What to Do During Harry Potter

My Littlest finally made her way into Harry Potter. I figured it was about time, so we got the listening-CDs from the library.

She has always preferred listening to reading, and I don't make an issue of it. While she listens, she creates art. This is the garden that grew from her time with Harry. I love how it gives me a simple window into her spirit.





Garden, by Sonia, 11. Done in Quark XPress. Used with permission.

Simply Amusing

I love the way my thirteen-year-old thinks. Simply amusing. :)

Click here or on the photo, to view a larger image.



Sari-Sorry Comic, by Sara. Used with permission.

I Need a Simple Signal

Signaling is a technique successful leaders use to connect with various audiences— while speaking to what may look like, on the surface, one homogenous audience.

If you ask me, signaling is itself a sign. That a person has learned to work with words in an optimal way. Some people might call this "spin," and I suppose it could be. I prefer to call it wisdom, savvy, and skill.

This week over at TheHighCalling.org, Marcus called us to work with words through the practice of writing poetry. I can't think of a better way to develop a keen sense of language and learn the subtle art of signaling.

So, if you want a simple way to become a better leader, consider writing poetry. (Besides, all the cool business men are doing it.)

Words

stick in our throats,
when we haven't learned
to loosen them
with a little tea
and honey.

I Need a Simple Answer

Yesterday I could feel it. That feeling I get when my life needs to take a turn. It's an uncomfortable feeling, because it isn't simple at all. It's just this amorphous blob of I don't know what needs to be different, but something does.

I was tempted to sit down and read, to fill up with more thoughts and avoid the feeling. Instead, I made a cup of Red Velvet tea and went outside. I continually underestimate the power of just sitting in the back yard and listening to the wind.

The snow, which had covered the grass so fully for the past month, was melting away. The air felt heavier than it has in a while, and there were more birds than I remember just a week ago. The red sled was dry, upside down on the porch. I thought about Laura Boggess's trampoline play.

Next thing I knew, I was whooshing down the short hill. Again and again. Something freed up inside me. A question bubbled to the surface. What do you love to do? Talk to people, I thought. Make things happen. Bring beauty into the world. It was the beginning of an answer, maybe to the larger question of what-needs-to-change. But it wasn't simple at all.

Right now, accepting that is the simplest thing I can do.




Also, do you have a photo that obscures part of an object? Why not share it with TheHighCalling.org's PhotoPlay? You might also enjoy Ann Kroeker's Slow-Down Fast.

I Need a Simple Goal

When a task is too large, people get overwhelmed and give up. I was reading about this recently in The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Social Change.

The particular change I'm looking for right now is social in its way. I want to learn French.

Except French is a whole LANGUAGE, for goodness sake. And I admit I lose heart again and again with the trying.

After thinking about the issue of goals and simplicity, I decided that instead of trying to "learn French," I will aim to fill a whole notebook with French in a matter of weeks.

That also seemed like a really big task, so I broke it down further. I will copy one chapter of the French bible per day into my notebook. I won't bother to look up words I don't understand, unless I really, really want to know the meaning. (I wanted to know the meaning of foules and was mildly tickled at the thought that it meant crowds and it sounds something like... um, fools :)

The simple goal is working. I'm starting to think in French (a real feat for someone who can hardly choke out merci at the baguette counter). I believe the volume of French per day, written down, is serving like an immersion experience.

Either that, or I am channeling Edith Piaf as I sing-song the New Testament in French each day. (Yes, I say the words as I copy them down. French can even make suffering and sacrifice sound romantic).

Anyway.

I needed a simple goal. And I found une. :)

I Need a Simple Conversation Starter

I loved this brief article about Conversation Starters. And I still plan to buy the book it references. Seems to me it could be a good way to teach kids how to engage in their own attempts at the art of conversation.

In the meantime though, I decided I need a simple conversation starter. One that could make us laugh and think. So I've turned to TED talks.

It's only been a week, but my girls are already hooked. "Which TED talk are we going to listen to tonight?" they beam.

I leave the computer in the kitchen, turn the speakers towards the dining room, and it's like going back in time... to radio days. We listen, we laugh (the other night we cried).

And when it's all over, the conversation spills out non-stop. It's invigorating.

So far, one of our favorites was J. K. Rowling's discussion of the fringe benefits of failure. Frankly, I don't think any parental talk I could have given would have gone as far as that one graduation speech crafted for Harvard graduates. My Eldest sat wide-eyed, taking it all in.

Do you need a simple conversation starter too? An after-dinner TED might just be your answer.


(Note: some of the TED talks include very serious, potentially too-mature material. Watch first. My girls are 11 and 13, and I don't regret having listened to Rowling's talk with them, but you might feel differently about such things. :)

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

I Need a Real Trash Can (on Simplifying My Life)

Maybe it is the snow. (And the snow, and the snow, and the snow.)

But I am feeling overwhelmed these days. So when Cheryl Smith started her mission to simplify, I was right there with her.

For the past two weeks I've been thinking about this issue of simplification, and I decided it comes down to simple things, like this: I need a real trash can. That little gray stripy thing on my Mac screen? Just not cutting it. I need a real canister I can throw real, unneeded, cluttery getting-me-down stuff into.

I need to throw away unsorted papers, empty pens, hair bands that have lost their elasticity.

You know what I mean, right? There is something greatly satisfying about transferring concrete objects from the counter to the can. Figuring out how to keep these things off the counter in the first place (and out of the sanitation system) is another matter.

But for now, I'm taking just 10 minutes a day to see the canister with the foot pedal as my friend. Maybe I will work up to the Indy 500 of Trash-Can Competitions. Though if you're going to challenge me to it, please make the entry form simple. :)

A Closet of One's Own

I am on Art Pilgrimage.

Recently I decided to refocus my journey by using The Artist's Way. It's a path to creative recovery.

Was I feeling in need of recovery? No.

But now I wonder.

Cameron suggests doing three pages of long-hand writing every day. She says we should take ourselves on Artist Dates. I am doing these things, and it is spurring me to the oddest responses.

Take my bedroom closet for instance.

It was one of those shut-the-door-before-you-get-buried-by-the-avalanche closets. Maybe it was a picture of my mind. Maybe now that my mind is unfolding, relaxing, finding its way, I knew instinctively to clean my closet.

So I threw away a lot of things, carted some heavy-duty boxes from the basement (my version of California-Closet organizers), and made a secret place for my books beneath wool sweaters, cotton shirts and a yet-to-be worn dark lavender nightgown. (This effort has also produced a clean red oak floor beside my bed).

So I have a closet of my own. And this simple thing makes me happy.




Books in the Closet photo, by L.L. Barkat.

What We Give

Since the time my girls were little, I tried to teach them how to give.

Not just stuff, not the cursory item picked up at the mall, but something from the soul.

It's not easy to do this, and we don't always have time. But there are these moments when it happens and I catch my breath. A little piece of soul translated into a picture, sculpture, poem, story, necklace, something or other.

My Littlest just had her birthday. For over a month, my twelve-year-old secretly prepared a gift. First she wrote, then illustrated, typed, photographed, learned basic desktop publishing skills, cut-folded-glued.

I smile at the title, of course. The Stone. But more than that, I smile, even weep, at the poetry of the story. So beautiful, I think, I must share a few snippets with you...

It was round and sort of ovalish and it was purple, most of the time. Sometimes it decided to be blue, or orange, but mostly it liked to be purple. And that's what color it was when someone found it. Someone... special. Only someone special could find it; that was the way it was made. But at first glance this person might not look so special... but it knew. It had been found, so this person was special, very special indeed...

---

She put the stone in her pocket, stepped towards the door... and fell through. Oh!, thought Tina. For she was nowhere she knew. She was on a cliff, above a sea, with a fog around her, and it was snowing in little gusts but the wind was pulling it off the edge of the cliff. This seems lonely, she thought, sat down and hung her feet over the edge. I do believe I'm dreaming.

---

Tina was feeling lonely. And tired. And scared. And tired. And alone. And— her thoughts were going around and around and not going anywhere.

---

The color was Dragons. Every inch of it filled with dragons. Dragons all sizes and colors, some as small as your hand, others bigger than mountains. There was no describing it. Maybe, maybe a painter could capture it, but even a photo would look pale and dirty beside the real thing. It was so beautiful none of them remembered to be scared.

---

Tina was not eaten. She was not killed, and she had not spontaneously combusted, which is supposed to be impossible, but impossible things were not being that reliably impossible right then.

---

The dragon was about the size of a yardstick and very purple. It walked forwards. It stared at Tina majestically for a moment with its deep purple eyes, cocked its head and blew smoke into her face. Tina started to cough. The older dragons looked disapprovingly at the little dragon. The little dragon looked at the ground. But its expression showed it was not sorry at all.

---

The sky was dark and grey and ominous looking. Suddenly it started to pour. Everyone rushed inside as the rain beat down on the house and the grass and the island. It washed away all the dust and the dirt and the still air and brought with it a coolness that only happens in a rain.

---

"Shhhh, I'm thinking," said Tina quietly. Aaron drew some pictures in his notebook the man had given him. A mountain with a castle on top, a misty woods, the sea. He decided to go to the beach on this side, the only place the island didn't end in sheer cliffs, to do something and get away from all this arguing. Alice saw him get up and followed him. He didn't mind her. She would just start walking next to him, looking at something, occasionally leaning down to pick up a shell or an interesting piece of driftwood. As they walked along, a fragment of the conversation drifted down on the breeze. "The heir..."

Excerpts from "The Stone," by Sara, 12. Photo by L.L. Barkat.

In This Together

Over at Seedlings in Stone, I just posted about getting beyond helplessness in relation to poverty. In that post, I mentioned that the issue needs a multi-level solution: prevention, intervention, and care.

And as I said over there, I'm a prevention kind of person. Two ways I go about this are a dedication to simplicity and creation care. I know. That doesn't sound particularly poverty-eradication oriented— at least at first blush.

A life of simplicity, however, is a life that might choose, for instance, to live in rhythm with the seasons, thus buying locally-grown foods in season. This can support small family farms that fuel local economies. In this way whole communities can be prevented from being lost to poverty, both in the U.S. and abroad (the "abroad" part of this is complicated, because it's related to subsidies to large commercial farms that can undercut small farmers domestically and globally).

And creation care? The work of Wangari Maatthai and her tree-planting efforts in Kenya is wonderfully instructive. She realized that devastating land, cutting down too many trees, can cause drought. Also, in places like Sierra Leone, where much of the rain forest has been removed, there are added difficulties like forced migration that promotes overcrowding in cities, poverty and conflict.

I remember reading an article a few years back in The Atlantic Monthly that suggested environmental devastation is one of the top security issues in the world. Security issues? Well, for just the reasons I mentioned regarding Sierra Leone. Political instability is related to poverty, which can be related to environmental devastation.

None of this is simple I suppose. My head starts spinning just writing about it. It has taken me a lot of years of reading to begin to understand these things, and even now I can't fully express how it all works. But maybe I don't need to understand it all. Maybe I just need to remember the decisions I've made as a result of various things I've learned along the way: to live simply, to care for creation, to do my little part towards prevention.

And to remember that we're in this together.


Angels Together photo, taken in Marseilles, by L.L. Barkat.

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Simplicity's Blessings

The simple life. Some pursue it out of a sense of duty towards the earth. Others down-size for economic reasons. We simplicity-lovers have our different motivations.

Some of my best motivations regarding simplicity are found in the picture above. The picture shows raw materials for my hand and face "cream". And here are the blessings inherent in the process of making it...

1. To store it, I re-use a glass container, rather than buying a product in a plastic bottle that will have to be thrown away. Also, there are many questions regarding the safety of using/consuming things that come in plastic bottles.

2. The ingredients are, with the exception of olive oil and vitamin E oil, all things that come from a local economy. Rosemary, jewelweed, and roses come from my garden. Beeswax and raw honey are available from the honey-seller at the farmer's market.

3. I melt the ingredients together by putting them into the oven after I cook, thus using the remainder of the oven's heat energy for a new task (these ingredients are best combined at a low temperature anyway).

4. The process of supplying my own cream is a creative process, which enhances my sense of volition and purpose.

5. Using about 2 cups of olive oil and 4 little sticks of beeswax, 2 tablespoons of Vitamin-E oil, and 1 tablespoon of raw honey, plus free herbs from my garden, amounts to an abundance of cream at a rock-bottom price. I'm embarrassed to tell you how much I used to spend on face and hand creams for just a few months' quantity, but let's just say it was often more than the price of a nice dinner out.

6. It's the best product I've ever used. Not always for its consistency (it can sometimes have little bits of solid beeswax left that I have to "melt" between my fingers when I apply the cream), but definitely for its outcome. My skin is always smooth and keeps its moisture, and the cream gives a slight iridescent look which is lovely. I can also use it on lips, hands and face, which means I don't have to go for multiple products.

In a sense, these blessings are inherent in many aspects of the simple life. Blessings of quality, creativity, economy, health, stewardship and bounty. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Instructions, Sort of, to Make Cream (balm, really):

1. gather herbs and flower petals, leave whole and put in about 1 cup olive oil

2. put all in glass dish and put in very low oven, crock pot, or dehydrator, under 200 degrees; you don't want to boil the oil

3. leave for a few hours until oil is fragrant; remove herbs

4. add 4 small sticks (about 1 x 3 inches or so) of beeswax to oil along with honey and vitamin E oil and return to low oven

5. stir beeswax and oil occasionally with fork to try to blend; it will be a little stubborn and not necessarily want to mix. Add more oil, up to another cup, to get desired consistency. The whole process can take a few hours (especially if you use the "leftover heat" from another oven usage). Be patient and don't hesitate to experiment.


Face and hand cream raw materials photo, by L.L. Barkat.