FootprintsintheWind.com

There is communication, and there is communion. Communion not as a state of non-conflict, but as a state of recognition of each other as legitimate persons.

So when a butterfly draws nectar from a flower and carries pollen to another, it might be simply a commercial transaction. It might also be loving. But how are we, another species, to know? When a bird chases another bird, is it play, is it threat, is it conversation? How are we to know? When traffic clogs and clears, is it knowing another, or simply traffic clogging and clearing? How are we to know? The task might be to ask the question.

:- Doug.

More there is to conversation than communication.

:- Doug.

The purpose of a conversation is not merely to exchange ideas, but to lead to significant changes in the relations of living beings.

:- Doug.

Being fully there for someone is difficult and strenuous work. I had a conversation yesterday with P. We talked about his work, about philosophy (a shared interest), about books. Was I really and wholly there for him? I don’t know just yet how to tell. I was working to connect what I knew of him to what I might ask next. I did a little mirroring, but did not remember to try labeling of emotions. I could next conversation work more on finding the other person’s side. What was he trying to say; what was behind that? P spoke of being overly literal: where did that come from? Was he self-editing or self-commenting in order to be approachable, or to be humble, or to be self-deprecating, or to examine himself more? I cannot know him: I can only meet him, thus seek to know him better. For I cannot even know myself.

:- Doug.

Meet what you read
Meet whom you read
Meet whom you encounter

:- Doug.

If you are not addressed—
not seen, heard, confirmed—
you do not stand forth, do not exist

:- Doug.

If you don’t allow for all you do not have anything of worth.

:- Doug.

After the tragedy has been completed
the relation is possible yet

:- Doug.

Tragedy is a possible and regular result of conversation.

:- Doug.

I am beginning to encircle more widely, lucidly, crisply for my studies and the book. It is more work than simply reporting, more than carrying the thought to a new place, while including both.

:- Doug.

Write as poetry, much as Buber did in I and Thou: take people to their sidereal, help them find deeper, higher, beyond, between, to step out.

:- Doug.

To surrender to the divine will is to dive into that waters not knowing if they are icy chunks or flesh-separatingly boiling: divine will be there as divine will be there. Not as the immutable one and done.

:- Doug.

Entire, curious, vulnerable: go.

:- Doug.

What you fear is the infinite within you.

:- Doug.

If everything is in conversation, every book is about conversation, every song, poem, dance, grunt.

:- Doug.

I need to somehow go beyond Buber, extend his thinking and mine, while acknowledging his grounding of me. This does not mean going to extreme theories, rather even more finding the really real all about me. Let Buber’s theories enter new conversations. It may be in poetics where we touch the meaning and need of our world.

:- Doug.

The betweens transcend us both.

:- Doug.

The relations in the betweens grow which means not flowers only but also fade, wither, and die. Maybe they also seed, but that at best is not seen in these stalks’ lives. Remember, we do not go ever from height to height, for there is good also in depths.

:- Doug.

Note the grace of persons, note also the contrariness of the same persons, yourself included. This meets. This meet. In the betweens in your meetings is possibility of uncovering, even of making. So you go, unsure. Without a program. With trembling, for you are about to be found out.

:- Doug.

Carry it further till it carries you.

carry it
carry it
further
further
till it
carries you
carries

:- Doug.

Allowing the mystery of another fascinates me. It opens us to possibility. This is the curious part: we think we are affecting the other; we think we are affecting the between. Seldom do we notice it growing us and opening us: flowers burst from the bud, becoming a novel beauty in the world.

:- Doug.

Words & phrases
Ordinary & catching
Explored & Played
Carry & Tangle
You & me

If I set down the book (or pause our conversation) and allow that thought to develop and develop, to meet me (us), a fascinating and terrifying thing might take me (us). It is worth going. Return doubtful.

:- Doug.

I do not know you; I do not know the mystery of your being. Nor do I know myself nor the mystery of my being. Here between us we can frolic for a lifetime—and puzzle—and grow. With another I pass by other mysteries and other potential lives that might have been mine. Just here we can stop and open a door to an outside unimagined.

:- Doug.