letloverule: 2010

"Have You Seen My Childhood"

In memory of Michael Jackson, our Earthly Angel

By Alessandrina Lerner & Amandine Love Lerner

HAVE YOU SEEN MY CHILDHOOD (Color Version)

https://www.createspace.com/3439506

HAVE YOU SEEN MY CHILDHOOD (B&W Version)

https://www.createspace.com/3439679

"Have You Seen My Childhood" is a sacred shrine written in honor of all the children of the world. Dedicated to the memory of Michael Jackson, this book started with a simple poem, "Befallen Angel", which captures the essence of MJ's painful journey through a life rooted in childhood abuse, to evolve into a full-fledged Poetry book for all abused children. Like MJ, the author, Alessandrina Lerner, is a survivor of childhood abuse who had never experienced unconditional love until she embarked on a journey of self-discovery. This Poetry book bears witness to this journey. From the "Growing Pains" Alessandrina experienced as a child, through the "Inner Reflections" that started her on the path to recovery, all the way to a new found "Self-Mastery" which has enabled her to explore dimensions of life unknown to her before.

This book is not just a Poetry book, it's the testimony of the epic journey a lonesome soul embraces to deliver herself from the hopeless fate of her "Midnight" childhood and find the elusive "Essence of Love" she had searched for her whole life. Armed with the poetic language of introspective imagery and beautifully adorned with colorful Art work made by the author's young daughter and precocious Artist, Amandine Love Lerner, this book delivers a timeless message of love and forgiveness on the path to healing from childhood abuse, offering the hope for all victims to discover "What It Is To Be Loved" in the seemingly most unlikely place, i.e. at the very core of themselves. In the words of MJ, "Heal the world, make it a better place for you and for me, and the entire human race..."

May this book echo the words of this beautiful soul into the heart of all that lives, so that all souls may realize their higher self and live a happy and wholesome life... 50% of the proceeds from this book will be donated to benefit abused children. For more information on Alessandrina and Amandine, please visit, www.letloverule.us

Publication Date: Mar 12 2010

ISBN/EAN13: 1451545169 / 9781451545166

Page Count: 140

Binding Type: US Trade Paper

Trim Size: 5.5" x 8.5"

Language: English

Color: Full Color with Bleed

Related Categories: Poetry / Inspirational / Recovery

"The Story Behind the Book"

A few months ago I received a chain email circulated by the 501-c3 charity “Dreamcatchers for Abused Children” which moved me to tears. I started thinking to myself, “How can I make a difference in the lives of the millions of children who are victims of abuse?”. As an adult child of abusive parents I knew that my experiences and my own recovery wouldn’t have been in vain if somehow I could help raise awareness on this painful subject matter and bring hope into the lives of past and current victims of childhood abuse who have yet to find a way out of it. I decided to put the thought out into the Universe and see what came back to me. At the time, I had just started working on a new Poetry book and decided to write a poem for Michael Jackson. This poem had been in my heart for many years. It had started germinating when I had first met MJ backstage on his 1992 “Heal The World” Tour in Paris. While I didn’t get to meet him up close and personal, being just a few feet away I got to feel his kind and loving energy, and his “angelic” presence deeply affected me. Later on, as I witnessed the endless injustices MJ continuously had to go through, I felt a tear in my heart and a greater divide regarding the high hopes I once held in my heart as a young adult for the future of the human race. Needless to say that my rebellion against all the “vultures” who feed on celebrities also grew stronger as a result. The years kept going by, the tyranny continued and then... I will never forget this day of June 25,2009, when this guy I hardly even knew yelled from across the pool where my daughter and I were leisurely enjoying the first days of summer filled with laughter and freedom, “Oh, man! MJ just died!”. This moment was almost surreal, so much so that to this day, when I close my eyes I can play it back exactly as it happened that very moment. I can feel my heart stop and remain on pause for a number of seconds, and then everything around me suddenly seems to come to a complete stand still, as if I were witnessing myself from outside my own dream, my own body, my own mind.

Of course I had wondered for many years, “How much more can a man take of this heartless abuse?” but I had treated it like a “nightmarish” thought one tries to chase away in hope that this “figment of my imagination” was nothing but that... Later on that night, as I faced reality and listened to MJ’s “History”, I could feel all the pain and hurt the Genius Artist had been through ever since childhood, and all I could think about was how unfair it all was and that, just like him, all of the world’s injustice just made me want to scream. I lay there wishing I could turn back time so I may tell him what I had felt inside for so many years, that, “He was a beautiful, sensitive, loving soul who had brought so much love to the world through his Artistry and his generous contributions to charitable causes, and that beyond the layer of greedy, fame-thirsty vampires there were so many people who really did love him”. The nights and days that followed I prayed for a soul who had gone through so much torment and been ravished to his own self and young children much too soon. It was a beautiful communion and once more I felt MJ’s angelic presence all around. In my prayers, I asked God to be gentle with him, to help him transition into his new state of being with the love and kindness he had been longing for here on Earth. Then one day, I stopped crying. I sat down and wrote my sacred shrine to MJ, “BeFallen Angel”. Having grieved the loss of this beautiful soul, I felt like there had to be something else I could do to let other suffering souls know that they were loved while they were still alive, to give them hope of better days, in MJ’s words, “to heal the world”. That’s when I decided to write a poetry book dedicated to all the children of the world. I immediately contacted the “Dreamcatchers for Abused Children” charity and asked them if they would be interested in my personal contribution to their cause. They were extremely receptive to the idea and so enthusiastic that less than a month after first contacting them I had the book ready for publishing. In order to write this book, I had to really go in deep, search my soul, and awaken traumatic childhood memories I thought I had put behind. Reliving these traumatic experiences in my head helped me really capture the spirit of powerlessness and extreme terror a child feels in the face of abuse. Through intense imagery and poetic lyricism, I was able to express repressed emotions and feelings I had experienced in the course of my childhood. In order to complete this project, I started by digging in the reservoir of poetry I had written almost 20 years ago and did some re-write on some of these old poems to give them a fresher, more objective perspective, still bearing the painful scars of my suffering but also delivering a hopeful message of a brighter, freer future. After that, I dived head first and got so deep that a good 15 new poems rose to the surface in a very short time span. The urgency and gravity of the cause I was now writing for awakened an extreme burst of creative energy in me. As I was putting the book together and the poems kept coming one after another, I asked my daughter if she would once again participate in another mother-daughter collaborative project and be my illustrator, the way she had been for my other 2 Poetry books. While I felt a little divided at first about discussing the serious subject of abuse with a young child and wanted to protect her from any negativity, I also wanted to open up to her so that she would really get to know me and understand the journey that my life had been. I also felt that her becoming more informed on the patterns and consequences of abuse would empower her to prevent it from ever occurring in her own life and make her more sensitive and compassionate towards the people who are victim to abuse and may be judged and rejected as dysfunctional to the first passerby. I always strive to raise her level of awareness and give her analytical tools so that she may be able to approach life with more perspective and detachment, freeing her from the emotional torment that enslaves most people. Like I always tell her, “There’s a story behind every life... and no matter how people behave, it’s only a reflection of the traumas and various experiences they have gone through...” To me, that’s the best lesson of tolerance we can teach our children. Without such basic psychology, how can we expect things to change? I mean, would you really be surprised to find out that abusers are usually past victims of abuse themselves... Sadly, I conceive, but it is so! But if we instilled basic psychology and a healthier life philosophy to our children, in time this would enable us to finally break the cycle of abuse and grow a healthier society. Further, by appealing to potential or active abusers and offering them support options to help them resolve the inner conflict that keeps feeding this dysfunctional behavior generation after generation, we might move one step ahead and really help “make the world a better place”. This is the message of hope I want to deliver with this book, for all the future generations to benefit from a clean start and therefore transforming our societies like no other reform could. Like MJ intuited, “Start with the man in the mirror”... change yourself, change the world.

To wrap “The Story Behind The Book”, I’d like to mention that my daughter, Amandine Love Lerner, who at the age of 9 had already exhibited at the world-renown “Art Basel” embraced the project and gave more of herself than she had ever done before. She felt so inspired and driven to be participating to the betterment of other children’ lives through this “little” project of ours that she produced some of her most creative and heartfelt artistic drawings to-date, both abstract and realistic pieces.

I hope that like us you feel inspired and come and join this beautiful cause we have embraced.

“Delve deeper, rise above, and spread the love”

LET LOVE RULE!