From Mud To Lotus
I meant to behave, but there were too many other options.
By Pratibha Eastwood
Amid a cast of compelling characters, the memoir, From Mud to Lotus, charts the unforgettable journey of a passionate seeker willing to try it all to find out the meaning of life. This book is a good read that will transport readers into a deep place beyond shallow headlines. A read that embodies a psychologically astute understanding of different ways to understand love, belonging, and freedom.
Biography of Dr. Pratibha Eastwood
A native of Israel, Dr. Pratibha Eastwood traveled extensively and lived in India, Southeast Asia, Australia, Switzerland, and England before moving to Hawaii in 1983. Dr. Pratibha Eastwood is a twice-published author and a licensed clinical psychologist and has developed a software program on numerology.
She is a U.C. Berkeley graduate and taught at California State University at Sacramento Counseling Department. She provided various workshops to the community, including trauma healing, holistic health, and meditation. She is a Jungian Sandplay therapist and a marriage and family counselor. Dr. Pratibha Eastwood currently runs a successful private practice and has a reputation for being on the leading edge of her profession.
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Synopsis
The compelling, inspiring story of one woman's coming-of-age, set in three significant eras of war-torn Palestine, turned Israel to the tumultuous '60s in California and the spiritual journey that followed.
The book is divided into three parts:
Motherland – Palestine/Israel through the eyes of a child;
Fatherland – living in America;
And the Journey Home – a spiritual quest.
Part 1: Motherland, 1940-1967
This part of the story is told through the eyes of a Sabra (born in Israel) who mostly grew up in boarding schools until she was in high school. Born in Palestine to a Yekke (German Jewish) family faced with the British mandate and Arab and Jewish fighting in the streets, She also endured the ghosts of the holocaust at home. Through her experience of being sent away from home as a four-year-old entrusted with the care of her two-year-old brother and without the knowledge of where her parents were or whether they were even alive, she learns to cope with the chaos and resiliently survives. Her sense of grounding comes from her relationship to nature and the magic of a supernatural world hidden within it, which begins her spiritual journey. Her coming of age inspires a longing for a normal home, which she manages to manifest during her first marriage to Amit, an Israeli Air Force electronics mechanic.
Part 2: Fatherland 1967-1978
At her wedding, twenty-three-year-old, she reconnects with her long-lost father, who disappeared to America when she was five. Her dad invites her to visit in order to recuperate from her divorce from Amit in 1967, right after the Six-Day War. This section describes the experience of an Israeli provincial girl diving headfirst into the Berkeley, California counter-culture movement, the summer of love, and altered psychedelic states of consciousness. Her awareness opens to include free exploration of 'sex, drugs, and rock and roll.' These experiences transformed her understanding of what was considered normal as she redefined love, family, spirituality, community, and the license to live freely.
In the middle of this transformation, she musters up the courage and dedication to become a successful psychologist and university professor. This career move was discouraged by her family in Israel, who perceived her as "a mere woman," meant to be a housewife. She succeeds in accomplishing all that her grandfather was respected for in Israel: all the trimmings of normal living.
Her success, which included marriage to an American man, the acquisition of a big house, a good job, and two cars, brings her to an existential crisis that she can only define as "emptiness."
Part 3: The Journey Home 1978- 1993
Out of loss and desperation brought on by facing the illusion of the conventional standards of happiness, she dismantles her life yet again and leaves by herself to embark on a journey of self-discovery for the grail of "Truth" and "Life's meaning." In India and Asia, she immerses herself in meditation and the inner life, which form her new spirituality.
Life in Poona, India, at the Rajneesh Ashram opens her perspectives wider than drugs ever did. She learns the meaning of living in the present moment through the simple experiences of love, trust, surrender, and laughter. Within that mix, she finds a home for the first time in the form of her true self. She takes this new state of being and discovery on the road in her adventurous travels in Asia, finally landing in Hawaii, where she renews her practice of psychology and heals her relationship with both her parents and he magically finds ancestry
