From the Publisher
The Confessions of Inés might still languish in the library of the Mission Santa Barbara today were it not for the efforts of Stewart Buettner, a researcher from Portland, Oregon. In this work of fiction, Buettner tells the story of Inés María de la Encarnación Verdugo Villalba, one of the most controversial, spiritual figures in 19th-century California. Born into wealth in the early 1800’s in Alta California, Inés matures from a romantic and devout Catholic teenager to a wise and strong-minded woman of the spirit, by way of many changes involving powerful teachers, the forces of history, and her own developing love for a high desert valley east of Pueblo de Los Angeles and for the people who inhabit that valley.
The Confessions of Inés is an adventure story, with a strong woman protagonist. Leaving the security of her home and family, she builds a home in the desert with her own hands, suffers illness and hunger, is imprisoned at Mission Santa Barbara and subjected to mental torture, bears a child alone in the middle of a freezing storm, and stands up to the gunfire of enemy soldiers who come to seize her land. But she also experiences her share of joy, from the thrill of unrequited first love, to the satisfaction of learning the healing arts, to the ecstasy of physical love with the love of her life (a Shoshone shaman), to the great rewards of building a community, to the serenity of meditative gardening.
Most important, this is the story of a woman’s philosophical and spiritual development, from fervent Catholicism, to Shoshone shamanism, to Buddhism. Inés adopts and blends all three into a path that is right for her and for those who follow her. In the end, she is a martyr, remembered as St. Inés by those who knew and loved her as a healer and a visionary—a woman true to herself and to her friends and to that common spirit uniting the three philosophies that so profoundly affected her life.
Though Inés’ story is set over hundred and fifty years ago, the history, philosophy, and spiritualism it illuminates is vital and could serve as a guide to a more enlightened world in the twenty-first century.
From the Back Cover
"Inés is quick-witted, overly charming, and never ceases to amaze me with a knowledge of things far beyond her age.... If I have any complaint with her; it would be with the size of her spiritual imagination, which is so large it occasionally exceeds the bounds of true Catholicism."
With these words, Father José Sanchez describes Inés Maria de la Encarnación Verdugo Villalaba, better known to followers on the California frontier as St. Inés. All traces of this legendary figure would have been lost had it not been for the Confessions Inés was forced to write when held captive by Mexican soldiers, Confessions which she then amplified at the end of her life. On these pages, Inés recounts a remarkable adventure of physical and spiritual passion that—while fusing elelmenst of Catholicism, Buddhism, and Native American religion—could happen only in America. Inés may have lived in the nineteenth century, but her life serves as both mirror and guide for the New Spirituality of the twenty-first century.
Discover—
Why Inés’s Confessions were so long suppressed,
Who Inés’s spiritual masters really were,
Where Inés found the source of her great inner strength,
What made Inés so revered by generations of followers.
Stewart Buettner teaches art history at a small college in Oregon and has published three previous books.
