I made contact with Karen Pedevillano Wednesday afternoon. She’s a fifth grade school teacher near Sturbridge, Massachusetts and she was the 1,000th person to buy a copy of “Second Chance Dog” from Battenkill Books, she will get the book for free, get some signed paperbacks as well, a George Forss bookmark and Maria wants to make her a chicken-cat potholder (Karen loves chickens and her husband loves cats.). I invited her to visit the farm, I hope she comes, she follows this blog, Maria’s and Jenna Woginrich’s.

Karen has her feet on the ground, she is not looking to buy a farm or live on one, she loves her teaching job, the regular paycheck and benefits. But she is clearly a creative soul, is an avid photographer, writer and poet.

It was great talking with Karen, life is really about connection, I think it is the most powerful of all of the human needs and I felt a strong connection with Karen, I was thinking about our conversation long after I got off of the phone. Like so many creative people I know, she is wary of putting her work out into the world. She is suspicious of Facebook and concerned, as so many people are, that the world will suddenly have access to her innermost world and life. Social media seems a bit dangerous to her, the idea of putting her own work on a blog never really occurred to her, even as she so strongly urges and encourages her students to be creative and share their work.

I told Karen that the danger from Facebook isn’t that some bogeyman will come through the computer and harm her, it is that people are so often drawn into obsessive, continuous conversations without meaning or end. I’ve evolved about Facebook, I see that continuous communicating does many people a lot of good – they find community, support and understanding there, as well as comfort. For me, social media is about creating and respecting new boundaries, I feel I need to be thoughtful about it, I want to use my energy to create, not message. But that is me.

Mostly, I sensed a familiar feeling from the creative and warm person, this passionate and committed teacher, this photographer and poet. She sees creativity as something that others do – she loves seeing it in our blogs – but has not quite realized that it is in her as well, that is what draws her. She relishes seeing it every night, she is anxious about doing it. That is the birth of the creative experience, that is the leap of faith. Fear is just a space to cross.

For me, the foundation of creativity is to share one’s work with the world, to open oneself up, it is a powerful and transformative coming out. I urged Karen to create her own blog and put her work up there, just as she is wanting her students to do. I invited her to take a look at the Open Group At Bedlam Farm, a creative and nurturing community where creative people are coming out every day in a safe environment and sharing their work. I hope she does both, joins the group and starts her blog,  she has the creative spark, the humor and energy and  imagination,  I can feel it, even over the phone.

Talking to Karen was the perfect cap to the Project 1,000 book campaign at Battenkill. We are selling lots of books, which is great, we are doing something more, demonstrating in many ways the power of community and individuality. It feels very good, Maria is taking me out to dinner to celebrate. All right, I will  light a candle for Karen and her new blog, I will be happy to see it, as each book sold there is a kind of candle, so is each act of individual expression another light to the world.