In The Spirit Of Black Elk: Preserving A Sacred Way
Torrey James Lystra
(Red Hawk Books, Aug. 20, 2013)
"In The Spirit Of Black Elk: Preserving A Sacred Way", is Torrey James Lystra's introductory book to his "Sacred Earth Series". This true story describes his unusual journey to understand the restoration of site to the blind eye of one of his own sons in a native ceremony. Follow his beginning steps as he becomes a part of this ancient lineage of healers and seers. His first hand accounts of the natural and supernatural worlds he explores provide a spiritual, anthropological, and metaphysical view rarely ever shared in this manner. Probe the unknown with him as he traces his footsteps in transformation from apprentice to neophyte shaman. His original paintings and photographs to begin each chapter can be utilized to help you distill your experience and convey ideas not found in words. Connect your heart and mind to this material and you may discover it was written just for you. His unusual story begins in the backcountry preserve he managed and helped design with his meeting of his future grandfather-teacher Wallace Black Elk and his wife Grace Spotted. Receive many of his teachings as you listen in to conversations that went on between he and his mentors. The author explains such topics as humble shamans, purification, ancient traditions, sacred fire, sacred pipes, spiritual awakening, healing and help, vision quests as the author experienced them, yuwipi-stone dreamers, medicine stones, the author's initiation ceremony within the Great Pyramid, the author's naming ceremony, sacred clowns, unique dialogues with the angel spirit guide he first encountered within the Great Pyramid, and a wonderful orca calling ceremony on the Puget Sound in Washington State. This material was written to help illuminate the ecological, cosmological, and transformational wisdom of the "Sacred Way" he now travels.