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"  How did Recipes for a Sacred Life come to exist? Were there any little miracles, like all of those spoken about in the book?  Yes, there was a little miracle, and it came in the process of finding a publisher. Many editors loved it but were afraid to take a chance on an unknown author. Well, one day I was muttering about how this is taking way too long, and a friend said, &amp;quot;Rivvy, you said your stories came to you through divine inspiration. Well, go tell that Divine Spirit to get you a publisher!&amp;quot; So I did. I created a little shrine for the book where I lit a candle and asked, and two days later I had an offer from a small new press, appropriately called Divine Arts. The recipes are great inspiration to start the year off right. Do you have any 2014 resolutions of your own, or any advice or mini-recipes about personal goals and fresh starts? One of my main resolutions is to reread my book! We write about\u2013and teach\u2013what we need to learn. And since all the wisdom I&amp;#039;ve found and teachings I&amp;#039;ve learned from are illuminated in my stories, I feel that if I read them enough times, they just might sink in. Also on my list are meditating, walking, helping others, and being grateful. On New Year&amp;#039;s Eve, it&amp;#039;s nice to do a ritual. My husband, two of our friends, and I sometimes write down on little slips of paper all the things we want to rid ourselves of in the coming year\u2014like being judgmental or talking more than listening\u2014and then make a little fire, watch the papers burn, and say to ourselves, I&amp;#039;m letting go of\u2026 Is there anything you&amp;#039;ve learned since coming out with your book that you wish you could have included as another recipe? Or do you have any new favorite teachers, sayings, or mantras?  I have an old favorite saying that was originally included in one of the stories in my book: &amp;quot;I forgive myself; I&amp;#039;m only human. I forgive them; they&amp;#039;re only human.&amp;quot; But my friend Helen, who was one of my first readers and who is tough, said, &amp;quot;Being human is no excuse,&amp;quot; so I took that part out. But the other day, while feeling edgy and off-center, I added it back in and I felt myself begin to settle into a better place. Being human is not an excuse\u2013it&amp;#039;s just the truth. And when I say it, I feel a sense of relief and more compassion for myself and others.  If you had to pick a favorite recipe, what would it be and why? My favorites keep changing. I often pick &amp;quot;Grateful in Harlem&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;The Humble Oatmeal&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Miracles to Share.&amp;quot; But lately, my favorite has been &amp;quot;Joy.&amp;quot; When I first wrote it, it was a collage of &amp;#039;snapshots&amp;#039; of moments of great joy, almost like a poem. I showed it to my daughter (since she and my grandchildren were in it), and she said, &amp;quot;Well, it&amp;#039;s pretty, but what&amp;#039;s the point?&amp;quot; She had a point! But I loved the story and didn&amp;#039;t want to let it go. Then, one day, I realized there was a final &amp;#039;snapshot&amp;#039; that belonged in that story: a memory I had of a time of great sadness. And once I added it, the story was complete, a mixture of joy and sorrow that reflects the cycles of life and how they&amp;#039;re inextricably connected. Which recipe was hardest to write about and why? &amp;quot;Birth, Marriage, and Death&amp;quot; was the hardest. As I wrote at the beginning of that story, my mother asked me what I had left to cover, and I told her, &amp;quot;Just a few things: birth, marriage, and death.&amp;quot; She laughed, but I didn&amp;#039;t. Argh! Three weighty topics, too much to write, and that&amp;#039;s why I kept putting it off. Then I thought, Why not lump them together? I know it&amp;#039;s kind of cheap, but really all three are so sacred, what more can I say? Only to make each ritual truly yours. But then I knew I still had to write more, so I wrote and wrote and then edited and edited, and it finally all came together. What are you working on now? Do you see any more books of recipes in your future?  Right now, I&amp;#039;m working on promoting my book, and that&amp;#039;s more than a full-time job! Once I see glimmers of time begin to creep back into my life, I hope to get involved with a group that is working to help fight global warming. I have always felt a need to alternate between writing and helping the world in a more activist way.  If I ever write another book of recipes, it would be a children&amp;#039;s book. Children love to read or be read to, but there are few books that tell them how life works or what they can do to be happy, feel love, and help make the world a better place. I&amp;#039;d like to be the Deepak Chopra for kids! Do you have any advice for people who might not see themselves as career writers, but who want to publish a book? There&amp;#039;s a great line in a Van Morrison song: &amp;quot;If you live the life you love, you&amp;#039;ll get the blessing from above.&amp;quot; If it&amp;#039;s meant to be, you will also get the inspiration to write about it. Then you&amp;#039;ll see that a book written from the heart will take on a life of its own and find its way into the world (although not without a tremendous amount of work on the part of the author\u2014it&amp;#039;s a partnership). Still, you do the work with a feeling of joy or purpose, because writing a book, I believe, is a calling.  Read the full review of Recipes for a Sacred Life here. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/interviews/a16507/rivvy-neshama-interview/>