FootprintsintheWind.com

If one event may change those following unpredictably, devastatingly, I can be more purposeful in the words I insert: I can change what’s next. It might be little. It might be large. Who can tell? But it can be with intent. Nudgingly.

:- Doug.

Our consciousness rides atop our unconscious going “Whee!”

:- Doug.

We are machines in a clockwork world—so we have told ourselves these last three centuries. When will it be time to tell ourselves a human story? How long before it seeps to our bones?

:- Doug.

Growth tends
toward complexity
do we notice what this means?
flexibility
openness
vulnerability
scary!

:- Doug.

Friend, into your holy unknown. Now.

:- Doug.

Your hand knows how to keep the full cup from spilling; your eye does not.

:- Doug.

It could be very rich. Perhaps more rich to the extent I am empty.

:- Doug.

The first thing is I know next to nothing.
The second thing is all I can say relates.
Third, being here we expand each other’s world.

:- Doug.

A truth there is that arises among us. We grow up inside it, not it inside our heads or even hearts. It has to do with life. Life has to do with touching the world around us reaching out in turn to touch us. This is conversing. This is loving.

:- Doug.

The land on which we live is sacred; periodically we must renew our relationship to its sacred character. We are approaching a time of sacred renewal. We have progressed far from life and reverence.

:- Doug.

Perhaps every stage of life is a threshold we can accept or refuse to cross.

:- Doug.

A class must be alive: the facilitator therefore present and his or her plan for the day fresh with this particular day.

:- Doug.

A toilet paper roll is this feeling that time passes more quickly as we age: the less remains, the faster the roll turns.

:- Doug.

The notion of aboriginals to ask permission to take animals and plants might not be too far fetched: we are all sentient and are in this together; we must be cognizant of what we are doing and the cost to other beings. We all must eat; we do not have to massacre. Like we did to the buffalo and the baby seals. Like we are doing with nuclear waste to our own great grandchildren.

:- Doug.

I will try to let things go, to withhold words, be kind, for sure work to not make the other person wrong.

:- Doug.

Slower, deeper, gentler: perhaps this is where wisdom resides, or at least thrives.

:- Doug.

Let’s develop some questions and things beyond questions to help each other go deeper. The five Ws and one H are too surface. These ways we will only know about after we have used them.

:- Doug.

We need to give lots of time for story; perhaps for other ways to experience wisdom: poetry, dance, conversation. That feels spacious, much better than cramming more things into the time-space.

:- Doug.

Things are bubbling up. Keep roiling. Keep hearing.

:- Doug.

My job is to keep us looking further.

:- Doug.

What are our challenges as elders?

:- Doug.

What if elders were guardians of the future? What if we brought vigilance? What could such vigilance reveal to us?

:- Doug.

What is the role of music, dance, dreams, poetry, and all the arts in eldering?

:- Doug.