Prophecy on the River: An Orisha Shaman's Journey in New Zealand

Prophecy on the River: An Orisha Shaman's Journey in New Zealand2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards: Best Book Finalist 2020 Ashton Wylie Best Mind, Body, Spirit Book Awards: Best Book Finalist Lights with no apparent source, heating her back while she walks along a riverbank, initiate American anthropologist Judith Hoch into a decades long process of spiritual renewal. In this vividly written memoir, Judith describes what happens when she and her husband struggle to restore newly purchased New Zealand land to

2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards: Best Book Finalist

2020 Ashton Wylie Best Mind, Body, Spirit Book Awards: Best Book Finalist

Lights with no apparent source, heating her back while she walks along a riverbank, initiate American anthropologist Judith Hoch into a decades-long process of spiritual renewal. In this vividly written memoir, Judith describes what happens when she and her husband struggle to restore newly-purchased New Zealand land to native forest. It quickly becomes a spiritual as well as ecological task-and proves far more difficult than she ever anticipated.

In a rare meeting of the Afro-Cuban Lucumi and Aotearoa Māori cultures, Judith uses skills learned as a student of Orisha divination and mediumship to delve into the tragic events that historically impacted the land as she seeks a way to heal it. Guided by her Miami-based padrino, Ernesto Picardo, and working with her Waitaha Māori friend, Aroha Ropata, Judith connects with the land's ancestors and the spiritual forces required for her ecological efforts to succeed.