Grateful
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Grateful

I give thanks for my children, my sweet husband, my lovely friends, my overly-gregarious dogs, my home, the books I’ve written and those I’ve read, good reviews that have thrilled me and not-so-good reviews that have taught me, the material resources of my life, the yoga practice that centers me, the spirituality that sustains me.

I am grateful that my beautiful, brilliant, hard-working, wonderful stepdaughter was accepted into medical school! Go Julia!

I am grateful for the extraordinarily generous donors who have given Parvati Press a start in the world, and I’m grateful for the authors who are coming on board with “the Millennium Falcon” of presses–and thanks to the ever inventive Chris for that image! Parvati Press really can outrun Imperial cruisers and make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.

I am grateful for the times I get to travel, and especially I am grateful for the cities of Paris and Venice and Rome. And I love living in NYC so I am grateful for this ineluctable Big Apple.

I am grateful that I get to write books. Being an author is the coolest thing in the whole universe!

I am grateful for my health. I am grateful for those I love and for those who love me, and yes, Gerda, Lori, Michelle, and Jan, I am talking about you. The other ones in the inner circle, you know who you are, and you know that I am thankful to have you in my life.

For the unmet friends, unexperienced love, and unknown blessings that are coming into my life, I give thanks, and I praise the Creator, the great sun at the center, for the fullness of it all.

Grateful

Birthday Wishes for a Beloved Soul
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Birthday Wishes for a Beloved Soul

Dear One
I wish for you discernment
that you may see who truly is your friend
and who isn’t
who truly wishes you well
and who doesn’t.
I wish you freedom
from your entitlement, your addictions, and your demandingness
so that you may enter into the clear
sweet peace of humility
that has everything to do with your soft open
heart’s kindness and love
for your core Self
and nothing to do with the curdled ego’s insistence
on gratification.
I wish for you that you seek wisdom
alongside knowledge,
words of gratitude
rather than proof,
and opportunities to give
in the very moments that you are tempted
to take.
I send you my love and my light
in the fullness of this day, your birthday,
as I do every moment of every day
and I wish for you that you feel my love
in every angstrom of your being
and that you learn to hold love in the reverence
it deserves
instead of seeing it as an agent to serve your bidding.
May you push you away the voices of false friends
who whisper in your ear of aggrandizement,
realizing that respectfulness
and honesty
and personal responsibility
is the better path.
May all your decisions be for the highest, best good
of yourself and all living beings,
And may your Higher Self bring you to conscious awareness in this lifetime.

by Traci L. Slatton
Birthday Wishes Birthday Wishes Birthday Wishes

Amazing Review of Broken by Seacoast Online’s Rebecca Skane
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Amazing Review of Broken by Seacoast Online’s Rebecca Skane

I’ve been blessed with some lovely, thoughtful reviews of BROKEN.  Writer Rebecca Skane of SEACOAST ONLINE has written a truly wondrous review.

I have written in other posts about how dazzling, and ultimately humbling, it is when a reader GETS IT about what I am trying to do with a novel. Skane GOT IT, in the fullest way possible. It’s more than simply gratifying when a book is well and thoughtfully reviewed; it is a core affirmation of an author’s existence. Sorry to put it in such dramatic terms, but a writer works in solitude at a desk, pouring her soul, her heart, her brain, her blood, sweat and tears, and everything else she’s got, into her writing. To have her book received with appreciation is an existential validation.

Here are some of my favorite lines from Skane’s review:

Traci L. Slatton is back with another novel of fantasy, romance, and danger.  In Broken, angel Alia falls from grace, giving up her wings to live the life of a Parisian woman at the start of World War II.  Beautifully written and devilishly portrayed, Alia is a not your typical fallen angel archetype.  She is more human than anything else….

Alia is consumed with pain but enjoys life as a human by taking advantage of pleasures of the flesh…

Lush and poignant prose and a beautifully rendered time period and locale, elevate Broken from the traditional novels of fantasy into something of its own element.  With the first section of the book doubling as mild erotica, it’s refreshing to find well-written verse to accompany such wickedly scandalous boudoir moments.  This isn’t 50 Shades – this is thought-provoking literature that explores female sexual equality and the nefarious act of unwanted dominance in every form.

I am more than grateful for such a deeply thoughtful review.

Read the review here, and enjoy. I did!!

Amazing Review of Broken