reviews

VERSE IN ARABIC

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I don't like mysteries. I lose interest quickly and if I persevere to the end, I am almost always disappointed. Birgitte Rasine has taught me a lesson with her artfully and hypnotically composed Verse in Arabic. Based on a real life story that haunted her for decades, this is a book that defies many of the conventional "rules" of fiction writing.

Rasine is a master wordsmith, whose prose is graceful and poetic, yet efficient and, for that reason, effective. Every word counts, and you'll hang on every word as well.  I may have to rethink my aversion to mysteries—especially if they're written by Birgitte Rasine.

 

 

— Cynthia Dagnal Myron
Author and award-winning journalist

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CONFESSION

Birgitte Rasine’s The Serpent and the Jaguar stands out among the plethora of recent books on Mayan calendars by offering us a profoundly practical approach to the Tzolk’in, guiding readers in applying the wisdom of the ancient “count of suns” to their own daily lives. She gracefully avoids the hype and self-serving tendencies that infect the 2012 phenomenon, and instead inspires us to reflect upon ourselves in ways that our fast-paced modern lifestyle rarely allows.

— Robert Sitler, PhD
Director, Latin American Studies, Stetson University

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THE SERPENT AND THE JAGUAR

Birgitte Rasine’s The Serpent and the Jaguar stands out among the plethora of recent books on Mayan calendars by offering us a profoundly practical approach to the Tzolk’in, guiding readers in applying the wisdom of the ancient “count of suns” to their own daily lives. She gracefully avoids the hype and self-serving tendencies that infect the 2012 phenomenon, and instead inspires us to reflect upon ourselves in ways that our fast-paced modern lifestyle rarely allows.

— Robert Sitler, PhD
Director, Latin American Studies, Stetson University

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This book is far and away the most accessible and spiritually commanding work of its genre. The Serpent and the Jaguar is a must read, and one to be practiced faithfully—above all for understanding the cyclical nature of the Maya way that guides our own path for consistently living a fruitful life in any era... The wisdom it contains is abundant and precise, the language pragmatic yet liltingly poetic, its comforting and uplifting nature unparalleled. The Serpent and the Jaguar belongs in every collection dealing with the Maya culture.

— Jim Young, PhD
Author and editor, 2013! The Beginning is Here

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The Serpent and the Jaguar is a gem. Birgitte Rasine writes beautifully and combines powerful intuition with years of scholarship and research to create what I find to be one of the most compelling books ever written about the Sacred Mayan Calendar.
 
— Anne-Marie van Dijk 
Model and Founder of CLEANSE one body, one planet
Paris and New York