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I, the Woman, Planted the Tree is an immersion experience for seekers, healers and dreams. This book is a journey into the dark feminine. This is a real, gut-wrenching and timeless story of woman’s search for the Divine Feminine. A surprising story of the desperation of and final release from seemingly endless depression, this book is for those who have found no relief either in talk therapy, the medical establishment, pharmaceuticals, or conventional religious and cultural institutions. It will appeal to many resting in an uncomfortable church pew or those who have abandoned the pew but still suffer from withdrawal., flashbacks and the long for communion with all.
A century ago, Sigmund Freud said, “Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.” Carl Jung agreed but was more subtle. “The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the psyche.” Working deeply with dreams, he went on to describe the collective unconscious. Dreams have been noted and found important in every culture on this planet: babies dream; animals dream. Pearl Gregor had a dream in 1988 that changed her life. This is the story of the dreamer and the dreams. Pearl sets aside her skills learned as an educator and administrator to forge a brand new path into the dark forest with the light of dreams to guide her.
A strange blue light pervades my whole being. My body is lifted. I open my eyes to unimaginable brilliant blue/white transparent light flooding the yard and filling the Mugo pine. Transcendence. Enveloped. My physical body vibrates and vibrates and … I am alive. I have no rational explanation for this. It is simply my experience. I am filled. Up. Full. I fly back into the house to undertake what before seemed like endless tasks.
Leanne Stam Engbers, Teacher and Educator, Langley, B.C. wrote:"This book is a gift. There is the deepest most personal kind of storying here; situated between the world of consensual experience, reason and the realms of the ineffable and meaning.The writing is mature and poetic and seduces one into reflecting on one’s own dance with the divine feminine.
Born of sinew and blood and seeds, this book of becoming - through madness and sanity -through the feminine and patriarchy, provides a gentle and powerful companion to those willing to courageously enter their own authentic journey to selfhood.
This first of a planned trilogy of books, Gregor offers herself as sacrifice in the most creative, soul-searching way; an exemplar for others. She writes from the sacred alchemy of her soul. Pearl has sacrificed her “identity as a spiritual daughter of the patriarchy” and bears witness to a resurrection 5000 years in the ripening- a beckoning to other women to follow."
"I, the Woman, Planted is a necessary voice in the dialogue of Western Culture’s patriarchy in institutions, organized religion and even family dynamics and expectations. Gregor captures the essence of this memoir of her journey toward self-actualization through dream work with a quote by Lao Tzu: “New beginnings may come from painful endings. The total transformation of a belief system is like changing something like water to steam.”
She does not dismiss truths in traditions within which she was raised, but boldly reassesses truths that are man-made. In her preface, she writes to her daughter, “Perhaps in your 40s, you too will have the inner strength to push your way out of the patriarchy and remember the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine, the hieros gamos or sacred marriage.” I have just spent two hours pouring over my dog-eared pages of I, the Woman, planted, writing down quotes that I want to reread, return to later, tweet out, or simply sit with. The reader beautifully loses touch with the ground of logic while reading about Gregor’s dreams and symbolic exploration, but is tethered by the tremendous collection of theological, psychological and professional research throughout.
Gregor provides information on the ancient symbol of wholeness: a labyrinth. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has no tricks or left-brain decisions; it is one path that leads you into the centre and out again. The choice is simply whether you want to enter or not. I was thankful I accepted the invitation to enter the labyrinth of Gregor’s dream work. By working through it, I found myself exiting, refreshed and ready to breathe life back into my own “dried up and desiccated symbolic life.”
As I journey past tall constructs in my life and stumble into new terrain of understanding, I feel courage. Like Pearl Gregor, “I don’t pretend to understand; however, I reserve the right to search.”
