FootprintsintheWind.com

Bird chases bird
Are they grieving or embracing?
Four-year old chases
Seven-year old around the house
Are they challenging, fighting
Or are they playing, loving?
You and the person opposite
Resisting you-do you
Fear death of your ideas—or you
Or do you stay in the room because
This person you somehow need?

:- Doug.

We belong to one another We belong to the universe Each belongs to each All belong to all We are members one of another We contain the all as much as the all contains us Each person you meet contains you whole as you contain all whom you have met Walt contained worlds and you contain worlds of worlds you will never fathom and yet they have fathomed you and you they somewhere in your now Sing your songs for you are singing our songs of grieving and embrace All life’s roots are in grieving and embrace Poetry still tells our story in silence and exploding words

:- Doug.

All our deeps in resistance and embrace
These twain are one
Prove all life is one

:- Doug.

Eyes come out to play
Voices toss and catch the winds
Bodies line up to oppose
Soon one pile all legs and arms
Laughter weaves us a larger whole

:- Doug.

Resistance and embrace
Challenge and circle
To one another belong

:- Doug.

If I give you a penny & you
Give me yours
We part each with one only
If I pour out to you my soul
And you pour out to me yours
We each have a twice as big soul
Large enough to push out
The edges of the universe

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1423

Truth: You’ve heard of ADLs and maybe IADLs; let’s look beyond. Activities of Daily Living refer to bathing, dressing, eating, and the like—the basic stuff of life. This is what the ancients called Truth: can you do the self care most adults do? Instrumental Activities of Daily Living are about living independently: shopping, housekeeping, managing money, telephoning. These point us to the next level, but are not there yet.

Goodness: The next level are Pleasurable Activities of Daily Living (PADLs), or what the ancients might have called Goodness. A friend took Dad to his favorite barbershop so he could chew the fat with his old buddies, accompanied him to the ball game to holler for the home team, helped him shop for favorite foods. These are things that bring us the pleasurable sense of Here I belong, I am understood.

Beauty: The deepest level of these is MADLs—Meaning Activities of Daily Living. Here we encounter the ancients’ Beauty. What was the meaning of my life? Of whom must I ask forgiveness, whom do I forgive, whom thank, to whom say I love you? To whom and what in my life do I want to say good-bye? How do I bring completion to my relationships with community, friends, family? Can I love myself? Can I accept my worthiness? Can I accept the finality of my life? What to me is the meaning of death? What will it take for me to let go? This is beauty because it is the completion and wholeness of life.

The living have work to do right up to the very end. If you can help someone, or give them permission, to attend all three levels, you will have done for them—and yourself—a true, good and beautiful thing.

Please pass it on.

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Every conversation has an opportunity to be rare
Nothing’s so rare
As to make openings in the clouds
Nothing’s so rare
& possible

:- Doug.

Conversation is not words
rather an exchange of being
poetry flowing

:- Doug.

Hide it under a slew of words
No!
this little poem of yours
explanation, explication
kill living things
then comes your poem
whispers words not words at all
breathes into my soul
and I expand and fill the cosmos

:- Doug.