Águila: The Vision, Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Two-Spirit Shaman in the Ozark Mountains

In Águila: The Vision, Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Two-Spirit Shaman in the Ozark Mountains, María Cristina Moroles traces the path of her extraordinary life from the streets of Dallas to the wilderness of the Arkansas Ozarks, where she has resided for fifty years. Hailing from a large Indigenous and Mexican American family in Texas, Moroles apprentices herself to healers and shamans across the Americas as she follows the spiritual vision that leads her to establish a mountaintop sanctuary for women and children of color in a notoriously insular location in the Ozark Mountains. This is a survivor’s tale, and a back-to-the-lander’s tale, unlike any other. From early traumas to countercultural rebellion and profound spiritual awakening, Moroles recounts milestones that earn her the ceremonial names SunHawk and Águila, as she builds a sustainable community off the grid, atop a mountain otherwise uninhabited by human life. Águila tells the truth of one woman’s search for freedom and all women’s quest for dignity as it celebrates the healing powers of nature.

María Cristina Moroles is matriarch of Arco Iris, a healing sanctuary in the Ozark Mountains originally established for women and children of color and the queer community and now open to all people seeking healing. Moroles lives on the five-hundred-acre wilderness preserve in community with her children, Jennifer and Mario; visiting students; and other resident stewards. Also known by the ceremonial name Águila, she incorporates her Indigenous and Mexican American heritage in her work as a curandera, master massage therapist, and shaman. She is co-founder of the Arco Iris Earth Care Project.

Lauri Umansky teaches history and directs the Heritage Studies PhD Program at Arkansas State University. Her books include Motherhood Reconceived: Feminism and the Legacies of the Sixties, Naked Is the Best Disguise (pseud. Lauri Lewin), ＂Bad＂ Mothers: The Politics of Blame in Twentieth-Century America, Impossible to Hold: Women and Culture in the 1960s, and The New Disability History: American Perspectives.