Sure, the Chanterelle

Sometimes words escape me. Like tonight.

Then I reach back and find something written at another time...

...like this simple poem, which you will find in the upcoming collection, along with much longer poems of course. My dad (I know you're reading this! :) doubts that two or three lines qualify as poetry. I tease him, saying he hasn't read much haiku. He laughs back and says, "True."

To me, poetry is the capturing of something essential, emotional, full— regardless of how many words it takes to accomplish it. You don't have to agree with me; you can agree with him. My dad will be happy either way.

Here's the poem, which was written at the Fruits, Herbs & Spices (and the occasional snap pea and golden beet Twitter party...


Frilly skirted
chanterelle, how you
beckon, fling.


Holding the Umbrella photo, by L.L. Barkat.

POETRY FRIDAY:
Monica’s knowing
A Simple Country Girl’s She may be stumbling
Glynn’s Apple Pie, Late Harvest
Cindy’s An Extra… Ordinary… Life
Jennifer’s Bread…
nAncY’s fragrance
Maureen’s Love Uses Spices and Herbs
Kelly’s When I Grow Old
Eric’s Form of a Poem
HighCallingBlogs Fear of Seconds
Marcus's Serendipity

SOME OF YOU ASKED:
Here are some answers about the poetry collection and cover... InsideOut

Which Cover Speaks to You?

Take a stroll with me, and I will listen. The woods are quiet and we can take our time.




When you come to a clearing, look up and think. Is this the place? Is this how you feel when you are in my poems?




Maybe a darker scene will do? How does it feel? Right for the words you are used to from me?




Or perhaps this is a better place? Does it evoke the voice, as you remember it in my poems?

You might think about it this way too: which would you prefer to set on your bedside table, or hold in your hands? Tell me your thoughts, and I will listen. The International Arts Movement, as publisher, will listen too. Come stroll with me...

POETRY FRIDAY:
Tweetspeak's The Walled Garden of Spices & Herbs

Wordless Prayer

It's part of our world, this violence, says Laura Boggess in response to the next chapter in Gerald May's Wisdom of Wilderness.

I sit at my keyboard, wish for something profound to say, to add to a hard but good conversation. Nothing comes.

Instead I remember a morning practice, born in desperation, when ordinary word-prayer seemed powerless to help me meet the days in an urban classroom that had no crayons, no paper, no math books, one tiny shelf of picture books, no teaching assistant, 30 kids (many with serious behavior issues).

I don't recall what started it exactly, the wordless prayer. Was it the day after Calvin, my psychotic student, dangled himself out the window, 200 feet above the empty blacktop playground? Or maybe it was the week the principal punched Maurice and Maurice's mother screamed and overturned a huge conference table against my pregnant belly. Perhaps it was when Ivan punched Billy (again), leaving blood on the floor. Could it have been after I shouted at the class (again) and emptied the garbage can onto linoleum and told them to pick it up, pick it all up?

I don't remember. What comes back is the desperation of those moments. I wasn't the only teacher shocked at the violence and deprivation in the school, shocked at how far I could be pushed emotionally. Any given day you could hear shouting up and down the halls. Violence begetting violence.

And then came the peach blush roses. One morning I walked out of my apartment, and a light sweet raspberry scent met my senses. I leaned down for as much time as I could spare from my impending commute and smelled those roses again and again. Their sweetness melted some kind of sorrow and hardness that had begun to be a constant companion. In my mind, I took them with me, a prayer for the day, a solace.

It would be nice to say I became Teacher of the Year after that. Or always compassionate. I still struggled. But the struggle changed. When violence would rise in the classroom, or even in my own heart, I would remember the roses, their soft blush, their raspberry scent. Each time I was faithful to remember them, the moments went better. God was in the roses, I think, giving me a wordless prayer, a way.


Blush Roses photo, by L.L. Barkat.

How Do You Write?

I write in the dark...

and

I write despite...


Teahouse in Granada Spain, photo by L.L. Barkat.

POETRY FRIDAY:
Glynn’s David, Hillside
Kelly’s eve’s regret
Linda’s Redeemer/Lover
Monica’s Han and Leia On a Date
Bina’s Mrs. DeWinter’s Nighttime Honesty
nAncY’s meeley
Kelly’s tension
Laura’s Fruit
Maureen’s Woman in His Life
A Simple Country Girl’s Autumn Dance
Sojourner’s Adoration
Maureen’s Last Words with Her Executioner
Travelmom's Love
e.l.k.'s surface
Lorrie's Nite Nite at Cricket Creek

Want a Chance to Write at Beliefnet?

Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places is going to be featured on Beliefnet in early December, thanks to the creative mind (and gracious heart) of Joan P. Ball, author of the upcoming book Flirting with Faith: My Spiritual Journey from Atheism to a Faith-Filled Life.

If you post about Stone Crossings between now and then and drop your post link here (or there) so we don't miss you, you'll get a chance to be featured on Beliefnet. Five posts will be chosen for feature over five days. But all posts will be given links, so either way... you're there!

We look forward to hearing your grace thoughts...
_______

(Little side note: If you'd like to share in this writing celebration, but you prefer not to be considered for feature at Beliefnet, just indicate your wish. Thanks! Also, if you're wondering what kind of thoughts to share, check out a few of these posts. Each shares a unique voice and experience, and that's what's important... your voice, your experience. Broken Ribs and Stone Crossings, Finding Grace in Hard Places, dribbled with coffee...)

REFLECTIONS:
Glynn's Crossing Some Stones: A Reflection

Unpredictable Paths of Grace

When you grow up like I did, you try to know-it-all. Everything depends on it. Supposedly.

It has been a long time since "growing up", but still some strange place in your head never quite forgives you for not holding together what was never in your power to hold together anyhow— your parent's marriage, hoped-for joys of holidays and ordinary days quashed by volatility, or some other such thing.

Trying to be right, to know it all, brings the need for control; after all, it's so much easier to be right when you understand the playing field, have set the boundary lines yourself, inasmuch as that is possible.

Then along comes Life with a suggestion: let go, drift. In May's The Wisdom of Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature, he takes this suggestion and experiences Creation as it is. There's a sense of encounter, immediacy, Presence that May cannot control.

For one year, I too felt such an invitation. Let go. Drift with golden grasses, morning dew, the stars. Then it came to an end, partly because my commitment was finished, but perhaps too because God knew it was time to set me in a new place of encounter, where I could not easily be in control.

Thus, my art pilgrimage, which I cannot explain in an authoritative way. On this pilgrimage, I work in media I never used before (soft pastel) in a form (abstract art) that I have virtually no experience producing.

At some point I must have wanted to relinquish the burden of being right, knowing-it-all (it is tiring, often perplexing). And this desire sent me on unlikely journeys— first into Creation, now into Art. As a Christian I would not have predicted such paths. Aren't there more "Christiany" travel plans God should have suggested?

No, I could not have predicted the importance of Creation and Art in my grace journey. But maybe this surprise is part of relinquishing the burden too.

"Falling" in soft pastels, by L.L. Barkat.

OTHER BOOK CLUB POSTS:
Glynn's In White Tanks
Monica's Stars and Sunrise

Ticket to Party

Want to keep me? Make it easier for me to leave.

That's the philosophy behind a strategy that, more often than not, helps businesses retain executives. How do savvy businesses make it easier for executives to leave and, surprisingly, get them to stay? Besides offering professional development opportunities, they encourage social networking, by hosting events where execs will meet others beyond their immediate circle.

How cool is that? We regular-people have a word for "social networking event." It's called a party. I'm guessing there needs to be some kind of synergy. Executives at a party-social-networking-event meeting other executives, discussing, to some extent, business.

Which is just to say, this past Tuesday I participated in a social networking event, otherwise known as a Twitter poetry party. As a manager and culture columnist for HighCallingBlogs, this is the kind of sanctioned fun that will keep me at HCB for a good long time. (Part of my job is to meet poets and writers, engage in social networking, and write articles about poetry.)

All right, I know you want hear the best part. Who was at the party? What did they say (um, tweet)? You can read more about that at Tweetspeak Poetry.

For my part, I drank water (sorry, that's so unpartyish, isn't it?) and tweeted the poems below. Our theme for the night was Love in Character. I focused on Pocahontas & John Smith, Cleopatra & Mark Antony, Cyrano & Roxane, Lancelot & Guinevere, Shah Jahan & Mumtaz Mahal (of the famous Taj Mahal tomb), Elizabeth Bennett & Darcy, Scarlett & Rhett, Romeo & Juliet, Samson & Delilah, Owl & Pussycat, and Yuri & Lara...


Stop asking questions,
Mr. Darcy, with your
dark brown eyes... kisses
need no answers

*

Lara, I watched you
through the window,
choked on the scent
of goodbye

*

Mr. Young has
his Janet, now tell me,
who is Yuri?

*

Mumtaz,
the air is silk,
morning raises yet again
its veil of longing

*

Lancelot, you were my
green earth, the round
table upon which
my heart spun

*

Roxane,
don't ever doubt it,
for what it's worth
I loved you silent
as the stars

*

Dear Rhett,
this is Juliet
speaking. What
kind of fool are you
to spurn love?
I would die for
my lover's touch

*

Darcy, you too
could know purple,
could lie amidst the
heather. Let your eyes
but look on me

*
I am missing you,
Rhett, the lilacs are in
bloom beside the house
like purple flame

*

I watched them
shave your head clean,
strip your strength
in fallen locks, now I am
missing you, your hair
like rope around my wrists

*

The curry leaf
floats, curls
'midst black onion
seeds, brown sauce,
and I think once again
I taste your love
upon my tongue

*

I still remember
how your bangles
whispered glass love
through the halls, your hair
coconut fragrant, hands
henna red

*

When you stepped
under the Eastern Hemlocks,
John, I still had a few stray baby
teeth. You licked them sober, tall,
I left the shores

*

Mumtaz, would that
you could echo voice
over this dry river
through this dark tomb,
light my heart once more
like stars.

*

Vault of marble
cave, emerald-studded
calligraphy holds my love
for whom, at death, I plucked out
artists' eyes.

*

Had we but honey,
quince and money
a pea-green boat,
we could have
fled the sand,
put war behind

*

Who said love was
softer than the asp,
it bites the heart

*

Forgive me, Mark,
your ship arrived
my almond eyes
could never let
you go


MORE FUN:
Would you like to try writing a love poem, in character? Post your offering by 6:00 pm, Thursday November 5, for links and possible feature at HighCallingBlogs.com. Drop your post link here in the comment box so I don't miss it. Don't be shy! :)

God & the Song writing project: Right now at InCourage, they're GIVING AWAY a copy of Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places. One of my favorite SC chapters speaks of God as our Song of Songs lover. Would you like to try writing a love poem or vignette about God using the voice of a Song of Songs lover? (be as shy or brave as you wish :). Drop your post link here and I'll link to you.

Also, thanks to Michelle Gregory for asking me to share my writing journey. Check it out— includes the story of a very unfortunate string of rhymes.


Love Lane photo, by L.L. Barkat. Hat tip to Bradley, for the Wall Street Journal article.

Top 10 Steps to Make Your Blog or Book Go Viral

Viruses used to be simple. I'd sneeze, you'd catch my cold. Those were the days.

Yesterday, I perused a bunch of articles about Penenberg's new book Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves Reading these articles, I learned that spreading a cold just got more complicated. Not impossible, mind you, but way past a simple sneeze.

You can read some of the informative articles (I've linked to them at the bottom of this post). Or you can grab the high points here. These are the Top 10 steps to make your blog or book go viral...

1. MENTION your blog or book a lot. Stone Crossings. (Um, that's just me mentioning my book. I think it's very important to follow these steps with the same level of dedication a germaphobe would have about washing her hands. Because the minute I mentioned Stone Crossings, you may have washed it away (sorry, this does not imply that you are a germaphobe).

Anyway, whether or not you're annoyed by yet another mention of Stone Crossings is probably secondary. As Bill Wasik learned when trying to stop Peter Bjorn and John, even bad buzz can be good. Stone Crossings. :)

In all seriousness, I would be very careful about this step. It's better if other people mention your blog or book; see #4 below.

2. GET COVERAGE on popular blogs. Trust me, a bikini just won't do. It's got to be real coverage, like full body armor. Oprah, Rick Warren, Paris Hilton, where are you? I need coverage.

(I was going to mention Stone Crossings again here, but I was afraid to annoy you. However, I SHOULD mention that Penenberg got coverage on popular tech blogs, because his book is technically technical. Still, I bet he wouldn't mind a footnote from Paris Hilton. Viruses aren't necessarily fussy about how they spread. In my case, I figure everybody could use a little grace, so I'm not going to flinch either when Paris decides to make a video about Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places.)

3. TWEET A LOT. That's what Penenberg is doing. And from what I can tell by cruising his tweets, 'New' is a vital component. He tweets about Newsday, Newsweek, and the New York Times. (Ah, serendipity! I live in New York. Do you think this will tip the scales for sales of Sto.. Oh, seriously, I couldn't bring myself to say my book name again. Maybe you could say it for me?)

4. TWEET Retweetably. Did you know there are scientifically proven ways to get retweeted on Twitter? There are. And there are ways to pretty much guarantee being ignored. I've used a few myself, in both directions.

Unfortunately, the article that will tell you how to get retweeted didn't have any data on the usage of two words very dear to me: Stone Crossings. However, if these words count as self-reference, they would reduce my chances of being retweeted. Because, as the article will tell you, "Tweets about work, religion, money and media/celebrities are more retweetable than those involving negative emotions, sensations, swear words, and self-reference." Oh, and I was sad to learn that I must release my penchant for the semi-colon. It's the least retweetable form of punctuation.

5. OFFER VALUE to people. Penenberg notes that you can't control a viral loop. Bad things might happen if you try (or not). The best thing to do is give people something they want to spread the word about. As Penenberg says, "To get it, you have to give." If you're trying to make your blog go viral, this isn't so hard. Write well. Be generous with links. Highlight the good work of others. Books are trickier. You can do some giveaways or provide excerpts and reviews. But a book is a material object. That obviously complicates matters.

6. Recruit a design firm to DEVELOP an interactive website. I like this idea. It seems simple enough. When someone rolls over the Viral Loop website icons, they pop up messages like, "Click to explore bebo's story" and "Click to explore Tupperware's story."

How hard could it be to do this for my book? I could have little messages that say, "Click to explore the Evocative Creek Story" or "Click to explore the Fifth-Wife Car Story." You know, stuff like that. The only hard part of this step, in my humble opinion, could be the price tag. (Still, maybe I should talk to cool designer 23 Degrees.)

Penenberg's website also offers visitors a wiki opportunity, where they can add their own information or provide links and commentary. Would this work as well for a non-tech book? What do you think?

7. Find someone to DEVELOP A FACEBOOK AND iPOD application/widget. On the app, include a click-through button to your blog or buy-this-book page. Penenberg's application includes infographic, game, and research project related to his book. It estimates the real time value of users to various social networks, like Facebook.

Btw, did you know that Michael Jackson is apparently worth more than God? The Viral Loop app says so. (Hey, Chris Cree, HighCallingBlogs techno-genius... I need a Facebook and iPhone app for Stone Crossings. Is that too much to ask? Check it out, I already designed the art— see top of this post)

8. MAKE YOUR FACEBOOK APP/widget topical. Not as in topical skin cream, but as in make it relate to what you're trying to spread. This is obvious. The problem is that it's not simple. For someone like Penenberg, it takes creativity, but it's not impossible to create an app that will test and promote the theories of a technical book. However, as you've seen when you looked at my artwork for a Stone Crossings Facebook app (you did look, didn't you? Click picture for enlarged view.), well... who would know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of a widget on grace.

9. GET INVITED to be a guest Editor at Publisher's Weekly. (Anybody have some spare PW stationery sitting around? Bring it over and we can secretly pen a few invitations to ourselves. :) Obviously, this step is going to take some finegaling. In the meantime, though it might be a conflict of interest for me, as Managing Editor of HighCallingBlogs to invite myself to promote Stone Crossings at that awesome site, you could get to know me and someday get your blog or book featured.

10. USE EMAIL opportunities. Calacanis notes that he gets about a 60% RSVP rate through email, versus 30% from Twitter and 10% from Facebook. I'd say this is the one to be most careful about. Nobody likes to be spammed with read-my-blog or read-my-book notices in their inbox. Legitimate ways to email a list include offering a Subscribe by Email option in your sidebar.

If you made it this far, I'm assuming you're truly interested in making your blog or book go viral. These days it takes more than a simple sneeze. Still, I can say "God bless you."

P.S. It doesn't hurt to make a video too. Sorry, that's 11 steps to viral success.

RELATED ARTICLES:
CrunchGear's Viral Loop: Using Facebook and the iPhone to Promote Something Called a 'Book'
The New York Observer's Adam Penenberg's Crazy Viral Book Blitz
Fast Company's Viral Loop: Jason Calacanis Q&A From the Top of the Leader Board
Publisher's Weekly's Viral Issue: The Viral Loop
Fast Company's Report: Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter (this one's pretty cool because it also includes words most likely to get you retweeted and those most likely NOT to get you retweeted)
D: All Things Digital's Viral Loop: What Are Your Facebook Friends Worth?
Mediaite's Viral Loop: For Facebook, Michael Jackson is More Valuable than God
Fast Company's Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg on the Value of Viral Loops
Trenchwar's fun theory What Do Ninja Turtles, Hush Puppies and Pokeman All Have in Common?
HighCallingBlog's 7 Easy Tips to Grow Your Blog Audience

Original Viral Loop art by Studioe9. Viral Loop Christian Parody art by L.L. Barkat.

Trees Are Blushing "No"

Pokey.

That's the word Linda left out.

She made a pool, a stack, a pile. She fished, sorted, pulled, picked. And pokey got left behind (Are we surprised? Pokey is always fifty steps back, where we're likely to forget about it.)

When I saw the poem Linda made, without pokey, I commented that it would have been quite a different piece if she'd used that word.

It's a wonder, isn't it, how words have personalities?

This week, caught on the parkway, I sat thinking about the word hibernate. After all, winter is coming; trees are blushing "no" and weeping, but winter is coming. The word hibernate is one way to think about the nature of this change...

"Coming"

I like
the word
hibernate.

It is not
a killing word,
a crisis

word a
trauma word.
It is

a tender deep
warm primal
lay me

down to sleep
word, a nestle
into rest

word that
touches darkness,
unafraid.

Photo: Towering Pines at rehab center (yes, we've been spending many hours visiting Grandma since her knee surgery); photo by L.L. Barkat.

POETRY FRIDAY:
HighCallingBlogs Parking-Lot Poetry
Prairie Chick’s Just Breathe
Laura’s Trains
Linda’s A Stroll
Mom2Six’s Brakes
Glynn’s Slowing at the Faulkner Bookhouse
Monica’s Calligraphy Slows
Sarah’s The Dawn
Kelly’s escape
Bina’s Celebration of Slowing
nAncY’s book
Maureen’s Not a Rush
Marcus's The Price of Renewal

Technology Fails Me Home

Rain tap taps. Air is frost-ready. Weeks go by and, still, I have no heat. It is coming at last, later this week, but in the meantime here I am...

Sitting by the fire. Lugging logs from the garage. Tending, turning. Warming hands. Bundling. Noticing.

Like Gerald May in his wilderness, I sit alone and stare at flames dancing. They melt away thoughts, worries, logic and analysis. I find myself, as he did, feeling there is nothing in particular to do. This amber movement mesmerizes, frees. Unlike May, I also sit with others and wonder, is this how hearth came to be associated with home?

When the house is chilled as it is now, we come from our respective corners and meet unplanned before the fire. My big girl draws, paints, writes, leans on my leg as I read, think. I reach out and press her long dark hair between my fingers. I put my hand on her back, and she, unawares, curls her toes against mine. Little One comes too, chatting, smiling, tossing her hair and tangling it. I brush it back in place and smile too.

I love my technologies (yes, Sam, I do). But for these few weeks I marvel that at least one of them has failed me home.

Birch on Fire photo by L.L. Barkat.

RELATED:
HighCallingBlogs Things that Go Bump in the Night
Glynn's It Was Lone Elk Park, but...
Monica's Which Fear?
nAncY's book

Drift Me

Night comes and I realize I'm bound up. I can feel it ...as if cords are laced from one part of my insides to another, and little tension-elves are pulling them tight, tight, tighter. My breathing is shallow. I keep sighing, as if to catch elusive breath. The day has done me in, or maybe the week... okay, the month.

It has been long, too long— sitting inside, letting life wrap and tug. I remember these words, written during my year of daily outdoor solitude and I'm filled with the urgency to be freed...

There were days when I would go outside only to think, “There is not a single new thing I will find here.” In these moments, it felt utterly true, and I felt I was wasting my time in my excuse-for-a-woods. Then, in the next moment, the trees above me would shudder in the breeze, and something would blow past. Seeds, maybe, releasing themselves to the wind, raining over me.

Then I would start to relax, to breathe. It occured to me that I breathed differently when I was outside, and that with each breath I lost some care of the day. I became a lady’s corset, unstrung by the wind, unlaced by black-capped chickadees.

Why have I gotten away from this? The commitment over, I guess, life rushed back in, but my heart still needs rain, seeds, wind, sky. The Ann's are reminding me to come back to lazy moments, to let God drift me.


Sunset Over the River photo by Sara. Used with permission.

RELATED:
Ann K's book Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families
Ann K's post Catch a Falling Star
Ann V's Slow Down, A Primer
High Calling Blogs Power of the Slowing
elk's Four Windows
Mom2Six's Still
S. Etole's Take Time
LL's Stumble into Loveliness and Morning with the Moon
Kelly's A Broken Still
nAncY's into
Maureen's Reading GoodNightMoon
Bonnie's The Beauty of Whitespace
Esther's Ditch the Leash
Joelle's This
Ann K's From the Rush to a Hush
Jennifer's Hush...
Bonnie's The Call of Love Whispers
DSMama's The Best Part
Kirsten's Cemetery Walking
Monica's Slow to See the Spinning
Jessica's Sit Down!

HOW ABOUT YOU?
Do you have a story to share, about the need to slow down, or your experiences with "slowing"? Drop your link in the comment box and I'll link to you here (links back are appreciated, though not required; that way, others can see what we're up to and share too). Let's celebrate and drift together...

_______

Poetry prompt: Make a "word pool" of at least five slow words. Yeah, I guess molasses counts. But verbs are good too. Create a poem using a minimum of one of your slow words, but feel free to use the whole pool. Post your poem by Thursday, October 22, for links and possible feature at High Calling Blogs. Drop your post link here in the comment box so I don't miss it. Thanks!