Longing & Be-Longing: Poems, Prayers & Reflections
Paulette Rochelle-Levy
Getting Stuck at the End or Creative Blocks in Book Promotion
Writing the book during the pandemic year now feels like a dream. For some reason it seems so long ago. Was it only last year that I sat alone for so many days and nights? It was not easy. It was a strong discipline. Many hours were spent writing, editing, and rewriting. Eventually I entered into flow. That is when mystery unfolded for as I let go into the creative process a higher wisdom seemed to come through me. Though the time was very structured and demanded a tenacity of intention and time commitment it was also sweet and lively.
“Writing a book is like moving into an imaginary house. The author, the sole inhabitant, wanders from room to room, choosing the furnishings, correcting imperfections, adding new wings. Often, this space feels like a sanctuary. But sometimes it is a ramshackle fixer-upper that consumes time rather than cash, or a claustrophobic haunted mansion whose intractable problems nearly drive its creator mad.”
Laura Miller New Yorker, September 14, 2020 Issue
When I engaged with my editor Nancy Seid and book designer Susan Shankin it became really lively. And the “house” that I was building became filled with the energy of these two gifted women.
Poetry came easily. Much of it was older work that needed “cleaning up.” Some of it was fresh and new such as “First Hug” written after meeting up with my dear friends after a year of isolation. You stand here
The trailhead to my Woods
Forms the backdrop
Topanga Creek is dry
Mountain fields are parched
Draped by long, winter brown grasses
You, dear Friends
Whom I’ve seen
This past year
Only on screen
Reduced to
A tiny 6”x 9” image
And now with each of you
Three dimensional
In full body
One by one
We embrace
“Lost in the Woods: A Yom Kippur in the Time of Covid” describes a true experience. It recalls a time of feeling lost and alone in the woods during the pandemic. It is a spiritual journey of facing obstacles, being lost, and finding one’s way Home.
“And yes, the path does appear,
Golden in the noon-day sun
Lying across the hillside
In inert radiance
As if to say,
“I’ve been here all along!”
“I’ve been here all along!”
The most challenging was the prose, the reflections that were introduction to each chapter. These essays demanded an attentiveness to one word after another. And oh yes, my editor Nancy was constantly erasing my dashes and turning them into commas. Do I speak that way? With dashes? Well, there is my self-appointed last name, Rochelle-Levy and even the book title:
Longing & Be-Longing: Poems, Prayers & Reflections.
So now I come to the hardest part and perhaps most necessary part of the book publishing, which is promotion, marketing, advertising. What shall I call it?
First of all, I love this book and believe others will love it. Those who have it and have been using it find it inspiring and useful.
In my therapy practice and sometimes with friends, we’ll randomly open the book to a page, any page. It always turns out to be the relevant page of the moment, with a profound message.
Now, I open to a “random” page. Seeking my own advice, I open to page 110, and I read:
“We need to connect. We are connected… With love and compassion. This is the time more than ever. Now is the time we need to remember our souls; we need to return our souls to the one”
This comes from the introduction to the chapter “Stepping In and Out of Jewish Prayer.” This chapter is perhaps the heart of the book. As I read this now it reminds me that promotion, advertising, and marketing are always pathways of connecting. And so, the page was not “random” at all. Though I may have had a more spiritual meaning in mind when I wrote these words. now I see that advertising is a form of connecting, of reaching others in the world.
I did not write this book solely for my own pleasure. Every time I sat down to write I visualized clients, friends, and a world of readers beyond my personal acquaintance. In this writing I want to touch hearts and minds in my own unique and special way. I want you dear reader, to know my heart and soul. I want to connect with you and in so doing to inspire you to deeper learning of your own heart and soul. My hope is that you will grow and evolve. And know Spirit in your own life. I want this book to aid you in gaining spiritual and emotional muscle so that you will be strengthened in the hard times. This is a book which weaves my own healing journey into yours. Having known fragmentation and sorrow this is a book of solace and hope. Not really a self-help book in the traditional sense, it is my own journey told in poetry and reflection with which I hope to inspire you to find your own way.
Often, I think I should be doing more to do Tikkun Olam which translates to heal this broken world. And then I realize that as an artist this is my path of healing, the one I have chosen. No, the path that has chosen me. This awareness gives me a sense of urgency to get the medicine words of the book “out there!” Yes, this book is my part in healing a broken world.
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