cover image Shakkai: Woman of the Sacred Garden

Shakkai: Woman of the Sacred Garden

Lynn V. Andrews. HarperCollins Publishers, $20 (297pp) ISBN 978-0-06-016711-0

In this addition to the author's Sisters of the Shield series, Agnes Whistling Elk and Ruby Plenty Chiefs, the native American teachers who guided Andrews's explorations of her past lives, aid her journey into a future lifetime. Andrews ( The Woman of Wyrrd ) describes herself as a young Japanese meeting with an elderly woman named Shakkai, a teacher who shows her the ``captured garden,'' which has the power to heal souls and the earth through its feminine energy. This movement into other dimensions occurs in the process of ``double dreaming,'' by which one can project oneself ``into a time span of experience different from . . . present reality.'' This New Age narrative, slipping between present and future settings and heavy with symbolism, will please readers who share Andrews's spiritual orientation. (Aug.)