Holiday Inspiration, Embracing the Ups and Downs
Dear Ones, We’re heading into the holidays—Hanukkah first this year and then Christmas and Kwanzaa. This season can be a time of great joy and also great loneliness, especially amplified in 2020. Like everything in life, the upsides and the downsides. Can we extend our arms to embrace it all, without feeling overwhelmed or numbing out? That’s where a practice can help us stay balanced. [...]
Surviving Uncertainty and Increasing Hope
Surviving uncertainty. Dear ones, these times are confusing for all of us. We now know that we have a POTUS and a LOTUS. (Kamala in Sanskrit means lotus). Even so, with the concerns about the transition and the fears about the growing numbers of COVID cases, uncertainty seems to be a steady state of being. Even as we pledge (and hope our leaders do too) [...]
TEMPLE DANCER Backstory Part Two: Devadasi Research
After my return from India, I researched devadasi ritual and culture and discovered a league of auspicious, empowered women. For over 1,200 years, temple dancers, or devadasis, were educated and revered. Their sacred temple duties brought them honor and status. Devadasis maintained community life cycle rituals: they tied the sacred gold thread, the tali, around the bride’s neck; they led religious processions. Within the temple, [...]
Podcast with J. Brown on Love and Sacred Sexuality
Sacred Sexuality in Temple Dancer "I got an email from your publisher... your name was on the top, and I was like, wait a minute, Amy Weintraub. And I look at the book. It's a fiction book, a connection between sexuality and spirituality, and I was like, wow! Isn't she the Yoga for Depression lady I used to know way back when...??" J. Brown and [...]
TEMPLE DANCER Backstory: Part One
Every novel has a backstory arising from the author’s experience, imagination and research. Because there are several plot threads in Temple Dancer, there are at least three backstories. In this 3-part series, I'll review the backstory that led to the emergence of Saraswati as a character in an Indian village in 1938. Goddess Yellamma Reaching Out On the day I stood in [...]
The Promise that Keeps Me Going
Dears Ones, do you know how hard it is to release your first published novel (Temple Dancer, September 8th!), especially in a pandemic? These days, I’m immersed in the hard part—promotion. What keeps my head above water is that I feel I’m fulfilling a promise I made 26 years ago. After a second sojourn in India, I received a gift from an eight-year-old girl, born [...]