| The EDGE Interview with Sandra
Ingerman by Tim Miejan Sandra Ingerman, author of the groundbreaking book Medicine for the Earth: How to Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins (Three Rivers Press, 2000), is best known for her work with shamanism and soul retrieval. She wrote Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self more than a decade ago, yet still commands a large following because of her continued research and ability to translate new ideas to a hungry audience. She teaches workshops on shamanism around the world and was formerly the educational director of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, directed by Michael Harner. Sandra is recognized for bridging ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern day culture addressing the needs of our times. Her new work, coming from Medicine for the Earth, is not about protesting, picketing or any kind of outer activism to cure the Earth of its pollution. Rather, she teaches an inner, alchemical process that is steeped in scientific research. She spoke with The EDGE from her office in Santa Fe, N.M. We're here today to talk about Medicine for the Earth. Let us begin by talking about the Earth itself. Do you have a deep connection with the Earth? Sandra Ingerman: I have a deep love for the Earth. As a child, I always appreciated the beauty of the Earth, and even though I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., I'd come home from school every day and sing to the trees and at night I'd lie out on the lawn and sing to the stars and the moon. It's just always been an inherent part of me to really love the Earth. To grow up and continually watch how much of the Earth is being destroyed has just always hurt me. I've had a particular interest in rivers and that's how I got involved in all of this work. Tell me about your connection with the rivers and how that led you to the book. Ingerman: I worked part time at San Francisco State University teaching people how to study. My job was nine months a year, so I would go up to Oregon where I had friends and work the three months that I was off from teaching. I was a firefighter one year, a pine-cone picker one year for the Forest Service. There was a beautiful river called the South Umpqua River that we lived on. I just really loved this river and got to spend a lot of time with it. My bachelor's degree is in marine biology from San Francisco State, and I started to wonder if there was a way to reverse river pollution after spending so much time on the South Umpqua. I decided to apply for my master's degree in biology and my thesis proposal was to be on the issue of reversing river pollution. But as I became really involved in my application process, I realized that I really missed working with people. When I lived in New York, my original course of study was psychology. I decided to put my master's in biology on hold and I ended up going to an alternative graduate school in San Francisco called the California Institute of Integral Studies and I got my master's in counseling psychology. While I was getting my master's in 1980, I was introduced to shamanism. Since then, as a part of my personal spiritual practice, I started to turn my attention more from scientific ways of reversing environmental pollution to exploring whether there are there spiritual ways to help in reversing environmental pollution on the planet. For 20 years, I explored that in my own shamanic journeys and researched miracles from different traditions, from the Bible to the Kabbalah and various Taoist, Hindu, Yogic, Alchemical, Egyptian and shamanic work. I wanted to look at what the ancient people knew about creating miracles, because there are endless stories of miracles that were done. How could we take some of that information and bring it into our environmental situation today? My shamanic journeys and research gave birth to my book, Medicine for the Earth. So this is actually the book you've been long wanting to explore more deeply for a long time. Ingerman: Yes, for a very long time. My interest in the environment goes way back. I can remember being a little girl in Brooklyn and walking down the street to my father's store. People would dump garbage on the street and I'd walk up to them and say, "The earth isn't our garbage pail." This was at the age of 5. They probably said, "Sure, kid," walked away. Ingerman: Well, I'd pick it up and throw it in the trash. But what you said probably didn't mean anything to them. Ingerman: No, no, not at all. We could spend hours talking about our current president and his environmental irresponsibility, but beyond that, do you have a sense that people in leadership are aware that there's a problem and they're just ignoring it or do they truly not understand? Perhaps they're not at the consciousness of understanding the connection. Ingerman: I think it's both. I think that there's a tremendous amount of ignorance. There are a lot of people out there who are really ill-informed here in America, and that's been one of the big messages I've been trying to put out on my web page [www.shamanicvisions.com/ingerman.html]. Start to write letters to editors, not from a place of anger, but just trying to educate people the situation that we're in. I teach a lot in Europe, and the Europeans are horrified at the behavior of Americans towards the environment. I've tried to explain to people there that people just don't know better. There's a real lack of education about what's happening in the environment. Part of the problem is that we are not focused on the spiritual side of life. We're so stuck in the material world right now. People look at the short term and they don't care about the future. It amazes me, that the leaders of this country have children growing up who are being exposed to toxins that we know are going to have devastating effects on their health. Aren't they thinking about their children? What did your research tell you about you about miracles from other cultures in terms of transforming toxins? Ingerman: Being an ex-scientist, when I read books about miracles in different spiritual traditions, I tried to come up with key elements that all of these traditions worked with when miracles were created. Then I came up with a formula that has seven different parts to it. The elements cannot be taken separately. You need to see them more as a hologram. What I found is that the seven keys -- intention, concentration, focus, love, harmony, union, love, focus, concentration, harmony and imagination -- equal transmutation, transformation or a miracle: Intention -- For all miracles to happen, we have to hold a strong intention of what we want to see happen. Concentration -- Holding an intention involves concentration. Focus -- We must be able to maintain a focus on our goals, so focus and concentration work together. Love -- All miracles seem to involve union with a Divine force, such as what Jesus would talk about when he would use the words, "Heal in my name." The true Aramaic translation of what he was saying was to know God and heal as God does. Jesus would actually not petition God for help, but he would be in union with God. Sai Baba is a very popular Indian guru who is known for creating all kinds of miracles, manifesting lost objects and healing people. I love the line that he says: "The only difference between me and you is I know who I am and you don't." He knows that he's Divine and we've forgotten that. Those are just a couple of examples. Love is an essential ingredient in all miracles. Only love heals. When you look at different mystical cultures, it's really clear that techniques don't heal. Love is the great transformer. When there is an open heart, there is the energy to bring through miraculous energy. Harmony -- The principle of harmony within will create harmony without. That comes form an alchemical point of view. In alchemy, it's seen that our outer world is really a reflection of our inner world, so if we find harmony within ourselves, that will create harmony outside of ourselves. Imagination -- This is an important key in performing miracles, for we have to be able to envision an environment that is pure and clean and supports all of life if we are to sculpt that world. Shamans around the world talk about the fact that we're dreaming the wrong dream. I think people in our culture have actually forgotten how to use our imaginations to start to envision a world that would support all of life. Astrologer Carolyn Casey says, "Imagination lays the tracks for the reality train to drive down." Union -- Appreciation brings you to a state of union with the source of all life. I have put together workshops to put all of those keys together and show people that we do have the ability to transform the world that we live in. One of my biggest messages in the world right now is that it's who we become that changes the world, not what we do. So, in looking at changing the environment from a spiritual perspective, we're really changing who we are so our outer environment will reflect that back to us. I have done some scientific experiments to actually check out if these practices actually work. Give an example of what you looked at scientifically. Ingerman: A physicist who I'm working with suggested that we work with ammonium hydroxide, which is a very common and dangerous pollutant in the environment. It's very easy to check for its presence with pH strips. We put it in ionized water, which is water containing no minerals. We prepare by doing some spiritual practices. The ceremony is to get people to tap into their Divine source inside of themselves. In the same room, we have the water with the ammonium hydroxide. We also have a control someplace on the property where people don't know where it is. So far, after a 20-minute ceremony we've changed the pH anywhere from one to three points, which, from a scientific point of view, is impossible. For a group that had never done a lot of spiritual work together before, that's pretty amazing. I have been teaching these workshops for a couple years now, so we've had a lot of opportunity to keep testing this over and over again. In the bigger picture, the goal is to see a shift in society's mindset? Ingerman: Yes. One person at a time? Ingerman: I definitely live in a fantasy of loving to wake up tomorrow morning and everybody's become conscious, but, it doesn't seem to be happening. I've been teaching shamanism since 1983 and traveling around the world. I'd have to say that the world is a lot more conscious than it was in my parents' generation, but things change pretty slowly. You have to have a lot of patience in your business. Ingerman: Oh, God, yes. But, if you look at all mystical traditions, every esoteric tradition understands the idea of "as above, so below" and "as within, so without." I'm bringing forward one part of the puzzle. There are many wonderful people out there who are doing incredible environmental work, and I think everybody's getting a piece of the puzzle. I don't think anybody's going to get the whole thing. We have to learn how to work together as a community to work with the world situation today. So the piece of the puzzle that I'm trying to add to the other work that's being done is that if you change your consciousness inside, if society does change, if the collective does change, that is one way to create a different world. That idea goes along with the quantum physics point of view too, which is becoming quite popular right now. When I look at this culture, I see that it's in despair. I used to be a psychotherapist. We're all aware of the statistics of depression and how many people are on antidepressants. It's because their lives are empty. They've gotten trapped in believing that it's important to collect material objects, but people are really searching for something deeper. They just don't know what it looks like. Do you think we're collectively in that place where we're hitting bottom and maybe, in a quantum leap, things are just going to shift suddenly. Ingerman: I do believe that. I just don't know where bottom is. How far do we have to go? I hope not too much farther. My own opinion is that we're seeing an end to hierarchical structures and that I think that our new myths are going to be where the heroes and heroines are communities of people coming together to create change, instead of one or a few coming together. I really do believe that it's going to take a community effort. What would you say to somebody who feels strongly, as you do, about the plight of the environment? What can people do in their everyday lives to begin helping? Ingerman: One of the biggest ways of creating miracles is through honor and appreciation and gratefulness. I have a chapter in my book on the power of appreciation. Water is a living being, just as fire, earth and air are all living beings. A real simple practice is to be in a place of thanks, appreciation and gratefulness for the life that these elements are bringing to you. As you drink water, taking it in, as you wash your face, as you shower, as you do the dishes, thank the water for its life and recognizing it as a living being. As you breathe, when you can remember throughout the day, give thanks for the life that air is bringing to you. And give thanks for the life that the sun is bringing to you, the life that the earth brings you from the food as you eat. And as you eat your food, try to realize that what you're really eating is light -- pure light and energy -- so you start to transmute. By having that perception, you actually can start to transmute the toxins so that you're taking in love and light instead of toxins. Tim Miejan is editor of The EDGE. Contact him at (651) 578-8969, toll-free 1 (888) 776-5687 or e-mail editor@edgenews.com Copyright (c) 2003 Tim Miejan |
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