Prophecy on the River

Lights with no apparent source, heating her back while she walks along a riverbank, initiate American anthropologist Judith Hoch into an inspiring process of spiritual renewal. In this vividly written memoir, Judith describes what happened when she and her husband restored newly-purchased New Zealand land to native forest. It quickly becomes a spiritual as well as ecological task-and proves far more difficult than she ever anticipated. Faced with a challenging environment and hostile neighbours, Judith is surprised to find the degradation of the land is not just physical, but has spiritual and ancestral components that urgently need to addressed. Guided by her Miama-based spiritual advisor, Ernesto Picardo,and working with her Waitaha Maori friend, Aroha Ropata, Judith connects to the spiritual forces she needs for her ecological efforts to succeed.

Author Biography

Judith Hoch’s eyes were first opened to the world of spirit, music, and Africa’s rich oral traditions while carrying out doctoral research in western Nigeria, where she lived for two years among the Yoruba people. Her undergraduate work had been at Tulane in New Orleans, where she first encountered Vodou, while her Masters degree research was among Cree people in northcentral Quebec. This research made her very aware of the negative impacts of white colonialism. After receiving her Ph.D. from McGill University, Judith held faculty posts at two Florida Universities, where she taught anthropology and oversaw student research. She later became an exhibiting artist. During this period, she exhibited widely, won a national competition, and gave numerous workshops to discuss her ideas and work, using her art to explore the depths of non-western spirituality and expose the holocaust of the European witch trials. While living in Miami, Judith met a Yoruba priest, Ernesto Pichardo. He challenged her cultural assumptions around whiteness, and introduced her to Yoruba spiritual practices, including to her personal head Orisha, Eleggua/Eshu, the trickster. Judith also studied with the senior teachers of B.K.S Iyengar for many years, teaching at a yoga institute in Miami, and near her home in Aoteaora. Judith and her husband John first arrived in New Zealand in the 1980s, where they bought land, built a house, and planted native trees. There she was strongly drawn to Maori, and especially to Aroha Ropata, whose warmth, generosity and love of Bob Marley made her seem like an islander from the Caribbean, and very Miamian. Prophecy on the River has come out of this rich mix of travel, research, welcomed influences, and personal exploration.