It is 1967. In the Midwestern university city where Lyra lives, the culture is still predominantly the conservative, conformist culture of the fifties. But on the coasts, changes are stirring--in consciousness, gender roles, spirituality--and the ripples of these changes are beginning to touch the Heartland. Lyra has given up the promise of a brilliant dance career for marriage and children. Heartbroken and crazed over the deterioration of her marriage and the loss of her art, tormented by inner voices, she runs from her house on an evening in May to a nearby wood. There she finds a strange, luminous path that leads her to a glade deep in the heart of the wood, where a magnificent oak tree stands in the curve of a stream. The oak tree speaks to her with love, and under its boughs she finds peace. After her psychiatrist recommends a temporary separation, her husband leaves for the summer to do research at Harvard. Peggy, a warm-hearted, young graduate student, moves in to help with the children, giving Lyra more freedom than she's had since her first child was born. As Lyra unravels the mystery of the oak tree in the months that follow, profound changes transform her inner and outer worlds, bringing her soaring joy and devastating grief. Biography Heather Starsong has been dreaming and telling stories since childhood. Semi-retired from a long career teaching dance and yoga and practicing Rolfing, she lives in Boulder, Colorado, and enjoys dancing, hiking in the high country and writing.