Originally published in 1973, and newly released in 2021, Being of the Sun is a totally hand-lettered and lavishly illustrated un-guide to creating and curating your own spiritual path, including practices Alicia Bay Laurel and Ramón Sender Barayón adapted from pre-historic nature worship, plus the ceremonial music they imagined to accompany them.
Widely read for decades by wiccans, pagans, and Druids, and beloved in Japan, where Shinto, another animistic nature religion, is practiced in addition to Buddhism, Being of the Sun also (unknowingly) recalls the 19th century European nature/nudist/vegan cults that were the ancestors of the 20th century hippies (about which Alicia much later learned from Gordon Kennedy's wonderful book, Children of the Sun.)
Alicia's illustrations for Being of the Sun have been reproduced on high fashion clothing in Japan by two famous designers. The spiritual songs and chants, created separately and in collaboration by composer/philosopher Ramón Sender Barayón and singer/songwriter Alicia Bay Laurel, have been performed as a part of North American indigenous peyote rituals, as part of Nicholas Alva's stage show "Morningstar, the Musical," in the soundtracks of documentaries about Alicia and about Ramón, and on their album, Songs from Being of the Sun, available here in this store.
Feast on Ramón's musical lore about scales, modes, drones, and combining music with sounds of nature. Learn how to sing overtones, tune a zither or a waterfall, and create a drone orchestra, a sun strobe, a bamboo root oboe, a May pole, a harvest goddess doll, a yoga routine or a meditation altar.
The color illustrations for the 2021 English language edition were scanned directly from Alicia's drawings made in 1972, preserving her original vibrant color palette, rather than the toned-down colors used by publishers in previous editions.
Being of the Sun is also available here in a Japanese translation.
A few precious copies of the original 1973 edition are available here.
This book is available to retail businesses at wholesale prices; if you are interested, please contact Alicia at alicia@aliciabaylaurel.com.
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