FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 912

What is my life about? There is a phrase in the Duino Elegies which calls to me: “But what is blowing like a breeze, listen to that, / the uninterrupted message forming itself out of stillness.” It is that message forming itself, the stillness that is G*d, all about us, out of which mist we walk, forming ourselves as we live, forming our lives as we live them, that I want to touch, to live, to simply live. Flowing, uninterrupted, it is. I am. I AM. All related, all part of the mist, the stillness, the is there. My life is about forming my life. My message is about forming my message. My work is about forming our life. It is all about us, forming, forming, out of the mist.

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 911

A major issue with asking people to attend a several-day event to improve their community is the fear that “We cannot ask people to give so much time.” Actually we must ask people to give—themselves, their time. The value they get out is precisely from what they give. So let’s be bold to ask their commitment—as a gift to them. And if only a few come, remember that we want quality foremost.

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 910

What if our death were not an end
Nor a beginning over again
In angelic realms?
What if it were a culmination,
A fruit, a seed, a chrysalis,
Exploding colors, sounds, flavors,
Aromas—A Big Bang:
And here we are a dot in
Someone’s death!

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 909

Today my dental hygienist told of her neighbor—an older lady—who really needs people to look out for her, but she does not want help. This living story shows we need to invent ways to be neighbors again (or actually from scratch in our new society). It has been a generation or two since people were neighbors and so for the most part we don’t know the art. We will need to create it. And that is good, for our times require of us a neighborly actions to fit our times.

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 908

Obama is metaphor for me: He is a metaphor for dialogue and engagement of everyday people in the work of the community. Beyond engagement to invitation. I do not expect him to solve the country’s ills—I do not want him to do that. I want him to ask me. I want him to ask you. I want him to invite the best and brightest—those on the street, those in the factories, those in the midst of life—to help. And in that sense, his presidency, which has not even begun, is already a success: he has engaged people who never thought themselves political, he has energized a whole new group of people. True, it has only been in the electoral and political process, but that is a start, a teaser. Hopefully they will stay active. Hopefully they will care. Hopefully we will all care enough to work together on this world.

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 907

The future is not somewhere you go
But something we do

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 906

What I care about is that you see your divinity and act on it.

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 905

All I can do is be of service to the world.

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 904

These are big opportunities
We are called to:
Think expansively
Include everyone
Take charge
Work together
Converse deeply
Weave intricately
See each other again
Act committedly
Hear lyrically
Make time

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 903

Help Wanted: running the world. Must be ordinary, know how things are, willing to make mistakes. Apply within yourself and apply yourself with your neighbors and friends and get busy. Expect fierce opposition. Compensation, success and safe return in doubt.

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 902

People generally go about as high as we invite.

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 901

Hopefully in this coming century we’ll find questions to some of our big answers.

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 900

My life is worth the living
Because I have children
Two sons
Poetry
Meetings
Inklings
Divinities
Invitations
Words
Hope
Attention
Love
Children who can bear children

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 899

I wish I were an autumn leaf a-fallin’
Floating up and down across the sky
And to all boys & girls I’d be a-callin’
Fall and leap and giggle dream and sigh!

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 898

Why is life a problem? Why are we seeing ourselves as lacking, powerless?

What if we saw ourselves as powerful, gathering friends, making things happen? What if I saw myself as powerful, gathering friends, making things happen?

I choose to see myself that way.

So I gather friends through direct invitation, through my writing, through meditation/contemplation touching the fabric of our being—the all there is. I release my power by releasing ours—I help us see ourselves as capax universi.

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 897

Do we want more warring in our world? Do we want more listening to each other? Are we ready to work together to help each other? These are the questions for our country this election time.

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 896

Small Unauthorized Acts make the world better.

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 895

How would I like to respond?

“What don’t you know and how will you learn it?” There is more that I don’t know than I do. The simple answer is that I will ask you, including my so-called opponent. Together. In that one word, Together, is more. The important thing is to keep asking questions, for in questions is pregnancy, is new birth, is life of our community and country. Answers stop the questioning, stop the progress. Questions open us up, questions open us out. Together we have wisdom. So I ask you to take a few moments to ask yourself, What don’t we know? What are our really big questions? I ask you now, in silence, to find the larger questions, the questions to enliven us.

Then I would shut up for the rest of my allotted time.

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 894

The cloud advances imperceptibly
But look away a moment
There it is as if it had leaped!
By billows, by thinning,
By drawing moisture from beneath
By embracing, by moving on
Whether embraced or not
This cloud brings fog
Or cleansing rain
Your hands can stop it not
It moves to shade another
This cloud does its work
Cry it might or storm
Then dissipate in the wind
Surely part of its work is beauty
And setting boys and girls dreaming
Maybe you too
Arguing with it concerns it not
It does its work and moves along
Maybe you too

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 893

Know what the trees say in a windstorm? “Wheeeeeee!”

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 892

True meeting requires spontaneity, actually meeting, willingly accepting who and what is in front of you and meeting the challenge with what arises.

I saw meeting as a way of life, spontaneously seeing what emerges, curious, loving, excitedly and expectantly watching, waiting, clasping, sending heart forth to heart.

This is an easy way, like telling a child a bedtime story (which is the genesis of my thinking), and being alert for escape routes and new places to go, people and animals to meet, life to greet, flying to enjoy. Stay, play! Explore, but even bigger than explore. Beyond explore. Life is to enjoy beyond explore, to play, to see what is possible!

I am saddened when people do not want to come out and play. What can we make? Is that all? Is there more? There is always more! With people there is always more, for we are divinely creative. Yes?

Invite play.

Come out and play! Come and play! Come play! Play!

Here is a bridge, there a cloud, the shade of a tree, the lapping of water, a hole in the ground. Here is story, our story, a larger story. Here are the makings! It is safe. It is home. It is ours to create!

Wow! Life is about playing! Who woulda thunkt?

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 891

We have always expanded our
Confidence
Intellect
Vision
Courage &
Reach
By gathering
With each other
How much we need to
Now

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 890

It is about calling out human divinity—what is highest and noblest in humans. You are wanted and welcome. You are needed. I want to hear what you have to say—your stories, your hopes, your inventions. You make me whole.

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com