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!
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:
Some days do you get the feeling that it’s time to mix things up? Make a new cake? Challenge the status quo?
Today was one of those days.
I took my sturdiest, shiniest tool to the shore.
I started at the south cove where the wind wasn’t so strong, thinking I’d have the best chance to stir something up without tipping over.
I gave it a go. I watched the fisherman casting his line, as if that might inform the sweep of my arm.
It didn’t have quite the right energy. I wanted more of a ripple.
I sat down, perplexed, and pulled some seaweed out of the blades.
This was going to take more courage, and the right kind of wind.
So I tromped ‘round the bend and a gust of promise said Yes!
I dug in my heels and set the wheel to be ready.
And I waited for just the right moment.
It’s hard to stir up an ocean, but if you start at just the right moment, you have a good chance. It’s that pause between breaths . . . as if high tide needs to sneeze.
A bird friend give me a nod, without making me feel he was watching or judging.
He just showed me how he likes to fly, using the wind as a tool.
Encouraged, I mixed.
And I mixed. And I mixed.
I don’t know if the ocean noticed my efforts. But something shifted inside me.
Is this mine, was my October question. This place with the blue door in the meadow. This cottage with the piano inside. This yard with swings in three trees.
It takes courage to say Yes to your life when it shows up with a gift without warning. Like love at first sight. Your mind can come up with a long list of reasons (and fears) to say No.
It’s too much. It sounds hard. I’m not ready.
Or you can open your mind by hearing the thoughts of your heart.
It’s what I always imagined…in detail. It feels like a gift. I’m singing silly songs I’m so happy. It feels like home and we’re not even there yet. I believe I can do this! I will trust in the process…and outcome…and future.
Then give it some time. Take some deep breaths. Accept the October invitation. Wait for the November answer.
Yes. Yes. Yes!
Uncross your fingers and slap a high five!
Pack your boxes and move! Unpack. Bake a turkey. Give thanks. Begin to get settled. Add a tree. Hang some lights. Do the dance of a happy December.
Emotikin World 