We listen, why?
We listen, why? To hear, to take in, to merge, to become more.
:- Doug.
Meeting, more than conversation, needs something to be at stake: it has to be about something; someone has to be affected. No mush here.
:- Doug.
Archive for April, 2024
I’d tell you, but
Today in a support group for care partners, one woman told us about her husband. I do not say he suffers from his dementia, since she is the one who suffers more often. He was reading the newspaper classified ads. She asked him what he was reading. He answered, “I’d tell you, but its classified.” A meeting, a memory, a legacy.
:- Doug.
To de-familiarize
The purpose of conversation as of poetry is often to de-familiarize us and re-familiarize us.
:- Doug.
Outer edges
Things which just barely touch conversation are in fact the outer edges of conversation, its learning places. Listening, hearing, attending become positive acts of expression: strands inseparable from the knot that is conversation.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Windsm # 2326–That many songs
Footprints in the Windsm # 2326
A person is a sort of poem and each reader reads her differently. So we are each, for the number of readers we have, that many poems. Just as each person hears a different song each playing, so for each hearer we have we are many so many songs.
Please pass it on.
© c 2024, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com
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Savoring not stopping
What we are working toward in conversation is a consummation, not a mere cessation. We savor not solely at the conclusion, but throughout. We circle it. It infuses the whole. Here is a wholeness. A wholeness that does not know where it is going—our adventure!
:- Doug.
Enduring grace, charm, beauty
Can we converse in a way that brings enduring grace, charm, and beauty to our offerings and our receptions?
:- Doug.
Becoming a monster
When you start to take even one other human as a monster, that’s you, becoming.
:- Doug.
A word, an echo, a perfume
How will you know you are in meeting? Reality tells us we may not know till days or years later. Memory may pop, and you know now what it was. A flash catches you in a later meeting, telling you both were and still are meetings. A word, an echo, a perfume remains, stays with you.
:- Doug.
Undoing the rounding
What makes our meeting memorable is when we manage to round it out. That makes it a meeting. This is why Harrison Owen said that overstaying can undo the meeting. We are undoing the rounding, fraying the threads.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Windsm # 2325–A well opens
Footprints in the Windsm # 2325
Our friend is a well opening underground to a rushing ocean, a roiling river, a boiling cauldron. Into our friend we drop our visions, fears, possibilities, our souls, spirits, dreams, knowing—without proof, knowing—that they will be returned to us infused.
Please pass it on.
© c 2024, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com
Please publish in your print or electronic periodical, with the above info.
To subscribe, send an e-mail with the word “subscribe” to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com
We cannot hide
We cannot hide
who we are
from others
except the others
don’t know
how to consciously
read what we reveal
:- Doug.
