I am astonished when people are surprised when I say after a busy day or hectic week I want a break, some quiet. The way we see our situation is vital. Remaining in the fray without attending to one’s holistic needs is counterproductive. We lose track of where we are in life. This beautiful poem reminds us that solitude is a reward, we only have to be open to it and accept the pause that really refreshes.

Pat Cegan's avatarSource of Inspiration

solitary-confinement

Solitary confinement,
the ultimate punishment,
or the greatest reward,
insanity or enlightenment?
What makes people like Nelson
Mandela grow stronger while
others sink into the despair of no return?

I am alone, but not in solitary confinement;
a cricket chirps his passion, a bird
calls to another. My inner world is filled
with those who accompany me, who walk
toward the Light with me. I am
at home wherever I am
for I AM.

***************************

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1993/mandela-bio.html

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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

6 responses »

  1. People with strong sense of self can handle aloneness in ways that those with sense of selves cannot.

    Reply
  2. For myself; solitary is often good … confinement is not good.

    Reply
    • WordsFallFromMyEyes's avatar WordsFallFromMyEyes

      Ditto Argus again!!

      Yes, being solitary I love, feel peace within. I hate to be confined, even if the confinement is only perceived.

      Reply

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