FootprintsintheWind.com

“Display” the teacher said, “is transformational.”
“Why should that be so?” I asked,
“Is it a way to get on-purpose about transformation?
Or just a way to open consciousness?”
“Observer participancy?” asked the teacher,
“Love? Seeing who we are and how
Allows us to choose?”
I chose.

:- Doug.

In conversation we surprise
ourselves by what we say
more truly, by what we hear
of what we say

:- Doug.

You can trust people to transform
When conscious space is open
You did
Shh. Wait.

:- Doug.

Meet whomever comes to you
My poems want for a safe space
—They are fearful
Wondering if you will be kind
These poems are timid—they hide
Behind words, and say a little less
You must tease them out, yield
A spell of your life to the whole
Or simply stand with
People are poems too

:- Doug.

Let’s start a Live Poets Society.

:- Doug.

That part of us which does not build us up will one day be redeemed, made over into what does build us up. This perhaps is the meaning of hell and heaven.

:- Doug.

You are the most unique, special, one-of-a-kind person I have met all day. (That is to say, You have that of G*d within you!) Tell me more!

:- Doug.

Listen no more. Hear.

:- Doug.

Pressing on comes from memory. Listening, hearing, is harder: it requires presence, abandon, all of you.

It is a peeling of the onion—you from the outside, me from the inside, both from both sides—till we meet between and see that our roots are the same.

:- Doug.

Hear them out.

:- Doug.

“I see you,” Sawubona, is the Zulu common greeting on meeting and parting. It is profound, saying I am taking the time to recognize you as a person. To reclaim you as person. It is bringing earthiness to the eastern namasté—for the person is.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 708

Heart is the heart of dialogue
at the heart of heart is ear
and hear and art
at the heart of all that is a
a single indivisible one

Please pass it on.

© c 2007, 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

Fundamentalists are people who have only heard part of the story and are trying with that to construct a life around their anger.

:- Doug.

I know why people keep others at a distance (fear); the question is how to help them break through. The key may be: get them wanting intimacy. Perhaps find the original impulse. Ask “Why?” more. (Why did you move to Dallas? Why do you want to do that sort of project in your church? Why do you read? Why do you write? What do you write when you write just for yourself? What is underneath your public role as whatever your job is? Original impulse.) Go deeper than this surface pressing on, which is memory being active, to the original, the heart pulse, the new with this person. Slow down so we can uncover.

:- Doug.

I see you, I see you, I see you, kin
My truth comes forth unbidden but welcomed,
the way prepared,
are arms outstretched an invitation?
then yes, invited too
my hands have to busy themselves
here, have some
if you like or ignore, or reject
still my hands have to busy themselves
and my mouth must offer, offer
I see you, I see you, I see you, kin

:- Doug.

We transform the earth by hearing.

:- Doug.

Conversation is not about doing or experiencing (which is a form of getting or grabbing) but about meeting—about being present and opposite, being real so you too are met.

:- Doug.

Listening is something we do to another, while hearing is participatory. Listening is done serially and singly; being heard is often done synchronously and in groups.

:- Doug.

What would life be if we didn’t constantly try new things?

:- Doug.

The old questions get in our way. Find new questions.

:- Doug.

The process of writing allows me
slowness and searching
so I can be stalked by sinuous
mysterious truths

:- Doug.

I finally saw why women of the Old Testament felt themselves less than whole if they had no children: if you cannot produce offspring for the world, you are profoundly incomplete. Opening and bearing are the quintessential way to be human and real.

:- Doug.

Stroke, shape and nurture so long
yet finally you must
set your poetry free
to mate
So it may produce its offspring

:- Doug.