Other Within

There is an “other” that lives within each of us, an exiled part that carries wisdom so desperately needed for ourselves and the culture at large. Having survived disabling polio as an infant, Daniel Deardorff knows well the oppressions of exclusion, outsiderhood, and the betrayals endured by all who are “othered.” He guides readers on an initiatory journey through ancient myths, wisdom literature, and personal revelation to discover our own true identity. These 10,000-year-old stories contain sacred medicine with insights that release imagination and restore wholeness amidst 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, soul poetry, wildness, social justice, and his own lived experience, Deardorff affirms the disruptive, transgressive, innovative forces that break through dogma, conventionality, and prejudice. He discloses the blessings of outsiderhood and gifts gained and contributed to culture by those who are marginalized. Through myth-making (mythopoeisis), the experience of Otherness--cultural, racial, religious, sexual, physiognomic--becomes one of empowerment, a catalyst for human liberation. Severance between nature and culture, wild and “civilized,” self and other has brought us to the brink of extinction. Deardorff gives us ancient stories known to originate in the great storehouse of the Earth to help us address climate catastrophe and restore our relationships with each other and the Living World.