FootprintsintheWind.com

G*d is sprouting out all over!
Walking in the autumn woods I see:
Trees sprouted out of the earth, large ones
new ones, seedlings, fallen ones
grasses and seeds, seeds with prickles
seeds with wings, flying
spider webs, gnats, mosquitoes
—all of these G*d in many masks
yet not masks, revealers
a leaf falls past my eye, beside my path
lands, to return food to the soil for a hundred
other plants, all G*d emerging
and for the earthworms, G*d crawling, with
no eyes, but all heart
the wind blows the leaf a little ways to the
better spot
shrubs and broken limbs, coming up, going back
a respiration of solids, whatever that means
all over!
Look and see and hear

:- Doug.

The task is not to rip further what is already started, but to poke new holes. Poke first some who want the poke holes, who are looking for light and air and space. Who are these people scratching at the grey cloth?

:- Doug.

Anger does not grip you: you grip it.

:- Doug.

There are two questions: 1. Are people capable of changing their community? Although most do not believe it can be so, there are plenty of proofs that any group, any where, any time, can improve their lot. This is beyond question. 2. Whether people want to make change, or more precisely, whether they’d ought to want it? This is a close question and involves further questionings: motivation, whether change is good, and the toughest one: even if it is good, whether we are better off just letting things stay well enough.

:- Doug.

Intimate with a crowd.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 706

Any morning you can see and hear
and touch and be touched
is a good morning.

Please pass it on.

© c 2006, 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

What if conversation were how we unfolded together?

:- Doug.

Conversation is not about talking
It’s not even about listening
It’s about hearing
—the other
—your self
—the in-between

:- Doug.

We live in conversation. Most of the time it’s meaningless drivel. My life’s work is to invite the other kind. For pay I help people converse across death. For giving back I invite people to make change in communities.

:- Doug.

What I want to say is close to this: We don’t hear each other. Maybe never much have. We don’t hear ourselves. And we certainly don’t hear the in-betweens. My work is the in-betweens. A Will for instance is an in-between. It is a conversation.

:- Doug.

With some people,
you have to work hard
to hear what they are trying
to say
often me
stumbling among the scattered words
but your effort can be rewarded with richness
I promise

:- Doug.

Exchange, interchange, intercourse: how far along is your conversation?

:- Doug.

We live in non-conversation
We live in the avoidance of conversation
—chit chat
—deflected dialogue
—meaningless drivel
—avoiding challenge
—turning away from thinking
—fearing to commit our time
—afraid to be touched
Hear the buzz in the room?
It’s probably not conversation
not enough silence
not enough banter
too earnest.

:- Doug.

Rhythms and echoes
People and events
pulse and resound
when we turn our ear

:- Doug.

I ask people about the bigger questions that surround them, and they most often draw blanks. Yet there is violence all about, injustice, starvation of a hundred kinds. I do not know what it is, but you do. What could you hear, if you tuned your ears to it?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 705

Why do we not see the bigger pictures? Why do we not hear the conversations that want to happen? We need to listen to the subtle voices. We need perhaps to turn our ear to the sounds that are there with us. We need to turn our ears to the larger things. We live in the conversations that want to happen, and we are too busy.

Please pass it on.

© c 2006, 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

Sparkles on the pond, dance of the raindrops
sparkles on the pond, count them if you can
count can be redeemed by joys of sparkles and of dances

:- Doug.

There is a poetry to our meeting
a poetry to life
rhythm and sometimes echoes
we take for rhyme
we might as well
for we are the only ones
who will find meaning
here

:- Doug.

Isaiah hears out of the mouth
in verse one chapter Forty-three
echoes I hear, echoes:
redeem you, you redeem
call you by name, by name call you
you are mine, I am yours
he, she, it are yours, you are theirs
and in the echoes, life, life
and in the life, echoes, echoes
When you redeem the world
(this task and joy I give you)
call one person by name
then you have that one
and me
and we have you
you call her name you buy her back you give her birth
call you by name, by name call you
by name echoes echoes echoes

:- Doug.

I’m a mystic
which means by necessity
I’m an activist
ripping, ripping

:- Doug.

What does it mean to redeem
someone? A whole
world full of someones?

:- Doug.

There once was a boy from Id
When climbing a tree lost his lid
He scampered on down
And fell on his crown
‘Twas not a thing bawdy he did.

:- Doug.

In this world we find life and movement, growth and decay, rain and evaporation, cycles all about. Shall we then seek change? Perhaps it is better to initiate than suffer, and when it comes, to accept with open heart. Go to whatever comes, turn to it, love. Be the one who comes, turn to people, love.

Meet whoever comes. Be the one who comes. Meet.

:- Doug.