Never before in our history as a human race have we been confronted with such grave concerns: the devastation of the environment, global terrorism, vast abuse of political and religious powers, destruction of species and threats to every life form upon this planet. How do we sustain our hope, and our vision of a viable future? Inevitably such disasters are opportunities to draw us together as a people to try to heal ourselves and the Earth. Deena: It is a difficult and sorrowful story that we are in. It requires everything of each of us who have enough love, sorrow and courage in our hearts. We have to find the pieces of this story that may yet sustain creation. Deena s journey, as chronicled in Entering the Ghost River, continues as she returns to Africa and is once again visited by the male elephant elder she calls The Ambassador . Inspired by this continued connection, she interweaves the threads of her community s stories, dreams and visions to create a new form of council on the page, as an offering to us of the wisdom that the circle creates.

La Negra y Blanca is the crowning achievement of Deena Metzger's lifetime as a novelist, poet, and playwright. On the surface, it is a meditation on memory as the narrator pieces together the bright flashes of images of her life recalled, piecing them together with the intention of creating a healing matrix that reflects a life lived in search of meaning. On a deeper level, it weaves in the history and tragedy of the Conquest's ongoing political and environmental effects on Latin America through the narrator s relationship with Victor Perera, a Guatemalan-American writer and journalist who documented the destruction of the native Lacandon tribe of Guatemala by imperialistic forces. We become acquainted with La Negra, a mysterious woman who is pregnant, but who will not give birth to her child until the world is safe enough for its continued existence, and who is the centerpiece character of a natural world struggling to survive and maintain its integrity in the midst of industrialization and the decimation of the sacred forests. Metzger has created a complex novel that weaves the personal, political, global and spiritual threads of her life into a tapestry of beauty, sorrow, transcendence, and ultimately, the assurance of a world renewed by the unwavering examination of all of its component parts to create a path into a future that promises reverence for all life.