By the Light of My Father's Smile Book

"When life descends into the pit
I must become my own candle
willingly burning myself
to light up the darkness around me"

This poem is the last entry of the novel. It tells about the next best thing to "hope" for - creating one's self, not without sacrifice such as getting burned, but also not without gain such as transforming into a flame - a light of hope. Whether by burning or transforming, life is being created; creating is living. This only shows how powerful the novel's chant is: We are closest to the Creator when we create.

Perhaps women have the best opportunity, if not privilege, to enjoy such capacity to create. Early mothers created pots from clay; early society related the myth of creation to the clay - the first human beings were believed to have come from clay. It wouldn't be a surprise to hear that the Creator is a woman and her womb, the wondrous oven.

But stories,visions,and ideas such as these have been conquered, along with the lands, forests, waters, springs, peoples. "History" has written off stories of Woman the Creator.

However, in the case of the character Susannah, history was not able to completely write off the images of clay molded by a woman's hands. As she rediscovered herself, she came home to that part of history that was lost. Indeed, the capacity to develop compassion, peace, equality, security from within, is not something easily conquered. The self - love and intimacy with the self - is not something a passing historian can jot down and/or erase off. It is always there.

This also means that history is written all over one's body. A person searching for history is one meant to come home to one's body, one's sexuality - the core of loving one's self and not just for reproductive purposes. Searching for history in one's body is a "crossing over" within. Achieving this means having to lose one's mind, especially when the mind has been conquered by nations, sucked into the cloth of beliefs, monetized by markets, zipped shut by fathers and brothers (sometimes by mothers and sisters).

This is why the novel shares the image of a Mad Dog, which is considered wise because it has lost its mind. The idea is to have visions: "instead of thoughts, we have visions, and that is how we guide ourselves."

A dominant vision in the novel is that of the moon, like an image of a father's smile; a moon half hidden, half exposed, signaling and blessing the fullness of the woman's longing, desires, sexuality. On the other hand, the moon is also the woman; recognized as the Mundo, revered as much as the idea that the woman is a creator. And so history needs to be retold.