I have a box where I keep ideas, like props I want to play with some day. In that box sits a light bulb twice as big as my palms.
It’s hard to hold onto ideas, sometimes. They’re fleeting. Unclear. Brilliant but bygone as soon as you try to fill them with details and words.
This light bulb wove its way to the top of the box and the top of my mind, after decades encased with a clip between plastic and cardboard. “It’s my time,” it whispered, then rattled some more.
The sun had barely crept over the mesa when the light bulb woke me that day. At first it asked to simply be held and beholded. It was slippery, that idea. My lack of opposable thumbs didn’t help!
I sought a twist-tie in the kitchen, but it was too short. Then I found a rubberband in my junk drawer, where other ideas toss-tumble and jumble, waiting their turn. Now I could hold that idea more firmly, testing its shine as the sun spilled over the peaks, past orchards and pastures, into my window. I leaned into listening to the idea, so quiet at first.
When have you heard an idea beginning to form? Does it whisper? Does grab your attention with a blinding Aha!!! ???
Snowflake, having finished her breakfast, had questions about this idea. But it was too early to clarify with any coherence, so she glared instead.
“Too bright,” she mutter-meowed.
Truth. Beauty. Love. Good words. Good ideas. But where do we go with concepts like that? We must lift up ideas to be seen, examined, experienced…
Let new ideas swirl in the light of day dawning…
Go toward the light. To the window! To the view!
“Staying indoors is not good enough,” said the idea. “Go outside and play,” it insisted. Ask other bulbs how do they grow…
When queried, “How do you do? And by the way, how do you shine?” the grape hyacinths answered, “We simply bloom from our bulbs into blue. We just be as we do.”
“So that’s how you shine?” I and the light bulb replied, our question mark rising an octave.
“I’m beginning to see,” I said to the light bulb, meaning this idea about shining your light.
Aha! I declared as we brimmed full of photons. We are diamonds in the sky, day and night.
We can twinkle in daylight, we can twinkle in dark. We can dream in starlight and sunshine.
What ideas are coming to life because you’re shining your light?
How are you holding the light that YOU are, not just in your mind but your soul?
We love the idea of YOU and your light! Please keep shining brightly!
There once was a young poet who wrote letters to an older, somewhat wiser poet. Handwritten letters, not typed, not texted, but inked and mailed for the slow journey in an envelope. In one of those letters, the elder poet (his name was Rainer Maria Rilke) wrote, “In the great silence of these distances, I am touched by your beautiful anxiety about life…”
He continued, “Here, where I am surrounded by an enormous landscape, which the winds move across as they come from the seas, here I feel that there is no one anywhere who can answer for you those questions and feelings which, in their depths, have a life of their own…”
Rilke kept writing, “If you trust in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees […] then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge.”
DETOUR: I love the word astonished. Have you ever noticed that astonishing is an adjective, like some THING is labeled astonishing. The noun astonish is almost as fun: “you never fail to astonish me” reports the dictionary. But try making it a verb, an action word, like try saying, “I am astonishing today and it’s going to be so much fun!”] Like the incredible small and amazing sand dollar in the image below is absolutely astonishing!!
“You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. “
What some people didn’t notice is how Rilke’s next sentences suggested ways of being (you might say ‘doing’ but I love the verbing language of being with –ings:
“Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within you the possibility of creating and forming, as an especially blessed and pure way of living; train yourself for that — but take whatever comes, with great trust, and as long as it comes out of your will, out of some need of your innermost self, then take it upon yourself.
Asking and reflecting on beautiful questions is an art that takes courage and practice. I wrote about how leaders are asking open, honest questions (among other touchstones and practices) in The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity, for the Center for Courage & Renewal (Berrett-Koehler, 2018).
Supposing you could receive some open, honest questions?
Here’s a fun way to practice — with Supposing: Reflections for Accessing Your Wise Inner Artist — a 63-card deck featuring the Emotikin, inviting you into inner landscapes from seaside to mountains and more. Get creative pretending you’re in the picture itself, playing with the word on each card as a way of being (creative), and pondering the open, honest questions as journaling prompts or reflections for/from your own inner artist.
I recently ordered a small print run of a physical deck ($44 plus shipping) get details here. Or you can play on the amazing Deckible app ($14.99), for phone or tablet, where these cards (and almost 600 other decks) can become part of your daily journaling and/or meditation practice: https://bit.ly/SpzingDk
Do you have a favorite children’s book that meant the world to you growing up? Did it by chance come as a gift from another adult, not your parents? I had so many favorite books as a kid but one that sticks with me is The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, first published in 1921.
I bought a used copy of The Velveteen Rabbit at Granny’s Attic thrift shop on Vashon Island some years ago. Remember those books that say “This book belongs to” and you put your name there? I love this old book because inside is this—in unfaded, cursive handwriting, blue ink:
Dear Lin, This isn’t just a kids’ book. The message in this book is a sincere aim towards the adults of this world. Your family loves you very much, and with this book I hope you can understand how much! Love, Miff
I don’t know who Miff is, or Lin, but I do know this message warms my heart and soul, and hope it touched young Lin back then, too (circa 1975, I’d guess, from the copyright page of this Camelot edition of The Velveteen Rabbit).
I’m so excited to be sharing something now in print to be held in little hands!
Eleven Brave Pinecones is available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle on 11/11/23.
Eleven Brave Pinecones Debuts on 11/11
Someday I hope my new (first) children’s bookearns such an inscription. Eleven Brave Pinecones: A True Tale of Possibilities is the debut book in the Emotikin series. I’ve been playing with my Emotikin since 2003 — my inner artist personified — with countless photoshoots that I’ve come to call “metaphortography” and under-the-radar blogging for soul sustenance and self-care.
The paperback and Kindle edition of Eleven Brave Pinecones is available Saturday, November 11. I would be so honored if you’d consider buying a copy for yourself or a kid in your life! Here’s the link to the Kindle edition on Amazon, available for pre-orders now, and the paperback page will go live on 11/11.
What’s it about?
A Surprising Live Encounter Turns Despair into Delight
What would you do with eleven forlorn pinecones that fell (too soon) off their branches in a winter windstorm? What if you could find the right words to encourage them to go out in the world, just not in the way they expected?
“I know you’re not where you thought you should be. That means you’ll need brand new plans. And new plans take Courage!”
Eleven Brave Pinecones is not quite a counting book, unless you notice counting on each other and counting on your courage. This is not quite a science book, unless you count getting down to ground-level with these unique coniferous cones, catkins, needles, winged seeds, and even the weather and seasons.
This is not only a book for children, but for anyone who wonders how you move forward when the unexpected happens, by asking where we come from and how we might grow. Just as parents might explore nature with their kids, this book can start conversations about exploring their inner nature of emotions and feelings—from grief to joy, dismay to anticipation, and the difference between courage and encouragement.
This true tale of the imagination will delight and inspire readers of all ages to find their own courage to face stormy changes in life. This particular story begins on Vashon island, south of Seattle, and ends on Colorado’s Western Slope with a new group of pinecones, singing songs no less.
If you happen to live near conifer trees of any kind, you will fall even more in love with them and their pinecones!
Read this book to a child while sitting by a pine tree, then take a pinecone home to see how it unfolds!
If you loved The Hidden Life of Trees and The Overstory, Eleven Brave Pinecones will further spark your imagination and perhaps deeper kinship with the natural world of your own neighborhood.
By the way, if you ever find your own art manikin to play with, here’s how to transform this wood figure into a full-fledged Emotikin. First, simply acknowledge it has a soul. It becomes real like the Velveteen Rabbit with love. Have fun kindling your creativity with your own creative courage companion!
Available 11/11/23 in Honor of My Mom, Early Childhood Educator Extraordinaire
I choose 11/11 in honor of those 11 pinecones of course, but also to honor the second anniversary of my mom’s return to stardust. Mom was a kindergarten teacher who bought—and read—wonderful books to her classroom (and her grandson, my Wil), often with Caldecott Award-winning illustrations, many from her year in Australia where she swapped classrooms, cats, cars and homes to live there.
One of the best things mom said to me the summer before she died, when I was sharing an idea for another children’s book, was “Oh, Shel, don’t let anyone talk you out of writing that book.” In some long-lost box somewhere, Mom kept a copy of my first children’s book series, written and illustrated as an 8-year old, hand-sewn together with pink cotton thread about Timmy Turtle and Sammy Worm.
What Are Your Favorite Kids’ Books?
Please share your list of favorite children’s books in the comments. I’ve made a list of “creative courage for kids” books at Bookshop.org (I get a tiny affiliate fee from purchases here). I hope that Eleven Brave Pinecones will make it onto your list.
How You Can Help Make a Splash
Tell your friends about Eleven Brave Pinecones, especially if they have kids or grandkids.
Purchase the book at Amazon: https://bit.ly/BrvPnczK (the paperback page will be live on Saturday 11/11 and the Kindle is up for pre-orders now).
If you’re on GoodReads, you can add this to your “Want to Read” list and post a review later.
Post a review later at Amazon to help others decide.
In a few months (I’ll let you know), ask your local librarian or indie bookstore to order a copy. (The book needs time to get into “expanded distribution.”)
I’ve been saying this year that when new books make a splash, they create good ripples. I’m most grateful for any splashing around you’d be willing to do:
Is there more to a snail than the obvious slowing-down message?
The snail is my messenger this spring and summer, showing me what it looks like to slow down, to leave a trail, but I want to know more than a cliche.
Almost every morning, if I’m out early enough and walking into the sun, I can spot the snail trails in the hospice garden-walkway nearby (as mentioned in recent Instagram posts). On summer solstice morning, the longest (slowest?) day of our Northern hemisphere year, I was hoping to see an actual snail, caught in the act so to speak.
I put out a request to the Universe, “May I please see a snail?”
The first snail trail I saw was two snail-trails, a first. Like the good rare luck of a double-rainbow . That would be enough of a gift in itself. Lots to ponder with that metaphor.
Two snail trails, overlapping. One snail or two? Togetherness? Companions? Co-creators? Or one, looping back, divine do-over?
Past hospice and into the neighborhood, I saw my first snail, a big one, smack dab in the center of the extra wide sidewalk. I stopped and stooped down to see it up close, snap a snapshot. The glare of the sun didn’t help. Then I felt self-consciously silly as another morning walker approached. I stood up and kept walking. But shortly went back for a better shot, thinking “Who cares if it’s silly…I asked for a snail, take a good picture.” So I did and the snail looked stalled on its shadow, bubbles like spit in a puddle, like an out-of-gas engine sputtered to a stop. Still counts as a snail sighting.
After the rest of my walk, grateful for the snail sighting and a cool morning, I reached my patio. Surprise and delight! There was a snail trail glistening on the concrete! And a snail on the wall! A snail all of my own. Request answered! At home!
My inner artist wanted to play, to get down on the ground, up close to this snail to learn more of its secrets. And this is what happened…this series of pics.
After weeks of only seeing snail trails sans snails on my walks, this morning this snail showed up on my patio.
If you put your ear up close to the snail shell, can you hear the ocean, the garden, the Snail’s breath? Your own?
If you put your ear up too close to the Snail, you might knock it right off the wall. Is it okay?
This Snail came out of its shell and started its slow climb upward, but why upward onto the wall? I wonder?
If I lean back, give it space and just listen and watch, this Snail might show me its secrets. Perhaps.
My inner critic tried to spoil the fun, to discourage me from sharing that delightful encounter. This morning, the snail hasn’t moved, and I don’t know if it will.
But this poem by Antonio Machado gave me stanzas to affirm the power of the snail and the power of playfulness — another good message to set the tone for my summer.
VIII
Every instant is Still.
…
XIII
What I find surprises me: leaves of the garden balm smell of lemonwood.
…
XXI
Form your letters slowly and well: making things well is more important than making them.
XXII
All the same… Ah yes! All the same, moving the legs fast is important, as the snail said to the greyhound.
…
XL
But art? It is pure and intense play, so it is like pure and intense life, so it is like pure and intense fire. You’ll see the coal burning.
When your family recipe for Hurry Up Chocolate birthday cake is the most delicious ever, with its pink frosting with a few drops of Nana’s ancient almond extract, well, the cake is a thing. The thing you really look forward to and savor for dessert and breakfast the following day(s).
When your tummy finally calls Uncle and asks you to eliminate sugar, eggs, flour, butter, milk, and more, there isn’t a lot of cake you can make. There is that sugar-free aquafava chocolate mousse from Lazy Cat Kitchen, which is pretty great, but this year, after a year of quarantine, we had an even better idea.
Let’s make a sandcastle at the river-beach, light a candle, and have a birthday playdate, sans picnic. The sand was too rocky to hold a cupcake shape, but the River’s frozen snow-ice was an even better cake-and-frosting alternative.
The Candle took fire-breathing lessons from the dragon and the West Wind must’ve been having a birthday too, because she kept blowing it out.
My birthday buddies have plans for 2021, coming to books for you with their creative courage.
The Dragon figures in a fairy tale I’m calling “Once Upon a Heartstring.” It was in the last chapter of Damocles’ Wife, chapter 55, and now that I’m turning 56 it makes perfect sense to finish the story. Winter winds had brought a mean and terrible dragon that ravaged the village and farms, wounding the boy’s father who is barely beginning to heal. When the grownups can’t decide what to do, the boy decides to leave his village to go put an end to the dragon. Does he slay or befriend it, or does he learn something else entirely true? I wrote the beginning and end one starry night in 1998 but couldn’t imagine the middle back then. The middle has finally made itself known, and an illustrator is standing by to bring the story to life. This dragon is standing by as inspiration and model.
The tortoise and the big elephant are also on a journey, having met each other one day in the jungle when the little tortoise was lost. How will the poetry of their unfolding friendship help them find their way home? Dr. Mukta Panda, author of Resilient Threads, is birthing this children’s book to reimagine a path to living with joy and meaning. She and I are co-leading an online retreat together in March on Reframing Resilience, Renewing Leadership.
Emotikin is going through her archives of adventures since 2003 and deciding which ones to turn into storybooks. If you didn’t see it on Solstice, you can find her first offering, Eleven Brave Pinecones, here.
Later that 56th birthday day, by the way, my mom and dad got creative and made me a broccoli birthday cake!! It was the sweetest cake ever! Turns out you really don’t need chocolate to sing Happy Birthday to You!
I’m already feeling the creative expansion of 2021 and hope you do, too!
I was on my #freerangeroadtrip visiting Chicago’s Crown Fountain in Millennium Park, and caught this from behind the camera this time:
I had placed my little elephant on the concrete to take a pic and this little boy made a beeline for it. His mom yelled, “Stop, that’s not yours. Don’t touch it!” I looked up and saw him. And his little dinosaurs, and his little brother, who’d all come to the plaza to play in the fountain.
“Here you go. Can my elephant meet your dinosaur? You can hold him but I need to have him back….Can I take your picture?”
The encounter didn’t last long. He handed back the elephant, reluctantly. I kept taking pics. And moved on.
So, I’m on my free-range road trip visiting lots of people and places, and taking along my micro-elephants to focus my eye on the smallest meaningful moments and metaphors. These little guys (boy, his dinosaur, and my ellie) remind me how the littlest things can connect people, if we have the courage to stop and relate.
This morning, days later, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have been more generous and given the elephant to him. Note to self, perhaps I should carry extra elephants with me at all times.
P.S. Just noticed something. Look at the last pic and reflection…do you see the other elephant face? What is that!?
I set myself free on Friday at noon. Got my swing off the hazelnut tree. The clouds had picked west, so we went to the east to the beach with the tree with that branch.
Folded rope, chain and thoughts filled my arms, filled my heart. How tight we hold what needs to go.
The moment I slung rope-swing over the tree The afternoon started to breathe.
Sit down, the seat said, Say a prayer, said the sea. You can loosen your grip, said the chain.
Now tune your ear to the tide, My prayer whispered back.
Do you feel your breath slowing too?
The tide coming in had secrets to tell. It didn’t take long til I listened.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
If you’re viewing this online, not as email, you can see the minute-long video:
Today was the day. It was time to let my seashell friends and stones go back home. They’ve been gracing my windowsills nearly a year, coming to stay a few at a time over time. The spiders and dust motes made them sneeze. So in the spirit of Solstice next Tuesday, it seemed the right day to let High Tide give them a go.
So off to Point Robinson, north of the lighthouse.
Out of the basket, landing in the sand with happy chirps.
Ah, what a beautiful crew. I’m going to miss them.
They jumped onto the just-right-size driftwood to take in the view, get their bearings.
Then we sang songs. I wish you could have heard them harmonizing.
When it was time for me to say farewell, one little green stone asked to go back in my pocket. I said yes, of course, yes.
I must admit, the basket wasn’t empty when I left the beach. New stones had invited themselves for summer vacation. But that’s another story.
Saturday is a day for unwinding, Whether or not the sun in shining, Whether or not the birds are singing (which they are, by the way).
Let your stress spin off on the grass, Fertilizing green sprouts while weeding your mind.
Notice that moment when time slows enough for your soul to catch up and sing in slow motion.
<<Sorry to report that YouTube deemed the video showing Emotikin spinning on the swing was unsafe viewing for children! Use your imagination and be safe! View it there anyway.>>
Emotikin World 