Visions from the Heart

What will you encounter in this fanciful tale? A unique collection of historical characters: A young Lakota boy and his grandfather, two former members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition trying to be fur trappers, a wandering hunter who falls in love with a Mandan maiden. PLUS, The story of a North Dakota farm boy learning how to face his fears, who grows up and becomes a university professor with a troubled marriage, and who, in his seventh decade, wonders if life is still worth living. Weaving all of these strands together in a startling fashion is a mysterious human skull. This skull, found embedded in the Heart River in western North Dakota, transports anyone who gazes into its hollow eyes back into the vivid, rugged history of this region and into the lives of the people who once lived there.. VISIONS FROM THE HEART is the story of Samson Bartz and how his encounters with the time traveling skull shape his growing up, his relationships and his destiny. It is a tale of growing up and growing old. It is a story that imagines what we might learn if we could enter into the hearts and lives of those came before us and see this land through their eyes. VISIONS FROM THE HEART springs from the author's encounter with an actual human skull, found in one of the tributaries of the Heart River when he was a young boy. The story pays homage to the rough and subtle beauty of western North Dakota, to the awesome power of its storms and the glory of its starlight nights. It reminds us that we are always shaping and reshaping the past, thinking and rethinking the future. We are always time traveling. VISIONS FROM THE HEART carries you into the past and helps us think about our today and our tomorrow.