FootprintsintheWind.com

G*d is sprouting out all over!
Walking in the autumn woods I see:
Trees sprouted out of the earth, large ones
new ones, seedlings, fallen ones
grasses and seeds, seeds with prickles
seeds with wings, flying
spider webs, gnats, mosquitoes
—all of these G*d in many masks
yet not masks, revealers
a leaf falls past my eye, beside my path
lands, to return food to the soil for a hundred
other plants, all G*d emerging
and for the earthworms, G*d crawling, with
no eyes, but all heart
the wind blows the leaf a little ways to the
better spot
shrubs and broken limbs, coming up, going back
a respiration of solids, whatever that means
all over!
Look and see and hear

:- Doug.

The task is not to rip further what is already started, but to poke new holes. Poke first some who want the poke holes, who are looking for light and air and space. Who are these people scratching at the grey cloth?

:- Doug.

Anger does not grip you: you grip it.

:- Doug.

There are two questions: 1. Are people capable of changing their community? Although most do not believe it can be so, there are plenty of proofs that any group, any where, any time, can improve their lot. This is beyond question. 2. Whether people want to make change, or more precisely, whether they’d ought to want it? This is a close question and involves further questionings: motivation, whether change is good, and the toughest one: even if it is good, whether we are better off just letting things stay well enough.

:- Doug.

Intimate with a crowd.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 706

Any morning you can see and hear
and touch and be touched
is a good morning.

Please pass it on.

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What if conversation were how we unfolded together?

:- Doug.

Conversation is not about talking
It’s not even about listening
It’s about hearing
—the other
—your self
—the in-between

:- Doug.

We live in conversation. Most of the time it’s meaningless drivel. My life’s work is to invite the other kind. For pay I help people converse across death. For giving back I invite people to make change in communities.

:- Doug.

What I want to say is close to this: We don’t hear each other. Maybe never much have. We don’t hear ourselves. And we certainly don’t hear the in-betweens. My work is the in-betweens. A Will for instance is an in-between. It is a conversation.

:- Doug.

With some people,
you have to work hard
to hear what they are trying
to say
often me
stumbling among the scattered words
but your effort can be rewarded with richness
I promise

:- Doug.

Exchange, interchange, intercourse: how far along is your conversation?

:- Doug.