Steven H Semken

Soul External Steven H Semken

There is a very real, center-of-the-world spot lurking in an unknown valley of northeastern Kansas, where chalky old growth trunks of sycamore trees and a slow moving stream exist alongside the nests, the souls, and the lives of great blue herons. This is a book of both fact and fiction, of myth, sense-ofplace, spirit, and magic. Reader s will embark on a literary and visual journey unlike any other; will (re)discover a wild and captivating realm full of lore, hearsay, myth, and spirit. The late, environmental book reviewer with Orion magazine, Peter Sauer, commented on this book s earliest version in a beautiful and in sightful way: I ve been becoming more and more impatient wondering where nature writing might go next, this book has helped me think about this with what feels like greater clarity. Mythological natural history is at least as useful and perhaps a lot more useful than scientifically derived natural history for writing about another species. Soul External is a combined effort of author and artist seeking to express their mutual sense of the significance and sacred in the natural world. Through a narrative centered upon the great blue heron scripted words play with graphic arrangements punctuated by drawings. All culminate in producing a fuller meditation having semiotic and aesthetic significance regarding this perfect circle of life.