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Uncharted: A Journey Along the Edge of Time and Survival
In 1971 Cate hitchhiked to California with two friends and caught a bad ride - a ride that nearly cost them their lives. In the years that followed, life would push her to unravel the patterns that led up to that fateful journey, and those that came after. Using dream and vision as guides, accessing the untamed wilderness of innermost landscapes, this book explores the relationship between violence and the permeable nature of time and reality. Uncharted brings a candid lens to the relentless impacts of family, history and seemingly insurmountable odds. As her life moves through repeating patterns of exposure and numinous circumstance, Cate seeks keys to release the dark hand of the past that has gripped her family for generations. This story cuts along the restless territory of youth, the ground of loss and the meaning of love and second chances. In a reach from Mexico to Canada and coast to coast, Uncharted carries readers on a remarkable journey through the wildest regions of human nature and along the stark edge of survival. This is a book with an edge - an unusual edge - and it will carry your heart into a whole new territory of understanding about what it means to embrace the past and transform it.
318 pages, Paperback
First published November 14, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 3, 2015
Hold onto your seat—Cate Cabot’s Uncharted: A Journey Along the Edge of Time and Survival is a wild ride.
Cate Cabot prefaces her book with a quote from Carl Jung: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.” The reader must accept that there will indeed be darkness here, with no sugar-coated glossing-over of tough stuff. But we also get a book that soars with passion, wonder, beauty, and joy.
Cabot is intensely sensitive, deep-feeling, and observant—of her surroundings, of others’ emotions and motivations, of her own processes—and gives us a deep “inside” look at what she encounters and learns in her extraordinary life. “As a child, I loved the world,” Cabot writes. “I was a porous one, open with deep sensitivities. I did not know what this meant then or what it would come to mean.”
Well, what it came to mean ultimately ranged from deep joy and communion with her world to fighting for her life in terrifying, violent situations. She was nearly murdered once, has witnessed more than her share of chilling, disturbing events, and has endured tremendous loss. “Why do some of us seem chosen or destined to walk difficult pathways?” Cabot asks, adding that she has never seen herself as a victim. “Are we here to learn something, work something out or serve in some way? Why do some of us feel the world so acutely?”
Cabot’s book is not entirely a memoir but does have a narrative arc. Written entirely in the present tense, her style is at once lyrical and powerful. Consider this description of a wooded area in Wyoming: “Leaves sparkle morning and evening light dapple, court sunrise, flirt afternoon. Waters gurgle in miniature cascade, a melody transparent from gravelly depths of the river.” She constantly bends language to her own needs.
For Cabot, time also bends; it is not linear. An “inner metronome” guides her and she experiences “channels between times.” This lifetime seems to be an opportunity for her to heal the past—to face old pain and clear it.
I don’t have an answer to Cabot’s question of why some lives are harder and more perplexing than others, but I am certainly glad she explored these questions and shared her insights with us. And I‘m relieved to hear her state, “I have made it to safety.”
Cate Cabot prefaces her book with a quote from Carl Jung: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.” The reader must accept that there will indeed be darkness here, with no sugar-coated glossing-over of tough stuff. But we also get a book that soars with passion, wonder, beauty, and joy.
Cabot is intensely sensitive, deep-feeling, and observant—of her surroundings, of others’ emotions and motivations, of her own processes—and gives us a deep “inside” look at what she encounters and learns in her extraordinary life. “As a child, I loved the world,” Cabot writes. “I was a porous one, open with deep sensitivities. I did not know what this meant then or what it would come to mean.”
Well, what it came to mean ultimately ranged from deep joy and communion with her world to fighting for her life in terrifying, violent situations. She was nearly murdered once, has witnessed more than her share of chilling, disturbing events, and has endured tremendous loss. “Why do some of us seem chosen or destined to walk difficult pathways?” Cabot asks, adding that she has never seen herself as a victim. “Are we here to learn something, work something out or serve in some way? Why do some of us feel the world so acutely?”
Cabot’s book is not entirely a memoir but does have a narrative arc. Written entirely in the present tense, her style is at once lyrical and powerful. Consider this description of a wooded area in Wyoming: “Leaves sparkle morning and evening light dapple, court sunrise, flirt afternoon. Waters gurgle in miniature cascade, a melody transparent from gravelly depths of the river.” She constantly bends language to her own needs.
For Cabot, time also bends; it is not linear. An “inner metronome” guides her and she experiences “channels between times.” This lifetime seems to be an opportunity for her to heal the past—to face old pain and clear it.
I don’t have an answer to Cabot’s question of why some lives are harder and more perplexing than others, but I am certainly glad she explored these questions and shared her insights with us. And I‘m relieved to hear her state, “I have made it to safety.”
June 1, 2015
Reading Cate Cabot’s Uncharted, I was most struck by balanced tone and maturity of understanding of the narrative voice. In a personal story with so many dramatic moments – life-threatening, tragic and transformative – the author could have easily have fallen into sensationalism. But rather than writing a “look at the terrible things that happened to ME” book, Cate Cabot has written a more universal story of how a person survives and grows by surviving. Her voice is unique and brings together a broad range of narrative strategies. At times mystical, at other times reportorial, this memoir does not construct a falsely linear narrative of triumph over tragedy. Instead, it presents the unfolding of a life in all the complex modes of consciousness through which we might perceive our experiences. In the end, I felt this book will likely be helpful to many readers who have struggled to make sense of what the world has thrown at them. What better service can a memoir have than to help its readers press on?
June 15, 2015
I have just completed Cate Cabot's book Uncharted: A Journey Along the Edge of Time and Survival for the 2nd time. From the last page back to the first and right back through to the end. (I've only done that once before, with the book "The Tale of Kieu", Vietnam's epic national poem). In her book, Cate takes us on her life-long spiritual quest for peace and answers about her life experiences. This is a brave journey and not one to be taken by the faint of heart. The depths to which Cate goes to understand the situations and meaning about her life is not something most people, including myself, would have the courage to undertake. Her range of visions and dream interpretations and life's decisions based on those experiences and on those visions is truly amazing. Coupled with a unique prose style, Uncharted: A Journey Along the Edge of Time and Survival is a force of nature much like the spirits she has spent so much time with. Highly recommend.
April 1, 2015
Do not waste your time. This is a self published book that I read only because my book club picked it. The author rambles on and on, at times for an entire short chapter, without telling us anything about her "journey."
She blames her disfunctional life on a family move to Mexico when she was a young child -- although I am still unsure just what was so bad about the move. The author did not stop going on about particles in space long enough to fully convey what the heck was so bad.
She is full of grand (dis)illusions and never met an adjective she did not like. I seriously feel as if the author woke up one morning and decided to just write a book. Even the description on the back cover of what she does for a living is unclear. If anyone out there knows what it means to "pair art with science and diverse curricula," please let me know.
She blames her disfunctional life on a family move to Mexico when she was a young child -- although I am still unsure just what was so bad about the move. The author did not stop going on about particles in space long enough to fully convey what the heck was so bad.
She is full of grand (dis)illusions and never met an adjective she did not like. I seriously feel as if the author woke up one morning and decided to just write a book. Even the description on the back cover of what she does for a living is unclear. If anyone out there knows what it means to "pair art with science and diverse curricula," please let me know.
April 10, 2015
Cate Cabot’s story shakes and unsettles as it takes the reader through the hurricane of cycles and patterns in the human drama many face. By the end I was left feeling grateful to be taken on her adventure. Stories like this are always of value in their reminder to navigate the terra incognito of life by trusting one’s intuition in a world that would have you ignore those subtle life saving clues. Her visceral style of writing paints a story through "felt sense" and emotion in a way that is tangible to the reader. This book is a portal into a new paradigm of storytelling.
April 12, 2015
A compelling read. I wondered if I could come through these experiences with the same grace, forgiveness and love that Cabot did. This is a road map for anyone who shares a fundamental love of humanity and desires an awareness to remain there. Cabot's writing style strums the heartstrings. I cannot wait for another publication!
April 11, 2015
If you like poetic prose, and incredible lyrical language, this book is for you. if you want to track how a person not only survives trauma from family and life, but transcends it, this book is for you. pick it up and you won't put it down until the end.
May 8, 2015
A book that will need to be re-visited….many times. Multi layered story telling rich with both lovely poetic passages and hard core honesty. A book to savoir and read slowly, but I found I could not put it down.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews