I. Murphy Lewis
- Producer
Early Life and Education:
I. Murphy Lewis, producer, director of shorts, author, psychoanalytic shaman, lecturer, was born in Newton, Kansas. Her early childhood was spent in Paola, Kansas riding horses and wandering the woods of Messer's. She graduated from Osawatomie High School and went on to finish her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas in 1980. She received a certification from Al Collins Graphic Design School (1985) in Phoenix, Arizona and completed an Associates Degree in Fashion from Parsons School of Design (1988) in New York City. She received her Masters (2005) and Doctorate of Philosophy in Mythology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA, with an emphasis in Depth Psychology and Culture (2007).
Early Career in Fashion: Lewis had a high profile career in the NYC fashion industry, as Vice President, Director of Sales for Badgley Mischka (1998- 2001) and Halston (1997), and was formerly employed as Director of Sales for Mary McFadden (1993-1996), Leonard of Paris (1992) and Managed the Jean Muir Boutique for Bergdorf Goodman (1988-1991).
Research and Travels in Africa: In 1990, Lewis began researching the stories of the San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert through the influence of Sir Laurens van der Post, who corresponded with her and gave her contacts in Africa. She journeyed into Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa on ten safaris from 1995 to 2010, filming, writing and recording the music of the Bushmen. From 1998 to 2004, during six journeys into Kenya, Lewis participated in the shamanic healing initiation rites of the Maasai Warriors, becoming a "laibon" or dream shaman. She returned in 2013. Her book, Across the Divide to the Divine: An African Initiation, will be published in January 2022 by IML Publications, LLC.
Organization: In 2002, Lewis became the Founding Director of Global Voice Foundation, www.globalvoice.ws a 501c3, a private operating foundation in honor of the Kalahari San Bushmen, to benefit indigenous peoples. Her organization has provided water pumps, corn-threshers, education, food, medicine, clothing, building of two school rooms among the Maasai Warriors, and presently funds the broadcasting of the BaAka Pygmies music recorded by Louis Sarno through Radio France's Radio Ndjoku in the Central African Republic, as well as helps employ two BaAka.
Books/Writings/Publications/Films: Why Ostriches Don't Fly: and Other Tales from the African Bush (Libraries Unlimited, 1997) www.amazon.com/Ostriches-Other-Tales-African-Folklore/dp/1563084023 Across the Divide to the Divine with the Kalahari San's Trickster God, Mantis an Essential Component in the Mythological Structure of an Individuated Culture (PhD dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute 2007) Music that Floats from Afar (2001) Director, Producer www.vimeo.com/205041438 How do you name a song? (2002) Director, Producer www.vimeo.com/205045535 Why Ostriches Don't Fly (2003) Director, Producer, Voiceover
Dr. Lewis is author of the young adult book and director of the short documentary film, Why Ostriches Don't Fly and Other Tales from the African Bush (1997, 1998), as featured on WABC News (2002). She is the director and producer of four short documentaries, Music that Floats from Afar (2001), Why Ostriches Don't Fly (2003) How do you Name a Song? (2002), and The Sacred Forest of the Lost Child (2007). In 1998, she researched and republished Lysbeth Boyd Borie's children's book, Poems for Peter (Shank Painter, along with IML Publications) from the original 1928 copper plates of J. B. Lippincott. She has given over forty speaking engagements to grade schools, junior and senior high schools; lecturing for National Geographic Journey of Man Trip (2008); The Sunflower Story Arts Festival, Mount Kisco, along with Diane Wolkstein (2009); African Art Exhibit at Northwest Missouri State University Department of Art and Horace Mann Laboratory School where she was broadcasted across the state of Missouri to the grade schools (2011); and for the American Business School's Psychology Department, Paris, France (2013).
She created IML Publications, L.L.C. to produce art books, poetry and film by various female artists. Her first publications include: Gail Segal's poetry, In Gravity's Pull (2002), and Gay Walley's The Erotic Fire of the Unattainable: Aphorisms on Love, Art and the Vicissitudes of Life (2007), which resold to Skyhorse Publishing (2015) and was successfully launched as a film throughout the world as The Unattainable Story https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3365280/ (2017) for which IML Publications/I. Murphy Lewis is an executive producer; and influenced Frank Vitale's film, Erotic Fire of the Unattainable: Longing to be Found (2020) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10489754/ both screenplays were written by Gay Walley. October 2021, IML Publications is launching under Gay Walley's other pen name, Jacqueline Gay Walley's Venus as She Ages Collection, 6 novels; Strings Attached, To Any Lengths, Prison Sex, The Bed You Lie In, Write She Said, and Magnetism. Through all her speeches, writings, illustrations, and unique lifestyle, Dr. Lewis opens our eyes to the magical trickster god, Mantis, and the transformative world of shamanism. When Lewis isn't traipsing through the Kalahari, she is immersed in a private practice of psychoanalytic shamanism with adults in the safety and love of the Akashic Records, managing to faithfully write in her lifelong journal of forty-eight years, now 28,000 pages.
In 2006, 2009-2011, Dr. Lewis lived in Copenhagen, Denmark researching, writing, and working with private clients, all the while pursuing unrequited love, which is the theme for Book 2 of her memoir, Across the Divide to the Divine. During this same time period, she trained psychoanalytically at the C. G. Jung Institut, Kusnacht. Switzerland. Since the fall of 2011 she has lived in Paris, France.
Early Career in Fashion: Lewis had a high profile career in the NYC fashion industry, as Vice President, Director of Sales for Badgley Mischka (1998- 2001) and Halston (1997), and was formerly employed as Director of Sales for Mary McFadden (1993-1996), Leonard of Paris (1992) and Managed the Jean Muir Boutique for Bergdorf Goodman (1988-1991).
Research and Travels in Africa: In 1990, Lewis began researching the stories of the San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert through the influence of Sir Laurens van der Post, who corresponded with her and gave her contacts in Africa. She journeyed into Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa on ten safaris from 1995 to 2010, filming, writing and recording the music of the Bushmen. From 1998 to 2004, during six journeys into Kenya, Lewis participated in the shamanic healing initiation rites of the Maasai Warriors, becoming a "laibon" or dream shaman. She returned in 2013. Her book, Across the Divide to the Divine: An African Initiation, will be published in January 2022 by IML Publications, LLC.
Organization: In 2002, Lewis became the Founding Director of Global Voice Foundation, www.globalvoice.ws a 501c3, a private operating foundation in honor of the Kalahari San Bushmen, to benefit indigenous peoples. Her organization has provided water pumps, corn-threshers, education, food, medicine, clothing, building of two school rooms among the Maasai Warriors, and presently funds the broadcasting of the BaAka Pygmies music recorded by Louis Sarno through Radio France's Radio Ndjoku in the Central African Republic, as well as helps employ two BaAka.
Books/Writings/Publications/Films: Why Ostriches Don't Fly: and Other Tales from the African Bush (Libraries Unlimited, 1997) www.amazon.com/Ostriches-Other-Tales-African-Folklore/dp/1563084023 Across the Divide to the Divine with the Kalahari San's Trickster God, Mantis an Essential Component in the Mythological Structure of an Individuated Culture (PhD dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute 2007) Music that Floats from Afar (2001) Director, Producer www.vimeo.com/205041438 How do you name a song? (2002) Director, Producer www.vimeo.com/205045535 Why Ostriches Don't Fly (2003) Director, Producer, Voiceover
Dr. Lewis is author of the young adult book and director of the short documentary film, Why Ostriches Don't Fly and Other Tales from the African Bush (1997, 1998), as featured on WABC News (2002). She is the director and producer of four short documentaries, Music that Floats from Afar (2001), Why Ostriches Don't Fly (2003) How do you Name a Song? (2002), and The Sacred Forest of the Lost Child (2007). In 1998, she researched and republished Lysbeth Boyd Borie's children's book, Poems for Peter (Shank Painter, along with IML Publications) from the original 1928 copper plates of J. B. Lippincott. She has given over forty speaking engagements to grade schools, junior and senior high schools; lecturing for National Geographic Journey of Man Trip (2008); The Sunflower Story Arts Festival, Mount Kisco, along with Diane Wolkstein (2009); African Art Exhibit at Northwest Missouri State University Department of Art and Horace Mann Laboratory School where she was broadcasted across the state of Missouri to the grade schools (2011); and for the American Business School's Psychology Department, Paris, France (2013).
She created IML Publications, L.L.C. to produce art books, poetry and film by various female artists. Her first publications include: Gail Segal's poetry, In Gravity's Pull (2002), and Gay Walley's The Erotic Fire of the Unattainable: Aphorisms on Love, Art and the Vicissitudes of Life (2007), which resold to Skyhorse Publishing (2015) and was successfully launched as a film throughout the world as The Unattainable Story https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3365280/ (2017) for which IML Publications/I. Murphy Lewis is an executive producer; and influenced Frank Vitale's film, Erotic Fire of the Unattainable: Longing to be Found (2020) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10489754/ both screenplays were written by Gay Walley. October 2021, IML Publications is launching under Gay Walley's other pen name, Jacqueline Gay Walley's Venus as She Ages Collection, 6 novels; Strings Attached, To Any Lengths, Prison Sex, The Bed You Lie In, Write She Said, and Magnetism. Through all her speeches, writings, illustrations, and unique lifestyle, Dr. Lewis opens our eyes to the magical trickster god, Mantis, and the transformative world of shamanism. When Lewis isn't traipsing through the Kalahari, she is immersed in a private practice of psychoanalytic shamanism with adults in the safety and love of the Akashic Records, managing to faithfully write in her lifelong journal of forty-eight years, now 28,000 pages.
In 2006, 2009-2011, Dr. Lewis lived in Copenhagen, Denmark researching, writing, and working with private clients, all the while pursuing unrequited love, which is the theme for Book 2 of her memoir, Across the Divide to the Divine. During this same time period, she trained psychoanalytically at the C. G. Jung Institut, Kusnacht. Switzerland. Since the fall of 2011 she has lived in Paris, France.