FootprintsintheWind.com

The conversation is the living whole of us.

:- Doug.

What do I want to know? What’s going on in threshold conversation? What could be? I’ve been paddling around the lake, taking temperature, pH, and depth readings, finding what lives here, what nutrients feed it and keep it a healthy ecosystem, and how it turns over. Now it is time to investigate for the inlet and work my way upstream toward the source.

:- Doug.

In conversation we cross over liminal space—what is that limen?

:- Doug.

Here’s my picture of what going on in a conversation that carries the participants over a threshold: We expect to get from our presumed starting point to a planned ending point—but we end up elsewhere. So it is more than what may be expected. The friends who are conversing are changed. It is more than math might predict: we go from numbers to rainbow cakes and spumoni ice cream. Here is a change of state, and a felt shift in awareness. In a novel or a movie we expect the heroine at the end to be changed from when she started out. In all seriousness, a conversation ought do the same for the friends taking an active part—is not a conversation at least as serious an undertaking as a novel or movie? There is a factor, or a whisper, that comes unpredictably. Let’s see if we can understand it better, and if we can invite it in more readily.

:- Doug.

The qwoan not only pulls us together, but also up and out. Perhaps as a result of emergence and self organization.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2275

Say a grace
—after—
the meal
for rest and talk
making for home

Please pass it on.

© c 2023, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Life is creative is emergent is unpredictable is complex. Did you see is?

:- Doug.

Rolled up you
in me I
in you
implicate
knit as a wound

:- Doug.

A babe speaks forth,
teaching if we hear,
of our universe,

when it too is a babe,
blubbering to itself,
all ears and mouth

We grow
we converse

and for all our gains
do we
leave something behind?

:- Doug.

There is always more more.

:- Doug.

There is always more ignorance.

:- Doug.

conversation’s form
is co-introspection
fun

:- Doug.

In conversation is
taking across
of you and me
of more
leading over
a bit further
waves splash ashore

:- Doug.

We are, therefore we converse. I am, therefore I converse. I converse, therefore I am. We converse, therefore we are.

:- Doug.

Either I exist or you don’t. I assert you exist. Prove me.

:- Doug.

That there might be an outside more cannot be proved.

:- Doug.

More cannot be proved standing outside more.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2274

moments small
your tear of joy

a lifetime
seen through your
wedding veil

“no!” a first word
we go around
the corner
to hide our laughs
our toddler

in the emergency room
screaming
as they take him
alone
for scans

a lifetime
moments small

Please pass it on.

© c 2023, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

You cannot prove there is an outside to more.

:- Doug.

You cannot prove that you can stand outside more.

:- Doug.

There is no outside to more.

:- Doug.

Within more you cannot prove more is everywhere.

:- Doug.

You help me aloft.

:- Doug.