Essene minister, San Diego New Age Leader and overall "cosmic cheerleader" Leslie Goldman asks in his new book of poetry, "Am I any more than a frightened child who has run since birth/ as fast and far from this world as my legs could carry me no farther but into myself? Must I accept/that growing up for me means/ being so uniquely different that I/stand out; is it just my ego that/desires to stand out? An always-dilligent, sometimes joyful, sometimes painful 18-month journey of self-awareness is documented in Rekindlng of Faith, which Goldman says "began in the dead of winter as an impulse to find once again my life."  The author of Confessions of an Essene Visionary announces at the start of this book that he intends to hold nothing back, to tell everything he's feeling;  "We can't hold back our self from giving until what we have to give is all sweet and clean." A seemingly bottomless longing for the sweetness of life is what comes across most strongly in Goldman's recollections, reminiscences and reveries.  These range in subject matter from his childhood days in a Jewish community to reflections on the present state of his body, crippled apparently from past excesses.  His life has been a battle between the especially sweets, and the constant rekindling of his vision.  He knows "if I eat poorly I will have to go back to bed."  In one poem, about the halvah in the Persian market that looks so good, ethic and homemade... Another battle recalled often in Goldman's younger days is to find an identity outside that of his religiously

strict father: "It isn't me smiling/it is my father smiling as/ he smiles.  I am wearing his mask/ living as he lives."  In his adult life, though, the sone reaches for reconcilation and understanding of his father; "Innocent man/beaten down by your father/ and him his father; than God/ I accepted yoou as my own child/ and took you into me/ oh beloved friend of recent years." "The Winter of Winters," the first of this books four chapters, is Leslie's unabashed mourning for lost happier times, and for lingering pain of the past and the present, in an attempt to clear the way for a brighter future.  A poem in "The Coming of Spring" notes hopefully that "Life moves on, an inner voice says/ It goes naturally toward fulfillment." And a later poem; "Anger over my powerlessness is turning into action." But he is still reminded of his struggle.  "Kids approach me and ask/ why do you limp crooked?" In the third chapter, Goldman works at an encompassing embrace of varying elements of his life and of the world, and creates his Credo of a Cosmic Cheerleader, which begins, "I have determined to live/ as a current in the stream of life/as a grounding point for planting/peace in the body of one human."   From what I know of his work, Leslie Goldman is actively living this way,  The book ends as he writes of a period of new inspiration, where "I am compelled by signs/from heaven/ omens, mesages from far/ away places/ synchronicities, evidences/mystical relationships/ that ask me to rise/to a new level of power.."