FootprintsintheWind.com

How shall we change how life is lived?

:- Doug.

Light a conversation to dispel the darkness….

:- Doug.

In conversation we know one another. In conversation we know ourselves.

:- Doug.

In conversation we say things we never thought before. In conversation we say things we never believed before.

:- Doug.

What if instead of the metaphor of conquering the elements, we dared to speak of humanity marrying nature?

:- Doug.

Flip a coin 100 times in a row. Now the same 100 flips with a goal: heads. Or even all heads. Same results either way: the coin ignores your goals. And interpretations of results. Optimism and pessimism are lke these goals and interpretations, but at an odd angle. Neither have the final say. Life does. Life gives us many “failures” and “successes,” intermixed. Neither “wins.” Life does.

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

What is the important stuff to have a conversation about? What does deep mean, practically?

This morning it seems to me that deep is as deep as people go, to recall to mind what Ian Percy told me years ago. But I think we can put a finer edge on it than that. Deep is to talk about things that matter to the people, live questions, what people are struggling with. In our society, that means struggling with alone. So it could be politics, it could be a business challenge, it could be how to make good things happen at church or in our club. It could be relationships between people or between peoples. It is talk with a content. From there, we can get on our wetsuit and go deeper and deeper. Only here, the air gets more breathable the deeper we go.

But is that all there is to be said, that it is a topic that holds water? It is not just about the topic, but what we do with it: we meet it and the others with an open heart and an open inquiry. We meet the others as persons who matter. We meet them moreover as persons who can change us. We are willing to allow that change to take place. This is beyond an open mind, it is more visceral, it is a lowering of the shields.

So we have a topic that has meat, and an openness. But it is necessary to get to where it matters to our life. If we do not resolve this, we die. It is beyond gutsy: we place our life on the line.

Also, I see that as we place our life on the line, we must continue to place our life on the line. When we get to that current in the water, that place of warmth, we can and we must continue to follow it on pain of loss of life of the people. It is all of us, and it is life at risk.

And then we come to a place where it is as deep as we can go–for today. We need to stop, take a breather, leave the next descent to the next day. Or the next person. Which is the point where I am at the moment.

Still, I want to go deeper. Who can help?

So we have: a topic that has weight; open shields; life at risk; spiral down and rest, down and rest, breathe in and out.

:- Doug.

Let us tell each other our dreams. That is as good a starting place as humans have.

:- Doug.

I asked you to show yourself to me
like the sharp shadows on the sunny lawn
immediately the shadows faded
and the whole lawn was the same.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 611

Children are not just the reason for our schools, but the reason for our future, our society. Schools do not operate on the children, but serve them. Therefore, the year of the child is about honor of the child, and a million Mom March on the school administration building is necessary to remind us of the genius and seed in the children, the spark of star-stuff which we must nurture.

Please pass it on.

© c 2005, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

How do conversations travel? Is it a matter of the in between, or perhaps more accurately, the sea in which we swim, the air in which we breathe, the field in which we exist? We have to tie bowel to bowel and yank. Conversations travel bowel to bowel.

:- Doug.

This is the beginning time. How shall we begin? How shall we make the circle to the divine beginning–ahead? How shall we see your beginning of us in the light of not some past ideal, but some future vision? A possibility?

:- Doug.

So life demands and love demands
that we laugh and grieve and hug and fight
but not to kill
only to bring more
life and love.

:- Doug.

It is important to speak together of what matters, what brings life. Do not waste the conversations and over-stay in the froth. Get to the flow. Make life happen. Of course we cannot work all the time. We need jigs and polkas and exuberance and grief as well. But we need to be complete and whole and froth does not make us entire. We blow away, we melt, we get swept where we do not choose, we get pushed to the stagnant and poisoned waters.

:- Doug.

We are really about change–and most want root-level change. Change in attitudes, goals and beginnings. You Lord are about beginnings and birthings I realized, too. So this genesis is happening now and our job is to make it happen easier–to oil the sluices, to remove the friction. So when there is resistance, remember to oil! Remember to smooth the way, however we can. Do not oppose and struggle, but oppose (if necessary) and smooth.

:- Doug.

Where is that path headed? Towards Teilhard’s Omega, Germann’s koosh ball. A breathing in and out from there, an embrace and a reaching out to embrace. It may be more path than destination, more verb than noun, more both than either. Loving is including. Loving is flowing. We need to be about loving rather than to simply be loved or love. That was not well said. I mean to say we are about flowing action not arriving. Goals focus on ends, nouns; dreams focus on the path and the direction. We never do arrive. We are only always creating the new Heaven and the new Earth.

:- Doug.

Last night was a bit of a let down after the high spirits of a meeting with OS people. We went to a dinner-theatre, which I found to be less theatre and more horsing around, about the skeleton of a story line. We sat opposite a couple from another province “on holiday,” and struggled to make conversation. Polite: I was down because we did not get to deeper conversation. Yet it was in my heart–truly–it was a lack of courage to say forth what was necessary to have a conversation. In another such situation one thing I can do is acknowledge how awkward it is, perhaps tell a little about how I feel as a result, then invite with a deeper question. Even obliquely–“I am challenged by how awkward I feel in this setting–there is a meeting we could have or we could avoid it by having small talk. Yet there is a chance for us to really get to know one another as real people, and I would sure like to get to know you. To find out what you like to read and why, what makes you tick, what it is you live for. Do you ever feel like that?” This gives them opportunity to choose their own level of depth and whatever that is, we can meet. I like that.

:- Doug.

G*d you are here: I just needed to open the window!

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

Here are my notes from the last day of the OSonOS in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They describe a remarkable process.

Yesterday was a different experience. When it came time to decide where to go for next year’s OSonOS, 2 invitations were given: Moscow and Edinburgh. I was initially not wanting Moscow, partially because of the manner in which the person inviting was approaching our group–I was annoyed. Someone said at the beginning of the 3 days to sit with your annoyance–and that was remembered out loud in this circle of all of us. It started slowly with comments about pluses and minuses and whom all we should have in mind and the work being done by OSonOS (such as helping to boost a local developing practice community) and the costs and accessibility. A couple people called the whole a process of “discernment.” The time people used walking to the center to pick up the microphone gave a pause so comments and questions could sink in. The pace gradually quickened and soon one could barely find a waiting time between them–the spaces were disappearing, the betweens were melding together. Then one Edinburgh inviter said that his heart was drawn too to Moscow, as mine was being drawn, and we all stood and gave an ovation to our decision to go to Moscow.

Amazing process, involving people from many cultures, not all Western, coming to a process that must be primal, part of our common body memory. And maybe it is an ideal we were remembering and putting to work.

:- Doug.

If you don’t like the word G*d, then think of the most real, the really real.

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

Further on the quest for a phrase to replace “Kingdom:”

Let’s talk less about G-d’s domain and more about G-d’s ordering. G-d is active, turning us. Less does he care about our clothes and cuisine, more about our ordering our living our meeting.

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

A recent morning in meditation/contemplation I saw that our parks and exhibits give sound bites and dumb down the information they give people. I suspect it is because we have this thing about writing using 6th grade level language and have confused it with the notion of writing to the 6th grade level understanding. If we stretch people in both vocabulary and concept, can we raise both the intellectual and spiritual and consciousness levels? Do we do a disservice by this dumbing down? We learned this lesson in NSAI (statewide a professional association in which I had a leadership role) and grew when we suited our program content to the growing professional rather than to the wannabe. As a society we could learn by this–and grow.

What would it mean? Our parks and museums would have exhibits with blurbs, but also more detailed scientific signs. Perhaps also printed materials that would go deeper. And then give some other aspects of understanding–ways to dance, paint, draw, sculpt the image, as well as mythic and spiritual ways to enter in. We could develop a 4 or 6 part grid showing how the material is understood from a cultural, scientific, arts, mythic, and spiritual standpoint–always drawing people up and out of smaller views to larger.

The danger is that people would see these as separate realms, some of which are higher than others. The antidote might be to draw people into a consideration of what view is large enough to include–and perhaps transcend–them all.

:- Doug.

Disney has a new ride
–have you heard?–
You can still go
inside the human body
or careen down the outside of a mountain
But this one! What ambition!
This one promises to take you
–inside G-d!
You’ve got to ride this one to see
if they’ve pulled it off
There are sweeping scenes from
high vistas, and flowing down
tiny rivulets:
There are greens and blues and reds
and oranges and ochres, and chartreuses
There are birds and fish and manatees
There are 4-legged and 2-legged and 8-legged
There are winds and whirlwinds and hurricanes and breaths
There are mothers and fathers
and mountains and great seas
There are fleas and ticks and no-seeums
amoebae and tarantulas
and hugs and kisses
and muddy snow and sunsets and
rainbows
There are tsunamis and floods and
clouds and drear
There are worlds upon worlds
galaxies upon galaxies
universes upon universes
Too big to hold in your mind
Too little too
What? you say, This is just like the
world we know!

:- Doug.