FootprintsintheWind.com

Meditators of the world—unite!

:- Doug.

Calling all gentle souls—all kindly folk.

:- Doug.

Is this economic slowdown centered strongly in bankers’ distrust of the condition of the financial system, distrust of other bankers, fear of financial loss?

This is a strong part of why we have the economic crisis we have. Fear constricts the movement of cash. Fear constricts our movements of goods and services. Fear constricts individual and corporate buying.

Is it 100% rational? Then would it be time to send the afflicted to psychiatrists?

Do people generally and bankers specifically tend to seek psychiatry, meditation, mindfulness, or religious help in such times? Has this—unseen—served to help right our economic boat in like times?

Yet this way is more real than humorous. Could we entice the people around the edges (ice melts at the edges till the edges become the core) to psychotherapy? What as a nation, a culture, can we do to encourage mental health among those who are suffering from courage constriction?

:- Doug.

If you keep feeding a child pablum into the 20th year, or 50th, what do you expect?

:- Doug.

Corporations seem
to have no soul
of their own
they suck it out
of their people
& spit it out
as not to their taste
—or do they
of necessity?
Are they capable of
something larger?
Will one or more
risk to try?

:- Doug.

Incomplete sentences
Loosely connected
Thoughts pregnant!

:- Doug.

Cutting a road
Enticing ourselves
This way
Forcing us to choose

:- Doug.

So what else is to say? Move into your day! Get busy, do some good, entice the future with your choice. Start a road.

:- Doug.

The world depends on us
—it would never use these words—
all the same it’s true
if we do not act
that future dies

:- Doug.

In the human flesh
G*d is emboldened
becomes the new thing

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 939

I believe that
the next leg of our progress
the next leg of our repair of the world
the next leg of our evolution
is together
consciously together
this is the meaning of holy
this work is holy
for this work this is the 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

Tikkun Olam Alternative 1: Do the work, don’t get paid.
Tikkun Olam Alternative 2: Don’t do the work because you won’t or might not get paid (cash).
Tikkun Olam Question: Ten thousand years from now, which will you rather you’d done?

:- Doug.

Death we see
in every new thing we think
to try
If the neighbors knew they’d be
mortified
and so we don’t
Weep for us who have died
while we yet may live

:- Doug.

Find a way to say Yes!
To your spirit
To our spirit
No to what holds back spirit
Fun, fly, yes!

:- Doug.

Friend, turn to me, invite me to turn to you. As you wish! That is a new and welcome response, Friend!

:- Doug.

Where will turning to one another do some good? Whom can we invite to turn to one another? Will you turn?

:- Doug.

Groups are in crisis mode right now—I went to a group’s meeting this week and the people were trying to decide if it is good to keep going. Despite the awkward way it was handled, we decided to keep going. Or at least some did.

There is indeed a predictable pattern or rhythm to these percussions (as indeed there was at this meeting verbal striking): attendance is down, dues are down, the same people are doing all the work—and getting tired. Do we keep going? Let’s meet and talk specifically about that. Why do you come? What are we about? Let’s poll the members, particularly those who do not come anymore. We hate to let it go. Remember why we started? That is still valid, so let’s keep going. Each one reach one—invite more members, get better speakers and topics. Membership and attendance goes up—until it goes down again and we repeat the cycle.

How do we break out of this cycle? Perhaps we should kill the beast before it kills us. Or let it die with dignity. Or resurrect it in a new and glorious form. Or let it all happen by default.

Is there a more organic, life-giving way?

:- Doug.

Anguish
Also
Creates

:- Doug.

Rubber bands
Hold the well-worn
shopping sack together
every scrap and valuable of
this tattered life
has a place
is kept safe
its meaning respected

Tuck the package
under arm for
easy carrying
in an out of the way place for
easy hiding
opening privately

Rubber bands
become a handle
make room for growth
creativity
embracing

Dreams are real
Dreams are true
Rubber bands

:- Doug.

What I’m after is getting people actually turning to one another. In that turning I hear many whispers: relying upon each other; working together; conspiring—breathing together; hearing and being heard; shifting; creating; weaving; dancing; compost heaps heating up; divinity releasing.

:- Doug.

Guardians could mobilize churches and other human-oriented people to provide loving companionship for those who have nobody. But we act as if we have chosen simply to provide a sterile mechanism, devoid of heart and beauty. Can we give this project life and lift?

:- Doug.

We do not meet. Our meetings we design, unconsciously, to come to the point of meeting, then turn away. We use image projectors and darken the room so we do not have to look into each others’ eyes. We set our meeting rooms like stages so we only have to look at one person, and that a public mask. We start with conversations around the meal and just when they might be getting good, we interrupt and call attention to what matters little. We have no intention to mine the jewels from out of our minds and hearts. We make sterile and remove all life from what is possible for us. Despite it, some people do manage to find each other, turn to one another, and get something done. What could we do if we consciously chose to meet?

:- Doug.

To meet is to drop shields, expose our most vulnerable, tender, growing parts, and to risk mobilizing just these. We may indeed fall and die. We cannot be sure how far those immediately behind us get. But we know that if we did not head in this direction, they might not see this direction at all, would at least be delayed by just the amount of our bodies and blood and muscle and heart, and that by just that much, they have a chance.

Putting this in practice is difficult. No one has done it before, so the doors are not open to us, the paths not paved in advance. We are the ones to thrash off into the jungle, to give one set of footprints that might be a path, to meet the beasts who will confront us, try to kill us, and these beasts might just be us. Others will pave, others will build, others will design; for us to push ahead one or two more steps. And then we die, used up.

:- Doug.