FootprintsintheWind.com

Since the persons—the whole persons—are the strongest centers in the room, to introduce anything between them is to break the ways in which they support and intensify each other. Even a low table does this breaking because then we cannot touch each other: line of sight suggests we are only brains on sticks and not fully human, not fully strong and strengthened centers. Pulling the circle out to form corners also breaks the supporting roles—now those in the far corners can only support the few people around them and others not at all—we cannot intensify those in the corners on this side (we cannot even see each other), and only a little those in the corner opposite. That’s why squares of people are weaker than circles of people.

:- Doug.

I am only an ordinary person who has honored his insights by writing them down, thinking about them with others.

:- Doug.

Our work is working together. Nothing more. This is not a goal. Goals end. This never ends. Whatever we work together towards only serves to bring us together. Our work is working together. Only this.

:- Doug.

We’re not here to help each other: we’re here to work with each other, be with each other.

:- Doug.

You hear a bird whistling in the woods, and a truck on the highway, see the breeze rustling the tree leaves: how are these all one whole, one entity, all aspects of the same life? I want us to see the world whole. What can we see wholer today?

:- Doug.

There is something magical in humanity: it is what’s developing.

:- Doug.

Community Disorganizers: intensifying living centers among us.

:- Doug.

Life tries to preserve its larger, wholer structures, else why would we think of a life after life? We have an absolute need to continue.

:- Doug.

It seems to be the weight, the center of gravity, which pulls things together, always together in symmetry upon symmetry. So it seems with mass in stars, so it seems with ideas in gatherings of people, so it seems with gathering of people.

:- Doug.

The smell of the newly cut grass
the dog running through the fields
fireflies at twilight….
a few of the 10,000 living centers
we are generating
today

:- Doug.

You have heard it said “United we stand, divided we fall,” but I say United we are, divided we are not.

:- Doug.

Goals see the world as without motion—except our own acting upon “it.” This blinds us to things as they are. It is backwards, diminishing the involvement of humans.

:- Doug.

Open Space has no pre-cooked agendas—nor pre-chewed results.

:- Doug.

We are here to generate 10,000 living centers among us.

—It is both process and purpose, day-to-day and toward a new day

:- Doug.

People meeting are more than space technicians: they are making worlds outside of the space they are in. Beyond this time: they are artists crafting beauty (and truth and goodness) out of wondrously available materials and conglomerations.

:- Doug.

The practice of person-to-person dynamics is a process. We never arrive. Where we are today is a result of where we were and what we did yesterday, and where we will be tomorrow will likewise be different.

:- Doug.

Listen!
Better, hear!
There!
Between the notes of the birds
between calls and answers
among the sounds of
all calls and answers:
There!
Underneath all these
underneath the
silence supporting all these:
There!
Palpable is what
we had thought Mystery:
There!

:- Doug.

Longfellow, particularly in Standish and in The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, was creating a new country with his poetry. Whitman, a contemporary, was doing the same. So too it feels like we are creating a new country of the heart, a new species, a new movement of humanity. We must discover how we always have fit together. We must make ways to converse. Working together conversing engendering life. It is new life.

:- Doug.

Life itself is our business: engendering life.

:- Doug.

Come with the
early morning sun
& play among the dew’s
flashes
quickly, lest they be discovered
only to their lover showing their sparkle

:- Doug.

Let us have life-engendering meetings.

:- Doug.

I am learning to hear as well as listen. Peggy Holman suggests we cannot hear without listening. I am not so sure. It seems we can be open and receptive without any intention (is intention part of listening?) to listen to another—we can happen upon a conversation or hear something that brings us up short. Perhaps that means the listening can happen after the hearing.

:- Doug.

In law, I don’t want to do for people, but do with them, free them to take charge of their lives and each other.

:- Doug.