Former zookeeper McElroy (Animals as Teachers and Healers) recounts how the fauna around her inspired her to "rebuild, reconstruct, renew" during a difficult period when her house was destroyed by fire and her marriage came to an end. In this inspirational memoir, full of anecdotes about the animals she loves, McElroy recalls the flames that engulfed her home in rural Wyoming, where she lived with her mother and husband. Everyone, including domestic and farm animals, survived, but McElroy had to embark on the slow process of rebuilding. Heartened by the support of her neighbors, she was also sustained by a vivid dream life in which she communed with a wild elk who guided and strengthened her. A real elk actually did appear in the area where she lived until he was removed, against the author's will, to a federal refuge. As her marriage unraveled, McElroy looked to the lives of the animals she observed for guidance on how to give up her marital relationship. Some may find the decision-making rituals that McElroy relied on a bit cloying and unrealistic. New Age adherents, however, should enjoy her descriptions of sweat lodge ceremonies, women's wisdom circles and a sacred communication she conducted with the bones of an elk. B&w illus. Five-city author tour. (July)
