FootprintsintheWind.com

Turning is
the secret of the master
some translate as Repent
more than that—fun
for the master
to see what we will turn
into
transform, metanoia

larger people
lives connecting
turning working heating
piling
together
—fun in turning

turn—from looking out just for you
—you little thing
turn from lying well satisfied
on your couch
turn & get out here
in the battle with life!

:- Doug.

To meet
To turn
To see what we will do
—This our life

:- Doug.

It is not always comfortable WEaving and being woven, is it? Yet this is where life conceives us, where we find life. WEave on!

:- Doug.

There is always another way. We can gather unemployed people and do what is needed in our community. We can help one another.

:- Doug.

Consciously together is holy
What can this mean
For our world
For our generations?
What will we mean?

:- Doug.

Sharp shadows on my desk
Window edge, telephone, computer screen
Cutting across book and cable and paper
Shadows of leaves, dancing, dancing
What kind of day is coming?
What is the world singing to me,
Inviting? What will I sing?

:- Doug.

Little and local
finds what works:
experiment!

:- Doug.

What if we could get together some out of work people who are imaginative and roll-up-sleeves kinds of people? Hand select them and invite them to be inviters. Test out a few projects and see how it might work. Look to be inventive, meet needs, see if there is a way to be paid outside of money.

Money is the problem—not its lack, but its pervasiveness in our thinking. Money is getting in our way—we won’t do what needs to be done because we don’t have enough. Money is a ghost—we don’t see it, so we are fixated on it to the point of fear, palpitations, and petrifaction. We can think only of what is not there! We can think only that this is the only way to move people and things within our society. And we can think that money is the sole way of creating credit. Our major industries and companies and even governments could create credit. In little ways and large. Gasoline suppliers could give credit to long-haul trucking companies and truckers. They could pass this credit on to others, and credits could start flowing.

What this economy lacks—what every economy has lacked—is not cash but imagination. We have developed other tools to do our work over the years—do we still use goats to mow our lawns? Do we still use horses to move people from place to place? Do we still use pay phones? We can come up with other ways to move credit and commerce.

Cash in fact hampers imagination. If we do not have it, we long for it and whine “If only.” If we have it, we don’t get to work with the better, but settle.

So: how do we move credits and commerce without cash?

The city of Curitiba got slums cleaned up and people to work by giving out bus tokens in exchange for bags of trash.

Restaurants give buy 10 get one free punch cards.

Airlines have frequent flier miles.

Think bus tokens, punch cards, miles: these are credits flowing.

There is much that has to be done in our society: the work has not gone away. There are many who can do this work: hands have not gone away. Heart has. Imagination has. Think: how to put them together?

:- Doug.

“And/or” is lazy, the educated person’s “y’know.”

:- Doug.

Is there something to
meeting one another’s needs?
Food, clothing
shelter, transportation
work, conversation
—what is most necessary?
And if we don’t have one
can we give another?
And if we don’t have one
can we give it still?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 942

The time has come to converse around
our circle, and to put away our child-time
toys of debate and hate and what’s wrong
with you and him and her and everyone:
to see that we are all people suffering, all
people trying our hardest to make life
better; to sit down and reason together,
and more than that, to each other and from
each other and for the generations coming,
to commit

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

Turn, turn, turn:
To each other, turn

:- Doug.

It is about togethering—this is the nature of love—and not one monk or nun in ecstasy.

:- Doug.

It takes a certain relaxation
an allowing to be
an acceptance
a listening to the subtle
It also takes a certain voicing
a protesting
a speaking of truth
These, face to face
then, shoulder to shoulder

:- Doug.

The part of us
Which touches
& is touched by
Each other
Is the part of us
Most closely
Touching divinity

:- Doug.

We are not the ones
For whom we have been waiting
—Because we are not waiting…

:- Doug.

Will me a secret
Playful one
Will me a piece of junk
That I have the fun
Of figuring why you’d
Will me that
Secret

:- Doug.

1 + 1 + 1 + 1
equals all the prime numbers
of persons

:- Doug.

Voices less often heard
are sometimes more comfortable
feel safer
in smaller groups
Shall we meet only
in larger groups &
deny ourselves
hearing?

:- Doug.

Will us eyes
eyes you have loved
ones with crinkles in the corner
ones which pull on dimples
ones with tears
and ones which
see into your deeps

:- Doug.

Bequeath someone a dream
better yet, devise it
for it is real

:- Doug.

You and I
Holy together

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 941

Give a broken thing
Broken things still
have songs left in them

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