FootprintsintheWind.com

In freely meeting our other, he or she is drawing out from us something not quite like what we knew. But it is both more than and different from what we had in our thoughts. This causes us to absorb and make part of us what our other revealed to us. Secondly it causes us to fit ourselves to this something new. We are changed two ways. So perhaps is our other.

This meeting might open our world to us. Or it might bottle up us. Either can give us power.

:- Doug.

If
in conversation
you both
speak very softly
you may enter subtle awareness

:- Doug.

your voice your face your
feet are informants most true
leaf falls spiraling

:- Doug.

Our work in conversation seems to fit in our collective efforts to make sense of the mysteries of life. We are mysteries to each other, yes? We are mysteries to ourselves, for sure.

:- Doug.

Our ways of thinking can grow out of our surroundings—the hopping of the robin, the squirrel stopping, jerking, darting, the building sitting a lump in our way. Or our ways of working can come from our thinking in metaphors from our sciences, like networks from computers, mutual causation from quantum theory, 19th century ideas floating in the ether, and a clockwork universe of even earlier times. Think about it—this is not so remarkable: we think in terms of what we see, and we see in terms of what we already think. We make mental models from our bodies and contexts, and then everything seems to look like a dog or a planetary system. We are trapped. We cannot think new thoughts until we find a new metaphor.

:- Doug.

I want to find my path to a new way of living.

:- Doug.

What is it like to be you? This is ultimate curiosity. It is too big a question. We could add to the end, today.

:- Doug.

They are mine to fit together
Persons or ideas which catch me
As wrestling—or in harmony

:- Doug.

Is conversation’s role, or one of them, to foreshadow and then move our imaginations to forestall or carry out?

:- Doug.

As music brings us close beyond words, so too conversation. Recall: conversation exceeds words.

:- Doug.

Conversation is a medium for being together.

:- Doug.

music that was before music
conversation is of this
rising, falling, staccato, calming

:- Doug.

Wandering, we wonder

:- Doug.

We touch the universal in the particular. Why one to one conversation? This is why. It’s why we will always be captured by one person’s story, more than a generalized account of the human race. Statistics bore. Try telling them around a campfire. Your story is mine. I don’t know how, but it is.

:- Doug.

Who in your life can teach you about conversation? For instance, with whom does conversation seldom happen? With whom does it fall apart? Why? Is it timing or venue? Why again? What exactly do you mean by “clash of personalities?”

:- Doug.

What you said
had me thinking
You held me near—O!

:- Doug.

you opened your shaded door to me
to browse your pictures, hear your stories
to look with you at your backyard
to share your kind of beer
such is the good it is, with you to talk

:- Doug.

almost like a journal
together translating a big world
almost like a prayer

:- Doug.

Once in a bit, play in a conversation with speaking with one voice, then in another, mirroring face and body.

:- Doug.

string together
supports & stillnesses
between talkings
curious we grow
our friend

:- Doug.

Don’t let your brain (particularly its broken and bent parts) override your heart and spirit. What does your spirit say?

:- Doug.

In addition to a conversation with several people, we can have one on one serial conversations. It might be better.

:- Doug.

Reverence for words and language: live here.

:- Doug.