FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1804

The smell of baking cookies, the touch of a gentle person, someone lying next to you, the kiss of your dog, the feel of a gentle breeze, beauty in spring flowers or a melting snowflake. At end of life what’s most meaningful is what carries most life—it often revolves around creature comforts. Which of the senses do you most crave?

Please pass it on.

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Our work for the generations spirals us around It, Thou, Us, Poetry, Collaboration. We hold and hear you, grandchild, and together we spiral.

:- Doug.

The task of the elder is in part holding the grandchildren, similar to how a Quaker might say holding you in the light, or others hold you in their hearts, and somehow more immediate and intimate. The elder hears you, hears what is in your essence. The elder welcomes and takes into the elder’s very being who you are, what you are saying.

:- Doug.

“Successful” seems inapropos of elders; there is here no goal, no reaching, only in higher moments a thrust of the heart For the Grandchildren.

:- Doug.

Traditional cultures respected elders in part for what the elders did for the family and tribe: inform of good hunting grounds; share their accumulated agricultural lands; know the signs of the seasons and weather; guide through the spirit worlds. Many of these things seem irrelevant in our rapidly changing world. If we are to help the generations we must cut closer to the bone, go for the lasting and the growing.

:- Doug.

The grandchildren cannot afford for us to be concerned with respect for the elders—we must be for the generations.

:- Doug.