Book Review: Entering the Ghost River:
Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing by Deena Metzger.
© James Wells 2003

If you only read one book this year, make Entering the Ghost River the one! It's important reading for our challenging world-times.

Metzger, known to many as an author and creative writing teacher, is also a profound healer. Back in 2001, she, her husband, and a small group were undergoing deep healing initiations in Africa at the very same moment that planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This took Metzger's healing and ritual work to a level which is called to heal the body politic, families, communities, and nations as well as individual bodies/minds - our personal symptoms may carry intimations of what is happening in society at large.

The author reminds us of the interconnectedness of all life. She challenges us to ask ourselves what makes a healer. She describes the rite of passage known as initiation. And Metzger offers a healing model of being in council, allowing oneself to be simultaneously the healer and the healed, and telling our stories in order to strengthen the web of connection and to offer and receive wisdom through the common energy of every story. We meet such awe-inspiring characters as indigenous healers & drummers, elephants, cancer survivors, writers, musicians, those on the brink of death, and a porcupine.

Deeply moved by Metzger's prose, my work and my beingness are transformed by reading Entering the Ghost River. I anticipate that I will dip into it many times in the future, and so will you. There is more information at www.deenametzger.com .

You can contact James at workeroforacles@yahoo.ca.