In this real-life hero's journey, Mr and Mrs Smith walk a wild road where shamanic guides and otherworldly entities help them find their way home.
In this real-life hero's journey, Mr and Mrs Smith walk a wild road where shamanic guides and otherworldly entities help them find their way home.
Personal memoirs, Prayer & spiritual, Shamanism
Being Mrs Smith always did mean embracing the unexpected, but even Mrs Smith didn’t expect an Amazonian adventure.
When the horror of cancer touched the Smiths, they embarked on a journey to ultimate healing and peace. This is the story of their journey.
Faced with heart-rending decisions, they accept unmissable opportunities with a courageousness they never knew they had. In the deepest jungle regions, they encounter charlatans and shamans and learn to distinguish between them. Surrendering to the path that is theirs to take, they embrace ancient teachings and strange medicines, and grasp the opportunity to dance with the spirits of sacred plants, including that of Ayahuasca.
Far from home, the Smiths learn the true value of family and community as they place their trust in the wisdom of the indigenous elders, in themselves and in each other, and ultimately in Nature herself.
Here is a rare story of healing that tells of the melding of souls as Mr and Mrs Smith walk each other home.
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There are different ways to face the process which we will all go through when the flesh fails. But each time it happens – and it happens every day – we can either know it or fear it. This is a book that does not skimp on the reality of impermanence, and that is why it should be read. But most of all, because of the love that is and never dies. ~ Rev. Peter Owen Jones , priest & broadcaster, BBC documentaries Extreme Pilgrim and Around the World in Eighty Faiths
The great American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, whose work inspired the Star Wars movies, emphasized the importance of the ‘hero’s journey’ of self-discovery and healing. This journey — whether it is physical, psychological or spiritual — means leaving all that is comfortable and socially acceptable in order to encounter giants, dragons and other demons, heal your soul and bring that healing home. In fairy tales, the hero returns in triumph; in real life, the transformation may take a quieter but no less profound form. Cheryl’s lyrical love poem to her husband depicts a true hero’s journey. Mr. and Mrs. Smith took it together at all three levels, each one requiring more bravery than either of them ever thought they might have. They left their home, the conventional path, their consultant, their lifestyle, their country and, hand in hand, embraced the adventure that life was offering them. She writes of the inevitability of a happy ending; what is certain is that Being Mrs. Smith is a beautifully-written cocoon of love and happiness within the tempest of crisis. I have been in a similar position and I would have loved to have had Cheryl’s book to lead and inspire me to make such a journey myself. ~ Rev. Maggy Whitehouse, author of The Miracle Man and A Woman's Worth
Being Mrs Smith is an intimate, first-hand account of a couple’s healing journey through cancer. It’s also a love story. It documents Mr and Mrs Smith’s experiences with the health care system and their empowerment in moving beyond it to alternative modes of healing, including CBD oil, kambo frog venom, and the vegetal medicine ayahuasca in the Amazon. It offers a raw, honest account of living in the jungle and the politics of the tribes and the shaman circuit. And it shows, so beautifully, that happy endings aren’t as important as happy middles, because love is the thread that binds the whole story together after all. ~ Rak Razam, writer/ producer of Aya: Awakenings
