Deena Metzger wrote her first poem, The Plant, in 1939 and is currently working on a novel, excerpted in this issue, La Vieja. She was present when the lightning bolt struck Lise Weil and Dark Matter was conceived and is pleased to have been in the first and subsequent issues and this one. Her latest book of poetry is The Burden of Light and her latest novel is A Rain of Night Birds. The second edition of Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing has just been released. She regularly counts the number of books she published but she can’t remember the total and there are too many essays to count. She has introduced and convenes the 19 Ways as forms for changing our minds in order to preserve creation. She also introduced Daré to North America in 1999 and has convened ReVisioning Medicine since 2004. She is imagining a Literature of Restoration to create a culture that reverses extinction and other violences against the earth and all life. deenametzger.net.