"Once I'd read a few chapters, I was hooked."



"Richly detailed...Fans of Mutant Message Down Under willenjoy this deeper exploration of aboriginal wisdom."


Creations Magazine
"Richly detailed...Fans of Mutant Message Down Under will enjoy this deeper exploration of aboriginal wisdom."


Whole Life Times
"Once I'd read a few chapters. I was hooked."


Book Description
Following her modern classic and worldwide bestseller A Mutant Message Down Under, Marlo Morgan's long-awaited second novel is a tale of self-enlightenment about aboriginal twins separated at birth and the searchfor roots that reunites them from opposite sides of the globe. Message from Forever is an incredibly moving story in which the power of purity, acceptance, and openness transcends injustice and degradation, directing is to live our lives in accordance with ageless values and simple wisdom.10 Messages of Aboriginal Wisdom You Will Explore In Message From Forever Express Your Individual CreativityRealize That You Are Accountable Before Birth You Agreed to Help OthersMature EmotionallyEntertainBe a Steward of Your EnergyIndulge in MusicStrive to Achieve WisdomLearn Self-DisciplineObserve Without Judging


About the Author
Marlo Morgan is a retired health-care professional. She lives in Lee Summit, Missouri. Her first novel, Mutant Message Down Under, was a New York Times bestseller for thirty-one weeks and was published in twenty-four countries.


Excerpted from Mutant Message from Forever by Marlo Morgan. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
The brown-skinned face of the eighteen-year-old pregnant girl glistened as perspiration rolled down her face and dripped from her quivering chin. Her naked squatting body straddled a smoldering bed of herbs, allowing the ,smoky essence to curl around, her body and be, absorbed into the dilating birth passage. Both hands squeezed the sturdy wooden stake that she had pounded into the ground, her aching arms enfolding her protruding belly. The deep, panting breaths momentarily seemed to ease the rhythm of pain. it was her first childbirth, an event not intended to, be experienced alone.When she looked up, she saw a vision of heat-wave ripples, caused by the stifling temperature in the desert. The wavy pattern ran from the brown-red earth into brown-blue sky, blending the two without any clear line of demarcation. The air had not begun to cool, even, though the sun was beginning its daily descent beyond the horizon. Back and abdominal pains had made every step she took toward this sacred place progressively more difficult to withstand. Arriving at the birthing tree brought her more pain and disappointment. The tree she sought was dead. There were no leaves, no shade, no sign of any life remaining in the tall gray shell , that was hollow where the hungry white ants had stripped the core. only giant boulders lining a dry creek bed provided a small, shaded rim of protection from the sun. it had been necessary to pound astray limb deep into the earth. Young women always use I an anchor when delivering a child. They held another woman's hind or caressed the trunk of a tree, but she had neither. Seeing the lifeless family tree with the empty space inside where once its heart and lifeline had resided confirmed that it was destiny, or in the hands of oneness, that she found herself alone at this life-projecting moment. it was an omen of great loss, She acknowledged her sad feeling that the tree spirit was gone. Part of her religious belief was based on the earth's being the school of emotion. Her people never hid o denied feelings. They were responsible for, how they felt, and learned to discipline all: accompanying action; She felt sadness not only for the deteriorating shell of the once stately shade and oxygen-producing friend, but for, what other deaths it might symbolize.The birth contractions became severe. Her strangely totemed child with its violent motion was resisting arrival. She, moved from the herbal smoke and dug a small depression in the warm sand, where she squatted again, placing her back a against a boulder. As she began to push she thought about the time, months previously, when she and her husband had agreed to stop chewing the contraceptive plant aft couples of their desert nation used until they were ready for the responsibility of the journey of a spirit.Together, they planned to provide the. outer covering for a spirit by conceiving a child. Her husband had dreamed of a strange wounded one-winged bird that could not fly. And could not build a. nest, It, fluttered, on the ground so rapidly, frantically flapping its wings, that it became :a blur, a doubled, image. it had been a confusing dream. As his wife, she had gone alone into the arid wilderness, seeking a spirit sign for better understanding. Since no special animal or, reptile appeared, the couple-consulted with older, wiser community, members and, learned that the dream was the voice of, a Forever spirit, asking them to become its parents. As usual, the unborn spirit first made its request, known; the act of conceiving came later. Her tribal people were keenly. Observant of the desires, messages and awareness levels of the yet unborn. She came to her family's sacred spot because where one was born was important. Not only was the consideration of the place of birth determined by the footsteps of the mother but the unborn had no control over birth location. The child, speaks by making the first movement, which the mother, cannot control." Where that first flutter is felt is a significant factor. The location of the . first life signs together with birth place determine totem and song line relationship. The placement of the stars overhead. Tell the character and personality of the yet unseen tribal member.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Following her Mutant Message Down Under, Marlo Morgan's new novel is a tale of self-enlightenment about aboriginal twins separated at birth and the search for roots that reunites them from opposite sides of the globe. Once more Morgan unveils the inspiring aboriginal worldview while pointedly exposing the plight of an ancient race rapidly becoming extinct as a result of more than two hundred years of systematic discrimination.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

A warmed-over account of an Australian woman's walkabout in search of her aboriginal heritage and the meaning of existence, this latest offering from the author of the bestselling Mutant Message Down Under is more of the same: rage over the aborigines' disenfranchisement, touchy-feely eulogies for their nomadic wisdom and dire predictions of an ecological doomsday for the civilization that did them in. When Beatrice Lake is separated the day after her birth from her teenage aborigine mother and twin brother, she begins a lifelong journey that will take her back to her ancestry and ultimately reunite her with her twin, Geoff, who is serving a life sentence in a Florida prison. After 36 years in the wilderness, Bea decides to return to civilization and repatriate Geoff. Overflowing with intimations of "Oneness," "Foreverness," "Knowingness" and such icons as the Rainbow Snake from the mythic Dreamtime, this humdrum little walk on the wild side is unworthy of Morgan's real-life concerns with the plight of the aborigines and the environment. (July)

Kirkus Reviews

Based on aboriginal beliefs, a yea-saying 'wisdom book' by the author of the originally self-published Mutant Message Down Under, which, by 1994, had sold 370,000 copies in Australia alone. In the 1930s, an aboriginal pair of twins is born in the Australian outback. Neighboring whites, English-born and established in a mission settlement, are bent on 'improving' the lives of native dwellers: 'For forty years, the church had been building mission stations to house adult indigenous people extracted from the wilderness to civilize, educate, and save their souls.' As ruthless as they are righteous, the white folk forcibly remove the infant twins from their native mother. For the boy, named Geoff, this means that 'at the age of seventy-two hours, the twin had severed all connection to his blood heritage. and would now become the ward of a wealthy, white rural family.' Meanwhile, his sister Beatrice struggles to make do in a ghastly Catholic orphanage. She's denied an education, she's molested by a priest, and she's compelled to have a hysterectomy at age nine before graduating to a slave-labor job in a boardinghouse. By his mid-20s, the boy—now an alcoholic—has received a life sentence without parole, having been falsely accused of a double murder. The story is then given back to Beatrice. Dropping everything and hungry to understand her origins, she heads for the outback, where she ends up living with the Karoon ('first, original, unchanged') tribe of Real People for 30 years. Coming from a Christian civilization, she fears that her forebears, whom she's disposed to like, will disappoint her as models of human life. Instead, she enters their Dreamtime, becomes spirituallypoliticized to the Forever, and eventually reenters the outside world to work for the return of aborigines being held in foreign prisons. Morgan's unflamboyant, matter-of-fact prose tends to keep euphoric philosophizing in check. Overall, her version of aboriginal life sounds much less presumptuous than New Ageism, and far more attractive.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

This is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. There is much to ponder and learn... — Og Mandino

The story of a courageous woman who walked among the aboriginals and learned the wonderful wisdom and secrets of an old, old tribe. The things we all need to learn in our modern society: to get back in touch with nature, to trust in our faith and our inner knowledge and guidance. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross