There are places that hold memory. Not just in photographs or stories, but in the land itself. In the soil, the air, the way the light falls at dusk.
This past fall, I returned to one of those places. Lynn Andrews’ home in Arizona.
Lynn was my teacher. The woman who helped me find my voice again when I thought I’d lost it forever.
Years ago, struggling with writer’s block, juggling motherhood and the weight of watching my birth country torn apart by war, I picked up her book Writing Spirit. One phone call to ask for literary advice turned into four years in her shamanic Mystery School, a journey that would transform everything. I’ve written about this experience in my four-part memoir series, Healing Wisdom for a Wounded World, because Lynn’s teachings didn’t just help me write again. They helped me live again.
Lynn passed away two years ago, but her legacy lives on. Her daughter, Vanessa, now carries forward her mother’s work, honoring the wisdom that has touched so many lives across the world.
The Teacher I Never Expected to Find
Lynn V. Andrews was a New York Times bestselling author who wrote 21 books chronicling her three decades of study with shaman healers on four continents. Her journey began in the 1970s when she traveled to northern Canada seeking a sacred marriage basket and encountered Agnes Whistling Elk and Ruby Plenty Chiefs, Native American healers who would become her teachers and change the course of her life.
What started as a quest for an artifact became a spiritual awakening, one she shared with the world through her Medicine Woman Series. In books like Medicine Woman, Jaguar Woman, and Star Woman, she chronicled her experiences with the Sisterhood of the Shields, 44 women healers from cultures across the globe, from Panama to Nepal to Australia.
For thousands of years, these women have practiced, guarded, and handed down sacred feminine teachings from shaman to apprentice, mother to daughter. The Sisterhood remained hidden, appointing Lynn as their public messenger.
When I read her books for the first time, I recognized something in them. A truth I’d been searching for without knowing it.
A School Without Walls
In 1993, Lynn founded what she called “The Way of the Wolf,” a four-year Mystery School without walls. She created this program so that people around the world could access these ancient teachings without leaving their homes, without uprooting their lives.
I was one of those students.
When I joined the Mystery School, I thought I was signing up to heal my writer’s block. I had no idea I was about to confront wounds I didn’t even know I carried, wounds from my childhood in Iraq, from the trauma of war, from trying to fit into a culture that didn’t fully understand where I came from.
The school taught me how to see energy. How to heal the blocks within myself. How to remember who I was beneath all the conditioning and fear.
Lynn used to say, “Everyone has indigenousness in them, not just Native Americans.” She believed that ancient wisdom lives in all of us, across every culture and continent. That we are all keepers of Earth and memory. As a Chaldean woman carrying 5,000 years of Mesopotamian heritage, her words gave me permission to honor my own ancestral roots, to see that my story, too, was sacred.
Under the Arizona Sky
When our group arrived at Lynn’s home this fall, I felt her presence everywhere. In the red rocks. In the vast Arizona sky. In the quiet spaces between words.
We gathered under the stars one of the nights. Lying on the earth, looking up at the endless expanse of sky, I felt something shift. The desert has a way of stripping everything unnecessary away. Out there, under those stars, there was no room for pretense. Only truth.
I thought about all the times Lynn had told us: “You are not separate from the Earth. You are her daughter.”
Lying there, I understood what she meant. The land was holding us. The way a mother holds her child.
Vanessa, Lynn’s daughter, now tends to this sacred space, shedding light on the work her mother began, keeping the teachings alive for those who seek them. Watching her honor her mother’s legacy reminded me of the responsibility we all carry to pass on what we’ve learned, whether through books, teachings, or simply the way we live our lives.
With Vanessa, Lynn’s Daughter, During Our Visit to Arizona
Honoring Her Legacy
I’m now creating a documentary about Lynn’s teachings called Indigenous Wisdom: Keepers of the Ancient Ways. Part of it will be filmed at her home, weaving together her voice, her legacy, and the global reach of her message.
Because Lynn’s work was never meant to stay in one place. It was meant to travel, like seeds on the wind, landing wherever hearts were ready to receive it.
The documentary will honor not just Lynn’s journey with Agnes Whistling Elk, Ruby Plenty Chiefs, and the other teachers she wrote about in books like Crystal Woman: Sisters of the Dreamtime and Windhorse Woman, but also the universal truth she taught: that sacred feminine wisdom exists in every culture. That we all carry ancestral knowledge. That healing ourselves heals the world.
What the Journey Taught Me
Visiting Lynn’s home again reminded me of something I often forget in the rush of daily life: sacred spaces hold us, even when we’re not physically there.
The teachings I received in her Mystery School didn’t end when I graduated. They live in me. In how I write. In how I parent. In how I show up in the world.
Over the years, I’ve learned that healing isn’t linear. That we return to the same lessons again and again, each time at a deeper level. That transformation isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about remembering who we’ve always been.
Standing in the place where Lynn lived, where she prayed, where she gathered women from around the world to remember their power, I felt the full weight of that gift.
For Those Who Are Seeking
If you’re curious about Lynn’s teachings, I encourage you to explore her work. Her books are available both in print and as ebooks, and her school continues to welcome new students.
There are also gatherings held throughout the year, like the Spring Gathering in Michigan, where students and apprentices come together to continue the work.
For me, writing my memoir series Healing Wisdom for a Wounded World was my way of honoring Lynn and sharing what her teachings did for my life. If any part of this resonates with you, I’d love for you to explore that journey with me.
A Final Thought
As I left Arizona, I looked back at the land one last time. The red rocks. The wide sky. The quiet that holds everything.
Lynn used to say, “The Earth is always speaking. We just have to remember how to listen.”
I’m still learning how to listen. But I know now that sacred ground doesn’t just exist in faraway places. It exists wherever we choose to remember. Wherever we choose to return. Wherever we choose to honor what came before us and what will come after.
Thank you, Lynn. For the teachings. For the courage. For showing me and so many others the way home.
The Path of Consciousness 