you reach the last page of The Raven's Gift, it will mark a beginning, not an end. I would like this book and this website to be one small node where people can join together to share ideas and to take Moolynaut's message into the world. As I write this, the book release date is still several months away, but from earlier speaking engagements, several people have already offered their help and support. I urge you all to share your ideas, your own experiences, and your visions, with me and all of my readers.

From Ally Earnest: Missoula, Montana

The message that you have to spread is so imperative, and it needs to get out as quickly as the universe will allow.  We cannot sit back and allow magic to pass on in the face of the buying, selling and killing off of natural and cultural resources- not on our watch!

For more reader feedback, click here.

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From The Raven's Gift:

Moolynaut

 Moolynaut was born in a skin tent on the Siberian tundra during the reign of Czar Nicholas. She lived through the Russian revolution, the ravages of Stalin, the rise and fall of the Soviet empire, and the economic turmoil brought on by perestroika -- by freedom.

"I wanted to cut my deer free and lead it into the autumn tundra.  I saw myself alone, with the young bull, huddled behind an outcrop of rock as the first snows swept across the land.  I would lead the bull to rich pasture and it would protect me.  We would grow old and strong together.  But this was just a dream.  I was a little girl and my father was on the beach, counting rifles."

Lydia "Welcome.  I am good to see you.  My name is Lydia. I am wait to you because I am knowing that you are to come at this place.  Maybe that our great great grandmother -- How do you say this?  Has made it to be that this storm did brung you to our village."	Oleg    "Kutcha lives in the Other World, but maybe you can find him on the tundra.  Wait and watch.  Kutcha will understand and he will visit you in the Real World.  Then you can thank him.  Do you understand me?"
Sergei  "My friends the Americanskis!  Oh, you Americanskis!  What a strange people!  We will never understand you."	Misha  "Of course, Oleg is right.  We must do this thing.  We must go to the Wild Nature.  It will be like paddling to Alaska across the sea.  Yes, Jon, we must do this thing.  Together."

 

Chris The change of light was Chris's favorite time of day.  So many times, when we were skiing in the short days of northern winters, we'd return home in the twilight.  I often felt an urgency to reach the trailhead before true blackenss descended, but Chris would put a gloved hand on my elbow and ask me to slow down, watch the colors dissipate, and feel the peacefulness of night.

Nikolai "It's a beautiful, but dangerous time.  The deer are calving and the wolves are hungry after a long winter."	Marina "The Koryak people lost their magic first.  They lost their beliefs.  They lost their shamans.  Do you hear me?  They threw their magic sticks away.  If you lose the magic in your life, then you lose your power."	Alexei  "The magic will come to you when you need it.  Maybe that is why kutcha herded you to this place, so you would walk past the Magic Mountain, because you will need this power one day."