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Overview
Sandra Ingerman's deeply moveing debut, Soul Retrieval, captivated readers with its introduction of shamanic journeying, an ancient tradition of healig. With the characteristic warmth, passion, and authenticcity that have earned her worldwide recognition, Ingerman now continues to share her lifework with Welcome Home, an empowering action plan for creating a more positive future by truly letting go of blame and guilt.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780062198211 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 06/11/2024 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 210 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Sandra Ingerman is today's leading practitioner of soul retrieval and conducts workshops around the world. In the course of her career she has created an international alliance of shamanic practitioners and teachers. Sandra has an MA in counseling psychology and is a licensed therapist. She is the author of other books on shamanism and healing the environment.
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Plant A Seed And It Will Grow
Two years ago I felt a call to write this book, Welcome Home: Following Your Soul's Journey Home, and the story I've just told was "given" to me. Since the planting of that seed, the story has been growing inside me. So I now continue with my story as Siempre's journey becomes my own.
"What kind of future are you creating if you are stuck in the woundedness of the past?" In a deep sleep I heard these words resound. This question from a voice without any identity disturbed my rest. As I drifted in and out of the sleep state, I repeated it to myself: "What kind of future are you creating if you are stuck in the woundedness of the past?" These words were a powerful message for me, but I also found myself disturbed by them. I suddenly realized that as a community-as a society-we as human beings are not creating a future for this planet. What most of the people in the world around me are doing is re-creating the same abuses that they say they want to heal. We might re-create dysfunctional relationships with our friends and partners, in our workplaces, or in our communities that remind us of those who wounded us in the past. We might also find ourselves re-creating abusive behavior toward ourselves and others that reminds us of what we had to endure as children. The earth has been providing a stage for the dramas of our individual histories to be played out again.
As I thought about this, I came totally awake. There was just a hint of light, letting me know that morning would come soon. What a magical time! It is so still outside. There is no noise of traffic to disturb me. Thereare no other voices to invade my thoughts. Even the psychic airwaves are quiet as the people who live nearby are still lost to their dreams. The lack of visible and invisible noise and activity allows me to sink down and travel to the places inside myself where no one can intrude. I feel almost as if I alone inhabit the earth. I can be alone with my thoughts, with no voices to judge me. Even my critical mind has not yet awakened.
In my work as a shamanic practitioner and teacher of shamanism, I listen again and again to stories of hurt and abuse. It is hard to imagine what people have endured in their lives, and I find myself continually honoring people's courage as they confront the past abuse in their lives in order to heal. But I often become frustrated when I hear clients repeat stories of their past over and over, as if these are in some way all they have to offer. I sometimes find myself questioning the importance of this repetition. One obvious reason for it is the hope that retelling a story about past trauma will bring resolution. But while I was teaching a recent workshop, I began to wonder about this.
I was sitting at lunch, talking to some friends about my desire to travel to where my family originates in order to trace my roots. My family as I know it is part of the New World. My grandparents emigrated from the Ukraine before World War 11. When my family first came to the United States, they maintained some contact with those they had left behind. But at some point, all contact stopped. My mother and aunts and uncles all seem to remember different reasons for this lack of communication. The point, however, is that I have no knowledge of my family's history.
When I speak to my friends about how this feels to me, I hear a voice inside my head say, "People who don't know the history of their family and their roots have no other story to tell except their own personal history. People whose own history is one of abuse have only that story to tell." I now realize why it is so hard to move a person out of the woundedness of the past. The healing of the planet and those who inhabit it cannot take place until we stop re-creating the stories of the past. Unless we can create new stories, we are doomed to more illness and trauma.
Do people know that there is more to life than what they have already experienced? Do they even know where to begin in creating a new story? Once we have been on a healing path for a while, gathering pieces of ourselves that left us along the way, we have a great deal of potential for creating something different from what we experienced in our past. We are older now and have different options available than we did when we were young. As adults we have different tools available to us, And we have a responsibility to ourselves--and to all life on the planet--to behave in a life-supportive way. But the information we need in order to do this may not be easily available to us. What if we don't know about the people who went before us, trying to create better lives for themselves and their families? What if we don't know our roots, know the gifts and strengths inherent in our bloodline? We have to begin again.
As I lay in bed that night, my head swimming with ideas and questions, I decided to consult with my teacher for understanding, I picked up my deerskin drum from beside the bed and began to drum the monotonous beat that allows me to slow my brain waves down enough to gain access to the invisible world that exists around me. I feel the familiar tug on my solar plexus that pulls my soul up to a realm of calm and partial darkness where I can meet Isis. I couldn't see her clearly, but I knew by the feeling in my body that I had arrived at the home of my teacher.
Welcome Home. Copyright © by Sandra Ingerman. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.