FootprintsintheWind.com

In our times, we are bringing heart to law.

:- Doug.

It also takes heart

:- Doug.

Feeling old is optional
for you, elder
of fuller life

:- Doug.

The difference between a top of charts band and a local great band is not musical skill or entertainment skill or breaks. The difference is asking the larger audience to hear: claiming the right to be in the light. Given quality and heart, the responsibility to the world must be respected.

:- Doug.

Savor even these moments. Taste!

:- Doug.

Let’s not worry about what we have lost or might lose; let’s take fewer pictures to preserve the times of our lives and make more times to live in our souls.

What does it take to live in our souls? For me? I need to savor. I was going to say “be present” but savor pulls that into my mouth and gives my tongue something to play with, my teeth something upon which to chew. Savor this moment, in my soul, in my spirit. Look for what there is to savor.

Savor the juicy, meaty, life-giving.

:- Doug.

I found myself pondering last night about moments and how we can live in moments of varying lengths and widths and breadths, of how life can be here with us, of how we can pay attention, of how life is pleading with us to live.

:- Doug.

Make memories I said in my youth
Now I want to make only moments

:- Doug.

We will stand in the face
of the wind and buffeting rains
beside you
hold you up
when we can barely stand
scream with you
for you have lost your baby!

:- Doug.

Apple orchards, apple trees
Into the orchard behind our country house
I would throw the oranges
My mother sent in my lunch box
When I tried to peel them
Their juice would only burn my fingers
Where I had been biting my nails

Into the orchard beside my grandmother’s house
When I was staying over to sleep
In their big feather bed up in the attic
Into that orchard I would call from the bathroom
For my Grandma’s help
Before I knew how to use the toilet paper

Down the street from our house in town
Lived a crab apple tree
And one year I bit into its fruit
And spit it out surprised at its dry bitterness

The apple orchard at my grandmother’s house
So squarely and perfectly planted in rows it was
Is now gone. The new owners wanted it for yard
Or maybe the trees grew old
And the one behind my parents’ house is also gone
To be a farmer’s field
And my grandparents and parents are gone, too

:- Doug.

Humans multiply
But it’s not good for us to divide
We do well to add one to another
Subtracting a human diminishes all
Rends our fabric
Stalls our growth
The calculus of life calls for
Coming together

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1193

Left in the dark. Watched the earth: as she turned to face the sun; as she turned the colors of her northern woods to the colors of her southern fruits: orange and lemon and passion fruit.

Late afternoon. Now the earth turns her back to the sun and looks toward where the moon and the velvet and the lesser lights will soon be, and she looks forward to dreamtime.

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

It is about Now to go to my meeting. It is about Now.

:- Doug.

Babble & number & tic-toc
Babble and number & click-clock
Babble & number & click-lock
These are our gaolers
& they fear to let free our natural souls

:- Doug.

All our lives preparing
our homework
for jobs
for weddings
for parenthood
for a new career
for company
for dinner
but now we are 60 or 70 or 80
but now is it finally Now
now can we live
now can we give
what we came to give?

:- Doug.

Let’s make
this time in our lives
important

To make this moment:
First, a moment
Then, others to meet
Finally, focus on holy other

:- Doug.

Hearing energizes us, being heard especially energizes us. Being heard and hearing give us hope and invite us out to engage the world, free us, call us home.

:- Doug.

Wholeness includes love and paying debts (getting whole with your creditors): and everything.

:- Doug.

No, you don’t need money
you don’t even need the things
you think money buys
what every one of us needs is
life, wholeness, happiness

:- Doug.

I tune in the news
to see how the weather forecast
has since yesterday changed

:- Doug.

The rains
—refreshing, cooling,
thundering, changing vacations,
feeding, cleansing, renewing—
The rains
are not sent by God
They are God

:- Doug.

The impossible
might be only
not easy

:- Doug.

How do I meet you?
Perhaps you meet you in me

:- Doug.