October 10, 1999
West Point, Texas
Woman Publishes Spiritual Autobiography
Release: Immediate
A local woman is featured in an anthology of spiritual autobiographies published this month by Chicago Spectrum Press.
Titled Spiritual Autographs: Southern Women Tell Their Stories, the volume of life stories draws together a diverse group of spiritual perspectives.
Mary Elizabeth Thunder, West Point, Texas...is part Indian, Irish & adopted Lakota. She is a Mother, Grandmother, Teacher, Author of "Thunder's Grace" & President-Minister of Blue Star Inc. -The Church of the Blue Star. She lives & works in West Point, Texas where she founded a Spiritual University called the Thunder Ranch.
Thunder spent the first half of her life as a administrator, which included being assistant to the Mayor of Indianapolis, & an Alcohol/Drug Counselor for American Indian Service organizations. She has now spent many years "On The Road" as a Teacher, Lecturer, & Workshop Facilitator. Thunder has been asked to be a Spiritual Delegate to the Spiritual United Nations at the request of the Dalai Lama. Thunder travels extensively throughout the World sharing her message of her experience & vision for a world where all can live together in Peace. Thunder & sons are Traditional Sun Dancers; this year she completed her 30th Sun Dance. Her continuing Dream & Vision is to share these ways of living & healing with the people & do whatever she can to bring all people together as one, As It I With All Things.
Her autobiography is one among thirty selected to represent the varieties of religous experience among women in the south. The volume was edited by four East Texas women. It includes stories by Mary Carter Smith, Maryland's official "griot," Valerie Sayers, author of five novels, & Njoki McElroy, nationally known storyteller & poet.
Books can be ordered from Spiritual Autobiographies Association, 703 S. Main, Jacksonville, TX 75766.
Contact: Mary Brown
Ph. (903) 586-6736 or (903) 586-3712, Fax (903) 586-2412
***Sandra Slaughter Barnett, creative writing teacher at Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas, writes:
There was excitement in the few, culturally or theologically new (for me) journeys like Mary Elizabeth Thunder's, "Lessons From Grandmother Grace" a Lakota Sundancer's story.......