Piet Maritz was vir jare lank 'n karakoelpelskoper in die ou Suidwes. Gedurende sy vele omswerwinge het hy baie interessante mense ontmoet en dinge ondervind. In Kruis en dwars deur ou Suidwes deel hy van hierdie herinneringe en laat jou lag, huil en verlang na vervloe dae.

Taking us on a journey through the history of sacred art and architecture, Sacred Sites explores the myriads of ways in which we imbue our environments with profound and enduring meaning.  From our early designation of nature and the body as temple to our futuristic embrace of imaginary realms, we travel the vast and mystical landscapes of myth, religion, and imagination. 
 
Through gathering, we ignite our spaces with spirit, we circle the bonfire, bow down at the forest altar, give praise at the temple to our chosen divinities.  Through pilgrimage, we carve indelible pathways, making our meditative way across continents, generations of footsteps treading, again and again, upon sacred grounds. And through our creative offerings to spirit - we envision new worlds, wildly imaginative odes to what we deem as holy; golden temples hewn of rock, enormous spirals sculpted from sand and soil, silent sanctuaries hidden among wooded groves. We paint the ancient cave walls, carve petroglyphs to mark the way, place roses in veneration at the candlelit shrine. 
 
Slowly, stone-by-stone, we build monuments to our gods, a cosmic geometry held within our sacred architecture of worship. These hidden patterns can be found in the mysterious, towering pyramids found across the globe and throughout an astounding diversity of cultures, in the marble sanctuaries built to house the Greek and Roman goddesses, and in the windblown mountain monasteries of ancient Asia and the indigenous cliff-dwellings of the American Southwest.
 
Nature, art, beauty, these are the common elements found both within the places made sacred by our ancestors and in the multitude of environments where we strive to connect to source, and to ourselves.  Tracing a hallowed route from rugged stone temples to transcendent works of modern architecture, the fifth volume in The Library of Esoterica celebrates the collective history of spaces made sacrosanct through human worship.

In this thoughtful, informative account of a journey from Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta to Hanoi and Halong Bay, Zoe Schramm-Evans delves behind the cliche-ridden images of Vietnam to discover a country poised on the brink of remarkable social and economic change.

The Pony Express has a hold on the American imagination wildly out of proportion to its actual contribution to the history and development of the West. It lasted less than eighteen months—about the amount of time it took author Scott Alumbaugh to plan and ride the route—and utterly failed by every measure of success attributed to it. The only reason it did not fade out of public consciousness, as did the far more successful Butterfield mail, is publicity. In the Pony’s case, a thirty-year campaign of publicity mounted by Buffalo Bill Cody, who mislead the public by claiming to have been a Pony Express rider, and lied outright by claiming to have made the longest Pony Express run. More than anyone, Buffalo Bill kept the legend alive by including a Pony Express segment throughout the run of his Wild West show. But while the Pony Express may be among the least significant developments of its era, it is the most iconic. One can’t really understand the Pony Express—what it stood for, what it accomplished, why it came about at all—without understanding the far more interesting historical milieu from which it grew: Three wars (Mexican, Utah, and Paiute); two gold rushes (California and Pike’s Peak); the overland emigration of hundreds of thousands to Oregon and California; the exodus of tens of thousands of Mormons to Utah. On the Pony Express Trail: One Man's Bikepacking Journey to Discover History from a Different Kind of Saddle recounts the author’s experience bikepacking the Pony Express Trail over five weeks during June and July 2021, and uses the trail as a prism through which to survey a wide spectrum of mid-1800s historical events. Sixty-two-year-old Alumbaugh rode the Pony Express Bikepacking Route from St. Joseph, MO to Salt Lake City, UT, over 1,400 miles, mostly off-road, sometimes through very remote territory. The narrative follows his day-to-day experiences and impressions: the challenges, the sites he visited, the country he rode through, and interactions with the people he met.

An ex-yacht chef uncovers the dark reality of life at sea. By the age of twenty-two, Melanie is ticking life's boxes as if filling in a routine survey. Good grades at school? Check. Reliable university degree? Check. Steady graduate job? Check. Her two feet are planted firmly on solid ground; her life to date perfectly mirrors society's expectations. That is until she finds herself plunged into the superyacht industry, like an ice cube thrown into a cut crystal glass of the finest whisky, having stepped foot on a boat just three times before. Not only is she required to learn how to run, sail, and race a multi-million-pound yacht on the job, she is forced to adapt to a wholly unnatural life afloat, largely confined to a bunk bed, crammed galley, and live-in colleagues. Oh, and to devise, develop, and deliver fine dining menus for some of the wealthiest people on the planet. No biggie. From the Mediterranean to the Caribbean to the Arctic she cruises, visiting places many can only dream of, orienting herself in an environment few have the opportunity to observe. But while her culinary knowledge evolves and her on-board responsibilities grow, the world as she knows it begins to close in. The depth of the ocean no longer phases her; it's the darkness inside which she fears. Behind Ocean Lines is a deeply personal account of a deterioration in mental health against a backdrop of opulence. It is, shockingly, not an anomaly in the industry. It is about time the public is told.