When the Bright Moon Rises: The Awakening of Ancient Memories is Dena Merriam’s rich and extensive story of her past lives.

This, her third book is a love story between the sages and the cosmic forces known as the deities, love of the sages and of the people, and love between individuals seeking to express this universal force of love that exists within us all. It is a study of karma, the cosmic law of cause and effect. Dena’s weaves her story through her life that begins in Vedic India around the 9th century BCE when two people meet and the seeding of a love that cannot be fulfilled then but comes to fruition nearly 10,000 years later during the Tang Empire in china when they are reborn as the poet Li Bai and his poet wife. The awakening of her previous births initiates an inner struggle that is only resolved under the guidance of her Daoist Master. This is the story of love and compassion, trust, truth, living with grace and inner peace. This is her story.

Dena is an author, storyteller and the Founder and Convener of the Global Peace Initiative of Women (GPIW), which seeks to bring spiritual resources to address critical global challenges, such as conflict, social justice, and ecological scarring of the earth. Over the years she has worked to bring greater gender balance and between the Abrahamic and Dharma-based religious traditions for a more inclusive interfaith movement.

Merriam served as Vice Chair of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and convened a meeting of women religious and spiritual leaders at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, and from that gathering founded the Global Peace Initiative of women in 2002. Among GPIW’s many programs is the organization of a session on the inner dimensions of climate change as the annual UN Climate Summits. In 2008, Merriam was one of the founding members of the Contemplative Alliance, which later became a program of GPIW and which explores hoe meditation and contemplative practices are reshaping the spiritual landscape our societies.

For over 40 years, Dena has been a devotee of Paramahansa Yogananda, a practitioner of Kriya Yoga meditation, and a student of the great texts of the Vedic tradition. Merriam received her MA from Columbia University in Sacred Literature. She has served on the boards of the Harvard Center of Study of World Religions, he Interfaith Center of New York, The International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, Manitou Foundation, All India Movement for Seva (AIM for Seva), the Gross National Happiness Center in Bhutan and as an advisor to the board of Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Association.

In 2014 she received the Niwano Peace Prize for her interfaith peace efforts.

She is the author of My Journey through Time: A Spiritual Memoir of Life, Death and Rebirth and The Untold Story of Sita: An Empowering Tale for our Time. She is currently working on a book entitled Rukmini & the Turning of Time: The Birth of an Era expected release in 2021. Find out more about Dena Merriam at http://www.gpiw.org/