give love. give hope. for donna.
Some of you will remember me carrying a small crayon apron across the country during my book tour for Creative is a Verb. I still carry that apron with me everywhere I go. Bright pink with little crayon-sized pockets in which a rainbow of color sits. Embroidered in white with …
my cape has tiny red pom-poms on the bottom.
I am afraid of heights. Deeply. They make me shake. A diving board is too high for me. And yet, I’ve long wanted to experience the letting go that comes with trapeze, particularly after reading Sam Keen’s writing on trapeze. And so, at 5pm on February 29th (Leap Day), I’ll …
poetry wednesday : love poem with toast
Love Poem With Toast -Miller Williams Some of what we do, we do to make things happen, the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc, the car to start. The rest of what we do, we do trying to keep …
an honor.
I can’t remember being so honored by an invitation as this one: to give the commencement address to the graduating class at my undergraduate Alma mater, Guilford College, on the 30th anniversary of my having graduated from there. What a glorious opportunity to say things the students will likely not …
poetry wednesday : so much of any year is flammable
Burning the Old Year By Naomi Shihab Nye Letters swallow themselves in seconds. Notes friends tied to the doorknob, transparent scarlet paper, sizzle like moth wings, marry the air. So much of any year is flammable, lists of vegetables, partial poems. Orange swirling flame of days, so little …
how will you leap on Leap Day?
So, here’s the story, in short form: A book that had great impact on me as a college student: Sam Keen‘s To a Dancing God. My father had just died, and Keen’s story of the Peachseed Monkey in that book touched me deeply: Once upon a time when there were …
the opportunity to have the flu
In a recent telecoaching class, a participant named Vickie stopped me with a simple statement: “I didn’t get my homework done because I had the opportunity to have the flu this week.” All of us paused. There was quiet on the line. The flu gave Vickie the opportunity to slow …
VerbTribe starts in 4 sleeps!
I am so excited. I learned last year that I love teaching the art and craft of writing. My first “strong offer” online this year is VerbTribe, a 37-day class designed to focus on the writing process, to get you writing consistently (as in creating an every day writing practice). …
podcast episode 1: why the recognitions?
Click here to download the PDF that accompanies this episode (Scroll to the bottom of the page to access the recording) Key Thoughts: Introducing “The Recognitions” – a biweekly podcast series from Patti Digh on living mindfully Exploring ideas, interviewing authors and intellectual mentors, and opening space for discovery Asking …
poetry wednesday : two heavens in the now.
Heaven for Helen -Mark Doty Helen says heaven, for her, would be complete immersion in physical process, without self-consciousness— to be the respiration of the grass, or ionized agitation just above the break of a wave, traffic in a sunflower’s thousand golden rooms. Images of exchange, and of untrammeled nature. …
