Story & Stone I: Paired Literary & Anthropological Visions: Servants of the Flower World (Books I-II) & Mystery Stone

This edition pairs Servants of the Flower World (Books I-II): with Mystery Stone: Analyzed with Eastern Woodland Cosmology.
A spirit-storm shatters the Flower of Life and a band of questers crosses into the inverted Flower World-where beauty and danger entwine, and service, not conquest, guides the way. Alongside it stands a field study of a tablet-shaped quartz cobblestone found near the Shenandoah River, read through Eastern Woodland cosmology: peck-marked designs, tripartite cosmos (Overworld/This World/Underworld), and archetypal figures such as the avian-man, skeletal shaman, and Earth Mother. Presented wholecloth and in dialogue, the two works let readers experience a myth reborn while examining the ground that helped guide it-offering a map-guided inspiration.

Michael A. Susko is a writer and researcher whose work bridges epic fiction and cultural symbolism. He is the author of Mystery Stone: Analyzed with Eastern Woodland Cosmology and A Rosetta Key for Ancestral Pueblo History, studies that inform his epic Servants of the Flower World. The author has taught courses on dreams, archetypes, and the symbolism of Indigenous cultures; traveled in Guatemala where he observed Maya ritual life; and draws on his practice as a photographer and his own vision-quest experiences. He describes his process as "map-guided inspiration," a collaboration among landscape, story, and reader. By pairing story and study, he aims to return the gift that sparked his work: a marked stone found near the Shenandoah River and the worlds of meaning it opened.