Davy Shepherd-Mix likes to chase balls even though he’s not that fast. His human threw the ball for him, but then Mandy B. Labrador joined the game and beat Davy to the ball. Then Mandy ran all over the park bragging about how fast she is, and she wouldn’t give the ball back. Rude!

Sissy J. Russell wore a red harness and a pink leash to the park. It looked a little garish to me, but I didn’t say so. Sissy is stuck-up and ignored me completely when I tried to do sniff-butt. Courtesy is wasted on some dogs.

That’s what I think.

Love, Goody Beagle

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Here’s my haiku for today, on the topic of Youth:

It’s Haiku Friday again. For the past twenty years or so, it has been my practice to write one haiku every day. Every Friday I share a haiku here, about whatever topic I happen to choose. I invite you to write a haiku on this topic too, and share it with me and the readers of this blog. Just write it in the Comments below. The only rules are: 1) your haiku must be about the named topic; 2) you must follow the 5-7-5 syllable format; 3) no obscenities or hate (I will delete those). That’s it.

At the end of each month I’ll gather up the haikus in the “Haiku Comments” that meet the criteria and pick one at random in a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing one of my e-books: your choice of Haiku for the Seasons I, or Haiku for the Seasons II.

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Another excerpt from one of the e-books in my new program Living as a Ghost.

The very first book I wrote as someone else was for my own grandmother. I wrote the story of when she came to America as a child in 1905, her experiences as a “flapper” in the 1920s, her housewife life in a mountain logging town during the Depression, and her war service in the Second World War. I interviewed her and recorded our conversations, and she lent me a box of very old letters in spidery handwriting, plus about thirty photo albums full of photos of people who even she couldn’t remember. I wrote it in first person, in her voice, using many of the phrases characteristic of my grandmother, with idioms common for her era. I wrote the book for love of my grandmother and because I wanted my own two daughters to know their heritage.

The book turned out very well, and Grandma loved it. She was so proud of it she showed it to all her friends, and since she was a highly social woman, a lot of people got to see it. One of those people raved about the book to her daughter, and then the daughter called me up and asked me to do the same thing for her mother. That was my first paid ghostwriting job. I charged a miniscule amount considering the energy and time I spent on it, but it was a great learning experience to write a memoir for a total stranger. It too was a success, and for the first time it occurred to me that I might actually be able to make a living doing what I loved – writing – and had been doing “on the side” for the previous twenty-odd years.

So I was off and running … well, not really running. I was off and limping. I had a lot to learn yet about ghostwriting, especially about how to market my services. But that was almost 15 years ago, and here I still am.

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Tomorrow is Imbolc, an old European festival celebrated February 2nd. In Catholic tradition this date is known as Candlemas, and is sacred to Saint Brigid. In popular culture it has come down to us as Groundhog’s Day.

This holiday marks the first stirring of the seeds, deep within the womb of earth. Nature is beginning to wake up. The days are visibly longer. There is a sense of freshness in the air, and a feeling of possibility. Imbolc is the traditional time to set new intentions and begin new projects for the coming year.

Here’s an activity to do at Imbolc, to help you seed your intentions. In my family we call it Intentional Beans. You will need a small pot, some dirt, a packet of seeds (I recommend Scarlet Runner Beans, as they are easy to grow), marker pens or paint, glue, some beads or feathers or ribbons, and a little slip of paper.

Decorate your pot however you want, using paint, beads, feathers, ribbons, or whatever you want. Simple or elaborate, make it beautifully yours. On a little slip of paper write your intention — such as good health, or get an exciting job, or move to a new house, or find the love of my life — or any of a zillion others. Roll the little paper into a ball about the size of a seed. In the pot put your dirt, your intention “seed” and some seeds. Put the pot where it will get natural light, and water it.

Watch your intentions grow. When warm enough, plant your beans outside. Every time you look at your plant, you will be reminded of what you intend to make manifest in your life.

I promise you, this actually works!

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Here’s my haiku for today, on the topic of Rain:

It’s Haiku Friday again. For the past twenty years or so, it has been my practice to write one haiku every day. Every Friday I share a haiku here, about whatever topic I happen to choose. I invite you to write a haiku on this topic too, and share it with me and the readers of this blog. Just write it in the Comments below. The only rules are: 1) your haiku must be about the named topic; 2) you must follow the 5-7-5 syllable format; 3) no obscenities or hate (I will delete those). That’s it.

At the end of each month I’ll gather up the haikus in the “Haiku Comments” that meet the criteria and pick one at random in a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing one of my e-books: your choice of Haiku for the Seasons I, or Haiku for the Seasons II.

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Last fall I taught a teleclass series called “Playing Your Part on the World Stage”, which was sponsored by the National Association of Memoir Writers (www.namw.org.) The class is based on my book “Making History: how to remember, record, interpret and share the events of your life,” and explores how each of us contributes to “big” history. (By the way, I’ll be teaching this 6-week teleclass series again this spring, starting March 18th, again through NAMW.) I love teaching this class because I hear such great stories, and they spark memories of my own. Here’s another story about the changes in medical science:

My daughter is sensitive to numerous foods, including milk. It took years for doctors to allow that this was possible – because of the bias toward “normal” being people of Northern European descent, who have a gene that allows them to digest milk and milk products.

I too have this handy gene, inherited from my British/Swedish mother. So I can drink milk, no problem. But the paternal half of me is part Native American, and most Native Americans don’t have this gene, and neither does my daughter.

I can’t tell you how many pediatricians scoffed at me years ago when I said milk seemed to make her sick. Children need milk in order to have strong bones and teeth! A medical fact! Don’t question. Don’t make unscientific observations. You are just a mother, not a doctor.

Because of various factors, including the powerful Dairy Industry, it’s only recently that medical science has finally admitted that not everyone can drink milk!

If you’d care to share a story about this topic, please leave a comment here. At the end of each month I’ll gather up the Sharing History comments and pick one at random from a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing my e-book: your choice of a Making History Workbook.

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I played with Misha Airedale and Scruff Aussie today at the dog park. It was a pretty clear day, just made for running, so we ran around the park three times. In case you don’t know, that’s a lot of running. My human says it’s good for me. But I don’t see HER running three times around the park.

Scruff Aussie didn’t obey his human. His human called for him to come so they could leave, and Scruff looked right at his human then turned and ran the other way. His human had to chase him all over the park. Every time his human got close, Scruff sprinted away. I didn’t know you could do that. Maybe I’ll try this some time. My human could never catch me.

But she’s the one with the food. Hmm, I wonder if Scruff thought of that? I better re-think.

Love, Goody Beagle

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Here’s my haiku for today, on the topic of Swimming:

It’s Haiku Friday again. For the past twenty years or so, it has been my practice to write one haiku every day. Every Friday I share a haiku here, about whatever topic I happen to choose. I invite you to write a haiku on this topic too, and share it with me and the readers of this blog. Just write it in the Comments below. The only rules are: 1) your haiku must be about the named topic; 2) you must follow the 5-7-5 syllable format; 3) no obscenities or hate (I will delete those). That’s it.

At the end of each month I’ll gather up the haikus in the “Haiku Comments” that meet the criteria and pick one at random in a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing one of my e-books: your choice of Haiku for the Seasons I, or Haiku for the Seasons II.

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Here’s another short excerpt from one of the e-books in my upcoming program for freelance writers who want to learn to be ghosts, Living as a Ghost:

People don’t want to admit they hire ghostwriters. There is a stigma attached to using a ghostwriter, and we might as well admit it. Why should this be?

Whether they can write well or not, people think they should be able to write.

We are funny about writing. We think everyone can write – after all, we learned how in first grade! Reading and writing are a big part of what makes us “civilized.”

One of the correlating lessons that we learned, at the tender age of four or five, was that we must do our own work. Never, ever, copy someone else. We are all capable of learning the skill of writing.

A first grader can write a simple story. A fourth grader can write a book report. By the time you get to high school, you have learned to research and do reports on complex subjects. You have learned grammar and spelling and sentence construction. You have read some great works of Literature. You know what makes a book good.

So now you are an adult and you should be able to write a book of your own. If you have someone else do it for you, this means you are cheating, right?

Well, no …

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There is a quote by Eric Hoffer: “Power corrupts the few, but weakness corrupts the many.”

How true. You can see this principle operating right now in the American political landscape. My politics lean left; I’ve been a liberal progressive my entire adult life. Right-wing conservatives are not my favorite people (although there are some in my own family, and I love them anyway.) But when I think of weakness corrupting the many, liberals are the ones I think of.

Many of us worked hard and argued hard during the 2008 campaign, to get President Obama elected. Then we celebrated. We won! And then we went back to our own lives, so Obama could get on with the job of saving us.

Trying to sound like adults, we admitted that he had a pretty big job, and it might take him a little time to accomplish fixing all the problems he had inherited, problems that had been accumulating for the past thirty years or so. We gave him about a month. Then we started acting like the children we really were.

It’s like we’re all on a cross-country car trip. We’re traveling from Los Angeles to New York. Obama is in the front seat – no one else wants to sit up there with the boring grown-ups. We’re all in the back seat, crowded together and all talking at once.

The right-wing conservatives and Republicans are not in the car with us. They are outside trying to sabotage the trip – they’re putting up phony road signs (Watch out for Death Panels!); strewing nails across the road to puncture our tires; throwing rocks at our brake lights so the Highway Patrol will pick us up (they’ve alerted the Highway Patrol that we’re coming); and trying to shut down the freeways with filibusters.

They’re a pain, but the liberals in the back seat of the car have them beat. Before we even get to the California/Nevada border, they are whining because we haven’t gone far enough or fast enough. And yet, “I wanna see the Grand Canyon, can we stop?” squeal some of them, while others ask “Why are we going southeast through New Mexico? We should go North first, then East,” and others demand “Slow down, we’re missing the important scenery,” yet others screech “Speed up, we’re not gonna get there on time.” Many of them pout “I told you we should have taken the plane!” And every single one of them whines, “Are we there yet?”

And when we’re told no, we’re not there yet, we still have a long way to go, we get mad and want to get out of the car. “We’re getting another driver!” we threaten, ignoring the fact that there are no other drivers around, except Republicans.

You know, I wouldn’t blame Obama if he just stopped the car, got out, and walked home by himself, saying “Find your own damn way!”

But he can’t do that because he knows we couldn’t do it. We’d go nowhere because we’d be too busy arguing, whining, crying and throwing temper tantrums.

And since the stakes are the preservation not only of our country, but our planet, we better hope he doesn’t desert us.

Now here’s a thought: maybe we should try to help him instead.

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