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What do you hear when you look at a tree?

This reminded me of Thich Nhat Hanh who describes an oak tree at Plum Village. He advises retreat attendees to take time, hug the tree, and listen to what it says. Deep ecology operates on the same premise. Nature has something to show us. We have to stop and listen with our hearts.

scampertotellthestory

DSC06301When we were in Gatlinburg Tn, we got this face for my Mom and Dad’s tree.  The face is still there.  From where I sat it looked like the leaves of the tree appeared to be hair for this face.  I started thinking about trees.  When I was young I used to collect leaves and other plants to identify them.  My father helped me to know which tree was what.  He also knew the bark.  One time his sister asked him to come up and see if her trees had Dutch Elm disease.  He drove up and got out of the car and looked at the trees and said “No.  These are Oak trees”.  He got back into the car and his sister said “For heaven’s sake, come on in.  You came all this way.”  He had completed his mission and the trees weren’t elms.  He could see by their…

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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.

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