My new book, a novel, “Leela’s Gift” has been released. In fact it can be viewed at http://lulu.com/spotlight/JLevine1. It will soon be (early August) available at amazon.com and many online venues where book are sold as well as in book stores (remember www.indiebound.org and independent book stores). “Leela’s Gift” is the story of a luminous inner spiritual  journey. It is set in New York and high in the Himalayas near Darjeeling in northern India. The novel uncovers archetypal and highly relevant spiritual teachings. East meet west in Leela. The book offers teachings on meditation and yoga,  practical paths to freedom from the often dispiriting and desperate quality of our contemporary lives. The novel intertwines Leela’s journey with modern philosophy  and primal wisdom and is infused with some of the inner teachings of Buddhism and the Enneagram. “Leela’s Gift” tells a story as old as the human heart.

Tags: ashram, Children, consciousness, creativity, cyberspace, Darjeeling, Desert Fathers, E-types, Enneagram, fiction, Leela's Gift, meditation, mind structure, Mind-training, Plato, rebirth, relationships, Sufi, teacher, Universal Forms, Vedic origins, www.janetlevine.com, yoga

© Janet Levine 2010

Coming soon to online and brick book stores.

Seven years ago, one July, on a clear but cold winter’s day on a beach in Nature’s Valley, South Africa, one of my sons asked me. “What is your next book?” (“Know Your Parenting Personality” had recently been published.)  I replied that  I would like to write a novel somehow using the personality types of the Enneagram. He thought it was a good idea and we spoke about it a bit. Through many twists and turns “Leela’s Gift” took on a life of its own and became much more than the sum of its parts. I am pleased it will shortly be available (by August) for readers who love fiction and who love to delve into the depths of spiritual and philosophical matters.

In the beginning after two years of working on several drafts , my ex-agent did not like the structure of the material. Two more years, and two more drafts, she still did not like the material. So we agreed to part. Over another year and because certain characters refused to leave my mind and insisted on being in the book,  I rewrote it to incorporate them. I shared drafts with a group of readers, had it professionally edited and hit the slush pile over another year in scores of agents’ offices. So hard to be flushed out of the slush pile, I share great empathy with every writer who tries. But the manuscript idea did grab many agents and I do have a publishing record so “partials” and “fulls” went flying across the virtual world of the wide web.

The problem is I like to be on the cutting edge, I like to write hybrids, I like to break new ground. This is true of everything I have done in my life, from my anti-apartheid activism to how I live my life to my writing. So my manuscript did not fit a “niche”, a “genre”, it is an original. The New York publishing cartel does not take chances on “originals”. I am not a product of the American grad school MFA pipeline.

Agents “loved the writing” “appreciated the material” “enjoyed the well-developed characters” but (and the following are by far the two most common responses) “…I do not have time for a special project like this” “…I can’t give a project like this the attention it deserves to see it published.” What is it agents do, if they don’t have time to be an agent? “No publisher in New York will even ask to read it” one honest agent told me, and when I inquired why, he said “Traditional publishing is in paroxysms of decline and panic and does not know how to save itself…”

Okay…so now what? An agent-friend for over twenty years, semi-retired now, agreed about the decline, “We are in a revolution in publishing, self-publishing is not defeat, it is an exciting avenue to amazing new ebook and other markets. You don’t know how many other authors, well-known, well-published authors can’t find a traditional publisher and I have suggested to them: self-publish. So, yes, do the research, self-publish, you believe in this work, don’t you?”

I believe in this work.

Tags: consciousness, creativity, cyberspace, Enneagram, fiction, Kabbalah, Leela's Gift, meditation, Mind-training, Plato, Sufi, teacher, Universal Forms, Vedic origins, www.janetlevine.com, yoga

Every four years the Winter Olympics come around and I am hooked. I love the speed of downhill skiing and bobsled races. I cannot comprehend the luge and feel distraught at the death of the young Georgian on the first day of these 2010 games in springlike gorgeous Vancouver. I am a sports fan but trying to understand curling is one sport too many. The skating competitions have the strongest draw for me: gymnastics, dancing, skating at the highest level all in one package. The costumes, the different personalities (go Johnny Weir and Patrick Chun), the symbiosis of coach (Svengali) and young athlete, the choice of music; this is compelling. But this time around the thrill of watching is enhanced by two factors, HDTV and the record button on my remote. HDTV is image perfection; watching the cross-country ski pursuit on a picture perfect Saturday fully displays what I am talking about. Then there is the ability to record programs so I can watch at my convenience and zip through at alpine ski speeds those endless, inane and mind-numbing ads. To say nothing of Bob Costas and his smooth talking, bland commentary and schmaltz with which NBC tries to tie the drama (that needs no enhancement) together. (Although I did enjoy watching Mary Carillo attend the Royal Canada Mountie school. But then I am a tennis fan too.) No doubt it already exists, but is not available to the American public, raw live feed of the events as they happen without commentary and without ads. May they day come soon when we can see what the TV producers and  journalists see.

Another huge plus (which perhaps is our live feed of the moment) is the amazing official Olympic Winter Games website with myriad opportunities to follow in real-time each and every minutia of the Games.

So this leads me to a socio-political line of thinking. HDTV, touch of the button recording of at least two channels at the same time, access to the latest computer technology and the ability (economic and utilitarian) to use the ever-changing and increasing tools of the Information Age creates a cyber-age global apartheid that separates the hi-technology and computer literate and savvy haves, from the billions and billions of have-nots. Earlier this week I lost electrical power as I was settling in to watch the medal round of the Men’s figure skating (why all those falls?) Sitting in the dark for two hours while the electrician did his work, brought home to me how utterly dependent so many billions of us are on electricity. Think about it.

I have no idea what this means for the future of our beautiful planet. I am an optimist, so I think of great opportunities for out-of-the box thinking entrepreneurs who can attempt to close the gap. On the other hand the gap may become so vast that cyberspace implodes and sinks us all in an immense dark hole.

Happy Winter Olympics second week TV watching.

Tags: adolescents, Children, colleges, consciousness, creativity, cyberspace, Enneagram, Generation E, Janet Levine, janetlevine.com, Parenting, www.janetlevine.com