FootprintsintheWind.com

We have such mechanical metaphors these days, or electronic ones, as if we were machines with on, off, and pause buttons—and fast forward. Might we find ways to heal our metaphors, our ways of speaking to others and ourselves? Ways to be gentle, organic, soft, wet, flowering?

:- Doug.

In an unknown tongue
hear, hear a conversation
hear human thrust
meet heart
beyond mere meaning

:- Doug.

Dream, float, melt, Elder:
Harden to stone
Travel, Make the path anew

:- Doug.

This is the easy stuff—working with things that don’t fight back—much: wood, dirt, machines, laws, bureaucracies. But when they do fight back, hard, or especially when they are unsure, that’s the tough stuff: for instance, our own resolve and habits.

:- Doug.

I don’t have it figured out. None of us do. None of it.

The rock melts. The world flows. Soft becomes rock.

:- Doug.

Many places to look, to find us, the humans, the living, to catch us in converse.

:- Doug.

The conversing needs to be with people alive today, and with people living at different times.

:- Doug.

Much there is to say. Much not to say.

:- Doug.

Speak truth to power? And to loud? A still small voice. . . .

:- Doug.

I am made by the poems I write.

:- Doug.

What people of the future have to say to us in our pandemic

:- Doug.

Can you tell a story which uses all of these symbols? And conflict of wills, within each person, and between and among the persons?

:- Doug.

Might we converse just with symbols, these seven, say?

:- Doug.

Now snow is a symbol to add to the list, a symbol of the liminal; and sleep a symbol of transforming and bringing to a new world. So we have circle, hole, river, woods, light, snow, and sleep.

:- Doug.

To any problem you’ve no single answer
To respond, weigh your options—A. seriatim
—B. larger view: you’re in a conversation

:- Doug.

Converse with your body using all muscles. Keep your motion fluid, including replies, always in motion. Call it mime-talk.

:- Doug.

Conversing better is what I am about.

:- Doug.

Conversation is the central defining act of life.

:- Doug.

Conversation the gateway
Conversation the goodness
Conversation the life

:- Doug.

I used to make Wills. Now it is necessary to make counter-wills.

:- Doug.

The central idea, the centripetal force, of a group (such as in a play or working on a project) shapes the choice of a central idea each person chooses for him- or herself to work out in the common effort. A light touch.

:- Doug.

Conversation grows persons.

:- Doug.

If doing human were a skill, what specific human sub-skill would you think needs attention first?

:- Doug.