Announcing the Publication of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®

I'm so excited to announce the launch of my new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to Your Personal Gold. This is my outlier book, the only non-fiction book I've ever written.

It's a kind of meditative manual that guides the reader through an intuitive process that I developed through years of writing poetry as part of my own inner work.
Actually, I didn't know that I was developing a "process" at all. I was simply doing what came most naturally to me—make sense of my life through writing poetry. I had been doing this all my life. From the time I wrote my first poem at the age of eight, poetry was my primary medium for expressing delight, dealing with difficulty, recording events. Others kept diaries; I wrote poems. Eventually, they became a way of healing and of connecting with God.
But some years ago I realized I needed to go deeper to find answers that I could not access in my usual way. I had always loved the unexpected surprises that came from writing within poetic constraints, and now I discovered the wonder of drawing with my non-dominant (left) hand. So I drew and I wrote, and together these two practices yielded up a kind of magic. The left-handed drawings elicited words, the words formed themselves into poems, and I received answers I never expected, not from my rational left brain but from my intuitive right brain. I began to see changes in my thoughts and my life as a result of what I called my poem-mandalas, and the process became a daily practice for me.
I realized that this process is a form of spiritual alchemy, a tool for self-awareness and transformation, and my dear friend and calligraphy teacher, DeAnn Singh of Designing Letters in Los Angeles, encouraged me to teach it and eventually to write about it. The result is this book.
The book also introduces the reader to a new verse form that I developed, the Xoem®, a short, circular-shaped poem especially suited to intuitive work and the mandala drawings that are part of the process. I received registered trademark status for both the process of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® and the Xoem® verse form, and will be launching a new series of workshops this summer.
So now I invite you to pick up a pen and join me on a journey through these Seven Steps that will allow you to express yourself creatively while gaining insights that may not be available to you in your normal waking, thinking state. I assure you that no artistic training nor memory of anything you learned about poetry in school is necessary. The book guides you in setting an intention to understand a problem or physical ailment, to resolve a dilemma, or simply to see something in a whole new light. You will enter the realm of your intuitive mind and create a poem and accompanying piece of art that can lead you to unexpected answers, enhanced self-awareness and, if you wish, connection with your inner, Higher Self.
I feel a deep passion to share this work because I know, from my own experience and that of my students, that it really does work. We truly can become the alchemists of our own lives and turn whatever we identify as the lead in our lives into our Personal Gold. I hope you will join me and experience for yourself the magic of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®.

It's a kind of meditative manual that guides the reader through an intuitive process that I developed through years of writing poetry as part of my own inner work.
Actually, I didn't know that I was developing a "process" at all. I was simply doing what came most naturally to me—make sense of my life through writing poetry. I had been doing this all my life. From the time I wrote my first poem at the age of eight, poetry was my primary medium for expressing delight, dealing with difficulty, recording events. Others kept diaries; I wrote poems. Eventually, they became a way of healing and of connecting with God.
But some years ago I realized I needed to go deeper to find answers that I could not access in my usual way. I had always loved the unexpected surprises that came from writing within poetic constraints, and now I discovered the wonder of drawing with my non-dominant (left) hand. So I drew and I wrote, and together these two practices yielded up a kind of magic. The left-handed drawings elicited words, the words formed themselves into poems, and I received answers I never expected, not from my rational left brain but from my intuitive right brain. I began to see changes in my thoughts and my life as a result of what I called my poem-mandalas, and the process became a daily practice for me.
I realized that this process is a form of spiritual alchemy, a tool for self-awareness and transformation, and my dear friend and calligraphy teacher, DeAnn Singh of Designing Letters in Los Angeles, encouraged me to teach it and eventually to write about it. The result is this book.
The book also introduces the reader to a new verse form that I developed, the Xoem®, a short, circular-shaped poem especially suited to intuitive work and the mandala drawings that are part of the process. I received registered trademark status for both the process of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® and the Xoem® verse form, and will be launching a new series of workshops this summer.
So now I invite you to pick up a pen and join me on a journey through these Seven Steps that will allow you to express yourself creatively while gaining insights that may not be available to you in your normal waking, thinking state. I assure you that no artistic training nor memory of anything you learned about poetry in school is necessary. The book guides you in setting an intention to understand a problem or physical ailment, to resolve a dilemma, or simply to see something in a whole new light. You will enter the realm of your intuitive mind and create a poem and accompanying piece of art that can lead you to unexpected answers, enhanced self-awareness and, if you wish, connection with your inner, Higher Self.
I feel a deep passion to share this work because I know, from my own experience and that of my students, that it really does work. We truly can become the alchemists of our own lives and turn whatever we identify as the lead in our lives into our Personal Gold. I hope you will join me and experience for yourself the magic of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®.