I grew this sunflower years ago and captured this picture of a giant bumblebee on the flower. I now use this picture as my blog’s signature image. It represents my Kansas roots as well as growth.

As a Kansas girl transplanted to Arkansas, I have spent my life with the appreciation of farmers and the amazing blessings that each harvest brings. Seeds are planted, things grow, and food for people or livestock is then harvested.

Let’s look at this idea of “harvest” from a different angle. We grow more than fruit, vegetables and grains, right? Let’s talk about how we grow and “harvest” both leaders and a community. In my opinion and experience, harvesting leaders and community go hand-in-hand and hold similar ideas.

The key to developing both community and leaders is the idea of investing in people. Sometimes this investment means money, but money is a means to an end. Investing also means believing in, focusing on, and developing individuals.

First, I will share my own story of investing in people then challenge all of us to find what this idea of harvesting leaders and community means for each of us.

For me, investing in others happens in two key ways:

Helping people better understand who they are and what that means for their lives, and

Building relationships through compassionate listening and discovering common ground.

Life Action Plan

The first point is part of my Life Action Plan that I developed through becoming certified as an advisor for the Inseitz Group Women’s Empowerment Initiative. My Life Action Plan speaks to helping all people, but has a specific focus on women.

For me, this plan has three major components. The first component is the spiritual side and involves my work with the Captivating Heart Women’s Retreat ministry where we talk about our true identity in Christ.

The second component is with the Women’s Empowerment Initiative where we work with women to develop themselves in 10 key character principles that create to authentic success. This component involves women who are my peers and older than I am.

The third component is through my business, Jamie’s Notebook, and addresses future industry leaders. I recently realized I needed to hire writers to help with a specific project and decided to hire interns from the University of Arkansas. No one on my new team had done the style of writing I needed so it’s meant teaching them, coaching them and encouraging them to assess their existing skills and utilize those in a different way. 

Common ground

The second point, finding common ground to work on building relationships, is something that is less defined for me. I’ve realized recently that my personal role in this is encouraging people to listen to each other’s stories to better understand each other. My current focus for the “listen to each other” idea is focuses on developing a better understanding of racism, as well as life with a disability and/or chronic illness.

I believe that when we better understand each other and develop compassion for each other, we will be more adept at finding common ground. Through common ground, we can find community. Community must be more than simply a common interest. It must have intent and a focus on building each other up.

Think of our community with Arkansas Women Bloggers and The Women Bloggers. Sure, we all are bloggers in some form and that’s our common ground. But, we work to build each other up instead of competing with each other. Through Stephanie and others, we’ve created a community that is more than just a group of bloggers. It’s a group of women invested in each other’s futures.

This t-shirt was available at the Megaphone Summit. It is the epitome of our group.

What’s your story?

You’ve kindly read my story and how this idea of harvesting leaders and community applies to my life. Now I want to know your story. How do you think we harvest leaders? How do we harvest community? I challenge you to think about how to accomplish. Do you agree that it’s all about investing in people? Then tell your story of what that means for your life.

Let’s share!

Jamie has been blogging in one form or another since 2005 and now blogs over at Jamie’s Thots. She lives in Elkins with her husband John, and their four fur kids. Jamie is also a professional writer and speaker through her business Jamie’s Notebook. You can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest where all her handles are @JamiesThots. Headshot by Linda Richards Photography.

by Kayla Shown-Dean

When the days get shorter and the mornings get colder, I come alive. I’m not sure why exactly, but in the fall, I find myself inspired and brimming with stories to tell. The harvest season simply has this effect on me. Therefore, I find it an excellent time to harvest creativity.

As a child, my cousins and I would help our Papaw Tex harvest what was left of the squash, okra, and cucumbers before the frost hit. We’d gather the veggies in large buckets and take them inside to my Grandma Joy who would can them for the winter. It’s easy to understand the harvest in terms of gathering produce like this, yet creativity can be gathered and stored much in the same way.  During the harvest season, there are five simple ways to harvest your creativity

Go Outside

With the beautiful weather and changing leaves, you may find yourself longing to go outdoors—I know I do!—and the lowering temperatures enable you to do more. I usually find inspiration while doing some outdoor activity, whether it is going on a hike, visiting a local park, or just doing yard work that I’ve put off because of the sInsummer heat. No matter what you do, time outdoors is bound to get your creative juices flowing again, which can help fuel some of your fall and winter projects.

Take Pictures

If you see something that inspires you, take a picture of it. We always have our phones with us, and with a little technology, it is so easy to create an album, either on social media or on your phone, of inspirational photos that you can revisit later when your creativity tank is running low. I’ve actually turned my Instagram account into a collection of inspirational photos like this. (Thanks to Sarah Shotts and her Venture Camp, I got a good bank of photos that should take me well into the new year—Thanks, Sarah!)

 

Journal

Whether you are a writer or an artist, I HIGHLY recommend keeping some kind of journal or sketchbook. My journal is filled with a wide-range of entries, from Purge Pages to poems to prayers. I write about anything and everything—and I do so DAILY. As with the photos, I revisit these entries often to refuel.

Listen to Inspiring Music

When it gets colder, going outdoors may not be a possibility. On bitterly cold days, I revisit my journal for inspiration, and often times, I listen to my favorite music as well. For me, this means Phil Collins, Phillip Wesley, and Plumb—hmm, I just realized all of those start with the letter P. Music has a way of taking us back, of helping us remember. So, if you’re having trouble gathering your creativity, try listening to some of your favorite music.

Socialize

Sometimes, the best way to harvest creativity is to forget about harvesting for a while. Much like the vegetables in my Papaw Tex’s garden, at times, we have to wait and let our creativity grow more before it is ready to harvest. Luckily, Autumn gives us lots of new and exciting opportunities to socialize, such as bonfires, hay rides, pumpkin patches, barbecues, festivals, football games, etc. Taking advantage of these social events will only give us new experiences to recreate in our writing and/or artwork; it also allows us to relax and not force our creativity—or harvest it before it is ready.

I hope I’ve inspired you to try some new ways of harvesting your creativity. I can’t wait to see what harvest you will reap!

 

 

by Katharine Trauger

My harvest germinated in Europe.

Specifically, this harvest began in Germany.

My best harvest often, but not always, germinated in Europe and found itself transplanted, here.

It’s a harvest of the planting of seeds of hope and courage.

Many motives lay behind the growers of hope and courage who left Germany decades ago. It was a widespread if daunting and dangerous practice.  

So, a fledgling couple boarded a ship bound for the New World. Were they terrified as they departed? More terrified once they disembarked? No doubt they were. Simple farming folk, who’d found farming in Europe to be a mode of slow starvation, parted with everything to start over, elsewhere, to take up farming again, here.

Consider their faces. Frederick and Wilhelmina look stern, matter-of-factual. And do they look a bit smug? I think it. I imagine their faces say, “We made it. We can afford clothing and a photograph, a house with windows and good sturdy shingles on the roof. Coats. Shoes. Things we never had before. We did it.”

Did they send the photo back to Germany? I think it.

That was their harvest from seeds of hope, courage and brutal hard work. That, and an abundant harvest of children.

Here is one of them, Laura, and her initial harvest, with her happy determination to increase even more all that was handed her. His name is Otto Jacob. His dad’s name was Jacob Otto, and before him, the name was reversed again. You could call that “branding the harvest” if you wanted.

Otto was a farmer, a vigneron, if you will, who also sold grapes by the peck, and played accordion with a band on Friday nights, in town. In many ways, those were his harvest, but he and Laura also raised six children.

This is Laura with the kids, standing in age order. Otto died after surgery when the youngest was only six years old. How Laura continued after that horrible blow, I can partly guess, because, during our Great Depression, our ancestors collected many tales of bare subsistence. Partly, she sold the farm. Partly, Laura made money selling strawberries, the entirety of her back yard devoted to growing, weeding, mulching, and harvesting them. Partly, she did all the flour-sack, make-do things we’ve all heard about. Partly, the children worked outside the home, for income that they gave to Laura. In age-order, these kids became: blacksmith, manufacturer, wife of a butcher, wife of a car dealer, school superintendent, and wife of a manufacturer. This was her harvest. You can see the grim pride in her face. She struck out, made good, and even made an increase with all the seeds of hope and courage others had forwarded to her.

Laura’s youngest, named Lucile, has imparted to me sagas of owning only three dresses: for Sunday, for choring, and for all the rest of the time. She has shared tales of how worn clothing became cleaning rags and rag rugs, and even a method for curling hair. Employed for a while in an office in Kansas City, she met Ted, a dashing military man who’d seen action in Korea, and she felt he was her destiny. Here they are, overflowing with happy dreams of what they might harvest from this life. They overcame job loss, re-branding themselves as small shop-owners, and much more.

And here we are, their harvest, myself as eldest, and my siblings, who’ve become: educator/writer/speaker, telecommunications expert, wife of a physician, IT specialist, and dental hygienist. Together, we have fourteen children (five are mine) and 16 grandchildren.

I’ve tried to count how many hard-working, clean-living people sprang from the seeds of courage and hope that Fred and Willie brought over from Germany, but I cannot. I am related to countless cousins and have lost touch with too many.

But I know it is a harvest of hundreds.

And I am glad for all who planted.

Katharine Trauger is a retired educator and a women’s counselor. She has spent 25 years managing a home and school for children who would otherwise have been homeless, and has worked 15 years as contributor and/or columnist for several small professional magazines, with over 60 published articles. She blogs about the rising popularity of “being at home” from a sun room on a wooded hilltop in the Deep South at: Home’s Cool! and The Conquering Mom and tweets at Katharine Trauger (@KathaTrau). She is currently working on a self-help book entitled: Yes, It Hurts, But . . .
Retired educator. Women’s counselor. Managed (25 years) a home and school for children who would otherwise be homeless. Contributor and/or columnist (15 years) several small professional magazines (60+ articles). Blogs from a sunroom on a wooded hilltop in the Deep South.