FootprintsintheWind.com

In dark is mystery
In dark is possibility
In dark is soft moon glow

:- Doug.

I have three boxes of books: one marked “Give Away;” one “Maybe;” and one “Keep.” Books in the middle box have sticky edges—they will pull away books from the “Give Away” box.

:- Doug.

What kinds of conversation are most satisfying? What do you mean by satisfying and why is that satisfying?

:- Doug.

We will all go into the oven
Whether we come out as bread or cookies or pizza or ash
None of us knows.

:- Doug.

We are all pointed in the same direction.

:- Doug.

It takes each
Of us
To be the one
The one we are

What matters to our us, to our pizza crust
Is yeast
Allowing us to rise
No: What matters is sugar
Giving you yeast nourishment you need to produce your gases
No, what matters is water, heat of it, wet of it
No, flour, our substance
No, kneading, working of the conversation of all and each

And the aged cheese &
Fresh tomatoes not too ripe

& what matters to our conversation, you Reader with me
Is the all of these, the conversation between.

:- Doug.

It is time to season the soup pot & then for us to let ourselves fall into it
For I have tasted of it
ever so lightly
& now I share with you the hint of its flavors
& you may have you own more intricate & longer tastes to share—or none at all
It matters not your age for we all have a certain similar station to attain at the end of the line we are on
So we jump into these seasoning waters & soak up what we can
& from one another

:- Doug.

Softly, felt, unheard in my ear, your thoughts, dear Reader, these reverberate in my inner hammer & anvil
Remind me I am here

:- Doug.

Conversation is doing.

:- Doug.

Look inside your head; hear here. Here you find the thousand voices of you, milling about, contending with one another, shouting, smashing, grumbling under their breath at one another, singing, calling others to, shoving apart.

:- Doug.

Experts don’t know all the plants in their backyards. At a cookout, there is an old sailor, a college freshman, a young mother, a couple of runners. These are not near to complex, but merely a collection. We cannot know all. We can only wonder. Herein is what no machine and no algorithm—human-wound up and set to run amok, or machine-constructed—can ever do: wonder; fly in spirit; be freed by the impossibility of it all; fly into imagination; no, out to imagination, beyond self.

:- Doug.

We need to draw near to all in our community—especially to the bitter, the smelly, and the rude.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2530

We are all, each & all, being drawn, smoke
To the tipi’s top opening
To our Omega point, the point beyond our last hot chocolate together
All of us
Each of us
Young, old, all of life drawn
Thro’ to what’s on the other “side,”
(Mired as it is in beliefs and dogmas)
Just as whatever thro’ brings all of us to the same pass,
Shows us we are all pink and greening inside, we all ooze some liquid when wounded, we these plant & animal life forms.

So I know when you speak young & green to me & I speak old & silver & in need of polish to you
We speak and can hear—can I say—
Hear the pulsebeat of the matter
Come thro’ all the else.208-2026

Please pass it on.

© c 2026, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

The purpose of capital-L Life is not to get to the end, nor to have it serve our purposes, but to live it and ennoble it by just all your effort in its ongoing.

:- Doug.

If there were no time to wash through our fingers, then memory is complete, stories end not, and conversation draws in all happenings and persons.

:- Doug.

Responsibility to and for a community, expressed in the work and by the work, helps that community become beloved. It is not a work ever to be accomplished. It is not a goal. It is a sweaty work, continuing. The accomplishment is there in the sweat, daily.

:- Doug.

The Last Hot Chocolate has been an exercise to find its point to make.

:- Doug.

This is contemplative, exploratory writing—What after all is really going on between us when we talk?

:- Doug.

At this home you want—What would you be doing now?

:- Doug.

Conversation mixes our stories, stirs and swishes, snarls.

:- Doug.

God is where your story and mine meet. Only there is no is. God weaves. And bobs. Intricately. Herein, making. English gives us is when what we want is does—action over thing. God is no thing. Not even a principle. Not weaving, not complex. Adjectives and verbs, free standing, free acting, free wheeling. God is how.

:- Doug.

This is the most important
Day of my week
This is today

:- Doug.

By now you may have worked it out that I
Can find a conversation just about
Anyplace: Let us count some places:
In the South Bend Chocolate Café they chit-
Ter chat all day—& some even drink hot chocolate!

:- Doug.