Truths of a Starwalker: Journals from Psychosis
Truths of a Starwalker: Journals From Psychosis
by Coyote Park
Designed by Be Oakley
Cover design by Dexter Komakaru
Copy edited by Cortez
Afterword by Danielle Herrera
May 2023
Perfect Bound
by Coyote Park
Designed by Be Oakley
Cover design by Dexter Komakaru
Copy edited by Cortez
Afterword by Danielle Herrera
May 2023
Perfect Bound
BUY HERE on April 21st
“Truths of a Starwalker” is the 2nd book of poetry, prose, and short essays from Coyote Park. The book features writing from Park's experiences with spiritual psychosis, as a means to process, cope, and unpack shame towards mental health. The book is structured as a hybrid of personal reflection pieces that are followed by the chapters “Inheritance of Ghosts”, “The Bridge is a Veil”, “A World Called Pluto”, and “Begin Again”, a quest led by the protagonist of Starboy. Park is utilizing genre merging of fantasy and autobiography to communicate dimensions of memory and delirium.
“I’m finding where my own thin veil is a blessing, a gift, not always something so devastating. I had a summer of inpatient care at a schiz. bipolar psychiatric ward in 2019. This led me to wanting to create this new body of work. I am tracing back to these memories to find peace. I am also returning to them to move forward.”
Themes that are explored in “Truths of a Starwalker: Journals from Psychosis” are transmuting intergenerational trauma into intergenerational wisdom, navigating other realms, recentering in our bodies, inpatient care/dreaming of wellness spaces outside of the hospital, psychic gifts, delusional / manic episodes, releasing embarrassment or guilt, empathy vs. sympathy, finding truth in our collective understandings; from an Indigenous and Asian lens on spirituality and wellness.
The framework of this book comes from moving through reimagined folk stories and creative writing to unpack lived experiences that have been historically demonized, othered, and stigmatized.
Joseph Campbell — ‘The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.'
The book is made with the gratitude and love for Park’s therapist Danielle Herrera who will be having her own writing within the collection.
