Wendell Berry is one of my favourite poets. I have many favourites. It is much easier to find a poem when you have many.
We spend time each summer wandering through nature. I think for Kathy and I it is a return to our roots. We grew up in rural settings and were outdoors a lot as a result. I think as we mature, getting older is so passe, we look for the roots that connect us to the universe. Nature is one those things.
Alfred North Whitehead suggested we only need to look at nature to find the patterns we need in life.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
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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 and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
What a beautiful poem you have chosen, Ivon. Just reading makes me feel at peace. 🙂
Thank you. It is a great poem just to be with.
this is so true nature is the key
beautiful poem thank you for sharing
Thank you Doris and you are welcome.
What a beautiful poem! And it’s so true that nature provides us a direct connection to the universe – an experience that is always both calming and reassuring.
Thank you for the lovely comment. Nature and the universe are calming when we give them chances to be.
Beautiful poem.
Thank you Elizabeth.
Love this Ivon.
Thank you David. There are poets who just don’t write anything but great poetry and Wendell Berry is one those people.
beautiful poem indeed, thank you for sharing.
You are welcome Francina.
It is a lovely poem. Connecting to the universe just by being present in nature feeds the soul. Can’t wait for warmer weather here so I can simply be outside and perhaps sit!
I agree on all counts. The weather has not helped people get out in places. Hopefully, winter will come to an end and we can begin coming out of hibernation.
Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
AH…PEACE! 🙂
Yes…Peace