I am grateful for the comments I received. The link to the radio show is not working today. I made minor changes, but still did not get through. I will work on this and see what I can do to correct the problem.
I believe the Internet is a place to build community, enhance conversations, and create relationships previously impossible. I think it requires a mindful approach, and serial single tasking to do this, but it is doable. There are creative spaces in any community that makes all this possible.
A pause,
A whisper,
A gentle voice,
In that gap–
Mindful response to stimulus.
The gap grows–
A mindfully tended space
Nourished and fed,
Attended, become aware
Sow with care.
Blossoms ready themselves–
Creativity appears at the door
Heartfelt listening
There senses merge into one
Receive that gentle lady.
She is a visitor–
Long awaited;
Not chased after–
In that spaciousness
There creativity wraps me in her arms.
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
This is fabulous, Ivon! Our wordpress community has reinvigorated my creativity in ways I never could’ve dreamed of in my otherwise isolated writing world (okay from my couch!) 😜
P.S. I was able to listen to a portion of your radio spot yesterday. Fun to put a voice to the face and inspiring to hear your unique educational approach. Your students are most fortunate!!
I have found the same with the digital world. Thank you for listening to part of the radio show. It is appreciated. When I get home, I am going to figure out what the bug is in it for others.
“There creativity wraps me in her arms” – just a marvellous image. That’s precisely what creativity does; it kind of wraps you in its arms and you lose all sense of time. Like the way you see it as being feminine.
Thank you Don. I think creativity, like nature, has powerful feminine qualities.
The internet is a great tool for creativity if used wisely.
Great comment Alex and the key word is wisely. I am following some videos based on a conference called Wisdom 2.0. It is neat to listen to Jack Kornfield, a Buddhist monk, and high tech executives share their views of wise use of technology.
Simply outstanding ,Ivon. People who are creative get totally immersed in it and then forget about their surroundings, totally .So true !
There is a flow to creativity where we lose our self in the process.
Beautifully said about creativity. Thanks, Ivon!
You are welcome Amy. Thank you for the lovely compliment.