Up Above and Down Below

In Part One of this book, two children journey to an otherworldy realm, in which a Sphere, a Rubbery Man, and a Rock Man join their quest. An Archon, who rules the land, collects aliens as exhibits and seeks to use their bodies to become immortal. In the end they must confront the Archon who has become a thing with immense powers.
In the second part, the two youths re-encounter the Rock Man, who has become a homeless person in their earth world. Together, they seek to help a runaway who dissociates into symbolic worlds. The children, with the help of a Homeless Outreach Worker, are challenged to find the cause of her problem and to rescue her from a psychiatric hospital. These stories give clues about how to understand persons who are distressed and enter symbolic realities, and to show how friendship and love can triumph in the end.

Michael Susko, with an M.S. in Counseling Psychology, taught in a progressive elementary school, which featured arts integration. He has designed and taught college classes on "Personal Archetypes" and "The Sacred Art of Indigenous Cultures." He has also led groups on dream interpretation. His familiarity with symbolism has helped him to write Down Below, which presents a fantasy realm which resonates with archetypal truths. The author has varied experiences which helped him to write Up Above. For many years, he worked as a Psychiatric Halfway House Counselor, and as a Homeless Outreach Worker. He has been an advocate for the rights of psychiatric patients, having collected and edited oral histories in Cry of the Invisible and Transformational Stories. Last, he served as President of CIRCARE, a national organization dedicated to protecting the rights of research subjects.