Bridges are important aspects of life. They take us places we could not otherwise reach. The abyss that Nietzsche spoke of us no longer able to look back into us with the same ferocity.
Bridge
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 ResearchGate6 responses »
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ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Nice poetry. Your comment is very true.
Thank you on both counts Lvsrao.
You are very generous in your thought to share my thoughts on your blog..
Thank you it means alot…I didn’t understand the statement about the abyss…
“The abyss that Nietzsche spoke of us no longer able to look back into us with the same ferocity.” and it intrigued me….
I was trying to look it up ( I did not know who Nietzche was) but there is so much …
could you point me in the direction or explain a little bit more?
I would appreciate it….
Again..Thank You for sharing…it is really kind of you…
Take Care…You Matter…
)0(
maryrose
It is Friedrich Nietzsche. He was a 19th Century German philosopher who wrote books such as Thus Spake Zarathustra. A lot of his work is quite dark. He is credited with the famous quote: “God is dead.” Thomas Merton, a Trappist Monk, put the quote into a fuller context when he said that Nietzsche spoke of the way many practiced their religions. This is also suggested by others.
It is likely Nietzsche suffered from some mental illness and he had health issues most of his life. He was institutionalized towards the end of his life when he became angry at a man who was beating a horse. It supposedly led to a nervous breakdown.
His book the Will to Power was used as a philosophical underpinning to justify the Holocaust. Interestingly, other of his writing were used by Jewish philosophers such as Martin Buber as an influence. It is a very disturbing book and suggests the sole motive in life is to gain power at whatever means. The book was not really written by him. His sister published it after his death and it was basically odds and ends from journals she edited. She took great liberties in framing the book to suit her.
The quote I referred to is “If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Thus Spake Zarathustra or the Gay Science might be OK books to read. Wikipedia has a very extensive article on him and it is relatively sympathetic.
I hope this is helpful.
Bridges are a common metaphor I use. There is usually a trial to overcome before crossing lifes bridges in my opinion.
I agree. Parker Palmer uses the metaphor of a path opening up which is quite similar to the bridge. We do not see the forest for the trees in moments of crisis until we step back and take a moment.