I sometimes feel lost in the world, without bearings. David Wagoner counseled that when we feel lost to stop and listen to the world, as if it were the forest and a powerful stranger able to speak to us.
When I stop and pray, I ask someone for help, but, if I rush on, without listening, the prayer cannot be answered. I pose a question that I cannot answer. Prayer is not just speaking. My heart opens and receives what is returned to me.
Is it in the form of words? Or, is it the gentle breath that is hardly perceptible? When I am mindful and listen to listen, I intuitively sense differences. Mindfulness becomes an attentive and sensitive way of life, as opposed to just happening.
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
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 
You keep introducing me to all these cool people Ivon. First it was Mary Oliver, then Danna Faulds and now this guy. I love this. Thanks for enlightening me. 🙂 ❤
I am glad you enjoy this poem. I must confess that many of the poets I read came via Parker Palmer’s writing and his workshops. Parker writes poetry and shares his and other poetry in his books and at workshops that he helped “design.” Design is not the right word as they are very organic.
Well thanks for passing them on from Parker! They’re all fabulous! 👍😊❤️
This is the second time today I have seen this same poem….and I have never seen it before today! It is beautiful and I needed to see it…thank you!
These things might happen for a reason.
Stand still…snd look, listen, feel…move only then…when you feel.
What a splendid thought in our overwhelmingly busy times…
It brings us back to who we are in a given moment.
It sure does, thanks, ivon
You are welcome.
The mountain men, the scouts of the west stayed alive by not only hearing the forest, the animals sounds but by knowing the sounds that were absent.
It is what we do not hear also that is part of listening.
The absence of sound can be a warning of danger in nature.
Yes, their lives depended on knowing what was there and what was absent.
Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
COMING BACK…WAGGING OUR TAILS BEHIND US???? BA-A-A-A-AAAAAAA!
Thank you for the re-blog Jonathan.
You post really thoughtful good stuff! THANK YOU!
You are welcome and thank you. I take this as high praise.
IT IS—WELL DESERVED!!!!
Words and the images evoked spoke volumes to me, glad stopped and listened.