I wanted to love this book. Instead, I found myself mired in the language, and unable to get through it even though I loved the concept, title and cover.

This book "enables safe exploration of higher consciousness, and helps clear blockages to love".

Awesome, let's jump in then?

No, wait, there's more explanation. Then some more, and then...

You get the jist.

I wanted meat, not theory. I wanted actionable how-to's, and I got a lot of analysis and intellectualism. Which is great, and honestly, had I prepared myself for this kind of book, I likely would have enjoyed it more.

Early on, the book says, "Kabbalah is essentially cerebral". That should have tipped me off.

It goes on to say, "Energy medicine, on the other hand, involves the awareness of physical sensation".

And eventually, that the combination of these two methods is who we'll heal ourselves.

Again, this excites me. But I didn't really find any answers, any practical tips, and I ended up letting go of the book before finishing it.

Admittedly, I read a LOT of books (likely a dozen a week), and so a book needs to capture my interest immediately. Without it, I have to move on.

Were there gems further on that i didn't find? Probably. I'd love to hear about them. For someone with a bit more patience and time, I feel like this would be a complete goldmine of a book.

For me? Just okay.

An interesting synthesis of energy medicine with the Kabbalah. I feel that all spiritual practices ultimately try to reach a similar goal, and I love practitioners who draw parallels from different traditions to show how all these practices are complementary.

This book is evidence of the claim that what we call "energy work" is a prescriptive and not a descriptive process, that it works with sensation and imagination, with aspects of the body that we are no longer used to feeling to enact deeper change.

I am grateful to have received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for this review. Devi Stern has presented a system that weaves traditional Jewish elements with a New Age system of energy work to give an infinitely creative wellspring of potential a framework and filter. That is the value of this book: for someone who leans toward Kabbalah as a system, to the myth and mysticism of Judaism, there is a structure for interacting with the depths of the body on those terms.

To those who do not lean toward the Kabbalah, there is still value in this book that it can give someone ways to think with energy work and personalizing it to a tradition they may work with, or to shape their practice to whatever their idiosyncrasies might be.