Appreciate Neighbours

The Internet is slow particularly when uploading images. I may need to wait until tomorrow morning and post early before we head off for the day. In the meantime, I jotted this as we walked to Kootenai Lake.

Neighbours near,

Some visible

Ducks laugh and swim

Distract us, grouse–

Protect family and spouse

Woodpecker’s fly by lunch

Delectable larvae, I’m sure.

Others less evident

A fish plays–

Teases with hide and seek

Loon momentarily there

Beaver away from lake house

A moose–

Tracks and droppings

Insects whir in the stillness

Butterflies flit and feed

And move seed

A phantom breeze brushes floor

A solitary leaf responds,

And waves

Up high

Trees sigh.

What watches me?

I am not sure

Neighbours present,

A community–

Puzzles pieced together

Each a part

Seamless, yet not form fitting.

We are part of communities and this past few months I feel more of that; at Gonzaga, with my blog, and on nature walks with Kathy. I appreciate being one small part of communities made up of many parts.

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About ivonprefontaine

In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms. I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders. I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs. I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry. I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry. I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope, nonviolence and its anticipatory relationship with the future, as essential elements to teaching and learning. Academic publications can be found at Ivon Gile Prefontaine on ResearchGate

4 responses »

  1. I agree. Finding yourself in a community you belong to gives you such a warm feeling. 🙂 The poem has such fine imagery in it.

    Reply
  2. Very nice post today! Excellent job.

    Stop by anytime –

    Writers Wanted

    Reply

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