♪[ music ] good morning and welcome to mosaic. it's always good to host mosaic on behalf of my co-host. i'm an avid reader and some of my favorite kind of reading are memoirs and auto bi graphys because they share so much of what a person is going through and life stories and i just love them and so it's a great joy for me to have as my guest reverend donna and her memoirs, sleep, pray and heal.

and it's a rivetting story of her life and so she's my guest and i'm glad to have her. welcome donna. >> good to be here ron. >> great. great. before we get into the book tell us about your background and your experiences. >> well, i'm from california born and raised. active in the united methodist church and ended up going to seem reasm becoming a pastor marrying my husband and having two little girls. just loving every single minute of life and then one day we went to a fancy meal at a restaurant in lake tahoe and a 200-pound glass partition fell onto my head and in that moment i sustained a disabling head and neck injury. and so have not worked since and for 17 years i

relied on a cane, opioids and a wheel chair to get around. >> but you have work now. >> it's taken my eight years to write this book and i do a little preaching. with some of the head injury stuff you have to rest in order to let the brain come online so to speak. so i do a little bit at a time and the spirit and spiritualty has really helped me find my way. >> right and that's how rivetting and compelling the story has been. i've been moved by it greatly and we get further into it but your father is a great preacher, don. >> yes, he is. >> your husband's a preacher. >> yes. >> and has his doctorate on

spiritualty. >> he has a phd from san francisco. >> right. i had him on some years ago. it's great to have you. i know he's in the audience listening and eager to hear what you have to say. i'm sure he's read quite a bit of it. [laughter]. >> he's lived it and read it. >> right. . >> and edited out a few things. >> i'm sure. i love the book and how you relate to your family in it. your mom and dad, your sister and your husband and daughters. it was an amazing story. >> thank you. >> we're going to hear more in the next few seconds. tell us about this and why you chose those words to articulate your story. >> i'll do that. >> okay. please join us in our next segment with reverend donna sometimes called beto. [laughter] ♪ [ music ]

♪[ music ] welcome back to mosaic. if you just joined us we're talking to reverend donna ivory and her memoirs have just come out on sleep pray and heal and i'm always interested in titles of books but only not just the titles of the books but the chapters. so tell us about how you came about such an

interesting title. >> well after about 20 different ones this is the one that really set right. >> okay. >> and it set right because i've written it for the general audience not necessarily for the church audience. so i wanted a title that didn't sound too churchy. so there's one reason. >> okay. >> and another is that really sleep pray and heal are the three components that really come together where i find my path to wholeness and well being which is the title of the book a path to wholeness and well being. after my head injury i had difficulty speaking, thinking, seeing. i had double vision and my eyes would jerk as it would go across so i'd get terrible stomach aches and dizziness just from the ways my eyes work and

wouldn't focus. my left side was weak. i had difficulty walking and had chronic pain and so what my brain injury rehab physician instructed me to do is for every hour up i want you to lie down an hour because the brain must rest to heal and if you over do it you're on the risk of developing seizures and we don't want you to do that so i was in the--i was used to pushing it in order to get better. you know you go work out you do a little more you do a little more. you go beyond. you know? and i was an over achiever so it's like yeah push the envelope, push the envelope and all of a sudden it was turned on its head and said no, go to bed. you have a reputation of being

a good preacher so you had the approach. >> i had the reputation of being an excellent student and a great preacher and i loved being in charge and i worked hard and i would read at least a book a week just for development and all of a sudden i couldn't read a magazine article because i just couldn't do it. and so i had to find a whole new pair dime for how to get through the day and when you can't count on yourself for figuring things out or you can't count on your words to pray or you really don't know what you just did or the name of your nephew or how many cups of rice you put into the microwave into the pot in order to cook. that was two cups of rice with four cups of water. i couldn't count that because of my short term memory. i couldn't keep track counting

to two and four. >> your chapters are very captivating but you have three sections that stand out. tell us about those. >> yes. my first section i call breaking open and that is the time of the accident when the glass fell on me but it also broke me open spiritually because all of a sudden when you can't count on your words or knowing what to pray i kind of fell back into the very beginning the essence of the spirit who created me. and i call it the brushes of the spirit which you can feel it sometimes kind of like a little wind go this way or this way. the second section is prayers i found that all in these down hours what i was trying to work out would sit with me and i would paint my prayers and what

was phenommal that i was not expecting is that the spirit would become the messages of spirit about healing would be inside of the paintings like this one right here i call broken gifts and those are broken ostrich egg shells and it was the two year anniversary of my head injury and i was told by an attorney that for those two years pretty much what you got is permanent disabilities. >> did you bring that back from africa? >> brought the ostrich egg shells all broke and so i put them on a cross giving my brokenness to god. and in that painting the brushes of the spirit gave to me was i was feeling so discouraged with having not healed as i would hope because i thought you know if you have faith like a mustard seed you would be able to tell this

mountain to move but that wasn't happening with my brain injury so was my faith not good enough and the- -i wanted to return to normal and i thought that's what the feeling was but that painting of the cross and egg shells i saw a new person being born and oh wait a minute and the gospel healing and i could be disabled. i could be whole. i could be disabled and heal and it's like new life. resurrection together. that goes into creating anew's third section so it's breaking open, painting prayers and creating anew and those same brushes of the spirit i became intune with when they were moving and instructing me towards my path to wholeness and when it was my own mind i was telling you something because i'm very different so it's quite an education. >> yes, it is, you took seven or eight years.

>> yes. >> the way i read it. >> right because i have stories from my childhood and meeting my husband. >> right. >> and the spiritualty that give and take with god is, you know, that is the essence of the book. >> i love some of the pictures you have and we'll see them in the next segment. >> oh wonderful. >> so i'm glad you brought them. >> great. thank you. >> please join us. we hope that you join us in the next segment here. thank you. ♪ [ music ]

talking about mike our cameraman is going to show us some of those pictures.

we'll lift them up here at this point. there's one. >> i call this painting formed by tears and it's a self portrait painted very quickly in a hard spot i was in and it was my prayer about too much pain for too long and what i discovered is that i hate the pain because i thought i was supposed to be counting my blessings and staying positive and that's the way to get through it and as i sat and watched this painting dry i had to watch paint dry. that's the most boring thing you could do is watch oil paint dry for a month or two and i thought wait a minute the brushes of the spirit showed me the tears here are beautiful. >> well honest authentic and angry. >> that's right and to give god your tears and tears are holy waters at work and that's what the brushes

of the spirit told me. don't be ashamed of your tears. they're holy waters at work moving through you and it's a beautiful thing and i changed my impression of tears. no longer am i ashamed of tears and really the brushes of the spirit they move with honesty. . >> i like that. >> just like worship and spirit. it's like the spirit is a partner to truth and in fact an ax jesus says spirit is a partner to truth and so the path to wholeness is always grounded in truth. whatever you are experiencing and in the first year it's like well i should be better. let me take my mind off of it and it will all get better. that didn't work for me because i had a long journey and the only way to get fuel to move forward was to stay with truth and spirit which is honestly. >> love the brushes of the spirit. >> thank you. >> i might use it as a title and give you credit for it. >> all right. >> let's see another picture there. yes tell us about that one.

. >> i call this painting rocking loss. and one of the effects of my head injury is that i couldn't rock my baby who was nine months old at the time of my injury so i went through a lot for a couple years just being very angry that that was stolen from me. i had to quit nursing. could not rock her and get sick riding in the car or any time there's motion around me. so i painted my prayer of this old rocking chair and as the chapter in the book that's called rocking lost about this painted prayer and what i discovered here i sewed empty cradling arms in a mat out of the blanket sleepers war grew out of and that's really where my heart was that i was mourning the rocking loss and you know what, ron? it was so amazing when finally in the moment i finished this painting finally

that monkey on my back that grief and anger over having lost that time with my infant it finally left because i had taken it to god and leave it there in prayer and it was always right back there. i was always so angry. >> you say in the book leave it there. >> that's right. leave it there and when i finished the painting and i can touch those blanket sleeper arms it's like i gave that grief a home to reside and that's the brushes of the spirit showing me how to walk forward when you're sorrowful. >> what i have not asked you to thought of it now how long did it take you to do those paintings? >> well, there's three years. these are the brain injury paintings the initial ones. some of them took five minutes some of them took three or four months. >> i see. >> and it just depended on where i was at and how honest i was being and there are a lot of paintings

that aren't there that should paintings. you should feel this way. you should be doing this. and i wanted bright stars, something beautiful as the creative spirit just wasn't moving with that. and so it was like--so a lot of paintings got off the way side because they weren't telling the truth. and that is where the spirit moved. >> isn't that something? i had the privilege of hearing and seeing smoky robinson a few months ago. . >> oh! . >> he took about five minutes to do one of his songs, cruising but it took him five years to do my girl which turned out to be one of the greats. >> yeah. like the form by tears the one of me crying that's a five minute painting because that was two colors of paint and that was it. >> i hear that. let's see another one.

. >> yes tell us about this >> i call this the portrait and from the inside looking out is a painting of fears. there are broken spaces where my brain isn't connecting to one another and the way i did this painting is i threw a mirror on the floor to see what happens when glass falls because that was my prayer what lord happened to me when that glass fell on me and i cut a pastel dromping into the same pieces as the broken glass. >> how long did that take? >> that was about four weeks. >> oh, okay. >> but that's also on the path of me being up two hours a day. i do a little bit, lie down, do a little bit. back and forth with the sleeping praying and healing that kind of gentle tidal motion. >> let's see the last two pictures of the family

before we go to the next segment because we run out of time but i want to see the wedding pictures. what year was that? >> 1986. >> 1986. >> that's reverend dr. hubert ivory and we were married in fresno and. >> your dad did it? >> my dad did it. we had so many ministers in the wedding. everything possible but that was wonderful. >> let's see the family. there's your two daughters. >> that's with rocking lost with my youngest daughter and that's the first time i shared my painting publicly. >> wonderful. how old are they now? >> 30 and 26. . >> wow. [laughter]. >> they're not little girls anymore. [laughter]. >> i remember when they were little girls. look at that. >> that's right. >> that's amazing. thank you. we'll have another segment and

we'll look forward to one more form she has for us and one more picture that i think is important for us to see. ♪ [ music ]

>> reverend donna ivory we talk

about creating a new in the segment of her book and i wanted her to read the form that i think would be so important to this christmas season which we look for the new, the christ child and dancing with pain and the story also. this poem expresses that. share with us. >> thank you and this poem goes with the painting dancing with pain that has the dancing with a body of broken mirrors. >> yes. >> dancing with pain. i do not choose to have paper as my partner. following my every step. bending my body to its intention. holding me always with cutting arms, tripping me up to fall fully into its blunt harsh body. reflecting distorted and exaggerated aspects of me. i do not choose to have pain as my partner. for three years i've grown into knowing this partner of mine called pain.

i've cut onto just an eb of a stunning suspicious secret about pain's way. shh. why the secret? perhaps the face of pain is so gruesome my fear over a cooperative character of pain. pain follows rhythm. i step forward, pain steps back. for a moment then lickity split pain steps forward again i over do too many steps at once. pain cuts in. i can do as long as i keep rhythm with pain. pain follows rhythm. with pain as my partner i can dance. sashe, triple step, step together, step back, tapp tap moving rejoicing the sheer freedom as body blends with breathless desire of soul. i can dance. it is a precarious delicate dance i live with this nasty partner called pain but pain follows and knows rhythm therefore i choose to improve my dancing

skills. i will out wit, out step, out invent. i will keep up a joyous movement while keeping in rhythm with life's music while keeping in rhythm with pain while i become so advanced that i will take the lead. . >> love it. i'm glad we took the time for that. >> thank you. >> it's better than dancing with the stars any time. [laughter]. >> we left out the website. how do you get your books and any book readings coming up? >> i have a website adventures in healing.com and you can get there by donna beto ivory.com and adventures of healing. sleep pray heal can be found at any bookstore anywhere just ask for it and i also sell them on my website and amazon and barnes and noble. everywhere. >> great. second question when is the next look? >> the next book is in 2020. . >> okay.

i call it sleep pray fly and it's working with a healer and the brushes of the spirit and how i restored the ability to walk again. >> we can dance in pain. >> that's right. >> i love that. >> that's right. >> thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> and i'm sure the congregation and audience is listening to be inspired and lifted and feel resilient because of your example. >> and the resiliency of you know christmas. >> oh yes. >> the maininger and everything going wrong. >> that's right. >> but yet the star shone and jesus came. >> right. thank you for joining us. i'm ron swisher and i hope that you have been lifted by the story that's in this memoir that's so gripping you will be deeply moved if you read sleep pray and heal by reverend donna ivory. god bless you during this season. may god always be with you.

the brushes of the spirit thank you for joining us. ♪ [ music ] you know when you go to ross for a few gifts and realize... oh yeah! you should've gotten a cart? that's yes for less. get gifts for everyone on your list and save 20 to 60 percent off department store prices. at ross. yes for less.

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fo live from the cbs bay area studios, this is kpix5 news. a pair of empty buses caught fire making traffic worse than normal for holiday travelers. the younger brother of a 49ers backup quarterback was killed this weekend. what pod believe led to that deadly stabbing. the plan and multiple bills representative jackie spheres is pushing in congress. is is 6:00 a.m. on this december 20th, 2019. >> thanks for joining us. i'm devin fehely. emily turner has the morning off. let's get a check of the weather this morning. heavy rain as i drove up. >> yes, widespread experience right now devin. we're seeing some of the best