FootprintsintheWind.com

If the oppressor is the oppressed, not only lives inside but is engendered by her or him, such as our present early 21st century consumer culture, how do we cast off the oppressor (ourselves), engage in a pedagogy of ourselves? We cannot know ahead of time. We can only work toward birthing authentic and free persons. That work? Dialogue. This is the problem our conversing works on—becoming human.

:- Doug.

I like a large room with conversations in the corners and odd spaces of it, where we can all see and hear the buzz and receive the energy of the other players, and still concentrate on this particular conversation, this player speaking to me, to us. The focus—the fireplace—is the center circle which existed, has dispersed, and will gather again from the fires sparking in each corner and odd space. Focus produces something.

:- Doug.

The function of conversation is life itself. The function of conversation is finding this life, enlivening it further, making the players as full as they can be in this moment (~Freire). So we have the large conversation-topic, the breakouts, the side conversations. The function is finding the neighborhood conversation, the city-wide, region-wide, and national conversations, and precisely the life and energy and intensity in them which engenders life in the players.

:- Doug.

Alexander’s centers pulse in place while conversation involves centers and especially betweens who can kick back. Because his centers are static it is difficult to grasp their action. It might be because conversation moves so quickly we miss the action. The actions of the centers may be in pointing toward each other: to help or to counter.

:- Doug.

Abdicate your self
Solemnly proclaim:
To my self I do not belong

:- Doug.

Abdicate your self
Let go hope
Get to work

:- Doug.

Does the book build or circle? Spiral? Dip into a deep cool well?

:- Doug.

The centers in a conversation include the people, the betweens (physical, ethereal, and ephemeral), the light that dawns, the breath of fresh air brought by a person arriving, the reunion with a long absent friend. The centers also include the subject matter, the energy ebbs, flows, and waves. Rests, exercise, movement, and yes, sleeps are centers and could be called up consciously when needed.

:- Doug.

Just because there are edges beyond which we do not know does not prevent us from acting. Your action is called: test the very edges; work within what works: both simultaneously. We must continue to reflect and do: revise our theory, revise our practice. This is authentic praxis.

:- Doug.

I am intrigued that major flows of conversation could be traced to non-words: grunts, groans, gestures and music, poetry and rhythm, play and learning, differences. Allied to that is un-naming, avoiding tags, labels and other filters so as to really meet. Where might we get? What do we not know?

:- Doug.

Anywhere I see, I hear singing.

:- Doug.

I must believe that the people—these grandchildren—can converse deeply and complexly and want to do so, that they can take conversation to fruitful, humanizing, freeing places, that they can and will do so better and faster than I. Even if they will go different directions from me—but that is the point, isn’t it? Growth. Life.

:- Doug.

If we are each centers, and we each don’t know of what pulsing flows our centers consist, what questions will allow us to act and to live? For do we not act to live?

:- Doug.

Our thoughts are oppressors when we turn others from beings standing forth into background things to be manipulated, when we turn ourselves into wooden objects to be sanded and hammered. Instead, we must see us as kin, alive, carrying our own energy sources, soft, gentle, strong, funny, playful, war-makers, makers of all there might be, standing forth to face us.

:- Doug.

Progress is not solely in what we discover or invent but also in how we arrange things, in what complex we situate them, so that some old relationship added to some other might open new possibilities.

:- Doug.

If we perceive logical types as contour lines on a map we learn how national political themes can play out in statewide, and into neighborhood basins or hills. It might help to understand the complex of themes, issues, and songs in which we swim and navigate our days. We have more choices in and influence on the smaller environs, and more immediately, yet the larger pinches us and cannot be ignored. Our conversation travels these rings and benefits if we see what we are doing, and where. It may indeed be that the logical types are not steps so much as gradual inclines. If we attend these contour lines we first meet dismay in how many and plaited they are, then we meet our ability to influence the entangled threads.

:- Doug.

Don’t argue over terms: just work them—make them do their relating.

:- Doug.

What if Freire’s existence (that is, being in the work of becoming) were Alexander’s degree of life in everything? Especially if existence were seen on a continuum (which Freire does not allow)? Freire says English mixes up the etymology of live and exist. He writes, p 98: “As used here, “live” is the more basic term, implying only survival; “exist” implies a deeper involvement in the process of “becoming.”” The root of exist is stand out. Stand out means difference, and here we are into Gregory Bateson’s thinking on news, information, difference that makes a difference. Then the contour lines help things stand out.

:- Doug.

One effect of conversation is to call us into larger spaces of ourselves.

:- Doug.

What is the flavor of a dried sweet cranberry? Savor in your mouth’s memory the shape, astringent nuttiness, and soft crunch of an almond. Bring to mind the salty aroma of your lover. All turns. Touches. Receive the conversation of these.

:- Doug.

Dialogue is nurtured in human incompleteness. Can we only grow when we do not exist?

:- Doug.

For me to open up to my wife and children has been really difficult and usually I fail. In a familiar relationship we develop shorthand and habits. Habits get encrusted. Shorthand becomes code. Eventually (without working at it), we are left with crusts and grunts—empty of real communication, empty of openness and vulnerability, let alone of conversation. It takes fresh effort, and courage, to step through.

:- Doug.

Part of conversational context are the attitudes of people—resignation, questioning, transforming, energized. These must be recognized too.

:- Doug.