The Upside Down Mountain
Mags MacKean
Signed copy: £12.99
Postage: UK £2.75 / Ireland, Europe £4.75 / US, International £6.00
Restlessness stalks Mags MacKean, as she forsakes a career ladder at sea-level for one at altitude. Fed up with the summit’s illusive nirvana, she sets out to explore the opposite direction, earthbound – discovering descent as a route to lasting change and fulfilment.
The Upside Down Mountain
It was close to dark on the legendary Mount Bugarach, and the weather worsening. After hours scouting the least soggy place to camp, the author sensed the mountain’s guidance, “the way up is down”. Retreating to the valley marks the first step of descent. But Bugarach’s invitation was to inspire richer exploration – of a more passive kind. If ascent represented ideal, inspiration & feat – then descent invited an inner voyage facing the cause of her unrest, which no manner of distraction or avoidance would heal. If ‘the way up is down’, then she has to plunge into the unchartered territories of transformation – the realms of death and rebirth. Archetypal guardians become familiar allies at the thresholds of descent, to the domain of Grandmother – the gatekeeper at the heart of the hollow earth…
Finally, on the summit of Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments, Mags realises Grandmother’s bitter medicine – that to feel is to live. An open heart is the gateway to sustain a truly rewarding life.
Magical realism and adventure collide in an original storytelling cocktail – blurring the boundaries of fact and fiction, story and reality – in one woman’s inspirational quest for enduring peace among wild landscapes and their ancient cultures.
The Upside Down Mountain forsakes the summit for the journey downhill, penetrating the hidden depths of darkness and discomfort most people live to avoid. This descent through the Pyrenees, the Amazon swamps, Himalaya and Egypt reveals how to navigate troubled times and create a new story for ourselves and the world: to embody the change we seek.
Endorsements:
“Mags MacKean’s life itself is a journey of adventure… along the way she creates a new story for our time. It is an inspiring narrative of search and discovery; narrative of an inner journey of the soul as well as an outer journey in the world.”
Satish Kumar, Resurgence Magazine
“Loved this wonderful work of discovery, exploration and awakening. It will move you.”
Patricia Cori, best selling author
“Join Mags MacKean for an extraordinary adventure that will leave you seeing your own amazing life in a whole new light.”
Tim Freke, philosopher and author, The Mystery Experience
“Mags MacKean is one of those rare lion-hearted individuals whose particular brand of fearlessness is achieved by love and reverence for Creation.”
Linda Tucker, founder, The Global White Lion Protection Trust
“Mags MacKean drew me alongside with her powerful and compelling journey…This is a book about coming home. The yearning soul-cry of a woman who chooses to plunge the depths of this wondrous life, and find her way. I walk alongside.
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Mac Macartney, Embercombe founder, author, speaker
“Its the inside of us that ultimately matters and the inside life challenges to develop, our connection to the greater realms, to Creation itself, to the realisation we are small parts of infinity and in no way separate. Mags dives deeply into these realms and writes eloquently of her rite of passage. As most unusual book and worth the time of any serious journeyer on the ‘road less travelled’.”
Leo Rutherford, Author, Shamanic Practitioner