FootprintsintheWind.com

Try on some of the roles available to elders for 6 weeks. Design roles to fit you.

:- Doug.

This course asks, Is it possible the living world of the grandchildren can be better than this one? Can we help?

:- Doug.

What happens to us
as we fall through time?
What do we happen to—and whom?

:- Doug.

To live with pleasure among
and affection for

:- Doug.

To live among senior old people
to live among infants of any species
to live from mystery
these are beings we did not make
powers we cannot comprehend

:- Doug.

You spent your life as an adult
working for others
concerned with volume and price
Now is a time your elder years to see
to weal, fertility, wholeness, life
for the grandchildren of all the grandchildren

:- Doug.

Friend, converse with me.

:- Doug.

What do the younger do that robs the elders? What do the elders to to rob themselves?

:- Doug.

What is the best use of beloved old people? How do we include old people in our real lives?

:- Doug.

I go to the tourist bureau
(could be any place)
not for these young people’s
knowledge but their
experience
and of experience what is the
human value?

:- Doug.

Take care there be no waste
of old nor young nor middling
of land nor food nor compost

:- Doug.

Someone is going to be holding space for a woman planning her funeral with her family; might we hold space for folks planning their dying—living while dying? Or even their elder years?

:- Doug.

We desire so much to resolve conflict: reflect that we also need to encourage conflict, that is, to get us to heard—heard in our intellects and in our emotions.

:- Doug.

Eldering relies on passion, responsibility, tragedy, and grief.

:- Doug.

Much we speak of leadership and outcomes: I am reminded that more essential is a first follower and second; where does that leave outcomes? Perhaps outcomes are between and among followers, so there are multiple and divergent outcomes and no possibility of final outcomes. Trust the followers to bring about the intermediate outcomes.

:- Doug.

Let’s have critical conversations.

:- Doug.

The meeting yesterday only went half-deep, yet today it pulls me further.

:- Doug.

It is not my work
Yet it informs my work
My life more than my work

:- Doug.

Maybe I am writing a book
Maybe I am writing a life
Maybe I am

:- Doug.

How ought elders live on among us? Should elders be allowed to live on among us?

:- Doug.

Do we contribute? Do we learn? Or do we leave?

:- Doug.

How ought we live on among our human and larger communities?

:- Doug.

The question of how we live with our elders and how our elders live on among us is a growing world challenge.

:- Doug.