Already there: what’s left?
notice splash paddle explore
shine light create
hear invite dig
repair justice forgive love
bump dream dance laugh
important profound
poetry
beauty truth good
stir and be stirred
consciously evolve
be a connecting node
not just keeping house
tearing it down for new
reflect
:- Doug.
What do you hear
when you pray?
Just your own words?
Then you’re missing the fun
:- Doug.
What are the processes
by which we open our hands
turn them into
antennas?
invitations?
refuge?
caroms?
calls?
:- Doug.
Where I am not is
the grabbing grasping holding place
aggrandizing me
and my message
:- Doug.
The conversation I seek
is in me in us
open, my hand, so it may circulate
I’m already there
writing it in
:- Doug.
Found poems: a way to seeing the unnamed
Listening for something more to hear: a way to be silent
Beneath the unnamed: a voice
Beyond the words you can speak: a foundation alive
Fill not the silence; it desires to fill you
:- Doug.
Within stillness within swirling
there is a seed that nourishes
and a substance that makes whole
:- Doug.
People become livelier
People are brought forth
Persons come to life in conversation
:- Doug.
I need to seek questions
and questioners
How do you seek not seeking?
What is it you hold when your hand is open?
What do we do when we do nothing?
How is justice done by not doing?
Stillness is action?
Being nothing is doing?
Standing with
Hearing
Crying
Emptying
Welcoming
:- Doug.
It is not about hate, it is about breaking the law. These immigrants broke the law to get here. So says one proponent of a new enforcement initiative. Ask this person: Did you drive over the speed limit in the last two weeks? Then you got here illegally; we should not listen to you, yes? Ask this person as well, Is this law which has been broken lawful? Does it violate human rights? Have our nation’s actions in some other arena—its heavy handed grabbing for economic superiority, for instance—caused the human suffering that drove these refugees here, making our laws inhuman and unjust in the first place?
:- Doug.
Writing every day
brings a whole
succession of glimpses, insights, poems
a richness to live in
and teaches me there is nothing to fear
from others—they struggle and love, too
from me
and from the meeting there is
much given
here we can play
on the playground
of ideas and peoples
swirling around us
in love unnamed
:- Doug.
Crisis is central to transformation. Transformation involves the death of the ego—the old self. So there are life-death choice points. The same is true of groups—if we are going to change, we need to get to death. This may be why Harrison speaks so often of griefwork—but this is after the fact I suspect. We need pre-griefwork: crisis stirring, death making, gutting. This is love? This is love.
:- Doug.
Nothing stands still. Which is why we have new ideas every day, and new challenges. Which is also why we need to be moving, inviting the world to chase after us, to keep up with us, to get better.
:- Doug.
We have a desire to accomplish: what gets in our way? We do not see it is possible to accomplish. We do not see ourselves as having the power to accomplish. We do not see ordinary people as having the power to accomplish. If we will allow that these might be incorrect assumptions, we might accomplish. Our very thoughts get in the way!
What do you want to accomplish? Why don’t you see to it?
Conversation is how we gather power to accomplish. Accomplish what? Things that matter. Change. Transformation.
Conversation is how we self-organize our powers.
Fears are overcome by doing. Not facing our fear—that is giving it respect and space to grow—but facing the task and starting. What do you want to accomplish? You are the one to see to it.
:- Doug.
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