About the Book
"This is why you have come!" From across the crackling flames, the Maasai laibon, the shaman Sarototi, rises, points, shouting at me, "Someone has stolen the flow from your life and we can give it back to you!" His words ricochet off the stars, off the trees of the Sacred Forest of the Lost Child, from dimensions of time, penetrating through the walls of my porous skin into the very cells themselves---"and we can give it back to you...back to you...you." Without me revealing much of anything, someone has heard, listened, grasped, is willing to hold my story with all of its complications.
Across the Divide to the Divine: An African Initiation is of an American woman's initiatory journey before, through and after the Maasai Warriors, a story of reclamation. Inspired by the stories of the Kalahari, in search of more, Lewis takes flight from her fashion career to Botswana. Only to discover through an intuitive she had been a San Bush-woman in 1787, who was kidnapped by the Maasai and dragged across the continent to heal their elderly. This pronouncement will lead her to Kenya in and out of NYC on her holidays where she will be immersed in the culture through a naming ceremony, a water ritual and the final fire walk, which opens her heart, awakens her gifts, catapults her out of the corporate world, transforms the way she sees the world.
"Deeply rich and beautifully cinematic, this book is an escape into a secreted and disappearing world. A page-turning glory that holds the power to bring you beyond the demands of the overarching culture into the divine calling that is waiting in your wildest dreams. Incredible." Suzanne Kingsbury, The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me, The Gospel According to Gracey.
"Across the Divide to the Divide is an unceasing journey from America to Africa and back and forth, but also an unceasing journey into the self. Both are compelling for their passion."--Gay Walley, the erotic fire of the unattainable, Venus as She Ages Collection, The Waw
About the Author :
Born in Newton, Kansas, Dr. I. Murphy Lewis is a publisher, author, psychoanalytic Akashic shaman, and lecturer. She received her Masters (2005) and Doctorate (2007) of Philosophy in Mythology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA, with an emphasis in Depth Psychology and Culture; an Associate Degree in Fashion (1988) from Parsons School of Design in New York City; and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (1980) from the University of Kansas.Dr. Lewis is author of the young adult book, Why Ostriches Don't Fly and Other Tales from the African Bush (Libraries Unlimited, 1997), as featured on WABC News (2002). She is the director and producer of four short documentaries, Why Ostriches Don't Fly (1998), Music that Floats from Afar (2001), How do you Name a Song? (2003), and The Sacred Forest of the Lost Child (2007). She has given over forty speaking engagements to grade schools, junior and senior high schools; lecturing for National Geographic Journey of Man Trip (2008); The Sunflower Story Arts Festival, Mount Kisco, along with Diane Wolkstein (2009); African Art Exhibit at Northwest Missouri State University Department of Art and Horace Mann Laboratory School where she was broadcasted across the state of Missouri to the grade schools (2011); and for the American Business School's Psychology Department, Paris, France (2013). In 2002, in honor of the Kalahari San Bushmen and the Maasai Warriors and to benefit indigenous peoples, Dr. Lewis became the Founding Director of Global Voice Foundation, a fiscal sponsorship of Legacy Global Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit organization. GVF has provided water pumps, corn-threshers, education, food, medicine, and clothing. In 2018, GVF began working with Radio France's Radio Ndjoku in the Central African Republic to provide two jobs for the BaAka Peoples, giving voice to their everyday challenges, as well as to their music, which was recorded by Louis Sarno over the course of thirty years. In 2020, Dr. Lewis served as a juror in Radio France's ePop contest held to give voice to indigenous youth and elders dealing with the consequences of environmental and climate change. She created IML Publications, L.L.C. to produce art books, poetry and film by various female and indigenous artists. Dr. Lewis has had a high profile career in the fashion industry, as Vice President, Director of Sales for Badgley Mischka (1998-2001) and Halston (1997), and was formerly employed as International Director of Sales for Mary McFadden (1993-1996) and a Sales Manager for the Jean Muir Boutique at Bergdorf Goodman (1988-1991).Since 1995, Dr. Lewis has been researching the stories and recording the music of the San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa (10 safaris in). From 1998 to 2004, during six journeys into Laloshwa Highlands, Kenya, Lewis participated in the shamanic initiation rites of the Maasai Warriors, returning in 2013 for a seventh journey in. Through all her speeches, writings, illustrations, and unique lifestyle, Dr. Lewis opens our eyes to the magical trickster god, Mantis, and the transformative world of shamanism. When Lewis isn't traipsing through the Kalahari, she is immersed in a private practice of psychoanalytic shamanism with adults in the safety and love of the Akashic Records, editing others' book, and managing to faithfully write in her lifelong journal of forty-nine years, now 28,000 pages.In 2006, 2009-2011, Dr. Lewis lived in Copenhagen, Denmark researching, writing, and working with private clients. During this same time period, she trained psychoanalytically at the C. G. Jung Institut, Küsnacht. Switzerland.For the past twelve years, she has been residing in Paris, France with her Parisian husband, architect and urban planner.
