Recovery takes love full circle

Magic and parables, sexual androgyny, repressed memories and dreams are the fuel of Alice Walker’s latest work.

“Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart” is a latticework of lives that have been invaded, fractured and imposed upon by angry husbands, relatives and the effects of incest, rape, family secrets and aging.

Still, observes Kate “Walkingtree” Nelson, the novel’s 57-year-old protagonist, “Life. It doesn’t pay to give up too soon.”

And so Kate wanders in search of purpose and meaning, a quest for stronger and stronger medicines that will let her scuttle from under the weight of an overwhelming victimhood. As she prepares to take a potent hallucinogen, one that will link her to aspects of her past so that she may make sense of the present and future, Kate remembers a line in a shaman’s song: “Ya es el tiempo para abrir su corazon. Now is the time to open your heart.”

The premise -- hence the title -- is that there is peace for those who are strong enough to look their demons in the eye and endure in their journey toward enlightenment. This Kate does.

First, she ditches a commercial meditation-oriented temple group, deciding that the route toward spirituality through commercialism is suspect. She heads for the rapids of the Colorado River with a women’s group of pre- and post-menopausal baby boomers to bond and dish. This early peak in the book is a testament to Walker’s narrative powers as the women discuss their assemblage of problems great and small from their phases of sexuality to their sense of sisterhood and calm. Kate is overcome by a physical and psychological nausea that allows her to shed pieces of her hurting self.

Meanwhile, in one of many flashbacks, her younger agreeable lover, Yolo, embarks on his own quest. Vacationing in Hawaii, Yolo is confronted with a dead body that turns out to be the son of his ex-girlfriend, Alma. That takes him to a funeral and then to a tribal men’s circle where all vow to fight the ills plaguing the rest of America. These include things central to men’s entertainment: tobacco, liquor, sex and the drug “ice” (crystal methamphetamine), which is what killed Alma’s son. As Kate journeys to a South American rain forest under the influence of shaman Armando Juarez and his drugs, Yolo finds himself on a similar journey of psychic exploration.

Philosophy and folklore are forged in potion-induced dreams. A character called Uncle Remus appears to Kate: “[T]here is still a bit of room for choice. Which is why it is worthwhile to remain in contact with your ancestors,” he says. She finally understands and uses her newfound powers of perception to help others in her group heal themselves. And a little of the ancient super juice can’t hurt.

Kate and Yolo come full circle in their fractured journeys, which roll as if through aboriginal dreamtime that is at once past and present. Leaving behind their search for meaningless mantra, they open themselves to what was in front of them all along: each other.