The gift you carry
What have you carried into the world as gift for our community?
:- Doug.
What does this help us with in our conversations and meetings?
:- Doug.
Archive for December, 2024
Footprints in the Windsm # 2399–ever fully done
Footprints in the Windsm # 2399
No work of poetry is ever fully done. No work of writing. No work of living.
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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How are you final?
We say we live in a three-dimensional world. But no! The rocks and sands are one dimension, the creeks and rushing rivers and oceans and winds and clouds, another. The insects flying and crawling and the little bacteria and other life forms—what say they are each another? The sea creatures, the night actives! The planets and loud fiery stars! The star birthing chambers, the black holes, still each another dimension. And you and your eight billion compadres! The plants in your garden and yard, the multitude of little critters on your skin and in your gut. They are each a dimension. How could you be the last, the most, the final dimension?
:- Doug.
How people count them
A conversation is like a calendar from which we tear a sheet each encounter. One may count these as emptinesses, another as little and big connections realized.
:- Doug.
Joan Baez’s pool art
Joan Baez says if her painting it not working out, she drops it in the pool. If that does not make it better, she dunks it a second time. How does one dunk poetry in the pond?
:- Doug.
Does it lave?
Conversation is available to us
No reservation
No deserving
Not as reward
Let it lave
:- Doug.
He had no answer
I asked, is the story about . . . true? He smiled. Is the story about . . . true? He teared up.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Windsm # 2398–Two squirrels playing
Footprints in the Windsm # 2398
Two squirrels playing on the tree
round and up and down across
this one waits for the other to catch up
that one bounds out to limb to startle
does the same one chase as yesterday?
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
Nothing to lose
When do we, in conversation, come to realize we have nothing to lose? Maybe everything to lose if we don’t open our mouth, the lid on our jar.
:- Doug.
Only find vestiges
We can only ever find vestiges of ourselves—as we were, as we imagine ourselves to be, or to come to be.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Windsm # 2397–Worthy of your wrestling?
Footprints in the Windsm # 2397
Frankl pointed to prisoners in the camps who became worthy of their suffering. Can you point to when you, together, became worthy of your wrestling with this conversation?
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
What to ripen
There is more grief in our world than we allow. Every loss—death or other removal of spouse, child, parent—even to the small angers over losing an argument (our belief in our justice) or a frustrating day (it’s not fair!), or a minor betrayal by a friend—every loss leads us to grieve. So, one function of conversation is to demonstrate our need of others to help us find and ripen our vulnerability.
:- Doug.
We meet loss
We first meet loss, I surmise, in childhood. Here there is a wound Mother’s kiss cannot make better. Or maybe there is an injustice. An inconsequential story: In school I was asked to write a question about food groups. I wrote a question, “How many?” and answered “7.” The teacher took my question mark as a “2” and so my answer as “27,” making it wrong. How unfair! So loss grows as big as an implacable teacher.
:- Doug.
