Synopsis
Confronted with a small child whose will to live is desperately compromised by dreams of the future invading her, Agana (Beginning Rain) travels from her Tsalagi (Cherokee) home a thousand years before Columbus in an attempt to save the girl's life. She sees into the child's dreams to find that events of the modern era have slipped through time into her mind, so she journeys far into the future to change the human imagination, the human dream, to expand it beyond the limitations imposed by empires and despots and all those afraid to live a life in balance with Nature. She learns to move through centuries, through many places and times, in order to confront the perpetrators of destruction on a grand scale and a small scale both, to dive deeply into their minds and hearts, and to offer them a clear vision of what they are doing and what they have done to all people, and what they will continue to do unless they face themselves honestly and with courage. She succeeds and fails, triumphs and falls, and like all of us, has to come to terms with herself on the deepest levels of reflection possible. No matter what, she must go on, for Agana knows that every moment in time touches every other moment in time, and in this, her mission is for the salvation of all children's dreams of what life can be, across every culture and era. This deeply philosophical novel is an emotional, very current, and powerful journey through our time and the times surrounding us. An Indigenous story, it spans continents and peoples, meeting the famous and the infamous, always bringing us to reflect on our own values and experience in a world struggling to find, and sustain, the beauty that pulses at the heart of all life. It is the journal of a woman with relentless courage, a sharp tongue, a clear mission, and profound love.
About the Author
Stan Rushworth was born in 1944 in Southern California; grew up primarily in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada; served in the Far East as an Army volunteer from 1962 through 1965; attended San Francisco State University, where he received a Master s degree in Language Arts; lived and worked in Guatemala in the 1970 s; lived and worked in Hawaii in the 1980 s; and has taught Native American literature and English for the last two decades at Cabrillo College, in Aptos, California. He is of Tsalagi, English, and Irish heritage. Going to Water: The Journal of Beginning Rain, is his second book. The first is Sam Woods American Healing, published by Station Hill Literary Editions (A Talking Leaves book), Barrytown, New York, 1992, and is currently available through Talking Leaves Press, Freedom, California.
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