This is a book about bringing together the spiritual and the pol-

itical. Or rather, it is a work that attempts to move in the space

where that split does not exist, where the stories of duality that

our culture tells us no longer bind us to repeat the same old plots.

That space is dark and half-forgotten but within it lies a power

that runs counter to the principle of domination upon which our

society is based. In essence, this is a book about power. It talks

about the differences between power-over and power-from-

within, about the stories and thought-forms that convey power,

about ethics based on power-from-within. Although it moves in

the dark it is also about vision and about action -- that is, about

magic, the art of evoking power-from-within and using it to trans-

form ourselves, our community, our culture, using it to resist the

destruction that those who wield power-over are bringing upon

the world.

This book begins in a conversation that unrolls like the dark

ribbon of the road as we pass by orchards of almonds and fields of

wild mustard. We are driving home from a women s conference

-- myself and my friends Lauren and Kerry. All weekend we have

been hearing horror stories of rape, torture, footbinding, clitori-