FootprintsintheWind.com

The world moves
glimmers even
see, hear, touch:
breath, heat, thrum
birds, squirrels, deer
clouds, planets, stars
galaxies, universe
black holes, dark matter, dark energy

all is movement

all that movement means someone—
you—it is personal

all is flowing, coursing, inter-coursing
all is intimate, loving, meaning each other

This is our world
This is us

full of atoms and awe
galaxies and love
machines and life
fears hopes dreams
stories poetry questions
imaginings inspirations
birthings and dyings
all moving to meeting
conversings
all
conversings

:- Doug.

The unfolding consists also in
awe, inspirations, dreams
thought, ideals, myths
story, poetry, intuitions
imaginings, consciousness
in knots, bulges, and swellings
of all manner

One wholeness
out of which arises
birds and cages
trees and apes
humans and cathedrals
tygers and poetry
barns and hope
stars and awe
galaxies and symphonies
businesses and conversations
gardens and stories
friends leaning in and
dreams

Wherever we meet
we get life

Only a world where
there is less than
wholeness
can hold
essential
terror and meaninglessness
Once we have a whole
we necessarily have love
personal-aiming
meaning

:- Doug.

A world that’s whole
Must needs be benign
Else it would eat itself up

:- Doug.

Awe is a measure of life.

:- Doug.

There are no nouns, only verbs, some of which are tired and resting.

:- Doug.

Awe as center, awe as life, awe as self, unfolding

:- Doug.

Structure is physical. The physical and the metaphysical do meet, do interact, do touch. And it is here in structure that it happens. We structure a building, a bridge, a garden, our associating, our relating, our meeting. Structure is where consciousness and matter, G*d and humankind meet.

:- Doug.

The stuff of the universe is self
This self expresses itself as structure
The structure appears to our senses as centers
Center is concentration unfolded from folded reality
Centers are local symmetries, meeting
Meeting of selves is therefore central to life

:- Doug.

War is stupid.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1017

Do the work that makes you feel most whole, that fulfills your deepest desires. Not for any selfish reasons but simply because that’s what makes the world most objectively alive: what most deeply makes me at home does the same for you, all yous. And this makes selling the proposition easy—and unnecessary.

This work is not easy, nor is it selfish—it is a task taking a lifetime and all one’s living energy to find and invent what is one’s truest self and desires. Getting past ego is both supremely difficult and worthwhile.

Please pass it on.

© c 2010, 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

Friend, tell me about yourself….
I am the whisper disturbing your silence
I am the traffic outside interrupting your thought, bringing you here
I am these people, arising with you
I am your ground, your seat
I am the one who means you, meets you, opposes you
I am the loud voices and unheard ones
I am the one of whom you are a part—how could we possibly meet?
I am the raucous voices from the car radio
You are as disturbing to others, do you realize?
I am the notes you make, the insights you gather, the ones you love
I am the cough, the clearing of the throat, the rocking of the chair with a short leg
I love
I go
I come
I meet
I respond
I stand in your face and ask you to respond
I change
I invite—through others and through you—I invite
Let us just be together
The let us go out
And be with others
Inviting
I am void
Pregnant void
Plenum
Heaven & Hell
All things
No thing
I am water
I am wind
I am fire
I flow—I ignite—I whisper
I shout—I demand of you all
I am up I am down
I am message
I am pure
I am action
I am locus
I am practice
I am hearing
I am social action
I am inner
I am outer
I am flow
I am in darkness
I am glimmering darkness
I am with us
I am faithful
I am dependable
I reflect
I am your friend
I am you
I am warmth for your cold hands, cool breeze for you hot brow
I listen, I hear, I care, I am moved
I stitch, I am stitching, I hitch
I am all, the whole, you are part
I converse—dance—turn
I am all conversings
I seek to touch your heart because it is my heart, our heart
I am personal
I speak your language and all languages and dearly want to

:- Doug.

What does personal mean to me? 1. It means aimed at a particular person, in the sense of inviting meeting. 2. It has a characteristic of me and we. Like the sign I saw today “lease me,” it tugs at something inside us, saying “we are of the same stuff.” 3. It therefore says we are united, connected, one, in some real way. 4. It invites a mutuality in each of these three things.

So a personal world would likely have these same characteristics: 1. This world would be aimed at me and want to meet me; 2. I would understand this world as composed of the same stuff as me; 3. The world and I would comprise a single we; 4. I would be drawn to say these same things to the world—we are of the same stuff, we are one, I want to meet you.

:- Doug.

The world is personal. Spirit and spirit flow into each other, are never separate.

This is not something for head nor for heart but for gut. We must assimilate, take in, blend with the knowing that the world is personal.

We must meet the world. We must meet each other. We must meet ourselves. We must meet. If we avoid it, we avoid our selves, our deepest selves.

Our deepest selves are our connected selves. We are not just—nor even primarily—individuals, but are rather we: one whole life, moving, personal.

So life is whole, personal, moving.

:- Doug.

The world is personal. G*d is personal. We each and together play a role in our family and community. Family is personal. Community is personal. Own them! Work on and with them. Meet them. They seek to meet you.

:- Doug.

Three things to keep in mind and heart: the world is: personal, whole, moving.

:- Doug.

Scotus Erigena says God is not a what but a That. G*d is no thing but is there, here.

:- Doug.

In a personal world, the flow is conversation. We meet the world, we speak to the birds and plants (even modern people do!), we are touched by sunsets and turtle doves and spiders and snakes. And why not? We are of the very same fabric as they, we are unfolded at the same time from the same weave.

:- Doug.

We are the holo—that’s why it feels personal: my soul, our soul.

:- Doug.

When we see largely we are enabled to work profoundly.

:- Doug.

Elder law proposes a new practice of family. Community Disorganizing proposes a new practice of community family.

:- Doug.

I work for life. Life is the pen name of G*d.

:- Doug.

Let us remind ourselves we are friends—in community and in family.

:- Doug.

The holomovement has brought up this family, this village. It will dissolve it again. Nothing is lost, all returns. Community is thrum; family is thrum.

:- Doug.