FootprintsintheWind.com

We live in a qualitative world every bit as much as a quantitative one. Why do we sometimes try to exclude the better (and worse) part of our world merely because we cannot count it?

:- Doug.

Now converses with now
Now is a construct of our minds
What then does it mean that
Now converses with now?
How big is now? Where does it live?
It lives in
—Winds driving swirling coming going
—Clouds scuttling
—Our birth
—Our hugging, driving cars, running machinery
—Our dying
—Our memories
It is as big as
—You standing in my face
—Me being present to you
Sitting in silence with you or speaking
We are conversing
These are now
We are now conversing with now

:- Doug.

Your image of God is too small.

:- Doug.

We know that we cannot solve life
We can only predict the probabilities
And choose

:- Doug.

Wisdom is a blossoming of imagination.

:- Doug.

“War is a failure of imagination” wrote William Stafford. For the crisis in Syria:
Imagine—mobilizing massive aid to the refugees, helping others escape.
Imagine—television and video cameras parachuted into all areas of the country.
Imagine—if you imagined a better way to stop the tragedy, to love these people.

:- Doug.

There are 5 things going on in open space: we tell, we hear, we bump, we unearth, we emerge.

:- Doug.

Open space has the effect of bringing people into density. This increases bifurcation points: choices. Examining its nonlinearity suggests that it is not only bumping together that leads to surprising choices, but that gathering makes accessible something akin to the collective unconscious or memory, and further still, that it has a catalytic effect of stirring up emergence. It does not require thinking beyond the local, immediate; however, given that we are human and see beyond our noses, we are wont to look for a bigger picture; and in either event, we affect the actions of the whole by our local actions.

So the magic of open space is not magic at all. First, it is not about making something happen for ego: it is precisely the reverse, taking us beyond ego, even sometimes going so far as to kill the ego. Second, it has a predictable quality to it, it follows a natural pattern, and is not a miracle, a deviation.

But open space is dangerous. It can rearrange these elements, all there before, and threaten the duration of those old ways and institutions. In the same way a baby threatens the existing ways of his family, bringing, if we have eyes to see, and stillness of heart to wait, the hope of new strengths and life.

:- Doug.

We see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil
because we are drawn to good each other

:- Doug.

We need not build bridges
from human to human
we already have gossamer
we see, we hear, we touch
we are touched

:- Doug.

It’s only difficult the first time.

Recently I realized that I don’t have any trouble getting my clients to talk about end of life decision making.

Why? I think it is because I am serious about the topic, give it and my clients the time they deserve, and treat my clients and the subject with respect. I don’t duck it. I bring it up.

Perhaps most professionals, lawyers and doctors especially since we are the folks who deal with the subject of death, are nervous about bringing up the subject and so we avoid it on the least suggestion of discomfort from our clients.

The video Considertheconversation.org/adoats made some of the biggest difference to me. I watched it and started showing it to groups. Any lawyer reading this who deals with our elders should see this video.

Also the work of Charlie Sabatino and the Proxy Quiz were things that helped me get serious with my clients about this.

You can get these conversations going. It is not difficult. You just have to convince yourself. Then you may hear from someone what I heard from my own son when I said my wife and I wanted to talk with him about this for ourselves: “I was wondering when you’d bring it up!”

So this post is for lawyers, for doctors…and for people with families.

:- Doug.

Act locally; think locally; cause globally.

:- Doug.

Interlocked times
in impossible numbers
you, absorbed, sit at your task
for hours, not missing the
chunks of your life invested
I, counting hours and minutes
to invoice or go home
and many billions of others
all occupy the same time space
—and birth each other

:- Doug.

First a speaker tells hearers.
Second all parties share and the group knowledge grows, better decisions are made.
Third something surprising emerges from the conversation, something no one brought, born here, or discovered among us.

Hydrogen breathes on oxygen, and again
Oxygen breathes on hydrogen
Not just wind
Not just more wind
Weather, wet weather!

:- Doug.

This is a big world: some days I fly to this frontier, some days another, and other days I prefer to remain within my own close, hearth and home.

:- Doug.

A flowing world, a flowing G, events more than things: this is our reality. A bud, a flower, a wilting, a seed: events in a flowing field. A man, a woman, a baby, a flowering, a departing the stage: a scene in the comedy. Each actor, each flower, each seed necessary, bringing forth and brought forth by the play. Every emotion, every interaction necessary, the very elements of the entire. One. Flux. Good.

:- Doug.

Branded by the mark of
Radical uncertainty
Are we
This is our hope

:- Doug.

The You we call G is larger than that. Any that.

:- Doug.

We have an inability to perceive something outside our experience: that explains why sometimes people cannot buy our arguments.

:- Doug.

The world is in one conversation
The All There Is is that conversation
The All There Is is one conversation
What then if this be true?
A meta-conversation?

:- Doug.

Alive is conversation
Unfolding what it touches
Finding and creating worlds
Drawing in pulsing events
Tugging the sidereal
Moving, flowing, rocking
Birthing humanity!

:- Doug.

There is only one conversation
& you can be in it
& you’re already in it
& you’re invited!

:- Doug.

Intent is not a How
It is a Way
One gives you the means
to getting your desire
the other gives you a path
for accepting what emerges
for that intent
from a possibility field
larger than your imagination
Intent is going to the dance
without know
to what songs you’ll dance
nor with whom
—and still having a good time!

:- Doug.