Tears of Christepona

Book excerpt: Early one morning in November 2019, Carter Heyward awoke to a voice she figured was hers, but then again, maybe it wasn’t exactly her own. Grief-stricken, because her horse Feather had just been diagnosed with a rare equine cancer; in pain with a freshly broken arm of her own; and horrified by the morally bankrupt state of the nation under Donald Trump, Carter begins a conversation with “someone.” Herself? Her higher power? Friends who have passed on? The persistent voice names herself (or themselves) “Christepona.” Thus begins Carter Heyward’s mystical presentation of her ever-deepening passion for justice-love at every level of our life together, from the very personal to the larger social and political contexts. Moving into her grief, Carter wrestles with the problem of evil. She dives into her own anger and hatred, and that of others, and surfaces in enthusiastic bursts of gratitude, joy, and hope.