FootprintsintheWind.com

Are we moving within a boundary or toward horizons?

:- Doug.

Disorganizing is not disorder.

:- Doug.

Given this—Dad’s dementia or Mom’s decline—how can we fit together, now? What are our special gifts, needs, fears and visions, and what’s possible with us?

:- Doug.

Life is not simply a question
of being here now
Nor accepting
the here and now
But also of being appreciative
of how we fit into here & now

:- Doug.

Something begins
Something fits

:- Doug.

I will always win
because what I want is life,
and life always plays along

:- Doug.

Yesterday I saw a writing which suggested that wanting to die at home is looking at things through rose colored glasses, that many families are overwhelmed with caring for someone at home and prefer in the end to have the help of a hospital or other institution. Yet it seems to me the question is more nuanced even than that. It depends on the pictures people hold in their heads. What does dying look like? What do we want it to look like now, for this person we love? What is the role of technology, and for how long? Specifically, do we need beeping machines and computer monitors, wires and tubes to care for this loved one, or are blankets and wash cloths and hugs more important? Is quiet better than machines at whole-making? Are we afraid to touch? Are we afraid to see? Do we see our own mortality, or do we choose to see someone who needs our loving, someone who is loving us?

:- Doug.

Betweens are fire
We become real
When we flame

:- Doug.

What can we find in elder conversation?

:- Doug.

A between opening
silence is

:- Doug.

G*d may be the silence
under the noise
beneath the silence

:- Doug.

Our atmosphere, G*d is
Fog & oxygen
Welcome & iciness
Expanses electrons fly through
Living spaces all about
We are—only—our betweens

:- Doug.

Betweens are the locus of being. We get our being from meeting, which creates many betweens. With two people one between, with three, four, with four, eleven, and so forth. The possibilities expand beyond exponentially.

:- Doug.

We meet, therefore I am.

:- Doug.

Question → Change
Meeting → Persons
Good → Movement

:- Doug.

Start the change before the presentation: state the title as question.

:- Doug.

Only I can do me
You and only you can do you
Together, irreplaceable under the sun

:- Doug.

We’re all, always
People weaving
Life into life entwining

:- Doug.

There is another image coming for me today: retirement, our own later years, turning them purposely toward bringing family closer together. We work and play with these our family members, children, grandchildren, sister, brother, individually and together. With renewed intention we move toward interweaving our lives with one another. This certainly starts bringing my practice into my life and my life into my practice.

:- Doug.

There is something we have in common in our professional practices—every one we meet—without exception—is growing older—closer to death—and we notice. And we can help. Is death a negative experience? It can be. But mainly it just is.

:- Doug.

I am not the expert. I am not here to teach you anything. You are the experts. You will teach—and invent me and each other.

:- Doug.

There are at least two ways to get from here to there—we can slog through the slough—or we can jump from stone to stone.

:- Doug.

Much financial planning these days is grounded in an unstated end game of self sufficiency. It’s all about me. We will not rely upon our children in our retirement, we will do what we want. We will not even involve our children. This is moving counter to the direction of humanity which is itself coming together, toward community from lone stranger among us. Do we really want to be the me generation? Is it our highest and best?

:- Doug.