Antonio Machado reminds us that the path we follow is both made anew when we walk it and that once we step we can no longer go back.
We can look back and see where we came from, but that is a distorted image and, the further we move away from that point in time, the more distorted the memories we recall. We can reflect upon those moments and steps in a caring way that takes place only after the step.
It is in mindful walking that we make the path. There is an awareness and senstivity that only happens in the very moment we exist in, the present. Our presence is important in that moment as we step and live at that point on our path of life.
The mindfulness of our steps is important when we realize we lead others in their steps. They cannot walk the identitical path to our path, but the way we compose ourselves is a model for how they might live.
Walker, your footsteps
are the road, and nothing more.
Walker, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
Walking you make the road,
and turning to look behind
you see the path you never
again will step upon.
Walker, there is no road,
only foam trails on the sea.
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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 
beautifully written !
Thank you Adam.
i’m sorry, Ivon, but when you mentioned walking it brought to mind my song “Forever Walking” and my grandson’s first steps which I’m including for you.
Leslie
Thank you for the lovely share. Children intuitively sense they have accomplished something tremendous, hence the big grin on your grandson’s face. I suspect he knew he was cared for and supported in that moment.
Happy to share with you, it made me smile too.
Leslie
It made me smile, thinking about our grandson.
They are something very special.
Leslie
They are.
Beautiful poem and insight!
Thank you Catherine.
Beautiful!
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
Wow! So meaningful, we must learn to take each step carefully and with pleasure.
Thank you for the lovely comment.
Hope is like a road in the country: there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.
LIN YUTANG
Thank you for a beautiful thought.
Happiness is a time sensitive thing, it only exists in this moment. So this next step is all there is.
Yes, happiness, like all feelings, are passing and do not have to come with us.
This is a wise and lovely read, Ivon. A great reminder to live every step we take.
Thank you.
Yes, time and space and distortion. I often remind those my age who keep going back in time to recall painful episodes that those memories are a child’s memories. And even then, what we remember is selective. Better to bring oneself fully into the present, where possibilities for transformation always abound! Cheers, Ivon!
It does not get clearer with time. We romanticize what we want and condemn what does not fit.