FootprintsintheWind.com

My reading does not so much give me thoughts but prompts me to question and thus to think.

:- Doug.

There’s much more to conversation than you…

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2298

Our recognition of our losses, our admitting to incompleteness: these reveal our desire to be gods. The same is true of our desire for control. Not being able to control, to be complete, to prevent our losses: we throw these needs upon our God or gods, whether these accept or not. There might be value in finding a way to live with loss, incompleteness, and lack of control, because that may be the way of life.

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Changes are what attracts the eye—any movement for instance. Not just your eyes and mine, but deer and cheetahs and beings with no eyes. We seek out difference. Something—there!—stands out from the background, or we miss it. Therefore our interactions arise to get movement, which is change, which is difference. Therefore there are degrees of difference, differences of differences. Therefore irritation and argument are only more of what we want.

:- Doug.

Water coming down the stream
Pushes the earlier water on
Seems the stream is its own cause
Or maybe the future moves the past
Just what do we mean by cause?

:- Doug.

In the best of conversations you might find your essence being absorbed into your friend’s imagination.

:- Doug.

Little old man at the end of the road—is that you, or me?

:- Doug.

There is more available when talking with your friend. Ask what else? Is there anything more?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2297

What if conversation were how we pray?

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© 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

What would it take to make your conversation poetic?

:- Doug.

Maybe, just maybe, “Why are we here?” would be a good conversation opener.

:- Doug.

We don’t have to get better. That is a symptom of our perfectionism.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2296

It takes two hands to pray
a head who’s willing to bow
an open palm
a nevertheless will
so spirit to spirit can reach out

Two hands here raised in righteous fervor
across the gathered multitudes
“prayer” they say
And “love”
with fists they shake at one another

The one who said “nevertheless”
hears their fists
with head bowed

It takes two hands to pray
right and left
or the opening palm of the one with no hands
that we the ones with fists for hearts
might find what it takes to pray

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© 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

The words give you openings to the persons who speak them. “I have been acknowledged,” T said. She wants to be seen, heard, received. Or so I guess. “Getting better instead of being perfect,” T went on. Perfection then is important to her. She needs her efforts acknowledged. See, I am learning of T. See, learning seems important to me.

:- Doug.

We need differences. We need irritation. Seek out these. This is life. Life is growth. Life needs growth. Male needs female. The Why may be generations off: new generations looking for flowers and scents and the reverberations of tympani.

But irritation takes an opening—to your own tendency to close down in its face, as well as to the other’s new thing. A tenderness too, and a searching—of you and your other.

So I need to seek out irritation and conversations with persons I already know rub my fur backwards.

:- Doug.

Why do we need irritation?

:- Doug.

Why do we expect dogs and dolphins and gorillas to speak our language? Where is our real Dr. Doolittle?

:- Doug.

Mess mates come close to soul mates. Break bread together as often as you can. Bake bread together.

:- Doug.

Plenty are the “mores” in our lives and available to us. What varied phrases do we create combining “mores?” If you start with words like “look,” “eat,” “available,” “sleep,” and “want,” what phrases are possible? So if we have a “vocabulary” of different “mores,” we’d ought to be able to create varied phrases, pointing us to untried “mores,” yes?

A “more” might be found by writing or reading a science fiction novel, something to get you asking what is possible for humanity. You might unearth a “more” by casually asking someone, “Why are we here?” When I ask you “What Went Well this week?”, you might answer truly, primally, and then we both will have touched a “more.”

Then once we have these “mores” on our lips, we might create more places to find still more “mores.”

:- Doug.

Try new things. You will eventually find new things.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2295

How different this world could be if we knew others would talk with us.

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© 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

The folds in your mirrors are soft. Fall into them.

:- Doug.

The finer your mesh the more persons you catch. How many? Infinite in number? Indeterminate? It is not a math problem. It is an infinity and maybe an eternity question.

:- Doug.