Learning the Ropes and the Importance of Community

A large part of the conference I attended this weekend was about learning how to contribute to the community.  Not just the blogging community, but the community we live in as well.  It’s been a long old haul, but I think this weekend helped solidify some things for me in those areas.

It’s not that I haven’t wanted to, it’s more that I really didn’t think I had that much to contribute.  I mean, I’m cool in my own little world and all, but I’m not such a big deal in the real world, right?

Not according to the ladies at Oklahoma Women Bloggers.  Their take is that each blogger is a voice in their community and that we all matter.  That we need to get out there and be in those communities, and that it is our duty to connect with them and share ourselves.  Somebody out there needs our message.

So, with that sacred duty in mind, I will be doing more.  Those words struck a deep chord in me, and made me realize that since I’ve been going to school and trying to develop my professional skills, I have in a sense stepped away from who I was and what it was that I wanted to do in the world.  In the effort to become a professional, I’d stepped away from my natural self in the sense that I had stopped blogging about nature, wildcrafting, weird stuff, and pretty much everything except the writing.

While these posts are (hopefully) helpful to some, they are not the sum total of who I am, and represent only a tiny fraction of what I truly care about.  Therefore in the coming months, I will be making a return to self, and working on getting involved in things in my community that matter deeply to me.  Nature, the arts, and more. You will see those posts here as well.

So tonight, as I listen to the early season frogs chirrup and the winds in the trees, I will be thinking of you, dear reader, and how I can best serve you.

If you have ideas, questions or comments, you can e-mail me at tcmedia@hotmail.com . I’d love to hear from you!

Yours ever

~D