FootprintsintheWind.com

We, the families, and the professionals who work outside the facilities, can start carrying life back through those doors. First we have to see life where staff see loss and less. Then we engage spontaneity and convivium.

:- Doug.

If babies can teach us, then so too demented elders.

:- Doug.

I like a story when it says what happened, does not say what it means, and clearly there is meaning to be found.

:- Doug.

Doing—Being: Giving is the field beyond.

:- Doug.

At a picnic an old man is sitting in a lawn chair in shade provided by a building’s overhang. People in ones and twos are attracted to him: they come and go. I as well. His words, his thoughts pull me deep: I try to keep up. He is gone now, this elder.

:- Doug.

Writing pulls my thinking along dangerously turning thinking into thoughts.

:- Doug.

Safety ought be a launch pad for elders to be and fly, not an instrument of suffocation.

:- Doug.

Elders live into a great age.

:- Doug.

In elderhood new capacities
To do yes and mainly to be
Something beyond these

:- Doug.

What kind of elder might you be and do for the grandchildren?

:- Doug.

Some see your soul within your body
Perhaps it is, perhaps, perhaps
I see your body is within your soul

:- Doug.

There never yet was a thing such as the elderhood that is needed now to bring forth the 300 year elders.

:- Doug.

Aging like thinking is dangerous: safe return doubtful.

:- Doug.

How might you look forward to an elderhood that could include your own dementia?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1817

Bewildered are we
By those around
us—all their
Ideas and friends
And interweavings
Be still
A while
Let the water
Flow or settle
As it will
Clear itself
And us
Find the
Direction
Destination
Of humanity:
Many hearts
And one

Please pass it on.

© c 2018, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

What ought elderhood look like if it is to be For the Grandchildren?

:- Doug.

What is the new story we must tell of humanity and its generativity?

:- Doug.

We need no proof it is better to live in a garden than in a machine. Yet a garden is a made environment. Life is the source.

:- Doug.

What can we learn from the most forgetful of us all? What is the lasting strength of the frailest of us all?

:- Doug.

Do you give your grandchildren space to give you caring?

:- Doug.

The dying need to live.

:- Doug.

Thought seeks its own level
Thinking advances

:- Doug.

Are we making aging less worse
Or improving living?

:- Doug.