FootprintsintheWind.com

The higher joy of giving
The joy of sacrifice
This is real

:- Doug.

When we rely solely on experts, by definition we get limiting answers. Experts focus. They look at this and little of that and nothing of this over here. Lay people look little into this, lots at that, and a great deal at this over here. Experts and lay people need each other: neither one has a whole picture. The more people, the wider the panorama. The more conversing, the better our information, grasp and implementation. The more conversing, the bigger our dreams. Don’t chase the workers off: invite them to the harvest. It is vital we get more people conversing.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 673

Conversation is a turning-point. It is chilling. We shudder. We find ideas we had not wanted to see before. We learn more of what is real. We hash out ideas, kill pet projects, separate the crazy maybe later from the crazy it might just work. We decide to jump off a cliff. Or we decide to walk away from what might have been. If we are to make something happen, only here we decide.

Please pass it on.

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Conversation is about moving beyond thinking. We become aware of things we have not grasped before, even things we cannot grasp. Its social nature draws me outside my orbit. Conversation invites my awareness. Conversation expands us. When we are conscious of more we do more.

:- Doug.

Since conversation is thinking together, it is labor, we seek ways to avoid it. Simultaneously it hints at the essence of us, so with our fear we are fascinated: we do it all our days. We are in fact drawn to it and to one another. I want to find out what is in this other, between us, and therefore within me. We know we are more than we have thus far come. Thinking is a social act. When we think, we touch the world. We touch others who think; we touch those who do not think as we do: trees and fish, turtles and turkeys. What is it about thinking that can make muscles move?

:- Doug.

Conversation is labor. It is the work of thinking and bringing forth. Oft do we run to avoid it.

:- Doug.

All merges at the open end.

:- Doug.

These are parts of joining: the individual, the group, the universal. It is here, the universal, that we find true being.

:- Doug.

These are not Its. These are lives. They are participating in life. They are participating in my life.

:- Doug.

Can we be convivial—can we share life?

:- Doug.

At the opening is the gathering point. The universal is the existence of which we are all a part, the most real, G*d. So it seems that all things, people and beings converge at the place where they open out the widest.

Now that changes the picture a lot: we see that where we are the same, connected and one is our larger selves, it is our open sides, not our closed off, smaller, pointier selves. We are gathered where we are larger, we are gathered where we spread out in the wide open spaces, where there is room to spread out and be different, and the differences amount not to divergencies but acceptancies, things to celebrate. The more different we are, the more the same we are. For one thing, we all have the desire to be all that we can and to use to the fullest our individual specialness.

We are all unique in our specialness, but the same in that we have a specialness. So we celebrate and make room.

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

On the way back from a meeting today I saw people sitting outside taking a break from their factory work. There were two picnic tables with people at them, set between two concrete block buildings, overlooking where the buildings were connected in back, with barely enough width of opening for the two tables, one behind the other. All concrete, underfoot, on three sides, up to higher than one story. A very inhuman space. There may have been a couple of weeds there—I did not catch a full picture as I drove past.

I thought, it would be good if there were a crew who went around and made spaces more human sized. Perhaps to this space they could bring some planters and dirt and plants. Maybe some toys, too. Some roundness and softness. Some water, perhaps even to wash in or splash about.

Would that be a good thing?! How could we get people a living from providing life for others? Perhaps that would be good stuff for the homeless shelter to give people to do, to turn their minds around from themselves to others, to get them thinking what is healthy and life-enhancing and how can we bring it to others. They could be paid something (perhaps in our local currency), if only in the form of a place to stay and sort out their lives. But the main work would be to go around to places and see how people live and work and see what is really life enhancing.

Then go and bring their learnings to others to help them enhance life, and in the process their own, starting with how they see the world and themselves in it.

:- Doug.

A Zen view is a slit in the wall through which you catch a glimpse of the ocean. The ocean’s sparkles inform your step in the peek more than if you looked upon the ocean continuously. Better than to beat hot and relentlessly, let what is best within wink.

:- Doug.