Welcome to Summer Expansion & Your Next Chapter: The Preface

I didn’t realize how long I have been away from my blog.

I left at the same time I started a 5 day a week, 5 hour a day job after more than twenty years as a creative entrepreneur and freelancer. It was quite a shift to work every Monday through Friday on a contract with an educational institution.

While I am grateful I did so, I am also even more grateful to be back for a time of expansion with you.

I have finished my draft of my book (with a working title) “Living the Haiku Life” which will be going to beta readers next week for the first round of revisions based on other-readers-insights.

The Primary Focus of the Summer Expansion will be sharing a daily haiku with inspirational narrative.

These are the building blocks of the Living the Haiku Life Book and are a part of that celebration. I hope you will return daily in July to continue spreading the joy and experiencing self growth in the process.

Expansion doesn’t have to be a struggle. It may be as easy as an inhale – and an exhale.

Let’s begin now.

Haiku 1/37 Summer 2023

Three birds sing one large,
one melodic, one dainty
Welcome to the porch

Sometimes it is the invisible that matters most.

This morning I took notes before this haiku made itself clear to me. I watched a watery, cool morning breeze play with my hair and the leaves of the bushes in front of me as I rock on this front porch, so different from the Alta Vista front porch.

Last night I had a sacred moment, a time of honoring, with a skunk who took cover in the plants beside the porch to the left of where I am sitting now. What a dear one. They skittered when I turned into the driveway, on an emotional high from spending a good chunk of time with the grandbaby where we sang along to Carly Simon, Jackson Browne and danced with the GoGo’s as we sang.

There is almost nothing more precious than a baby shaping her lips to make the just right sound – and being so thrilled with the result her entire body quivers and leaps as a result.

In July I’ll be sharing haiku from exactly where I am because by the time we are complete at the end of the month days, I will also be complete with my braided memoir which tells the story of how haiku saved my life (across 377 days that time!) after I almost died from Valley Fever & Sepsis in Fall, 2019.

Returning and being in a completely different place seemed so glaringly obvious – and just right.

I am so grateful to share this time with you!

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

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