FootprintsintheWind.com

End of life is not a slag heap, a pile of decaying refuse. Living happens here. How can we best serve life?

:- Doug.

Violence & domination
Force & power
Accompany
Injustice & death
We can do better by
Conversing & dialoguing
Togethering & including
For here is lasting strength
& transforming love

:- Doug.

You have a piece of the puzzle neither of us even knows is a piece. Together we can change each other. It’s the only way to change us all.

:- Doug.

We are the story that makes this moment.

:- Doug.

In living with our families—elder and younger together—do we play together in a way that what we are starting cannot be finished?

:- Doug.

I think ordinary people—not just professionals—need to know when to say when. I need your help so we can all learn this skill—invent this skill.

:- Doug.

We have to think more broadly—we have to free our elders from the prisons we put them in. We need to return them to home and family—even if we have to create new forms of home and family.

:- Doug.

When someone is dying the rules of living change. How they see life, how we see each other, how we see our roles with the dying person and the rest of the family—all these change. But they can change for ill (as in when we all tiptoe around each other or pretend Mom isn’t dying) or for good (as when we meet each other where we are and as we are and especially as who we are—openly and vulnerably—and find our wholeness).

:- Doug.

For women, giving often comes first, then wondering who your original person was. For men, working often comes first, and then the same query. If we turn us right side to, we see our original person is completed by giving and working.

:- Doug.

We participate and that is the large thing: choosing to live. To live means our whole being to give.

We can choose a larger effect for our participation simply by giving this thing which we are—fully, with abandon, in a way that we choose, on purpose. Then our contribution is as large as it can be, and more than that, as large as our beloved world needs.

:- Doug.

Long-term care is not about who pays but how we choose to live.

:- Doug.

It is possible to
see life as a small thing
or a great;
to so see our part
Yet what is great?
what is small?
when is it over if ever?

:- Doug.

Life makes time,
opens space,
…

:- Doug.

Forcing someone to do our will is a failure of imagination. First, we could have invited them much more artfully. Second, engaging the imaginations of each of us together, we could have chosen something better to do.

:- Doug.

Our force over someone is never as great as our strength with them.

:- Doug.

We are participating in participating
Everything is always moving
Is there any difference between great events & small?
Might we choose the greater?
Might we choose significance?

:- Doug.

Can we change things? That’s the wrong question! Things are changing, we each are affecting them—by what we do and don’t, by what we say, by who we are. The question is not if, not even whether, but do we choose, are we on purpose about it? We all tug on the rope. But which direction? With how much of our being?

:- Doug.

The betweens are those through which
Flower petals fall in spring
Colors of leaves in fall

The betweens are those through which
Our hand travels to shake another
Our whispers travel to meet another’s heart

The betweens are
Pregnant, alive with
Connections, participation, invitation

The betweens are where
The all there is
Lives

:- Doug.

I have a message for you. From your children. But they’re afraid to bring it up, are even repulsed by the very idea. It falls to you then to do something about it. Because this is how we love one another.

:- Doug.

Though I cannot cure you, I can help heal you, restore you to play.

Can those with dementia play? Do we have the love to play with them? To learn from them?

:- Doug.

The betweens are alive, dancing!

:- Doug.

In conversation something begins

:- Doug.

Joining in, inviting, facilitating, moving, betweening, togethering—these are conversation.

:- Doug.