It was a long week and I am not sure, in my tiredness, where this poem came from, but it appeared on the horizon. I thought I would try to let it write itself.
Listen–
Stories seek space
A space where they come to life
A space to speak their words.
Listen deeply–
Some stories
Of those oppressed
Remain unheard.
Listen with your heart–
Lean into those words,
Give those voices life
Join them with yours.
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
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
This is powerful and lovely. Thank you!
You are welcome. Thank you for the kind words.
This is very beautiful, words of simplicity and power, and so deeply felt.
Thank you Valerie. It works best for me if I find the right word or perhaps it finds me.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…. well felt out and into words… thank you!
You are welcome.
This is a wonderful expression of a truth, Ivon. I’ve always believed that stories seek us out. We just have to be open and expressive.
Thank you Yaz. I agree that sense of spaciousness and openness is vital to life’s fullest expression.
Ivon, this reads as gently as a summer’s rain … simply beautiful. so glad to have found your blog!
Caroline, thank you and appreciate finding your blog.
deeply felt words..the oppressed always want to be heard..very true..
Thank you.
Beautiful. I believe that the universe in all its expansiveness is trying to remind us as to the importance of having adequate space. Space between messages. Stories. Thoughts. Heartbeats. Breaths. Ideas. Activities. And more.
Russ