A Big Sur shaman has published a book on personal and planetary healing.

Rob Somers didn’t want to write this book, but the spirit that directs his life kept saying: “You have to do this.”

Initially, he just wanted to share the concepts he learned from the Incan cosmology that profoundly changed his life, but decided he had to write down his whole story, from the end of his rock star years, through the depression he experienced after retiring from that lifestyle, to the fight with a Stage 4 cancer that was supposed to defeat him in six months.

The turning point in his biography came when Somers was deadly sick. He received an unexpected visitor.

“It’s the same voice we all have in our belly – that voice of conscience,” Somers says. “It came very loud, and it said, ‘You can live. It will be very difficult, but you can live if you follow my voice. But your life no longer belongs to you. It belongs to me. You are gonna have a path of service.’”

That was the beginning of his journey to becoming a shaman, documented in Shamergence. “My ego was so strong, the ego of a rock star, that it took this death sentence for me to be able to force me to my knees and surrender,” he adds.

Somers’ calling is to help people to move forward in a new direction in times of suffering and pain. Much of it is about the lack of balance between the feminine and masculine.

“I’m not talking about the gender, but the energy,” Somers explains. “The Incas believe we were born 70-percent the energy of our gender, 30-percent the energy of the other. With a lot of hard work, we can try to come into balance.” But the masculine has a death grip on power and is scared to let go.

Somers spent time exploring Incan mythology in Peru. One of the stories he tells to exemplify his point is that of the Eagle people, people of the mind, and the Condor people, people of the heart – the unconquered Indigenous people who hid from European colonialism in the mountains. The legend says there will be a time when the eagle and condor will fly together, combining the masculine mind and the feminine heart.

Currently Somers works as a shaman in Big Sur. He invites clients into his yurt and encourages them to feel the space. “It’s very special land,” he says about Big Sur, “because the Esalen Indians have been speaking to that land for 7,000 years.”

Shamergence by Rob Somers book release takes place at noon Saturday, March 21. Henry Miller Library, 48603 Highway 1, Big Sur. Free. (831) 667-2574, henrymiller.org