FootprintsintheWind.com

Death brings a duty
and we create ritual to
remember
and more, glassy waters
in which to reflect

:- Doug.

I am a Maslow of gerontology: not a dismal science of all that can go wrong but seeker of what grows.

:- Doug.

To the ones who bumble
What does it mean to Bee
To all levels of your Beeing?

:- Doug.

Vision shines from out our eyes

:- Doug.

Make your last gifts lasting.

:- Doug.

A Good Will is an opening for an elder to make last gifts lasting.

:- Doug.

In your giving
You can find
Your self

Crafting an expanding soul
Taking moves the other way
Constricting, shrinking, shriveling

Try both directions
If you must
Then pick a brush & paint

:- Doug.

Back:
Let us bring life
from there to our days

:- Doug.

Caring is the heart freely given from one to another. Caring is not bought nor sold.

:- Doug.

What is the work of concluding a loved one’s life? Crying, burying, finding, sorting, throwing away, rearranging, finding meaning, crying some more, celebrating, forgiving, deciding not to forgive, distributing, assimilating, learning, going on.

:- Doug.

Making a Will is a sacrifice—for surely some day you will yield all. But whether you give your best to your best-loved ones is a choice. Many give only stuff. You, give the stuffing.

:- Doug.

Not every one can write the Good Will. There is much homework—one must study each person and one’s self and one’s possible gifts. One must sit with the work until it writes you. More, until you let your people write you. Blood must be spilt. You might just find yourself.

:- Doug.

What are you doing? What do you want to be doing? How can I help?

:- Doug.

Whom can I help?

:- Doug.

I am invading the really real. Law and medicine are each critical things when things get critical, yet they are side matters to every day life, and more importantly, they are side matters to living life in the really real. In business terms they are staff, not line. I am invading the line, where the work gets done. Where the work has potential to get done. Where the work is decided upon. Helping make those decisions is a staff function, too.

Saying You gotta make these decisions, it is life and death! is also a staff function. I cannot make the decisions for you. I can assist, but I get no vote. That is fine. The more who make the decision, any decision, the more crises we have. And that, in this way of thinking, is good. Very good.

:- Doug.

What questions does your daughter’s life raise?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1170

Every river flows to the sea
Whole-work is opening ever
Opening even who’s open already
The ocean flows to larger

When you are born you opened another
When we die we have opportunity to open ourselves
Even before we were born one parent opened the other’s coeur
Every river flows to the sea

There is ever more whole work to do
Ever more to be done in us
This river flows to the sea
Our ocean flows to larger

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, 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

In creating your Will it may help you to ask “Who is this person? Where is their soul? From where are they coming and to where going? How can I help?”

:- Doug.

What task did you summon into this world?

:- Doug.

I’m a wonderer. Sometimes more fun than a wanderer. Can at least go farther…and faster.

:- Doug.

What was the temperature of your original face? What did you come here to do? Could bestowing a boon on someone help? Or an original word?

:- Doug.

What is your dream for us O G*d?
Your dream for trees
& wind and cloud?
For earth’s greening & greying?

:- Doug.

Blue water orcas
people screaming about
parking spaces
go away inexplicably
could they have heard
the orcas singing?

:- Doug.