User:OZlive

Gita Dorothy Morena is a great-granddaughter of L. Frank Baum, author of the Oz books, through his son Kenneth Gage Baum and granddaughter Ozma Baum Mantele. Gita Morena provided the illustrations for her grandfather's book The Dinamonster of Oz (1991), and wrote The Wisdom of Oz: Reflections of a Jungian Sandplay Therapist (1998). An expanded edition of Morena's The Wisdom of Oz was published in 2001. And in the wake of an Oz resurgence in April 2013, the book was re-released under the title: "The Wisdom of Oz: What we can learn from the real-life Dorothy" by Waterside Press.

She was born Dorothy Mantele, and has stated that when her mother read her the Oz books during her childhood, she thought the books were about her. She adopted the name Gita (Sanskrit for "song") later in life, after experience with yoga and Indian ashrams. She earned a Ph.D. in transpersonal psychology, and taught at National University for a decade before setting up a private practice in San Diego. She is a teaching member of the International Society for Sandplay Therapists and hosts several Oz and Sandplay related workshops throughout the year. Morena also owns Sandplay Video Productions.

You can contact her through her blog, "Dorothy Gita Live".