in Fingerpainting on the Moon, Peter Levitt shows us new ways to create and live from the spiritual source of our lives. “We were born to create,” he says. “It’s our birthright. Our nature. Remember: Everything is permitted in the imagination!” Based on Peter’s more than thirty years as a poet and teacher, this book helps readers to express and rely upon their deepest nature in creative work, whether it is writing, painting, music, or just being alive. “You are both deeply human and deeply Divine,” he tells us. “Only practice fingerpainting on the moon and you will discover how true this is.” Creativity of any kind requires risk—the risk of being a beginner, letting go of control, or revealing intimate or even unknown parts of ourselves. It can also be a source of tremendous joy: the joy of giving voice to our deepest needs and imaginings. Taking a gentle and freeing approach to creativity, Peter Levitt shows us the essentially spiritual nature of creative acts and helps us open our hearts and minds so we can express ourselves with courage, innate wisdom, and authenticity. No special conditions are required to create. We need not wait for inspiration to strike, or worry that it has abandoned us. Developed over decades of work with writers and other artists, the exercises, stories, meditations, and other tools in this book will: • Connect us with our inherent and inexhaustible creative and spiritual source • Quiet the inhibitions and doubts that derail our intentions to create • Build and nurture trust, intuition, spontaneity, clarity, and confidence • Rekindle our spirit of play to energize our creative efforts Synthesizing centuries of global wisdom from traditions that include Zen Buddhism, mystical Judaism, Su?sm, Christianity, and Native American beliefs, and offering insights from such masters as Paul Klee, Itzhak Perlman, Allen Ginsberg, and Pablo Neruda, this book will nurture and sustain the artist in each of us, freeing us to generate work that is genuine, vital, and compelling.

Fingerpainting on the Moon: Writing and Creativity as a Path to Freedom

Self-Help

Levitt, Peter

Creativity

Harmony

In his first volume of poetry in15 years, award-winning author Peter Levitt has used his compelling poetic skill bring to life poems of great intimacy that affirm the essential connection all things share. Within Within brings to life the local world Levitt loves in a way that undeniably places beneath our feet "the unmoving ground beneath the ground / where we stagger, or stride."

Within Within

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Black Moss Pr

Review "Peter Levitt's exceptional authority as a poet has been earned by a persisiting care and endurance. He comes from the familiar chaos of gang fights and urban despair to a center he has had many times to lose in order to find again, the "Light" of the moving A Book Of Light, the closing sequence of this masterful collection. When poems can speak as variously and as clearly as these, when one has so cared and learned to value the life given, then the music itself sounds the honor of our common dance. Bright Root, Dark Root is the music of survival." --Robert Creeley "In the presence of a poet who has been given and who has accepted the sacred duty of bringing the poem into the world, there is the bare, but sufficient, intimation of the very beginning, of the marvel and heartbreak of creation. Such a poet is Peter Levitt and such a book is Bright Root, Dark Root. There is great beauty in this book. Beauty is at the heart of it, at that place, Tepheret, where the Kabbalists tell us spirit and form meet, where men and women are holy together and where, as these poems indicate, light becomes body and body becomes light. All the mystical texts, which Levitt knows so well--Hebrew, Greek, Buddhist-- speak of the moment and injunction: Let there be light. And here there is that light. Peter Levitt understands the necessity and risk of carrying it and offers it to us, with tenderness, for these dark times." --Deena Metzger -- About the AuthorAll Things Rise, Transparent Be Prepared The Beautiful Particulars Birth At Winter River The Boat Born To Die The Bow Budding The Cry The Daughters Talk To Me Dying Season Even So The Faithless Caballo Green Sonnet A Hasid Poet Heron Homage: Leda As Virgin How Big If The Population Decides To Die If We Must Speak Then In The Chinese Post Card It Is A Native Soil Japanese Maple Maybe Two The Measure Mother You Will Die The Name Of Birds Of Brilliant Kind The Fierce Outstetched The Branches Under Para Nicaragua The Path Is Master The Potter Red Camelia Reply To Lethe The Return Reversal Is The Movement Of The Tao Sister Lotus, Sister Flame Some Times This Shore The Tryst The Turn Undiminished The Wedding The Wedding When The World Of Its Own -- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Bright Root, Dark Root

Broken Moon Press

One Hundred Butterflies

Broken Moon Pr

BRIGHT ROOT, DARK ROOT. (AUTOGRAPHED)

Ambrosia Press

A fresh translation--and new envisioning--of the most accessible and beloved of all classic Chinese poetry. Welcome to the magical, windswept world of Cold Mountain. These poems from the literary riches of China have long been celebrated by cultures of both East and West—and continue to be revered as among the most inspiring and enduring works of poetry worldwide. This groundbreaking new translation presents the full corpus of poetry traditionally associated with Hanshan (“Cold Mountain”) and sheds light on its origins and authorship like never before. Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt honor the contemplative Buddhist elements of this classic collection of poems while revealing Hanshan’s famously jubilant humor, deep love of solitude in nature, and overwhelming warmth of heart. In addition, this translation features the full Chinese text of the original poems and a wealth of fascinating supplements, including traditional historical records, an in-depth study of the Cold Mountain poets (here presented as three distinct authors), and more.

The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan

Tanahashi, Kazuaki

Shan, Han

Religion & Spirituality

Shambhala

In Fingerpainting on the Moon, Peter Levitt shows us new ways to create and live from the spiritual source of our lives.\nCreativity of any kind requires risk—the risk of being a beginner, letting go of control, or revealing intimate or even unknown parts of ourselves. It can also be a source of tremendous joy: the joy of giving voice to our deepest needs and imaginings. Taking a gentle and freeing approach to creativity, Levitt shows us the essentially spiritual nature of creative acts and helps us open our hearts and minds so we can express ourselves with courage, innate wisdom, and authenticity.\nNo special conditions are required to create. We need not wait for inspiration to strike, or worry that it has abandoned us. Developed over decades of work with writers and other artists, the exercises, stories, meditations, and other tools in this book will: 
Connect us with our inherent and inexhaustible creative and spiritual source Quiet the inhibitions and doubts that derail our intentions to create Build and nurture trust, intuition, spontaneity, clarity, and confidence Rekindle our spirit of play to energize our creative efforts 
Synthesizing centuries of global wisdom from traditions that include Zen Buddhism, mystical Judaism, Sufism, Christianity, and Native American beliefs, and offering insights from such masters as Paul Klee, Itzhak Perlman, Allen Ginsberg, and Pablo Neruda, this book will nurture and sustain the artist in each of us, freeing us to generate work that is genuine, vital, and compelling.

Buddhism

Piquant Press

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