FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2528

There are patterns
In the seasons, in the things we do culturally,
Legally.
Tax returns sprout in spring. I rush in autumn to get the grass mowed & water hoses put away.
People seek mates around twenties, seek grandchildren around sixties, seek patterns in all this around seventies.
Sunrise, sunset comes the song.
Flow of Spirit in Meeting—settling, speaking, restlessness, Potluck days.
Shapes of clouds.
Spaghetti Bowl in Chicago.
Peace testimony of Quakers; war testimony of others.
All attest to our need for: Making meaning; making patterns.

Please pass it on.

© c 2026, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Did you think you were in the winter of your life?What told you so? Your culture? Something you read once? Was that from your culture too?

:- Doug.

There is another contour to the land and the skyscape fit to it above: The longing of the persons here, the longing of the life of the cloud formations, and the longing of together. Longing: itch, inherent invitation, calling, gravity, weight, worth, rich.

:- Doug.

Plants propagate in many ways—humans in many more.

:- Doug.

There are those to whom we are related by conversation
There are those who have interlocking relations—and that’s most of us.

:- Doug.

Rich are the patterns around us, the schemes and musics we live within
These go away, return
Turn a new direction,
Turn us a new direction, the wind blowing from where to where, and whom, it will
No explanation forthcoming

:- Doug.

Generations invite emergence.

:- Doug.

What will be your, no our, acts of citizenship in this large and growing civilization?

:- Doug.

Let us develop our courtesy for the art we need to work on, let us be respectful of the artistry of it, and this the art of living. That dear lasses and lads includes a generous scoop of conversation.

:- Doug.

Our work as elders, whatever that might turn out to be, will be as important for what it does not do as what it does.

:- Doug.

What is the death of life, the death of this generation of life? What is the good seed to retain, what the good soil?

:- Doug.

Should our conversation with our elders and our next be wrestling? Life and death?

:- Doug.

What is the food of the generations now past?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2527

Attend generously to one another.

Please pass it on.

© c 2026, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

You hear us into life.

:- Doug.

Can we trust the generations?
Can we trust ourselves?
Can we trust humanity?
Life? Creation?
Trust them for what, to what? You might ask. To carry us one more step on the path? Can we trust
The path?
For aren’t we all making up the path by placing our next
Footfall?
& so in conversation we help one another
& the human race
Choose footfalls
For the race.
Trust assistance.

:- Doug.

Overview effect—It’s the perspective, smart one!

:- Doug.

O richness of the vacuum, the empty, the nothing!
The essence of between
The essence of thro’
The essence of conversation
The essences of all possibility
For in you & in you two arises vacuum & all the other nots
Opening, opening, opening!

:- Doug.

In dark is promise of light
In light as well there is promise of things unseen
Dark & unseeable.

:- Doug.

The world cyclopean fashion pursues wealth, power,
Ego;
All loving-kindness is turned to
Utility;
We recognize no way out, no savior to lead us to gentler, more human,
Ways:
Meanwhile, let us have a mug of hot chocolate.

:- Doug.

He has too much hot chocolate in him
She has no hot chocolate in her
The one is greedy of soul’s invitation but
Impatient—so drowns it in the birth-pool
The next is blind to the thrumping of hearts

:- Doug.

Living is layered
Like our grey fabrics
Wrapped

Hot chocolate too wraps and stirs
Layers among layers

:- Doug.

What do I want to find out?
What questions do I want to ask?

:- Doug.