FootprintsintheWind.com

Set loose the power of your poetry
show it on earth
invite the people to participate

:- Doug.

Look for the poetry in the dilemma
the dilemma in the poetry

:- Doug.

Listen for the music in what people say:
“There is something poetic in that.”

:- Doug.

The dilemma of life is
knowing you have poetry in you
and being convinced it is not as worthy
as the boring stuff

:- Doug.

Life is simple:
get out and do something for us.

:- Doug.

The only thing I know is that
we need each other
playful kindness is a good way
that leads us out to
need each other
more

:- Doug.

The universe is there for your
amusement
and drawing out
come join the fun

:- Doug.

Let’s get to the meet of the question.

:- Doug.

What is the greatest need in our community? The greatest need is community. We do not live until our voice is heard. Community is where we make the effort to hear one another. Hearing goes beyond listening: it takes exertion (here, hear, is the greater effort, not with the speaker); it takes investment of the hearer’s essence. Hearing draws life outward. To the extent we do not hear one another, our community is dying; to the extent we work to hear one another, and precisely to that extent, we live.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 707

My bathroom clock is about
Five minutes behind
And upside-down
The one in the dining room chimes about
Five minutes ahead
I live in that space
Between the clocks

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

Spirit needs to be touched.

:- Doug.

People need to be heard.

:- Doug.

Some day people may look back and call us the ancients. What wisdom are we leaving to help them?

:- Doug.

One epiphany this morning wasthattheancientswrotewithoutpunctuationorevenwordspaces- whichmeanstherearemorewaystoreadwhattheywrotemaybethey- thoughttheywereconservingpaperormaybetheysawthatwaythered- bemanywaystoreaditormaybenoonehadeverinventedspacesyetin- anyeventwecouldhavemoretoreadfromitifwedidntaddourjotsand- tittlesmuchlikepoetrytellsusmorebytellingusless

Add no jot or tittle was a reminder that, for ourselves and those we teach, there is danger in trying to direct the wind—and life in freeing it.

:- Doug.

Being heard may not be the spark in living, but seems to be the receiver, the tinder.

In an effort to live, we put forth shoots and tendrils. When these find soft moist good earth (another way to spell heart; ear, heart, earth are bodily related) then the spark of life catches, then there is fire. The spark falling on unreceptive materials dies before it lives. Received goes. The ground calls forth the lightning.

:- Doug.

We want to live
to live we must bring ourselves forth
fully express
discover
share
these give no life
unless
another receives
being heard we live

:- Doug.

How does a tree bear fruit?
Necessarily?
Inevitably?
Effortlessly?
By relaxing in the sunny breezes?
By eating?
By standing in place?
By being?
Or does the fruit bear the tree?

:- Doug.

Contemplation is giving a thousand pieces of your mind to G*d.

:- Doug.

Notice what we’re doing. Point out where the energy is or is not. Invite slow-downs and silences to refocus.

:- Doug.

The bus
takes you places you don’t
want to go
with people you don’t
want to meet
you can bring something to read or work on
and so escape
and miss what the bus
wants to show you.

:- Doug.

Let us prefer “whole” to “collective” as suggestive of symphonies, flows, great epic novels: we is greater than an aggregation of Is.

:- Doug.

The artist’s dry period and the mystic’s dark night of the soul seem to share one essence.

:- Doug.

In a great symphony, each note is essential, has more effect played just so at precisely the right time, adding to and being added to by the others. This is how people are incomplete wholes. Conversation is symphony.

:- Doug.