Patti Digh writes like her hair is burning.

I've been reading Patti Digh's blog (it's like a kitchen with a fireplace and baskets of drying herbs and wild roses and butter-colored walls plastered with children's art and an anthology of poetry opened randomly to Rilke) for a couple of years now. Each time I visit I wish I had her gift for language, or her recipe for metaphor and connecting the incongruent. I wish I had pajamas just like Patti Digh because her writing makes you want to curl up and ponder your navel and then ripple with giggles.

Like her blog, Patti Digh's brand new book, Life is a Verb, is a book meant for living. You will use the book, repeatedly. You will dog-ear the pages and circle words and phrases and write in the margins with silly things like hearts and exclamation points. But don't let your giddiness fool you:

Life is a Verb is for Activists

I'll let Patti explain:

Life takes action, not wishful thinking. It takes mindfulness and intention. It takes slowing down and saying yes and being generous and being amazed and loving more. It takes getting out of bed and going to see the tiny Ninjas.

Patti Digh is a great big, wide open contribution to the planet. She's written two books on global leadership and diversity, and she's co-founder of The Circle Project, a consulting and training firm that partners with organizations and the people in them to help them work more effectively and authentically together across difference. She's a mom, a wife, and just to make you want to run away with her humanity, she'll eagerly disclose her undying passion for two other men: Billy Collins and Johnny Depp. Such good taste.

Since Verb debuted in September, Patti says, "I have been so overwhelmed—and completely humbled—by the outpouring of messages and letters I'm receiving from around the world. The generosity and love in these letters is a force of nature—I'm printing them out and papering my office with them, for those mornings when I wake up and feel insignificant, like we all do some days."

If anything, it's a lesson in "becoming"...

"For example, I got a note last week from a woman who said she was writing from her hair salon where she was re-reading Life is a Verb for the too-many-times-to-count," says Patti. "She said she carries it with her in her purse everywhere—and she was writing from Munich, Germany (where I used to live!)."

Life is a Verb readers tell a story of their own:

• Someone who had never read my blog, 37days, found Life is a Verb for sale in the grocery store and read it from cover to cover that night, taking time afterwards to write to tell me how it had helped her.
• A woman who wept quietly throughout my reading in Madison, Wisconsin, bought a copy for me to inscribe for her daughter, who was having a hard time and for whom the message would be important, she said.
• A man wrote that in his 72 years, nothing had touched him so much. A young woman at the reading in Minneapolis told me that she had received the book the day before her honeymoon, and that she and her new husband walked to the end of a long pier every day on their honeymoon and read stories from the book to each other.
• A young woman in Greensboro had her dog-eared copy covered in dozens of paper clips, marking places she wanted to go back to.
• A woman in Cleveland was reading her copy on the plane and was so moved by the story of the woman beside her that she gifted her copy to this stranger at 37,000 feet.

For Patti, "The fact that people are engaging with this book in that way is breathtaking to me. It is exactly what I hoped and what I dared not even dream would happen. It is thrilling and so humbling at the same time. My words are merely a catalyst for the expansive spirit that I believe exists in each human being. For my work to be a tool for opening that space is absolutely enriching my life in ways I can't even describe. I am both in service to these readers and indebted to them for teaching me."

It is a book that focuses on the spaces between people and in those spaces are the lessons of life, really.

Despite the fact that she's saying yes to all offers, and flying all over the country to promote her book, Patti says she's still surprised about Verb's resonance.

"I'm surprised by the depth of emotion people are feeling about this book—honestly, I cannot begin to believe that my words are the catalyst for the big revelations and changes that people are making as a result of reading 37days and Life is a Verb. I believe we are, all of us, at the very edge of a bigger conversation about meaning, life, and community, and a book like this serves to crack open that conversation. It is merely a catalyst for learning that is much bigger than words on a page. It is a book that focuses on the spaces between people and in those spaces are the lessons of life, really.

"I'm consciously practicing my own advice to "say yes" in this book tour. People in South Bend and Cleveland and beyond are asking me to come to their town, eat dinner at their table, sleep in their guest room, and I am saying yes, yes, yes. The power of that single action—accepting the offers made to me—is phenomenal. What has emerged is rich dialogue, friendship, love, and meaning."

*****

Together with artists from around the world who created amazing works of art to illustrate the essays, Patti is pleased to announce that her third book, Life is a Verb: 37 Days To Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally (Skirt! Books imprint of Globe Pequot Press) is available now from Amazon!

Read what others are saying:

Sept 3 - Light skinned-ed Girl
Sept 4 - Thru my lens...lightly
Sept 7 - A Month of Todays
Sept 8 - a wrung sponge
Sept 9 - tongue and groove
Sept 10 - Principled Innovation
Sept 11 - e.beck.artist
Sept 12 - Pixel remix: the Ann-alog
Sept 13 - Joyful Wrecks
Sept 14 - Ellouise Schoettler
Sept 15 - Steve's 2 Cents
Sept 16 - WanderingEducators
Sept 17 - the bottom of the ninth
Sept 18 - Sunday School Rebel
Sept 19 - Saying yes...
Sept 19 - Everythingness
Sept 20 - Nourish the Soul
Sept 21 - But Wait, There's More!
Sept 22 - Hamguin's Hide-Not
Sept 23 - Automative Acne (Productions)
Sept 24 - Amy Estes
Sept 25 - Barriers, Bridges, and Books
Sept 26 - Jennifer Louden
Sept 27 - Values Connection
Sept 30 - Sarah Morgan
Oct 1 - Tari June Goerlitz