FootprintsintheWind.com

Sparks between!

:- Doug.

Started watching a video last night called “Alive Inside.” It is about music and memory, using music on ipods to awaken folks who have turned inside with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Some top people are interviewed and some science is shared, along with some startling examples—a woman leaves her walker aside to dance, an angry man smiles and sings along, the other people in the room light up when the man hearing the music becomes animated and sings. This is touching something larger than the prison-hospital model of nursing homes would authorize.

:- Doug.

The dogs and horses are chasing each other around next door. Perhaps to get warm, perhaps just in joy.

:- Doug.

NB: not “What do you think of” the current news story—that puts it too much in the left brain bulldozer. Instead, we need to find the beauty, the connection, the oneness. Time for truth later, time then for goodness perhaps in a moment.

:- Doug.

The task is bringing spirits within range. Range means seeing each other, seeing the thing about which to converse.

:- Doug.

I touch anew
the larger
‘most every day

:- Doug.

The between
is found
in meeting

:- Doug.

That of the larger
In every between

:- Doug.

Do I need to see the divinity in people
In order to tease it out?

:- Doug.

In a world unfolding, our task is to unfold, to smooth, to shake out, to air out, to enfold what we see standing in need of these actions.

:- Doug.

Am I there? I have touched and been touched. The light cutting the dark, the lumps under the grey cloth, the ripping: these I understand now larger than in prior years, smaller than in coming nows. For instance, what do I make of “God” standing beside me, arm around my shoulder? Equality? No. Touching, partaking? Yes. Particle, wave, participant, actor, intermediate cause, link, agent? Probably. Will I ever be there? In a world unfolding, how could any of us? Is G the world unfolding? I do not know. But that is the direction to look.

:- Doug.

There are many of us who have a touch of the cosmic consciousness, if by that we mean those who apprehend something larger than in ordinary hours. More, larger: words hinting at something including and transcending the body, the sidereal, the mind.

:- Doug.

The larger is here to be seen by all—and in an instant—and maybe gradually.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1490

We are caught up in news that tells us all the bad things going on. The reporters and producers and ad execs are tied even more tightly. Have compassion for them. Maybe we can see through. If you watch the news actively, can it be a way to develop your skills in compassion? Increase the quantity of compassion in the world?

Please pass it on.

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Service (love) is a path to the larger.

:- Doug.

The world is whole, holy, God: but by world I mean something a bit bigger than you do.

:- Doug.

This eternal muddle
This eternal beginning
This eternal living

:- Doug.

I will tell something important that happened in my life. I will not continue until I feel my way into the emotion of that moment.

:- Doug.

Today I realized that there were some contraries or tensions in the words I have been using: generating-inviting; circulating-freeing; ventilating-calling. The last not so much tension. “Without contraries is no progression.” Generating and inviting progress to welcoming. Circulating and freeing progress to acting together. Ventilating and calling progress to gathering.

:- Doug.

Is the power of God this power?

:- Doug.

There is a hubris in
keeping ourselves as Quakers
as Americans
as thinkers
pure

:- Doug.

Let yourself
sit a beat
with this

:- Doug.

I am not equal of God
But God is equal of me

:- Doug.