FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2133

A cloud has floated
into this bright blue sky
friends, they are, conversing

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2132

Are there limits to conversation, to a conversation, which can serve to give it focus and fertility? Orson Welles is reported to have said, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” If we ask a poet to make a poem, she will stare at the page for hours, and not produce a jot. If we ask her to produce a sonnet about bathtubs in 24 hours, she is freed.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2131

Often
we don’t know what we think
until we write it or say it
we are then surprised
often

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2130

Watch to see if I am leaving no trace, and to see that my work does not leave a trace on me. Yes! If we are not leaving a trace on ourselves, then we are being gentle with the other players, with the betweens, the surrounds, and the conversation.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2129

What next thing will have the best effect on the life of this conversation?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2128

We dear human
are perfect as perfect can be
get over your faults
they too rusty beauty
act!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2127

No, you are not using conversation to get something done. Conversation is using you to keep the one conversation going. The one conversation is life.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2126

What if, when there is a caesura, we took the clue and stopped talking? Went to writing, drawing, doodling? Meditating or contemplating? Took a walk? Took a nap? Then came back to our conversation? Perhaps the natural break (especially when it feels awkward) is offering us a pause?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2125

Our opposing views are not either/or, nor even both/and, but intertwining. Vine from the same root. They are mutually nourishing, even at times convivial.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2124

In prior centuries art and beauty were in service of, were seeking, meaning in life. As Christopher Alexander noticed with architecture, all that changed in the 20th century and architects started to make image-heavy statements, to express themselves individualistically. Psychology also became a way to personal expression. So too conversation: where before we sought family and belonging, these 20th century forces inclined us to seek ways to be heard, to find our voice. But this all leaves us feeling hollow. We are missing what would carry us above all this “look at me”—to hallow our lives. Yet this can only be found in and amongst the real world.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2123

Tell the fascinating thing fascinatingly.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2122

Conversation is not primarily communication. It is cooking.

It’s making something that wasn’t before. It’s creating. It’s digesting—outside the body and brain. It’s something we carry out that no one carried in.

It’s breaking down the fibers with heat and adding textures, flavors, and sauces. It’s cooking down to essences. It’s building up to nourishment. It’s the difference between milk and crème brûlée.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2121

Ya gots ta be curious.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2120

The US does not any longer want to be the world’s police force. But we can be a neighbor, helping in time of need.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2119

Learn something nobody yet teaches.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2118

What if, in conversation, we consciously brought in more differences, more context, say by chance? More differences might help us in settings where people see only the others’ choice as morally wrong: it will help each “side” to see that the setting is much more complex than two sides. Maybe.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2117

We should endeavor always to see one another in frames of value, of each one’s aspirations.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2116

Do our conversations gain a deeper feeling in complexity? Just maybe they do. Complexity is a place to get lost, the unpredictable flames in the cooking fire, and lost is a deep dark place with things swirling around you. There is something moving you cannot quite understand, cannot grasp. Maybe it grasps you.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2115

In asking “What do we not know,” we are seeking the true out beyond the true.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2114

Energy is found in all parts of the context: the players, the surround, the betweens, and it is this energy, this push, that makes systems complex and adaptive. It is the dog-kick principle in action: kick a stone and you can from physics know what it will do; kick a dog and the dog has input into what happens next. The dog has stored up calories and experiences which have a greater role than your kick. Only in real life there are more dogs than we can count. A few of these “extra” dogs bite.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2113

The role of each participant is to complicate.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2112

What I don’t like about conversation is I seldom get my way. Then I realize my strong continuing desire for the novel is being met by the continuing desire in all of us to be left as we were. All nature seems thus. The pull and the pull back keep things growing just enough. Sometimes I get some of my way.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2111

Sometimes I want to explain, to give details and examples. Then I remember the farmer’s simple hand-wrought gate opens to a meadow of 100 visible species, sky, and a stream. There swings your invitation.

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