Henry David Thoreau wrote this poem at a time he could not have foreseen where we are with the thousands of appliances. He thought it was only a thousand appliances. There are times I get lost in them and forget they are separate from me and only tools that enable a particular job. At the same, I realize used wisely they advance life and the tasks involved.
The arts and sciences blend together, but I would take it a step further and suggest that the spiritual and the sciences are not separate from each other. When I take time and see life through a lens that allows me to understand what is at hand, I can make wiser decisions and feel that wind blow.
Men say they know many things;
But lo! they have taken wings, —
The arts and sciences,
And a thousand appliances;
The wind that blows
Is all that any body knows.
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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.
Teacher as Transformer 
What is it that clouds our lens making it so very hard to see and feel the true reality of this life we live?
“When I take time and see life through a lens that allows me to understand what is at hand, I can make wiser decisions and feel that wind blow.”
Life is so rewarding when we enable ourselves to step out, wipe the fog from our eyes, look at what is real placing our faith in what we now understand and not allowing control of our sub-conscious to be controlled by anyone but ourselves.
Thanks for your post!
You are welcome Bill and thank you for a provocative comment. It is one that makes me reflect on what narrows my vision.
Thanks