Letters to the River: A Guide to a Dream Worth Living

Letters to the River places the struggles and crises we currently face -- personal, political, moral, ecological and spiritual -- within the context of a mythic and heroic journey. In doing so, it forms a bridge between the left side and the right -- the practical, daily life we can neither ignore or avoid, and the magical, shimmering world reported by sages and shamans throughout the millennia.

Letters to the River points the way to a path that’s deep and soulful. It speaks eloquently to our reason (the right side) about the territory we need to explore and the issues we must face to find that “dream worth living.” But it does not stop there. In the “Letters” themselves we hear the beckoning of the left side, the call of the soul within that magical, shimmering dream. And in so doing, we sense who we might become if our soul not only found its voice, but began to sing, loudly, one breathtaking song.

“Sparrow Hart is a gifted storyteller.  Dancing between the visible and invisible worlds, this book expands our perceptions, tells the truth of who we are, and shows us the beauty of our inner and outer landscapes. Inspiring us to live in harmony with nature and all of life, reading Letters to the River is like being on a vision quest. This book is a gem!"
– Sandra Ingerman author of Soul Retrieval  

“In Letters to the River, Sparrow Hart addresses the challenges facing humanity in these perilous times. He describes the strategies and transformations needed to cope with whole-system change, using a provocative manner that employs word-play, poetry, and insights from shamanic wisdom, Jungian psychology, and a host of other creative sources. There are many fine books that confront the perils facing humankind in the 21st century, but none are as adroit in celebrating the "in-between spaces” where reason, emotion, and intuition produce a synthesis to help humanity continue its grand adventure.”
– Stanley Krippner, Ph.D.; co-author of Personal Mythology

“Sparrow Hart loves what is most wild in the natural world and in the deeper landscapes of the human heart. He is a keeper of myth, dream, and story, and in this collection of essays he shares observations and reflections that open us to the interconnected mysteries and miracles of the wilderness. Gary Snyder writes that a shaman ‘speaks for wild animals, the spirits of plants, mountains, and watersheds… They sing through him.’  If a shaman is the healer who sings, then Sparrow Hart is a true shaman. Through these heart-opening essays we discover a profound listener to unspoken stories, a man of immense spirit, a singer with a wild and perceptive heart.
— Stephan Beyer, author of Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon  

“This is a generous book and from the heart.  Artfully interfacing science and mythology, spirituality, shamanism, and earth wisdom, Sparrow Hart listens to and reveals the profound guidance from nature that true elders have been passing on for generations.  In the easy-to-read fashion of a good story-teller, he reminds us that life is holy, that we all have purpose and work to do. The good news is we can do it successfully if we respond to the wisdom – the summons and the invitation – this book places before us.”
—Tom Pinkson, author of The Shamanic Wisdom of the Huichol: Medicine Teachings for Modern Times  

“In Letters to the River, Sparrow Hart explores how to give birth to a personal and cultural story large enough to lead us into the arms of a healthier, more integrated world where human and nature share one voice.  As a poet he listens to the muse of creation and the thrumming rhythms of the land, dipping into this fertile unified voice and transporting us to places of great beauty.”
—Meredith Little, co-founder (with Steven Foster) of The School of Lost Borders  

Over forty years ago, Sparrow Hart left a Ph. D. program to apprentice himself to nature and the wild, exploring inner and outer landscapes beyond the commonplace structures of consensual reality and the rational mind. Strongly influenced by Carlos Castaneda and seeking something extraordinary, his outer adventures have included a five-month solo pilgrimage through the wilderness, travels to the Amazon, over 30 personal vision quests, and treks to the mountains, forests, canyons, and deserts of Mexico and the United States. Concurrently, his inner journey – a quest for healing and an authentic, soulful life -- has led him to studies and apprenticeships with a wide variety of native and non-native “medicine teachers.” Over a lifetime of investigation, he’s become well-versed and a teacher in fields as diverse as psychodrama, dreamwork, traditional therapy, shamanism, mythology, breathwork, brainwave technologies, and the Twelve Steps. Through all this, Sparrow considers his greatest teacher the Earth itself. For over three decades Sparrow has guided small groups of men and women through 11-day vision quest programs, and he’s widely-regarded as an authority on the vision quest process. He’s the founder and director of Circles of Air and Stone; the co-founder and director of the annual Men‘s Wisdom Council at the Rowe Conference Center; the creator of the Mythic Warrior Men‘s Training; and leads Adventures of the Spirit, a series of workshops for men and women (Wings of Fire -- The Dreamtime -- Journey of the Soul -- Mayan Adventures, etc.) that offer a deep encounter with nature (both inner and outer) and ways to translate enduring spiritual principles into the concrete challenges and choices of today.

He has one daughter, Prairie, and lives with his partner, Willie, in Putney, Vermont.

Sparrow can be contacted through his website at www.QuestForVision.com.