Poems, Prayers, & Reflections
by Paulette Rochelle-Levy
Description
An adventurous psychotherapist, Paulette Rochelle-Levy invites the reader to “Take off your shoes, take off your shoes and dare to cross into the not too deep, not too cold rushing water of the springtime river. A whole wilderness is coming out to meet you.”
Through poems prayers and reflections Paulette takes you on a journey. Longing, Saying Goodbye, On Time, Healing, Being in Love and Be-Longing are some of the chapters that invite you to muse on your own aliveness and the soul’s longing to return.
There is whimsey and humor sprinkled throughout the poetry.
The reflections form a memoir of longing and heartache through a transformation into joy and peace into a sense of belonging to greater consciousness. A celebration of Dance as Prayer and prayer-poems in the Jewish tradition gives the reader tools to enhance the experience of wonder and awe.
Throughout the prose, poetry and prayers are the mystic’s universal expression:
Holding the cup of joy and sorrow together in gratitude there is a continual return to the Oneness that connects us all.
My thoughts
I would like to have read this in paper form as the uncorrected kindle proof I had messed with the formatting somewhat so there were places where I had to mentally rearrange the words to figure out whether that bit was prose or poetry. I’m sure this will be sorted in the final drafts. On the whole I enjoyed reading this. As with any book of poetry there were some poems that resonated strongly and others that didn’t at all.
Other reviewers refer to this being a book of Jewish poetry, but as someone who doesn’t define my faith according to any one religion I personally think it can be non-denominational. My favourite parts were these excerpts from the chapter “On Time”:
What if I could pause
from rushing through Time
And cease viewing
Time as an avaricious competitor
Mocking my every attempt
To do it all, to get it all done
All at once
and
What if time is not an adversary
But rather a generous gift
A lavish offering
That asks only
That I say,
“Thanks
I’ll use it well.”
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