FootprintsintheWind.com

Moreover, spirit, qwoan, is more verb than noun, more moving than static. It is sent caroming between us when we converse, as we turn to one another. Or maybe it is this qwoan which sends us back and forth, turning each of us and both together, turning against the qwoan, in a dance it would be crazy-making to trace. In either picture (and the others we dare not draw) there is something playing a circuit with us. A circuit at times of spirals up and down.

:- Doug.

I don’t need to get to the clear and full definitive expression of spirit in any writing: just walk with my nose pointed that way, to breathe in some.

:- Doug.

Meditations on what we don’t know of conversation.

:- Doug.

Where is spirit in this, especially without interjecting notions of God?

:- Doug.

We don’t throw a ball, a spear, a spacecraft, without an intent it lands. Throwing without arriving probably does not exist. What would be the point? To exercise our muscles? To what end? Expression requires impression.

:- Doug.

Perhaps conversation serves as the expression of life and life is what makes it so difficult to define. Perhaps expression is life—or a function of life, a need. But being heard is an equal need, if not greater. We speak in order to be heard, live in order to—what? Perhaps more subtly interwoven is that life is an expression of conversation—this necessity to hear and be heard, to come together.

:- Doug.

Do noticings come before inklings?

:- Doug.

Try out the glimpses you are reading and see if they can play with your writing subject.

:- Doug.

Conversation is more than solely emotional. Conversation points to us and laughs. Look at conversations and learn of the ones conversing.

:- Doug.

Maybe there were not many major or surprising breakthroughs, but a lot of mid level ones and little pin pricks of light. Write those.

:- Doug.

Maybe not everything is conversation; but maybe everything is a teacher of conversation.

:- Doug.

The unexamined conversation is not worth living.

:- Doug.

The peoples of Europe made shoes, the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island made moccasins. One separated themselves with hard soles from the earth; the others placed themselves within and arising from the earth. One feared wild and untamed nature; the others saw themselves as brothers, sisters, and grandchildren of the trees and skies and beavers and salmon.

:- Doug.

Today perhaps meditational conversational: bringing mind repeatedly back to the other person, to the conversation we are kneading, leavening, and baking together.

:- Doug.

Today, the felt sense of my reading and writing have been peaceful, a calm readying with a reaching out. The quality question is the butterfly awing.

:- Doug.

What is the quality of our communication?

I like that quality question. First I liked it to describe the work of the communications committee of Friends. It gives serious concerned spirituality and reach to our work. Second, I like it as a question for us to ask one another in our daily converse: we can weigh, mark, and value—not just evaluate—our meeting and conversing.

:- Doug.

I have as much right to be the world as every other being. I also have the responsibility to do so.

:- Doug.

Mirror and thesaurus are good tools for me to be in conversation: Mirror back to a person her last 4 or 5 words, and she will often tell you more. Saying “It sounds like” or “you seem to be” fine tunes your hearing for just now.

:- Doug.

Meaning may often be a lazy word for, or unveil, motivation.

:- Doug.

Write a distinct piece, beginning, middle, and end, in 60 seconds. Find each word’s weight, texture, color.

I am not sure there is much value to me in sixty-second writings: I do not like the pressure element. On the other hand, it is a chute that can pinpoint my mind. Will it convince others? That may not be its purpose or main worth—which may lie in wait for me.

Story was the easiest way to do that. What of description or persuasion? What of haiku?

:- Doug.

That piece (on betweens) would not yield to me, to my pen. Could it be that if I gave myself a game with a restraining rule or two, it would give up its profundity and vigor? Write it like a roadmap, or a cartoon? Make it a pair of reading glasses? Pick a book title from a list? Throw an obstacle, a maze.

Second rule: tell it slant. Never use the word between.

:- Doug.

This is important. Steep awhile here.

:- Doug.

What are the rules of dream time as in Finnegans Wake?

:- Doug.