FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 996

The colors of the woods
greens in many tints and shades
browns, reds, yellows
greens of spring
yellows of autumn
browns of bark
browns of death
water reflecting light through colors
blue of sky
and grey
shadows of cool spots
brightness of sun
cool in fall
sultry in summer
here we meet
life becoming sacred

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 995

If we concentrate on what people with Alzheimer’s are missing, on how their “condition” is affecting both of us, we stir up things for them, cause consternation, guilt, inferiority feelings and feelings of things not going rightly. But if we start from love, then we can go smoothly. Paddle in the direction the river is going.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 994

Let work
the process of life
rush it not
let it season
then see

Holiness turns
converses
under the silence
seeks continuing
now see

Silence is work
waiting too
these two calling you
from quickly scattering
to see

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 993

Much of what I long for in the world is summarized in the garden first example: We want and need to belong to the world. We want to be at home in the world. And to do that our buildings need to be at home in the world. So we must first find them a home, a garden, in which to sit and look over the valley and the mountains. If we try to construct a house first, it is ego-filled, and stands in front of the garden, blocking its sunlight, and then we have a garden that is sickly, and a house lacking soul, and a view we care not to see.

So what is the shape of the space we care to see?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 992

Intimacy with G*d
calls me to open
with
even when I do not want to

calls me to open
to joy
to others
with

the white crane lifts off
gently
with my eyes
a part of G*d

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 991

Meetings are sanctification. Take off your shoes; this is holy ground. This is the place of whole-making. This is what the doing is about: making living whole.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 990

How do we infuse joy and love into nursing homes? Into humanly declining abilities?

We have a distaste for seeing people losing abilities after a lifetime of being more. Perhaps it stems from fear of, and therefore a wish to put out of view, our own decline. This might frighten us more than death.

Had an email exchange last night with a friend about this question. She said “I think the letting go of who our family members are while they are still present with us may be more challenging than letting them go after death.”

She spoke of the absence of rituals for this kind of a loss. Might there be some value in developing some rituals for this?

It is a reversal of the development process of babies, and perhaps not so much a reversal but a completion of the bell shaped curve of life.

What rituals can we devise to celebrate the graduation of a fully-functioning adult into loss of those functions?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 989

The itsy-bitsy group climbed up the water spout
Down came the rains but didn’t wash them out
‘Cause they had built a series of aqueducts all round
That watered all our crops and fed the folks all ’bout

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 988

Disorganize the things which are not working.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 987

Some say
An eye for an eye
We invite
An I for a Thou

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 986

Garden first. Lives can be seen in this way. It asks us what is most important about our lives: where is your garden? What adds greenery, oxygen, involves your being entirely, connects you with life itself? Where are you heard, when do you feel whole? Make the space for this first. Then build the rest of your hours, days, and life in ways that makes that garden better and makes those hours good.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 985

Life as I’ve observed it tells me that stopping is stopping. Continue active in life and life will continue active long in you.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 984

There is a “be there” button after all: it is in our hearts. If we can accept that we are on a round ball and we are always starting, then we are always here. And here is where we can have the life we seek. Not just for us individually. But for us as a whole, as a part of The life. So we live it fully. Here. Now. Hear.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 983

Things I have learned from canoeing rivers:

The river does not care if you ride along or fall in.

The white water was a thrill—once you’ve past it. When you’re in it, it is terror.

Sometimes you think you see swift easy passage—only to find yourself lodged on the bottom in shallow water. The only thing to do is to get out and walk on the rocks. Better then if you brought shoes you can get wet.

Although you have a paddle, the river still flows where it wants.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 982

When I ask a question of one or two or three people or small groups, I am instilling just that much space, creativity or life into the world.

Just that little effort, just that much courage, repeated, will do the work.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 981

What is the most important thing we can do right here and right now to make life better?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 980

Whenever you set out to do something, that’s when adventure ensues. Recipe for adventure: set out to do something in the larger world; meet someone along the way.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 979

If you can think of nothing else to do for life, plant a tree.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 978

This is why goals don’t make sense: you cannot presume to know enough at the start of any step to be able to design 10,000 more steps and then to execute that plan without deviation. Design and construction need to go back and forth filling in for each other at each interval.

And this then is a hint of emergence: it comes from the heat of this very back and forth. It arises from process, not out of one sterile mind trying to get pregnant all by itself.

True emergence can only happen when we take it out of the thinking chambers and subject us and our ideas to real life—all the people on the real ground. This is taking to scale—this is when everybody gets it—when everybody is invited and all who come are heard. Invitation must include the promise to hear. When design hears construction and construction design and both the whole on which we are working—here is emergence—of life!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 977

All-ee, all-ee, all in free!
Come on kids, come out and play!
We’re getting dirty out here in the street—
The day’s a wastin’ and we can make such fun!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 976

Decide which needs making wonderful. Do it.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 975

How are you part of something larger?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 974

Broken…or broken open?

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