FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1677

I’m human—that’s all the credentials I require. I notice what I notice.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1676

For some of us
aches of aging are spiritual
for some of us
grieving and loss are exercises
a chance to do this work
for all of us

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1675

We cannot restore sanity to the world
It never was sane

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1674

In elderhood, our etherealization becomes a prime activity—we spread our now much larger far-seeing selves as widely as even cosmos. In past, some of ourselves evaporated as we worked; now this is the work.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1673

Holy is empty, and the task of the prophet, the hero, is to merge, and then emerge back to the world with this boon. The boon? Emptiness. Freedom. Meeting. Hmm… Meeting is part of emptiness. Had not thought of that before. It is not that emptiness is a prerequisite, but that meeting only takes place in emptiness. The more empty, the more possible meeting. This might be why grief is a stronger more foundational meeting place than celebration: it is more empty.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1672

While I was eating last night, one diner kept telling people his elation at the day’s political news. One guy he was talking to said that there might be a change in state law to allow “someone like me” to carry a concealed weapon without a license. At that, this diner got up with his back turned to me, and held open one side of his coat.

This frightened me. What is it about this quiet Thai restaurant that makes someone so afraid he must carry a weapon? How much does the presence of a weapon increase the chances of gunsmoke? Or bravado leading to gunplay?

I don’t think I want to go to that restaurant again, nor perhaps even that town.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1671

It takes a whole life to die.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1670

I like butterflies. Not only beautiful, they are effective at the same time. They show us work can be beauty and grace.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1669

Linux is filled with playfulness
Take two programs that do about the same thing
one is called more
the other less
the one that does more is less

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1668

All an elder’s got to work with
Is what’s a step further
Than wits

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1667

Intertwined are we
Sent out beyond our untangling
How shall we be with each other?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1666

Why do bad times, deaths, floods, fires, and collisions bring us together in profound ways? Perhaps because they give us an opportunity to do what’s in our blood: take care of one another. This is more needful to us than our own food, clothing, and shelter.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1665

An hygrometer-barometer is my nose! Every change in air pressure and dryness of the air registers!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1662

There’s more at stake here than we yet understand.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1660

One thing I am noticing as I grow into an elder is how much ego drives our society—and how useless that is long term. Everywhere it’s thee against me, how much can I get? This dries up the love of humanity, the love of particular living beings. Isn’t—shouldn’t—this be the ground of all we are and do? Do we have heart for others as well as grabbing for me?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1659

Old year and new year so near to one another
Old day and new so much the same
Old me and new so small a step

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1658

Lone leaf on bare branch,
blown: life goes around and through:
fly away; and I

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1657

When we are whole
we hold all gently,
we receive all fully,
within,
we have space to receive
to grow,
we are open.
So if we want to see if we are whole
look first to see if we are empty.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1655

The bright robes
Around the sidereal systems
How do we see
When they are in
Every direction about us?
The Hubble can see
So might we, if

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1651

Search if in his or her core
this one you meet lives out
a decision unsettling

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1650

We are intimately interlaced
More than plugged together
No need to connect up
Intimately we were born
When we die we are not ripped
From the fabric but still part
A family is but pearls appearing
Along the string
The string’s the thing
Some when back there one yarn
Some when up ahead more
This now
More even than genetic or sidereal intimacy
Some grow from the seed of Lincoln,
Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus, Moses
If we could step back far enough, we’d know
We are intimately

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1649

Here’s how it begins: the loss of free speech. Thin skin complaining, ridicule, intimidation. After a stage play an actor addresses the Vice President-elect. It matters not about what. Then the President-elect whines and complains. Then no one big voice or small stands up for the actor’s—and our—free speech.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1648

Just now I sat still and slid into a more contemplative space. There must be a way to go there more often, more reliably. Take a walk on this path and always end up at the edge of the world.

It takes turning toward the precipice. Toward the circumspice. Toward the unknown. Toward not knowing.

It feels like it wants stilling: stilling our accustomed direction, questioning our momentum.

It wants too my opening, my willingness, my softening to the wider to enter me, my allowing me to enter the breeze.

Dropping analysis, even this analysis: blurring, blending, melding….

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