The Kabbalah of Writing
Mystical Practices for Inspiration and Creativity
-
- $16.99
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
A mystical system for harnessing divine inspiration in your writing
• Explains how the 10 sefirot—the channels of divine creative life force—can be used to develop writing and give you the power to grow as a person and a writer
• Explores each sefira in detail and how it can be used to manifest creative visions through words
• Provides writing exercises and imaginative techniques to help you receive the mystical wisdom of the Kabbalah, develop your creative powers, and open yourself to inspiration from the divine
Revealing how the ancient spiritual tradition known as the Kabbalah can be applied to the art of writing, award-winning author Sherri Mandell presents a mystical system for developing creativity and harnessing divine inspiration in your storytelling and other written works.
Sharing insight from her own spiritual journey and her years of teaching writing, Mandell explains how the characteristics of the 10 sefirot—the channels of divine creative life force that make up the elemental spiritual structure of the world—can be used to think about and develop writing in a profound way and give you the power to grow as a person and a writer. She explores each sefira in detail and how it can be used to manifest creative visions through words. Showing how writing can be healing and redemptive, she provides writing exercises and imaginative techniques to help you create a writing practice that allows you to appreciate the richness of life, retrieve its divine beauty, and share your unique wisdom.
By unveiling how writing can become a spiritual path, a pilgrimage to discover the sacred stories within, Mandell shows that sharing your inner truth and expressing your personal gifts of imagination through writing is part of your individual spiritual mission as well as an essential part of the spiritual evolution of the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mandell (The Blessing of a Broken Heart) offers an inventive exploration of the Kabbalah as a resource to help readers improve their memoir and essay writing practices, and to discover the "divine beauty" of their lives. First, Mandell introduces the text's 10 "sefirot," or "spheres" that comprise the spiritual structure of the world. The first three are the "intellectual" spheres of will, inspiration, and comprehension, while the last seven speak to "emotional" spheres of boundaries, creativity, endurance, harmony, kindness, rulership, and surrender. In each chapter, Mandell considers one of these aspects and the wisdom it can offer writers ("kindness," for example, teaches one to write without judgment) and sets up a writing prompt to reinforce the lessons ("Write a prayer or wish for yourself"; "What are your... dreams for yourself as a writer?"). Throughout, Mandell weaves in personal experience, including the 2001 murder of her son, which she wrote about in the 2004 National Jewish Book Award–winning The Blessing of a Broken Heart. This thoughtful guide balances practical advice with emotional insight, without being overtaken by mystic overtones. Aspiring writers with a spiritual bent will appreciate Mandell's unique approach.