Walking to Mercury - Hardcover

Starhawk

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553102338 ISBN 13: 9780553102338

Publisher: Bantam, 1997

Synopsis

In The Fifth Sacred Thing, bestselling author Starhawk created an unforgettable portrait of a ninety-eight-year-old writer and rebel who led the forces of freedom in a twenty-first-century battle against a racist totalitarian regime.  Now, in Walking to Mercury, Starhawk tells the compelling story of the forces that shaped that extraordinary woman--a story that spans the decades from the tumultuous sixties to the present New Age.

Writer, priestess, and visionary Maya Greenwood has remained true to her one moment of connection to the land and its spirits.  But now, approaching her
fortieth year, she has lost her way.  Seeking to reclaim her power, she goes on a pilgrimage to her sister Debby's remote mountain clinic in Nepal, their dead
mother's ashes in her backpack.  Together, Maya hopes she and Debby can heal their fractured family bonds, allowing Maya to finally lay her past to rest and
breathe new life into her future.

Yet the past proves heavier than Maya ever suspected, as she begins the laborious climb through a landscape of memories.  

In the journal given to her by Johanna Weaver--her soul sister, her mirror, her lover--she relives the ecstatic union they first formed as teenage rebels, a
union still challenged by convention and Johanna's fierce commitment to her African foremothers.

In the letters from Rio Connolly--that wild, impulsive, doomed youth--she reenters the dreams they once built together as outlaws blazing a path for change.  

Now Rio, transformed by his own struggles, calls to her across ten thousand miles.  Whatever Maya decides will have dire consequences.  If she rejects Rio's offer, she will close a door forever on an opportunity to reclaim her past.  But if she goes back to him, she must reveal an intimate secret kept far too long--a secret that could shatter Maya's vision for the future.

Rich in wisdom, humor, and the luminous power of nature, Walking to Mercury emerges as an adventure of the inescapable forces that transcend all our lives and give them meaning.

About this title

Review:

The word mercury conjures many images--the messenger god, the planet that rules over communication, the liquid metal that defies attempts to be held--images that form the backbone of Walking to Mercury, a story chronicling the early life of Maya Greenwood. Readers familiar with Starhawk's fiction may remember Maya as the 21st-century rebel leader who was introduced in The Fifth Sacred Thing . In Walking to Mercury, a younger Maya treks through Nepal carrying the ashes of her mother on her back as she searches for a reunion with her sister. Along the way, she finds messages (through the pages of her best friend Johanna's diary, in letters from her former lover Rio, and in notes from her elusive sister) that raise spiritual mountains rivaling the peaks of the Himalayas. She struggles with her past and hopes to find out why the power that once pounded through her like a drumbeat has fallen silent. However, like the metal mercury, the answer to her troubles continually slips through her fingers. While eco-feminism plays a supporting role, the star of Walking to Mercury is everything that Starhawk has to tell us about being human. As Maya discovers, no matter how independent one is, one's life is inextricably entangled with the lives of others--parents, siblings, friends, lovers, and even strangers who nudge us in one direction or another (sometimes imperceptibly) despite our best attempts at isolation. Starhawk permeates every step of Maya's journey with emotion, and pulls no punches, hitting us with everything from grief to ecstasy. There is no padding to separate us from the story, but Walking to Mercury is no stark, utilitarian piece of minimalist fiction. This is life, with all its bitterness and all its magic. --Brian Patterson

From the Publisher:

Critical acclaim for The Fifth Sacred Thing:

"Slated to be one of the great visionary Utopian novels of the century...It's a rare book to which I give such a high recommendation; but I spent the best part of three days reading it, and at the end, I would have loved it to be longer. I simply fell in love with both characters and setting. It's a wonderful book."
--Marion Zimmer Bradley, author of The Forest House

"For the future of our kind, The Fifth Sacred Thing is an anthem of hope. Generations to come will bless the name of Starhawk."
--Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael and The Story of B

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0553102338
• ISBN 13: 9780553102338
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 496