I am in Vancouver International Airport. I am tired, but, I think, I was rewarded these last few days. I am grateful I was able to turn in and reflect. After a tough day, I people around me reached out and seemed to sense my discomfort. The result was gratifying, but it was not the result. Instead, it was the comfort being with people who cared and brought me into the fold.
I wonder what makes me who I am? Is it the moments I drop my shield of invincibility and show a vulnerable self? That is a scary place, but is so rewarding. It is the slowness of a crock pot where the fruit of intimacy is born. Here, I gain identity in the a relational and caring mirror. But, it sneaks up on me without even realizing it is there.
In a wondrous space
One’s most guarded secrets;
Unshared desires;
Find form—
In a carnival mirror,
Is that me?
Vulnerable—
Lie with a lover
An uncertain first time
Truest intimacy blooms;
That is who I am
Revealed in the other.
Stay human friends.
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 
Love this & it is so true. It is in vulnerability that we find support.
I totally agree.
Weary travelers do share the same facade of fatigue and vulnerability. I agree, it is in vulnerability that we find support.
Elisa
If we are willing to shed the cloak of invincibility.
It is so true, Ivon. When we let down that mask of self we wear so often, it generally has the effect of allowing other’s to drop theirs… Scary, as you say; and yet so rewarding…!
It is and it is. Vulnerability is an invitation.
A meeting of more than the mind; it allows the ‘gentler’ energies to have their way…
It is very much true.
Thank you Ivsrao.
Thought provoking, and very insightful! Kudos Ivon!
Thank you Aina.
You’re welcome! God bless!
It is refreshing to read your poetry and hear you speak of vulnerability. I found you thru Niamh Clune. A wonderful find on Thanksgiving. J.K. jennifer
Thank you Jennifer.