FootprintsintheWind.com

Can we approach the possible end of humanity with equanimity, able to say “That’s the way of species: eventually they die away?” If we can, then we can see us fairly. Then our work is far larger than a better humanity.

:- Doug.

Paradox
this being human
a joy and pain
gone
when humans are no more

:- Doug.

Think about the future for the benefit of the future.

:- Doug.

We’re all grandchildren.

:- Doug.

How ought we make our world-bed in which our grandchildren will awaken?

:- Doug.

If you want to go deeper
just how shallow have you been?

:- Doug.

Not broken but ever foggy—your crystal ball. Proceed. It’s your reasonable choice.

:- Doug.

What do we not want to give the eleventh generation?

:- Doug.

A Trip Deep Into the Future

:- Doug.

If in our Wills we leave the gift of money we leave only dregs of life. Ought we leave what is real?

:- Doug.

We can meet our generations perhaps through common threads—faith, place, culture, country. We can explore these in journals, writing, reverie, and meetings with today’s elders.

:- Doug.

Converse with generations by leaving them a gift. What gift would last? What gift would speak?

:- Doug.

When up against nothing more to say, that is the signal to turn my curiosity around, to see where it came from, what is next, what it might mean to others and to me, to go deeper and feeling my way for more scents and sounds, aromas and feather-touches, emotions and sights, temperatures and colors, movements and balance, awarenesses and life-senses. There is more, ever.

:- Doug.

My thinking of 300 years and 11 generations is perhaps not only a piker, but somewhat limiting: I am only thinking of people as I know the species, or persons. I am thinking of intelligence mostly in terms of words and verbalizing. Even now there are plans afoot to communicate directly without going across lips and ears.

My thinking has been that communication, especially conversation, is of the essence of persons. Is that necessarily so? And are persons necessary? Can our essences be like perfume essences, wafting on the breezes? What would it mean to be that sort of entity?

:- Doug.

I work.

:- Doug.

Ancestor = antecessor = way-finder

:- Doug.

Leaving a legacy is bad for our grandchildren.

:- Doug.

Ancestoring = Minding, long

:- Doug.

In 11 generations, your direct descendant will also be a direct descendant of 2047 other people. Certainly different from you. To say it another way, you will contribute only 1/2048ths of that person’s ancestral gifts. Actually less than that because of the intervening generations.

:- Doug.

Good. Ancestors.

:- Doug.

Nothing is inevitable till we make it happen.

:- Doug.

Our legacy cannot be rooted in the rocky soil of wanting to be well remembered; instead use the fertile soil of remembering well those yet unborn.

:- Doug.

Into the stream of ancestors

:- Doug.