dogwood blossoms
and the layered space
in between

(Mr. D's comment this morning:
"Tama, I never knew that climbing tree
was so beautiful.")

Leverage

Recently I contributed to Liz Davis' Collective Intelligence wiki with some thoughts about how social networking tools have affected my practices as a learner and teacher. Here's another way the internet is changing my perspective.

Quaker Jonah McDonald was moved by the tragedy of Katrina's aftermath, and decided to go on a personal pilgrimmage. He raised close to $8,000 dollars.

Coudal Partners started thinking about making a short film, and recruited executive producers via their email list and website. The film has now been completed and is available for sale. (Executive producers got a special preview copy and other schwag from Coudal Partners.)

For Christmas this past year, I gave money to Aparicia Ramirez in honor of my brother Steve. Kiva.org helped me find her.

Artist David Horvitz creates artistic collaborations with his viewers... for a pre-determined price.

Violinist Robert Thompson wondered about the reliability of an organization that was collecting money to help support the purchase of livestock for impoverished farmers. His questions ended up leading to a kind of quest (the movie is about 8 minutes long):



And now blogger/illustrator Jen Lemen is heading to Rwanda to connect with her friend Odette's children and to make a difference in girls' lives there. I have been reading Jen's blog and admiring both her art and her spirit for quite some time. I've never met her. I have no overt connection to her. But I feel a sense of connection to her because of her clarity of spirit, transmitted to me via the power of the internet, and I'm about to act on it.

I am making everyone in my family a lunch every day this week so that I can toss a little "lunch money" Jen's way. (You can add your name to the list of folks providing financial support via the J. Lemen -> Rwanda widget in my side bar at right.) Alternatively or additionally, you could spend some time in the next few days creating some hand-written messages of hope for the girls via HopeRevo. What are you doing Sunday afternoon? Wanna come over and make one of these cards? How about after Quaker Meeting?

Haiku - Song Birds

surprising
to think of them at night —
song birds

(Tip o' the hat to Hannah,
who somehow somewhat inspired this haiku.)

Katja, I love your store, Skimbaco.
Apparently, I love it a little too much.
Look what happened while I was absorbed in
shopping on your site.
Too much great stuff = carbon-flavored Pop-tarts.

In other news, here are Mr. D and his fabulous aunt J.
There is nothing quite as wonderful as a friend
who really "gets" you. Our little man is blessed.
Also? In it for laughs, just like his mama.

New Grass Haiku

new grass blades
thread their way up
through rain

(In other news, check out Ikea's brilliant idea
for making inroads in Japan over here.
Hat tip to the incomparable Tara Hunt.)

overnight
azaleas and peonies
make a break for it

(This month may mark the first time
that BOTH of the haiku I submitted
to the monthly kukai over at haikuworld
received more than one vote.
I'm still in awe of many of these haijin,
but it is enough to be alive and trying.
Votes and points are a lovely bonus.)

fighting cats
leaving us all lying awake
longing for peace

(I went letterboxing for the first time today
and had a predictably great time.
Will try to write more about it soon.)

Haiku - Explanation

mourning doves
explaining the world to us
one more time

~

Here's the D-man with "his" giant Star Wars visual encyclopedia. (Otherwise known as heaven.) He was struck with a sudden case of shyness upstairs at the library, and didn't want to ask the reference librarian for help. I insisted that it was his job. We compromised and decided to write a note together (wish I had a picture of that)... "STaR WArS SecTion?" He handed it to the nearest librarian, who read it, smiled and led Mr. D off into the stacks, at which point all shyness vanished as he reverted back to his typically chatty self. Once the magical tome was secured, he couldn't stand to wait even the 10 minutes it would have taken us to get home, instead plunking himself down on a handy bench and reverently opening the book. In this picture he is explaining the dangers of this particular monster to me; it's fun for me to have a picture of his "patient teacher who knows all about it" face. And thinking about his penchant for explaining must be part of how I wound up at today's haiku.

(It's gotten to the point that a post
doesn't feel complete to me w/o a postscript.
So, completely off-topic: got me some snowflake rubber stamps
that are actually hexagonal in their design structure;
bet I'll never use the square-ish ones again.)

warmer days –
in the cardinal's beak
a bit of nest