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

Levitt, Peter

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40 ratings by Goodreads

9780609610480: Fingerpainting on the Moon: Writing and Creativity as a Path to Freedom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0609610481 ISBN 13: 9780609610480

Publisher: Harmony, 2003

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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.

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From the Back Cover:

“A warm, joyful book, full of insights and delights for all who seek to hear with their eyes, see with their ears.”—Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard

“With this gentle and fearless guide, the way to creative self-expression becomes a path of liberation. The wisdom and practices offered here free me to walk out into the world as into my own heart—and discover that they are one.” —Joanna Macy, author of Widening Circles

“Fingerpainting on the Moon shows Peter Levitt’s generosity as an artist, and his great gifts as a teacher. Read it and write.”—Susan Stamberg, National Public Radio

“Fingerpainting on the Moon is a book of wisdom. It places in our hands the practices and visions of the true creative life. In writing this book, Peter Levitt passes his wisdom on to us, so that we, too, may become wise and live in beauty.”—Deena Metzger, author of Writing for Your Life and Entering the Ghost River

About the Author:

PETER LEVITT’s books of poetry include Bright Root, Dark Root and One Hundred Butterflies. He has also published fiction, journalism, and translations from Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish. In 1989 he received the Lannan Foundation Literary Award Fellowship in Poetry. A longtime student of Zen, he edited Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of Understanding and Jakusho Kwong’s No Beginning, No End: The Intimate Heart of Zen. He has been leading workshops in writing, creativity, and spirituality in the United States and abroad for thirty years.

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