All our deeps
All our deeps in resistance and embrace
These twain are one
Prove all life is one
:- Doug.
Archive for May, 2014
one pile all legs and arms
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.
If I give you a penny
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 Windsm # 1423–Befriending Mom: beyond ADLs and IADLs
Footprints in the Windsm # 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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opportunity to be rare
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
Conversation is not words
rather an exchange of being
poetry flowing
:- Doug.
Hide it under a slew
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.
We belong to the poetry
We belong to the poetry
the mystery
the silence unfolding
or at least I know I do
and maybe you too?
:- Doug.
This circus belongs
This circus belongs to us
clowns and elephants
greasepaint and canvas
laughter and applaudable unreality
this much is real:
you belong to me, I to you
and the whole world one
belongs to us
:- Doug.
Staying true
We need to stay true to who we are, what we are about, the gift we are offering. If the authorities don’t like it, that is their issue. We know it works, and that it always works.
:- Doug.
Place your dot
Even if you can only
put a dot on the page
place your dot
for it changes the page
:- Doug.
If you have eyes inside your head
The now goes deeper than the now
if you have eyes inside your head
you might see
the person goes deeper than the person
:- Doug.
a child a puppy a woods
Map a living thing
this then this then this
a child a puppy a woods
a growing bundle of thens
always one more quality
clues us to the open soul
betweens invisible and gathering
:- Doug.
It is the between of us
It is the between of us
that tells us we are related
that is ever with us
:- Doug.
Pieces of our own lives
We pay for the care we give our loved ones with pieces of our own lives.
:- Doug.
The family responsibility question
The family responsibility question (shall the law force daughter and son to pay for their parents’ nursing home?) really points up the fact that the kind of care we get is a commercial transaction, and one of choices we make. People do take care of parents at home. Parents at home might die sooner, but do we know that? Where is the life and the living of it, and the recollection that it is a gift that we will some day need to give on.
:- Doug.
