cover image Windhorse Woman: A Marriage of Spirit

Windhorse Woman: A Marriage of Spirit

Lynn V. Andrews. Grand Central Publishing, $27 (228pp) ISBN 978-0-446-51390-6

The author, who claims to be apprentice to a Canadian medicine woman named Agnes Whistling Elk, has produced five books ( Medicine Woman , etc.) about her quest for spiritual knowledge. Written in the same dreamy, repetitive style, and set in Nepal where Andrews's Amerindian entourage encounters ancient Indian wisdom, this latest entry reads more like a fairy tale than the ethnological fact it purports to be. She meets her tall, well-built, spirit husband Windhorse, who points her toward her androgynous balance of female and male energies within herself. Her hostess-guide Ani turns out to be a guran , one who can manifest herself as a snow leopard at will. A 10-year-old girl's death forces Andrews to face her own mortality. Her Himalayan jaunt is dotted with episodes of crystal power, tears of joy, wise women, rapt visions and talk of healing Mother Earth. (Sept.)