The Seventh Shrine

Meditations on the African Spiritual Journey: From the Middle Passage to the Mountaintop

By: Orland Bishop

Narrated by: Julie Sears

Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

When I navigate the currents of the soul, I find myself within my ancestral pool. I find myself swimming in their grief, and the longing during the great event and initiation called the Middle Passage. I find myself in their collective soul journey from a place of homeland to a dream of the Promised Land. This audiobook is a telling of the soul-striving of people of African heritage into the American experience of creating a community - a community created for the possibilities of new covenants within the larger collective sphere of human life.

The work to which I have dedicated my life is to attend to the ancestral shrines. Ancestral shrines are co-creative, imaginative influences on how I see the world. They serve to enhance the human encounters that form relationships and communities within which I work and live. The primary emphasis of my work is to support the recovery of the individual’s capacity to stand in openness for the higher purpose of one’s own life. My work is in service to the creative freedom of others.

This audiobook reveals through the spiritual tradition of African gnosis my identification with the impulses of particular individuals in the history of the African experience in America. Their lives and work reveal the spiritual frameworks that have guided me to my understanding of the promise of the spirit of America.

This audiobook navigates the flow of the American stream from sovereignty to slavery to service of the higher mandate of the collective soul quest for a covenant of prosperity into which human beings can live.

The spirit of America is born in this service.

©2019 SteinerBooks (P)2019 SteinerBooks

Beautifully Deep and Rich

There is so much to unpack here that I, who am not someone to do this, will be listening again, and will buy the book as well to follow along.

The material is dense at times, very easy at times. It highlights the work the author has done to verbalize very complex truths about reality in ways that are still accessible. He also weaves in deep, heartfelt storylines throughout, breaking up the intellectual download to remind readers we are fundamentally dealing with matters of the heart.

There are treasures beyond belief in this book. The author is a sage of our times.

Brilliant and Inspired

The only improvement I would hope for one day is that the author narrate the audiobook himself.

Startling lucidity within fluid storytelling

I guest became aware of Orland Bishop due to the timbre of his voice which is a gateway to awakening in and of itself. I hope he will one day record himself narrating this book. For now it is useful to listen to this clearly enunciated recording (Julie Sears, what were you thinking?!) while I follow along with a print copy. There is so much here, I look forward to reading it again and again and learning something new each time.

Incredible spiritual text

If you’d like to break the psychic spell of modernity and gather some insight on the practice of wholeness-making, this text is a must read!

A stirring, powerful, and timely reminder of our inheritance

This book is a sacred offering and potent guide to the work and opportunity of this time. Orland’s journey, service, and love for our shared future is a gift, and I look forward to reading and listening to this book many times over to continue to receive from it. Highly recommend!

AI reading most of the book

Please keep real humans reading ! It feels very disheartening to listen to AI. It is a very deep book by an African American writer about rites of passage for African Americans among other things. I don't feel like there was any thinking process about choosing white elder lady inspired AI reading it. Please dont turn Audible into another money making machine