37days

thinking thursday.

2010-03-18T06:00:00-04:00

Please note: A space has opened up in my upcoming Life is a Verb retreat (April 15-18 in Asheville, NC) because of a cancellation due to illness. I would love to have you there!

mind :: my brain and yours

Teen suicide warning signs But young brains don't work the same as adults. Depressed teens tend to avoid conflict and repress emotions, which makes it difficult to spot warning signs. Their thought-process is highly influenced and determined by their relationships.

Teen suicide identification, intervention, and prevention. Read this. (Thanks to Gloria Phillips Turlington) Beth Patterson said of this article: "When I used to work with teens who were grieving, this was such an important topic to talk about--in group--out in the light of day. I can only hope it helped to normalize their feelings and help them know they are not alone. This is a good article."

"Jesus was a Nazi, So's Your Preacher" -Glenn Beck. Here's Roger Ebert's take on it.

With cancer, words are inadequate.

For obese people, prejudice in plain sight.

body :: my place and yours

Idle parenting means happy children. (Thanks to Jessi Herr) But it seems in the U.S. that recess has a new boss. (Thanks to Marilyn Maciel)

A corn soup for, yes, late winter. (Thanks to Mollie Katzen)

Let's all be hyperlocavores.

My newest travel t-shirt.

soul :: my heart and yours

Furnace of joy. (Thanks to Lisa Field-Elliott)

Hey, I know her.

Nice pajamas.

Savor. (Thanks to Janet Smith)

A final thought :: Shipping is a terrible thing to do to vegetables. They probably get jet-lagged, just like people. -Elizabeth Berry

[Adinkra vegetable print, found here]

Sneak peek...

2010-03-17T15:48:27-04:00

Just got a sneak peek at the cover for one of my books coming out this fall: Four Word Self Help: simple wisdom for complex lives (Sept 2010). My other book this year will be Creative is a Verb: if you're alive, you're creative (Nov 2010).

Sometimes we make life more difficult than it need be, I feel. This book of 101 four-word actions might help clarify the simplicity we need (and crave) in an increasingly complex, fast-paced, global world. I hope so.

Like Life is a Verb, Four Word Self Help is illustrated by readers of 37days from around the world, including the four beautiful pieces used on this cover.

The art inside the book is still being selected by the publisher, so more details, including which art has been chosen for the book, is forthcoming. For the moment, thought you'd like to see what's brewing...

Artists whose work is featured on the cover include (clockwise from upper left: Sylvia Barnowki, Mary Campbell, Mary Harman, and Patti Tinsman).

Here's what the publisher has to say about Four Word Self Help:

Pithy, provocative, poignant advice on a variety of
self-help topics—in four well-chosen words

Is life really all that complicated? What if we could solve all our problems with just four simple words?

Four-Word Self-Help is a pithy nod to the fact that life is simpler than we try to make it. It shows how the truisms for most of our woes can be boiled down to four well-chosen words. Author Patti Digh (Life is a Verb) takes the issues of our busy, burdened day and proves that rather than “solving” a complexity with another complexity, the answer may well lie in simple actions.

Following an introduction reflecting on the power of words in self-improvement and self-discovery, Patti introduces twelve hot-button “issues”—each addressed by wise and witty four-word missives, 101 in total. Each concise nugget of advice has been interpreted in original art submitted by artists from around the world, making this book a visual feast for those who could, simply, use just a little bit of help.

be a surge protector

eat less, move more

use your own voice

give up toxic people

I hope it will resonate with you, in your life.

poetry wednesday : out of the marvelous as we have known it

2010-03-17T00:24:20-04:00

What would St Patrick's Day be without an Irish poet?

The Annals (more formerly known as "Lightenings")

-Seamus Heaney

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,

A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
'This man can't bear our life here and will drown,'

The abbot said, 'unless we help him.' So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvelous as he had known it.

The abbot knows, wisely enough, and in a way you and I seem not to know most days, that the crewman must be helped back into his own "real" world up there in the air, that debating "real" or "not real" is of no consequence. This is the experience of in-betweenness: hearts open, off-guard, and blown through by the same elements that make the ocean wild and light the slate-grey lake.

As Heaney wrote in another poem, "Postscript":

You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 and his Nobel speech, "Crediting Poetry," is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. An excerpt from its opening:

In the nineteen forties, when I was the eldest child of an ever-growing family in rural Co. Derry, we crowded together in the three rooms of a traditional thatched farmstead and lived a kind of den-life which was more or less emotionally and intellectually proofed against the outside world. It was an intimate, physical, creaturely existence in which the night sounds of the horse in the stable beyond one bedroom wall mingled with the sounds of adult conversation from the kitchen beyond the other. We took in everything that was going on, of course - rain in the trees, mice on the ceiling, a steam train rumbling along the railway line one field back from the house - but we took it in as if we were in the doze of hibernation. Ahistorical, pre-sexual, in suspension between the archaic and the modern, we were as susceptible and impressionable as the drinking water that stood in a bucket in our scullery: every time a passing train made the earth shake, the surface of that water used to ripple delicately, concentrically, and in utter silence.

found-art tuesday : make up a holiday for someone

2010-03-16T10:58:46-04:00

Tess is a dedicated cataloger of her life. We find notes and lists and stories everywhere.

Today after she went to school, John found an index card near her Spongebob breakfast bowl with a checklist on it, written in orange marker: breakfast, lunch, dinner, bed. BED was by far the biggest word. Each word had a circle to the left of it. The circle beside "breakfast" had a check mark in it.

He also found this, a card she made (and has not yet delivered) to her first-grade teacher, Mr. Royer.

I wonder what fantastic things would happen today if we made up a holiday for someone--and told them with a handmade card.

Let's all try it.

mindful monday : mindful eating

2010-03-15T06:00:00-04:00

Back in my mid-twenties, when my life felt out of control and I went on a one-month retreat, each time we sat down to eat we were instructed to be aware of what we were eating, where it came from, and the people who prepared it and to be thankful for it and eat it mindfully. Since I was resistant to being there in the first place, I dug in my heels on this issue and just continued eating as I always had. Often my mind would be swimming with doubts, questioning my decision to even come to this place, thinking I had more important things to be doing, and worrying about whether I really fit in. Most of the time I would be halfway through the meal before I even really tasted the food.

One day, as another participant in the program was talking to me about the importance of being intentional and present in all the activities we do, I immediately thought of the eating and asked him, “Doesn’t it annoy you that they make such a big deal about eating here?” He gently smiled at me, brought out an orange from his knapsack, and said, “Treat this as an experiment. Take this orange and really think about where it came from, how it started from a seed in the ground, how real people cared for the tree to make it healthy and then plucked the fruit from that tree. Think about how this orange was carried from there by many different people before it came to me, and now I’m giving it to you. Now, take this orange and drink it in with all of your senses before even peeling it, much less tasting it. When you are ready to take a bite, chew it slightly slower than you normally would, and then come back to me and let me know how it was for you.” And then he left me.

As I sat alone, I noticed some resistance arising but decided to try his experiment. I reflected on all the effort it took for this little orange to get to me, including the fact that it was a gift from him, and noticed that I felt a twinge of appreciation and a smile came to my face. I had to admit I liked that. I looked a little closer and noticed all the tiny indents in skin. As I slowly peeled the orange, I noticed a mist of citrus spring into the air, as though the orange was rejoicing to be opened, which made me laugh, and then I smelled the pungent aroma. I noticed the contrast between the vivid orange of the outside of the peel and the pale, whitish inside surface. Once the orange was peeled, I brought it closer to my eyes and saw the smooth, veined texture of the outer membrane. As I broke apart one section, I really looked at all of the tiny individual pieces of pulp, swollen with juice. When I finally put a piece of orange on my tongue, tingling sensations ran up my cheeks. All of my attention was on the taste of the orange, and as I began to chew, I felt a rush of sheer delight at the amazing taste of this orange. I had eaten many oranges in my life, but I had never tasted an orange in this way. And then I noticed that the distress I had been feeling was gone, and that I felt calm and at ease.
-Elisha Goldstein, How Mindful Eating Can Calm a Distressed Mind
[painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot of the artist Desbrochers as a young child with an orange, found here]

Are you a writer? An artist? A human being?

2010-03-14T23:02:42-04:00

I get a lot of questions about how to write a book. Always happy to talk about writing, but I thought I'd answer some of them just to get the conversation started. Seems what I said about writing can also be applied to living.

sunday sounds : the greatest thing you'll ever learn...

2010-03-14T06:00:00-04:00

...is just to love and be loved in return.

simple action saturday : sit in the sun

2010-03-13T09:15:05-05:00

There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind. -Annie Dillard

Find some sun. Or some wind. Or rain for that matter.

Sit in it.

No sun where you are? Yes there is. Just get outside--no matter what the weather--for ten minutes. Every single day.

how to write (a book). a wee rant.

2010-03-11T14:29:10-05:00

I get a lot of emails from people asking how to write (a book). So I thought perhaps an essay outlining my thoughts on the topic might be helpful—to me, in order to clarify the thoughts I have about writing—and, perhaps, to others. (You don’t write? Substitute paint, embroider, sing…for the word “write.”)

Don’t set out to write a book. Form is not content. Let’s say that again: FORM IS NOT CONTENT. A book is nothing more than a commodification of ideas. Start with the ideas, the emotions, the thing you most long to say. If you don’t know, the writing itself will help surface what it is you want to say, but sitting still and waiting for a book to spring fully formed from your forehead will never happen. Will. Never. Happen. Listening to what other people have to say also won't help. Good god, no wonder we all have writer’s block. We’re not even writing. Plumbers don’t have plumber’s block, do they? NO, THEY GET ON THE FLOOR AND CLEAR OUT THE WINDEX AND EVIDENCE OF MOUSE POOP UNDER THE SINK AND GET TO PLUMBING; which leads me to point number 2.
Sit the hell down and write. Writer Ron Carlson has written so eloquently about this in his book, “Ron Carlson Writes a Story.” He reminds us to sit back down and stay in the room. When everything else in the world seems more attractive than actually sitting down and putting pen to paper (how sweetly archaic I am, thinking ANYONE actually writes on a college-ruled legal pad with a fountain pen anymore besides me), sit back down and stay in the room. SURE, I know the laundry just got fascinating, but sit the hell down and write.
Write to write. Don’t say you’re a writer if you’re not writing. You’re not a writer, and who cares anyway, if you’re not writing. Even if you’re writing, don’t call yourself a writer. Say, instead, “I write.” It's the verb that's important, not the noun. “I haven’t been able to write,” people say to me all the time. “No, actually,” I respond, “You have been able to write, but you have chosen not to.” They usually walk away unhappy. We are always – ALWAYS – in choice. If you have a napkin and a pencil nub or a piece of dirt on a stick, you can write. Don’t let the “writer” take precedence over the “writing.” Let go of outcome. Forget blog statistics and the endless “freebies” that have sprouted online. Why does your blog need to lead anywhere? What’s all this striving about? Don’t search endlessly for a book deal before you’ve even written anything. Go back to #2: sit the hell down and write. Sit alone with yourself and a piece of paper without thinking about an audience, your database, the best way to market using social media.
Long to say something. “How can I build a successful blog?” people ask me. I do not have a clue. I do everything wrong—my posts are too infrequent and far too long for a nation shocked by long uninterrupted blocks of text. What is your intention? To build a successful blog, or to actually say what is inside of your heart and mind and every single bloody cell of your being, and that you must somehow export it out into the world before you die? Much writing I read these days is to sell something by a formula. Is that your highest purpose? Is that the voice that is dying to be let free into the world? If it is, great, that's fantastic! If not, stop it. Stop it. Sit with yourself and your unique place in the world and write it all down. Write it all down. Speak your voice. So many people say they need to find their voice. You have a voice, now use it, damn it. In the writing comes the thread. In the writing comes your unique voice, your way, your sense-making of the world around you. Can’t say what you want because people won’t understand or like it? Who are you living for? Yourself or people with wallets? Yourself or applause? Yourself or validation?
Name the direction of your intention. See #4, above. Why are you doing this? Why do you want to write? To be on a bestseller list or to say something that only you can say in the way that you can say it? To leave behind a record of having been here? To scratch out some small surface of your story for others to learn from? To tell your Truth as only you can see it? To get optioned for a movie? To enroll people on your precious database, like so many prizes in a Cracker Jack box? Why? Name the direction of your intention. You can’t play two intentions at a single time on stage—which are you playing? Are you warning Hamlet or getting the audience to love you? Warn Hamlet.
Ignore everybody. “People won’t like what I’ve written. They won’t buy it. It’ll never get published.” WHO CARES? Who cares. Annie Dillard once said you have to be an orphan to write. Be an orphan. Write it. If you fear leaving it behind should you be hit by a large flock of seagulls and killed on your way to lunch, write it and fling it into the air by hitting delete. The only thing important about that difficult scene you need to write, but which would embarrass you if others read it, is that you wrote it. Write it all down, the worst imaginable things you think (trust me, you are not alone in enjoying the smell of your own farts). Just write it. Delete it if you must; the important part is to write it. Get it out of your system. Stop trying to manifest an audience.
The writing is everything. Not the publishing. Not the work-shopping. Not the agent-shopping. Not the Amazon sales rank. Not the deciding who will play you in the movie (Meryl Streep, of course, for 90% of us, what with the accents and all). No, just the writing. The unsexy part. The part where blood drips from your forehead and you imagine yourself far more precious and special than you are.
Shut up about ideal conditions. I am tired of hearing myself whine about needing a writing shed—and, frankly, I’m tired of hearing you whine about it too. I have two words for you: Concentration Camp. Beautiful, haunting, exquisite music, art, and writing, were borne of Auschwitz. Shut up about needing different colored walls. These are all deflections that serve only to keep you from doing the work. Your studio is too messy? Clean it the hell out and get to work. You don’t have a studio? Write at the dining room table like I do. Don’t have a dining room? Sit on the toilet and write. Don’t have a toilet? Got floor? Don’t have time? Have a full time job? So do I. So did William Gaddis, author of one of the most amazing American novels ever written. So did poet Wallace Stevens. Get over it. Talking about not having enough time takes up more time than it would take to actually write.
Don’t believe the hype. Write your heart out. Put it out into the world (or not) and then write more. Don’t stop to head up your own Parade. Just write. Write like you are dying. You are.
Read more. Read like your hair is on fire.
Don’t take one more class. Everything you are doing to avoid actually writing is a deflection, including taking more classes. You know enough. Do you know the alphabet? Do you have a brain and a heart? You can write with JUST THAT KNOWLEDGE AND EQUIPMENT (see below).
Make do with the pen you have. If only I had one of those cool astronaut pens that write upside down and in the rain, then I could write the Great American Novel. If I had one of those weatherproof notebooks... See #8. Write with a pencil nub. Just write. You don’t have the latest studio equipment. Too bad. Pretend you’re MacGyver and have to save the world with a safety pin and a piece of string. Imagine you are on a plane that is going down into the ocean and you need to scrawl last your words on a vomit bag with an eyeliner because that’s all you can find and time is short. Use what you can find. Because time is short.

That is all. End of rant. For now.

[image from here]

thinking thursday.

2010-03-11T06:00:00-05:00

mind :: my brain and yours

Can teachers be taught to teach better? (Thanks to Connie Knapp)

Happiness by proxy. "Consulting the experience of another person, a surrogate, in deciding whether something will make you happy.... They discovered that the direct experience of another person trumps the conjecturing of our own minds." Hmmm. Is this because we are so attuned to finding meaning and the "how" outside ourselves? (Thanks to Laura Thomas)

Progress toward a multiracial nation

body :: my place and yours

These colors and textures just made me happy. Someone make this for me. And, well, shut me up.

Making vegetarian version of this soup. Yes I am. (Thanks to Kelly Pressley Kienle)

Oh, Edward.

Here's a theory of evolution I could really get excited about. And oh, for cute.

If you like hot dogs like Kathryn Ruth Schuth likes hot dogs, you might enjoy this. Vegetarians, avert your eyes.

soul :: my heart and yours

Oh how I love, love, love this. (Thanks to Tana Butler)

I hope I'm wearing a hat like that when I'm 114 years old.

Each single one of them a beautiful amazing human with exquisite joys and pains and loves just like you and me, connected to all kinds of other humans in ways we can never, ever really know.

What do you say to a screaming bigot?

A final thought :: Anything you lose automatically doubles in value. -Mignon McLaughlin

[image from here]