In, and of [Anglais] [Broché]

"...one man's journey toward self-understanding ...Haas has penned an intensely personal journal..."

"... Few like Jack Haas go the whole hog. ...imminently readable..."

"The Kerouac of the new millennium."

"...a poetic and stunning piece of work... Jack Haas has quite a tale to tell."

"...lucid...and uncompromising. A truly wonder full book... Read in awe."

The highly acclaimed, modern autobiographical account of Jack Haas’ journey from the claustrophobic city, to the primitive wilderness of coastal British Columbia, California, and Alaska, and into the uncharted regions of the soul. During his recent ten years of exploring the wild west coast of North America, Jack Haas wandered amidst the towering forests and the crashing surf, meeting an amazing cast of eccentrics, mystics, and misfits, and all the while continuing on his own internal voyage- a journey that would lead him into remarkable wilderness experiences, alchemical transformations, and spiritual awakenings. In this contemporary autobiography, Jack Haas passionately describes the importance of our connection with the wilderness. He shows us that the ancient axiom which stated we must be 'In the world, but not of it', is no longer true. Now, Haas implores us, we must be 'In, and Of' this world, this life, and this flesh. This is a true tale of adventure, misadventure, wonder, struggle, mysticism, and miracles. It is a journey into rare experiences, and it is a journey home. If you love a good read, you won't be let down by this prose masterpiece. Nominated for a BC Book Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize.

Jack Haas is one of the world's most enjoyable and inspiring contemporary writers. His life experiences united with his profound penmanship make his books a rhythmic journey into wonder and wisdom. If you mixed the writings of Bruce Chatwin in with the likes of Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller, Joseph Campbell, and Dan Brown, then tossed in some mysticism, madness, and miracles, and sprinkled the entire work with eloquent prose, you would get an amalgamation of literature pointing in the direction of Jack Haas' writing. Thick with humour, humanity, adventure, divinity, debauchery, and song, Haas' true life experiences and passionate wordplay invite us into a living vision of our own mysterious grandeur.

In 2003 Jack Haas became the first author in history to release three five-star books in a single year. Reviews of these books were done by Jim Cox, Editor-in-Chief of the Midwest Book Review, who is considered to be one of the premier book reviewers and authorities on new writing in North America.

chapter one

Once you have eaten of the flesh, so to speak, you must ride it out completely.

Of course everyone’s journey is different, but if you give yourself away to life, things cannot avoid falling implausibly into place around you, and an existence you never thought possible eventually swells instinctively up from within, and devours you whole.

It’s all so subtle, unexpected, absurd, and indisputable, that when an epoch ends- when the drama of ‘being’ comes to one of its cyclic, fabulous crescendos- and the spirit fully emerges, the whole holocaust and rapture of life dissolves back into itself, into you, and you into it, the two sides blend into one, the universe is fulfilled for an instant, time evaporates, distance vanishes, the light mingles and ...we are gone.

I am speaking of nexus points, unifications, grand synchronicities, and convergences in the hidden patterns of the cosmos, from which sublime realities become conspicuously manifest in the lives of persons chosen or willing to act out the universe’s karmic evolution; momentary windows of a deeper vision, leaps of understanding, and etheric mutations in the blueprint of our chimerical beings, such that there are profound times and places in the somnambulistic imagination of the great and dancing Imaginer, when the veil of causality lifts blatantly away to reveal its eternal marriage with effect, the continuum becomes apparent, the Creator finally awakens within and as the Creation, and yet still no one, not even the Maker, can understand how the marvelous making is made.

It is all very strange, obscure and ineffable, as it were. But to be sure- it happens. Every now and then, due, as it were, to the course of our forgotten, sublime affinities, a cohesion of disparate forces fuse into One, life takes on mythical proportions, the Gods awaken from their slumber, the devil gets his due, and the lone individual, bent awkwardly upon the fulfillment of his or her impossible and unavoidable destiny, breaks loose from the world’s hold, resuscitates the old breath, finds the living Life, curses the anguish, weeps for the children, drinks, dances, goes mad with love, and then vanishes into the sky with all those brave or free enough to follow.

Let me tell you, it happens. Rarely, perhaps very rarely, but by god it comes about. And when it does, the Heavens float down like a warm deluge through the frost of Hell, the veneer of our horrid separation lifts for a blessed instant, the I in each one of us untangles itself, and all those ready, strong, innocent, or bored enough, slip quietly away, out into the gentle flow, merging with eternity, and then drifting off into God without going anywhere; they simply float away without leaving; they stand still and fall apart into everything. That is what happens.

But perhaps I am starting off here too fast. Let me sum it all up, so as to be done with the story, and then we can get on with the meat of this text. It goes like this: when you are born you are not yet born- first you must descend, die, rise from the ashes, forget every idea of right and wrong, lose yourself completely, gain yourself again, and become the All. There you have it, in brief synoptic fashion. What follows are merely the details.

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