FootprintsintheWind.com

People become livelier
People are brought forth
Persons come to life in conversation

:- Doug.

I lead a very rich life
and I would love to share it
widely
often

:- Doug.

I need to seek questions
and questioners
How do you seek not seeking?
What is it you hold when your hand is open?
What do we do when we do nothing?
How is justice done by not doing?
Stillness is action?
Being nothing is doing?
Standing with
Hearing
Crying
Emptying
Welcoming

:- Doug.

It is not about hate, it is about breaking the law. These immigrants broke the law to get here. So says one proponent of a new enforcement initiative. Ask this person: Did you drive over the speed limit in the last two weeks? Then you got here illegally; we should not listen to you, yes? Ask this person as well, Is this law which has been broken lawful? Does it violate human rights? Have our nation’s actions in some other arena—its heavy handed grabbing for economic superiority, for instance—caused the human suffering that drove these refugees here, making our laws inhuman and unjust in the first place?

:- Doug.

Writing every day
brings a whole
succession of glimpses, insights, poems
a richness to live in
and teaches me there is nothing to fear
from others—they struggle and love, too
from me
and from the meeting there is
much given
here we can play
on the playground
of ideas and peoples
swirling around us
in love unnamed

:- Doug.

Health completes and encompasses illness.

:- Doug.

Crisis is central to transformation. Transformation involves the death of the ego—the old self. So there are life-death choice points. The same is true of groups—if we are going to change, we need to get to death. This may be why Harrison speaks so often of griefwork—but this is after the fact I suspect. We need pre-griefwork: crisis stirring, death making, gutting. This is love? This is love.

:- Doug.

Nothing stands still. Which is why we have new ideas every day, and new challenges. Which is also why we need to be moving, inviting the world to chase after us, to keep up with us, to get better.

:- Doug.

Please invite a conscious conversation.

:- Doug.

We have a desire to accomplish: what gets in our way? We do not see it is possible to accomplish. We do not see ourselves as having the power to accomplish. We do not see ordinary people as having the power to accomplish. If we will allow that these might be incorrect assumptions, we might accomplish. Our very thoughts get in the way!

What do you want to accomplish? Why don’t you see to it?

Conversation is how we gather power to accomplish. Accomplish what? Things that matter. Change. Transformation.

Conversation is how we self-organize our powers.

Fears are overcome by doing. Not facing our fear—that is giving it respect and space to grow—but facing the task and starting. What do you want to accomplish? You are the one to see to it.

:- Doug.

The twigs on a tree are antennae
seeking to pick up the signals
from the starlight, the winds,
the rains, the pollen
by which we are nourished

:- Doug.

In our conversations
we are consciously
or almost consciously
hoping to find
the sparkles
profound connections, even compassion
larger vision and more inclusive truths
breakthroughs
action
all of these
are aliases
for the divine

:- Doug.

Conversation
is where
we live

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 724

The longer I live
the more I have to learn
yet it is all one thing to learn:
to love
to give
to be water
to be watershed
to look for G*d in others
to listen
to hear, to hear, to hear
to see differences and know they are one
to know life is not a zero sum game
still it is a game
the body is real
hugs matter
meeting is the essence
to touch and be touched
to die and then to live

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

We teach ourselves to chase a buck—we could school ourselves differently.

:- Doug.

Visions!
Most have them
We all wander among them
We should… Why don’t they…
Insights, glimpses, wonderings
Panoramic sightings
How dare you withhold your
Visions from our grandchildren
Who could live off one
For a thousand generations?
Shout them, whisper them
Write them and leave them
In a public place
For a child to discover
From vision, life!

:- Doug.

What is inner is
the gossamer
whose filaments
connect us
soul to soul

What is most inner
is to be touched
by each other and
become quick to help

It is false to
surmise inner refers to one
individual rather than
the meeting
here is the seat of consciousness

:- Doug.

Do we want to do something about our poverty?

:- Doug.

What if we were to live the life of Jesus in our lives? Would we be willing to give up our jobs and families and walk about the countryside speaking truth and love to people? Would we trust G*d to turn over everything to him? Is it scarier to give up our whole way of life for years and our picture of ourselves for ever than to lay down our life in a day?

:- Doug.

Be not a sheep
participate with G*d

:- Doug.

Micro conversations can be a counterpart to micro credit: what if we could encourage people to converse in little groups, to take charge of their lives, jointly, in little snatches, and spread these micro conversations to thousands and thousands? Here is where the pyramids and circles work, because there is an infinite set of permutations and each one is creative (not additive, not multiplicative, not geometric). It is not zero sum, where one gathers at the expense of another: all benefit. Not just individually but in our interwoven whole.

:- Doug.

Every day something
calls me to the main business
of my soul
every day something gets in the way
which may be the main business

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 723

Truths are made to evolve:
shed a story
Beauty is in the eye of the times:
look around
Goodness responds:
crack open a right or a wrong

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