🕯️ Occult Philosophy

Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life

✍️ Desilver, Albert
Reader Score
4.4
(1 review)
$18.99
In stock — ready to ship Ships in 1–2 business days
📚 WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT

Albert DeSilver presents a transformative guide exploring the profound connection between creative expression and spiritual realization. This book invites writers to transcend conventional thought, tapping into an intuitive wellspring through meditative practices. Discover how cultivating inner presence can infuse your words with remarkable depth and insight, moving beyond mere intellect to reveal authentic truths. Structured as a year-long journey, each season and month offers focused exercises to enrich your writing practice, foster spontaneity, and deepen your relationship with language.

🕯️
Occult Philosophy

Praise for this book

“Albert Flynn DeSilver is our funny, wise, and vulnerable tour guide on this magical year-long journey through the soul of writing. I recommend this book to seekers who want to tell their stories, writers who want to connect with their deepest truths, and anyone who wants to use words as a path to what lies beyond language.”
— Anne Cushman, author of Enlightenment for Idiots: A Novel
“In this gentle, lucid, erudite and compassionate guide, Albert Flynn DeSilver offers the wisdom and warmth of a true friend who has walked the path--one who reaches out a capable hand and offers it to the new writer, to the struggling writer, and says, 'Here, here, let me show you not only how to write, but how to live.”
— Dani Shapiro, author of Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life
“This book is full of wonderful insights, exercises, and some luscious prose. Luck for us, Albert Flynn DeSilver learned how to write as he was walking the spiritual path, a quality lacking in so many books on spirituality. This is an original, and a real good read.”
— Wes Nisker, author of Buddha's Nature: A Practical Guide to Discovering Your Place in the Cosmos
🏛 St. Martin's Essentials / Sounds True 📅 2017 📖 208 pages 📔 Paperback ISBN: 9781622039111
Fun Fact
DeSilver's guide masterfully blends the discipline of writing with the profound journey of spiritual awakening. It offers a unique, year-long framework for cultivating presence and drawing from deep intuitive sources, enriching one's craft and life. While those seeking only conventional writing techniques might find its spiritual emphasis too pronounced, it stands as an invaluable resource for writers and seekers dedicated to authentic expression and conscious living.

📝 Description: Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life

The best writers say their work seems to come from a source beyond the thinking mind. But how do we access that source? "We must first look inside ourselves and be willing to touch that raw emotional core at the heart of a deeper creativity," writes Albert Flynn DeSilver. In Writing as a Path to Awakening, this renowned poet, writer, and teacher shows you how to use meditation to cultivate true depth in your own writing--so your words reveal layers of profound insight that inspire and move your readers. Constructed as a year-long exploration with a new focus for each month and season, Writing as a Path to Awakening includes: - How to approach writing and reading with a greater level of presence and immersion - Engaging curiosity, playfulness, and spontaneity to keep your regular practice fresh - Meditating with poetry to deeply embody the power of language - How you can spark your imagination by connecting to the groundless source of creation - The meditative approach to storytelling--how not being trapped in your story liberates your capacity to create - Editing, rewriting, and the path of spiritual transformation "Writing and meditation practice are a powerful pair, a dynamic duo," Albert Flynn DeSilver teaches. "Together they nourish and push, trigger and define, inform and inspire, enable, and energize. To engage in both practices fully is to activate a more complete, creative, and spiritual self." With a mixture of engaging storytelling and practical exercises, Writing as a Path to Awakening invites you on a yearlong journey of growth and discovery--to enhance your writing through the practice of meditation while using the creative process to accelerate your spiritual evolution.

💎 Expert review

“
💎
Esoterica Books editorial team
Occult literature desk
DeSilver provides a sincere framework for merging creativity with consciousness, offering clear monthly exercises that encourage intuitive exploration. However, readers seeking rigorous literary craft instruction or academic analysis of style should look elsewhere, as the focus remains firmly on metaphysical insight rather than technical perfection. The meditative angle may feel abstract to those preferring concrete, step-by-step grammatical guidance. While the seasonal structure provides helpful pacing, the content demands a willingness to embrace spiritual abstraction over conventional writing advice. It is best suited for those already comfortable with esoteric concepts and open to viewing their pen as a tool for soul work rather than just communication.
✓ EDITOR'S REVIEW

📖 Why choose it

📖

Why this book is worth reading

This book is ideal for creative individuals who feel their writing has become intellectually rigid or emotionally hollow. If you seek to infuse your prose with spiritual depth and intuitive flow, this guide offers a structured yet meditative approach to reconnecting with your authentic voice. It is perfect for those willing to commit to a year-long journey of self-discovery through language. By focusing on inner presence and spontaneity, it helps writers move beyond mere technique to reveal profound truths. Readers looking to harmonize their artistic expression with spiritual realization will find this resource both practical and inspiring, transforming the act of writing into a daily practice of awakening.

⭐ Reader reviews

The starting rating comes from the team Esoterica Books —
⭐ Esoterica editorial review Editorial rating 4.5/5
★★★★★
For writers seeking profound depth and spiritual insight in their craft, or seekers exploring mindfulness through creative expression. If you're ready to move beyond surface-level prose, this guide offers a contemplative path to literary excellence and personal awakening.

Reader rating

4.4
Based on 1 reviews
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Esoterica Books editorial team

DeSilver provides a sincere framework for merging creativity with consciousness, offering clear monthly exercises that encourage intuitive exploration. However, readers seeking rigorous literary craft instruction or academic analysis of style should look elsewhere, as the focus remains firmly on metaphysical insight rather than technical perfection. The meditative angle may feel abstract to those preferring concrete, step-by-step grammatical guidance. While the seasonal structure provides helpful pacing, the content demands a willingness to embrace spiritual abstraction over conventional writing advice. It is best suited for those already comfortable with esoteric concepts and open to viewing their pen as a tool for soul work rather than just communication.

❓ Frequently asked questions

Not solely. While it certainly aims to enhance your writing, its primary focus is on how the act of writing can be a vehicle for spiritual growth, self-discovery, and achieving a deeper state of awareness. It's a holistic approach to creativity and consciousness.
No, previous meditation experience is not required. The author introduces meditative techniques specifically tailored for writers, making them accessible to beginners. The emphasis is on integrating mindful presence directly into your creative process, rather than formal seated practice.

📖 Who should read this

For writers seeking profound depth and spiritual insight in their craft, or seekers exploring mindfulness through creative expression. If you're ready to move beyond surface-level prose, this guide offers a contemplative path to literary excellence and personal awakening.

🎯 Key themes and symbolism

Writing as Spiritual Practice

Explores how the act of writing, when approached mindfully, becomes a potent form of spiritual discipline. It's not just about crafting words, but about inner exploration, self-discovery, and connecting to a deeper source of wisdom, transforming the creative process into a path of awakening.

Cultivating Creative Presence

Delves into techniques like meditation to foster a state of heightened awareness and immersion in one's writing. This presence encourages spontaneity, playfulness, and a direct engagement with language, allowing insights to flow from a place beyond conscious effort, enriching both the writer and the text.

The Liberating Power of Story

Examines how a meditative approach to narrative can free authors from conventional storytelling constraints. By not being overly attached to the story's outcome or structure, writers can access a more groundless, imaginative source, leading to narratives that are more authentic, transformative, and resonant with profound truths.

📜 Historical context

This work aligns with a long tradition of linking artistic creation to spiritual practice, echoing ancient meditative arts and mystic poetic traditions. It bridges contemporary mindfulness practices with the creative process, offering a modern synthesis reminiscent of figures who viewed art as a path to enlightenment, thereby enriching the lineage of conscious creativity.

📚 Glossary

Awakened Life
Groundless Source
Meditative Approach

📔 Questions to reflect on

  1. How might cultivating deeper presence in your daily life transform your approach to creative work?
  2. Where do you sense your "groundless source" of creativity resides, and how can you better access it?
  3. In what ways could viewing your writing process as a spiritual practice alter your relationship with your craft and yourself?

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