FootprintsintheWind.com

There is one WE and you are.

:- Doug.

The circle is calling people
to wholeness, roundness—unendingly
Where then is its practicality?
barrier-free conversing;
power in the center, arising;
power racing along the rim;
kindness; completing;
hearing all voices;
nourishing; gathering; including;
creating; birthing; soft strength;
suggesting; conflicting; caring;
planting a we, growing ever larger…
evoking….

:- Doug.

We start off planting
sounds by ones twos & threes
I & Ma & Papa
From these grow words
for things
& then sentences
As our sentences grow
our world grows
from I to things to actions to we
Let us grow paragraphs
inclusive expansive whole
Plant an I, grow a We
Plant a We, grow a …

:- Doug.

What is the net effect of the ‘Net?

:- Doug.

“Nothing happens until
someone sells something”
Actually, nothing happens
until someone cares

:- Doug.

We are about
Conversation with a care

:- Doug.

Do I like, do I care?
I used to tell a story flat
About Herman
A lady asked—to help me—
“Do you like Herman?”
Startled I admitted “No”
“Then you must learn to like Herman
If you want us to”
So if I want to draw out you
& find about what you care
I must like you, love you
Do I like, do I care?

:- Doug.

Let us be together meetingfully.

:- Doug.

Shallow is the failure
to strike to the root
of our setting
the soul of our quandary
It may be digging deep
in the wrong places
or chopping with ax at the ocean

:- Doug.

I once was a child of dreams
But what dreams
& who was I then?
Dimly, dimly seen
I want to recall my self
And then my own image
disappears into foggy mists

What do you care about?
is the central question
asked of us in these times
We have our hearts encrusted
with daily worries and money

It is the question we fear
for it opens our vulnerability
breaks forever our masks
Mostly we fear
setting loose our power
It is the question we love
& we ask it on meeting every one
We fear it leads to hate
We hope it leads to love
For ill risked and good possible

What do you care about?
Is our all-purpose people-opener
In Will conferences
In negotiations
In work life finding our way
It goes to bedrock

Here is energy & owned truth
& responsibility for creating
It is the only question I will ask

:- Doug.

The key to opening space is a small group of beating hearts.

:- Doug.

If you care, you will do the research, you will find the best hearts and heads, you will choose personal responsibility.

:- Doug.

Only those who care will come. Maybe that’s why you will be there.

:- Doug.

Parsifal is a fool, a bumbler
So too, I
So too, we all
Parsifal means to pierce the veil
Even if he has not that consciousness
So too, I
So too, we all
Parsifal lives the questions
What ails thee? Whom does the grail serve?
Are you Parsifal?
So too, I
So too, we all

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 904

These are big opportunities
We are called to:
Think expansively
Include everyone
Take charge
Work together
Converse deeply
Weave intricately
See each other again
Act committedly
Hear lyrically
Make time

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, 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

Parsifal means to pierce the veil. What veils do we pierce, poke, rip? Maybe over me, in my mind, as well as over you, in yours.

:- Doug.

Someone suggested that diversity can be bad as well as good. I think this person is seeing the possibility of war or conflict or too many viewpoints. The first two are handled with respect and well-drawn invitation. The last with allowing—that complexity is an ineluctable part of our world, and that one mind alone is not sufficient to the task, and possibly that the muddle is a necessary step in getting to breakthrough. We have to hit the wall if we want to break through it. We have to spend time in despair’s cave before we find the path to the light. Diversity inelegantly handled can explode on us; respected and welcomed and put to work, it has power.

:- Doug.

When we want to engage the top down, what are we after? Power (because we haven’t tapped ours?); money (because we’re lazy/out of ideas?); Making more people do what we want (because we haven’t found a good invitation?)? If those are the case, then what we really want is more engagement, more resources. What if we looked for resources where they are, not where we think the spigot is? For the people in charge of that spigot are surely wondering where their upstream spigot is.

People are our resources, and being the more than material beings they are, capable of dreams and ideas, of making something out of nothing, here with them are the springs. It takes bringing them together.

:- Doug.

Meaning has to do with hope—
Already it is halfway there

:- Doug.

You will find your
—and our—
meaning in life—that
is
the meaning of life

:- Doug.

Let’s leave off grasping for control and let chaos work for us.

:- Doug.

There is no difference between conversing and working. In dialogue, we are inventing new ways to think. Dialogue and thinking are doing work—the largest work.

:- Doug.

Parsifal pierces the veil. Fool! So to, you.

:- Doug.