It is a marvelous paradox—integral to this blog—that none of us is special and each of us is special.  I find this truth at once inspiring and humbling.

Special: of a distinct or particular kind or character; having a specific function or purpose; unique.

I submitted two book proposals this past weekend as nobody special and someone utterly special with distinct, valuable and unique contributions to make.  These proposals were offered in conjunction with The Transformational Author Contest sponsored by Christine Kloser, with the support of Marc Allen of New World publishers (Eckhart Tolle's publisher) and Sandy Powell of Balboa Press, a division of HayHouse.

It was profoundly fulfilling to have honored me and my writing in this way. It is also a deeply self-honoring posture to surrender the outcome to the process.  When the demon of doubt and what Max Simon recently referred to as "comparison despair," reared their many heads, I was able to choose to keep my focus on the intended gifts.  To seek and speak the deepest truth in relation to the subjects at hand with eloquence and respectful awareness of my readers is a gift to my readers—and to me.   Nobody special speaking to other nobodies; a soul divinely created down to the last detail addressing other remarkable creations.  It's all going on at once.  And as I "do" it, it is doing me.

I love the paradox, despite the days I stumble through caught on one paradox' horns or another.

From my heart to yours,
Ani

breakthrough (or is it break-in) in the library...

So further breakthrough this evening, I would say. (I think my prayer to leave behind envy and comparing myself to others is being answered.)  


I went to the local library this evening to pick up a vegetarian cookbook on hold for me along with a few books about writing.  In the dark parking lot, I saw a girl, maybe seven or eight, walking—almost strutting—back straight, head high, a book clasped in an arm that swung as she walked.  She looked so content, maybe even a little proud of herself.  Clearly going to the library and coming out with a choice book was no small thing to her.  It was no small thing to me as a girl either.

When I was a girl, the brick, vine-covered building that housed an uncountable number of books was, of all places with a roof and walls, my favorite.  What a concept: a place that lent books and for free!  And as if that was not enough in itself, it was SO quiet—somewhere that did not permit loud voices, let alone loud, angry voices.  Where else was silence so protected?  The Vineland Public Library was about 12 miles away.   We went maybe once a month, maybe more often.  My parents could barely speak or read English.  I had been waiting impatiently to learn to decipher the code I saw in my father's newspapers, the only printed material besides cereal boxes and the like in our house.  My first time in the hallowed library, I decided I would read every book on its shelves (eventually every book in the world).  I started in the "A" section.  

Another decision made around the same time was that I would write books, too.  I announced to my parents that one day, I would write things that made people laugh and cry.  It was people's hearts I wanted to reach with my words.  By then words had already become sacred containers for me, places to harbor the secrets I could tell no one but God to whom I wrote them.  Words and the necklaces they made strung together in sentences, were also my means of giving thanks and expressing my joy (the latter a state of being to which I did not feel entitled given my parents' suffering under Hitler).  So my tears and my laughter were held by my words; maybe that is what prompted me to say that is what I wanted and believed I could inspire in others.   

So, no question about it, I felt and heard the inner call, a congenital mandate to write.  Then life happened and along the way (very soon after my decision to be a writer),and the child, I was greeted in school and by others with great shaming and other discouraging messages, among them that to want to write was selfish.  There were much better, more generous things to do with my time that would help people.  Writing was only an option if I was good enough to stand out and clearly I wasn’t. 

Fast forward. 

Most visits to the sanctuary of a library in present day are bittersweet.  There is the delight of being in the presence of walls of books filled with pages lined with words.  A unique ecstasy and comfort all in one!  And there is sadness at knowing I will only taste the smallest fraction of those words.  An even greater sadness is that not one of those books on the shelves was written by me.  What happened?  How not to be overcome by a sense of failure—not in the eyes of others, but in my own heart?

Tonight, as usual, I felt the thrill of being in the library.  There is still no place like it.  I decide to browse a bit after checking out The Vegetarian Kitchen and Writing from the Heart, etc.  I see the titles on the spines of the books that seem to me breathing entities—so full of life.  It is especially in the fiction section that I start to cave under the sadness (although I can get hooked among the “self-help,” personal narrative, or books about writing and parenting, too).  What do I feel? 

The voices clamor, accuse, condemn my failure, shouting relentless (under the radar, regretfully, of the guardians of the library’s silence).  There is no excuse, they say.  And it is clearly too late, they punctuate their solid case.  I have no answers for them.  I agree and agree.  But today—today, I am aware of such patterns and want to make a different choice.   So, meekly, at first, but with growing conviction, I try. 

I do not try to outshout the committee in my head, as a friend calls such convocation.  Instead, I speak lovingly and gently to me.  I breathe.  I acknowledge tenderly that it is true: I have loved writing all my life.  It is wonderful to know this has been a calling before I knew the word calling. How fortunate.  And yes, perhaps most of my six decades, I and my life circumstances did not yield to this love such that I created a body of public work.   


And—what if it is not too late?!

What if (in line with the theme that prompted me to write all this) I am meant to write like me—not to write like anyone else.  That’s the deal, isn't it?  The truth.  What if it is not too late to surrender to this life’s passion, to swoon (with awareness and consciousness) into the embrace of this Great Love.  What if nothing’s wrong?!  (Now, that’s a good stretch!)  What if the book I am completing now is the fulfillment of this longing and there is more fulfillment to come.  What if it is not selfish to want to write and to write.  Fiction, no less.  And poetry.  And rants like this one. 

What if, I can bless all those authors of published books, some of which would inspire and move me, and others not?  What if I can fully accept me as I am? What if it is really perfectly fine to write a long rant like this one in order to hold my experience more consciously and to offer it just in case my experience touches another heart.

I am reminded of a poem by Galway Kinnell, called The Sow.  It includes: 

for everything flowers from within of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

 to reteach a thing its loveliness

Surely that is what is happening within me: I am reteaching myself my loveliness.  Such self-blessing will bring about the full blossoming.  Ah, perfect.  My prayer/intention is to allow love, beauty and wisdom to flow through my words as naturally as a flower yields its fragrance.  


What if in truth, this has been happening all along?  

Thank you for listening.

Writing The Tremble of Love

So one of these days, there will be a website and a blog for the book that I am completing, The Tremble of Love, an historical novel inspired by the healer, lover of life, the Baal Shem Tov.  A post like this one would then find its home there.  But for now, I shall post here, speaking these thoughts and feelings into the vast empty fullness of cyberspace where millions (or is it billions?) roam with not even a handful stumbling into this blog space.  Nonetheless, it feels good for a few moments to expand beyond the isolation of my little study and (what at the moment feels like) the enclosed space of my mind.

So here's what brings me to post.  The book contains many references to Kabbalah, the Zohar, the Book of Splendor, (arguably the greatest Kabbalistic text), and to Rabbi Isaac Luria, his 16th century community of Kabbalists in Safed, and his cosmology.  What I am facing is how much to include about Kabbalah and in what depth? This is a vast vast subject—a world.   I know that I want to birth two subsequent novels: one set in Safed and the other in Spain when the Zohar first emerged.  For those, I will immerse myself in Kabbalistic texts, teachings, concepts and practices.  The Baal Shem Tov was a great Kabbalist (some even say, the reincarnation of Luria, aka Ha'Ari).  So rightfully, there must be some inclusion of Kabbalah in The Tremble of Love.  How much then to elaborate on the sefiros and the creation of the world according to Lurianic Kabbalah?

There was a false messiah known as Shabtai Tzvi (Shabbetai, Sabbatai) whose movement is crucial to mention in the book and I do.  It is one of the threads pulled throughout the weave of the novel.  But I keep standing on the precipice and avoiding jumping into a deep (dark) exposition of Shabtai Tzvi's specific theoretical and practical  aberrations of Lurianic Kabbalah.  I do some of this--have to, but, much as I might like to wax more philosophical, I know this is territory in which I need more schooling and contemplation in order to be truly insightful.  And how much do my readers want and, perhaps more importantly, need?   I don't want to back away from what would be important and responsible (not quite the word, but can't find the right one at the moment) for me to elucidate.  I am also aware that this is not an academic, pedantic text and do not want it to have that flavor.  HELP!

Some days like today, I rewrite passages that I have already rewritten dozens of times, trying to convey true and useful context (about Sabbatean kabbalah in this case) without either oversimplifying or overcomplicating.  That is precisely the balance I am trying to find.  Truth is to find that place, often one actually needs a GREAT DEAL of knowledge in order to synthesize and reflect essence.

Postscript: It will help to kick the judge off my shoulder who likes to let me know that no matter how I am doing, it is wrong.  Might also behoove me to invite Trust to stand with and in me: Trust that I will do my best and be guided to what is needed that this book be a thing of beauty, inspiration, and love.  It is a primary intention for this book is that it be a sanctuary, that it serve as a refuge—not taking readers away somewhere, but leading them into their own hearts, the place of ultimate refuge.