FootprintsintheWind.com

What does it mean
How does it happen
I could see it in her eyes
I could hear it in his voice?
Can we get there?

:- Doug.

For me, the lesson of these last two weeks seems the gate to flow in writing is not to let the day get in the way of the day.

:- Doug.

If as John S. Dunne writes in The Peace of the Present (p 23), there is a music of peace and a music of war, can there be also a music of conversation?

:- Doug.

In communitas we meet the incomprehensible lovable.

:- Doug.

Conversation is our vanish point.

:- Doug.

What can we find in conversation?
Ourselves
Our between!

:- Doug.

This threshold I traverse—from me to you and back—between, O!

:- Doug.

In conversation—gallery that it is—is it inside or outdoors?

:- Doug.

Might we two—together—become ecstatic—stand outside ourselves?

Ecstatic conversation—that’s the event—and the gallery—infusing us—and all around

Holy—mystic—we

:- Doug.

Knowledge is power
Emptiness is stronger

:- Doug.

In our homes and in our third places, do we still inhabit an oral world, touched only on its edges by literacy? Is this a clue to why we do not remember our arguments, do not know how to converse with a spouse?

:- Doug.

Writing encourages private divergence of thinking.

:- Doug.

Oral cultures progressed in Mnemosyne’s arms—the passing word instructed the next to come, through memory. With writing and reading we could add to memory and wise action. But still memory plays the big role, now only hidden: We write only what we want to remember.

:- Doug.

We are riddles one to the other
We are riddlers
Don’t we love being riddled

:- Doug.

This is an important work
Through an unimportant man

:- Doug.

In conversation we offer ourselves up to become our friend—not as our friend was five seconds ago, but as we together become other. We spin a thread of continuity and community, we enter a common dream and leave to something new in us.

:- Doug.

There is in meeting no safe space, no unsafe, no true nor false. It is all intense. It is all murky. The It and the freeing of the It, this is ritual, this is conversation. This is life, difficult as it is.

:- Doug.

Giving one’s self to the conversation
No, to your friend
Is a vow of your life, entire

:- Doug.

Poet
Ride your horse

:- Doug.

We, living
are a mystery
to ourselves
It will be a long while
and good
till algorithms
feel that mad delight

:- Doug.

Some people as they age grow mellow; others veer all over so you have to take their keys.

:- Doug.

Together
We gather
Art in puckers

:- Doug.

Place of gathering becomes place of loosening
Arrival becomes departure
Conversing and meeting become sending forth

:- Doug.