FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1610

“Right up to the last minute,”
Joelle said to me
“the soul has work to do”
Weeks later her words
lead me to ask
What if it were
more opening than disease
this Alzheimer’s
& these our tribe’s explorers?
What might they discover
learn & teach
these modern Magellans
freed of memory?
What is learning
if released from memories?
What is life?
Traveling unencumbered
by memory
how might they move?
Where go?
Maybe it’s we who
hold them back
with talk of yesterday
and this morning
and 5 minutes ago
& we their Sherpas
carrying their food
bedding & tent
while they attend
their ascents

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1609

Thinking outside the box is repeated so much, it is now inside the box.

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1607

When you stir a pot
new emerges: aromas,
flavors, a cook’s heart

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1606

None of the above
There are none above us
None below

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1605

Arguments scream around the world between radical fundamentalists. What brings that about? Some speak of a dialogue of the deaf.

Whence the deafness? Hate is one source. Hate feels good. Hate establishes false superiority. Love feels better: and we do not reach it.

Fear is another. The opposite of love. We fear the other might be right. Let us clean the world of all who are not the same as us. Then we can live in peace.

How to break through that? Somehow we have to unstop our ears. If we can hear one another, we can discover our common humanity. Even our common wonder at what creation holds.

That requires willingness, and again we are back to finding a path to our heart of hearts. If we have armored that away, how then?

Maybe that armor is dissolved by tears. Maybe there are other things to open the armored heart.

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1604

Don’t you know what it will take to get for the world the changes we want is for our generation to die out?

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1603

It seems more and more that simply attending this, reaching to touch, is somehow the path. Walking creates the path.

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1602

There are no words adequate to express our feelings, only approximations and near misses. That’s why arguments, politics, and war. Those are why we must continue to converse—to find ways past arguments, politics, and war. The noble art. Every one an artist.

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1600

Demented lives matter
The voices which have no sense
Need hearing by us, somehow
If we embrace these
Can we live in peace?

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1599

Humor, the last great frontier: It will be long till computers learn to be funny. They might first trick us into being funny for them. And we will count that for them being funny.

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1598

How the Zen master teaches is these sparse words, allowing the student to find his or her own path. The master is teaching way, and traveling way, not the forms and shapes the master has found. This makes supreme sense, since each person has their own way. This is what Tao Te Ching was about: pointing in the direction of the way, but not putting up guide-posts.

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1597

I wonder if all understanding is a search for a butter metaphor.

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1595

Centuries long have we
Developed our maize
Built our cabins and cities
Seeded the thunder
To our larger
Let us turn
To our humanity

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1594

If you say something challenging for yourself and others, you can indeed learn something with your own mouth open.

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1593

Were you there this
morning? The wind
whispered
to the trees
a holy

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1592

The trees are budding out flowers and miniature leaves. The breeze is enticing them with promises of warm air to come.

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1591

Cumulus clouds are blending into one another as they meet. Perhaps we do, too, just don’t catch it happening….

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1590

We exist in conversation and we continually weave the tapestry in which we are embedded. We bring forth our pathways by speaking them.

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1589

Trump, voter anger, “the outsiders” are “global warming.”

The times they are a-changing. Unfolding. The world is turning. Evolving. The old guard is experiencing loss of control. The world is heating up. Syrian mass migrations to Europe. ISIS super-terrorism. Russian slow motion invasion of the Ukraine.

Something is going on. Turbulence like our new weather. Death throes of the old ways? Birth pangs of something not quite born? Will the baby be welcomed or frightening? Will we come together or pull apart?

As our population increases we are pressed together. We are forced to notice others. Will we hate, fear, love them? Will we want what they have? Power, money, water? Will we imagine what they have and want that?

Battles are just now starting, like storm systems rolling in. This is human weather. Humans can make choices. Yes we need rains and snows, even lightning. We also need clear skies and sun. Each is a choice: for us or against us. Life or death.

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1588

My silence
can open me
to nuances of you

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1587

Families too easily fall into “you should” mode rather than “that’s profound—beautiful—poignant.”

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1586

I must remember I don’t know what I don’t know.

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1585

Conversation, as metaphor for the world-reality, stretches us:
From what we know to what others, too, can see;
From objects to relations as primary;
From measuring to mapping;
From quantities to qualities;
From structures to processes;
From reality out there to assimilating that the way we ask changes what answers reality gives us;
From seeking certainties to moving toward better approximations;
In short: from smaller to larger, more inclusive.

Please pass it on.

© c 2015, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com