Tales of Tony Great Turtle - Parables from the Heart Land, #3

The incense of sacred smoke blended with the wind's soft wail and Tony Great Turtle's high-pitched harmonica chanting to massage a battered boy's spirit. The ancient figure silhouetted on the tip of Shaman's Point had battled his own "dark star people" in the process of receiving his sacred name and uncovering his true identity. The aging, ageless shaman now becomes a hole in the fabric of the beyond through which the boy, Rog, hears his own true name. He guides the young man on the doorstep of adulthood through his own "vision quest" to discover the dignity and divinity at the depths of his soul.

Tony Great Turtle teaches Rog to "breathe in the stars" to over come his rage at his abusive father. He helps Rog to see that he is doing his own Sun Dance, his own process of maturing, which is to be not only his source of inner strength but also his ground for becoming a healer and hope-bringer. While introducing Rog, and the reader, to the richness of Native American spirituality, it opens him and us to the heart of the Christian mystery inherent in his and our life experiences.

Roger Robbennolt, author of Tales of Gletha, the Goatlady and Tales of Hermit Uncle John, presents finely crafted stories that entertain as well as afford spiritual insight and a vision of hope. In clear, direct images that are powerful and expansive he provides a model, so needed in our contemporary culture, for confronting the pressing issues of abuse with forgiveness, compassion and inner strength.