Monthly Archives: February 2017

Love is a Magic Ray

Posted on February 16, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Kahlil Gibran wrote many poems that he embedded in The Prophet. I think this poem was an excellent choice for Valentine’s Day, but it reminds us how we can live each of our lives day-to-day; moment-to-moment.

In loving-kindness, we illuminate the world that surrounds us and the path we each walk. Being mindful and present to who and what accompanies each of us is awakening to see the world as a beautiful dream we share.

Love is a magic ray
emitted from the burning core
of the soul
and illuminating
the surrounding earth.

It enables us
to perceive life
as a beautiful dream
between one awakening
and another.

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Posted in Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer and tagged community, creativity, education, Khalil Gibran, Love is a Magic Ray, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

For Valentine Lovers Without A Valentine Line

Posted on February 15, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

This is a wonderful list of quotes about love, which are appropriate on Valentine’s Day. With the gift of love, comes abundance and peace.

GYA today

I created this scroll for a post a couple years ago but thought there might be a few who just can’t come up with the right line for their valentine. Here are 50 from the past that you can pick and choose from. Please …don’t confine yourself to only one …wonder awaits!

I hope you enjoy 50 Shades of Love, and Happy Valentine’s Day with love to all.

50 Shades of Love from Paul Mark Sutherland

Life is the flower for which love is the honey. —Victor Hugo
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. —Plato
The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. —Nicholas Sparks
If you judge people, you have no time to love them. —Mother Teresa
Nobody has ever measured, not even…

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Nothing Can Be Done 2 Days Out of the Year

Posted on February 14, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do and mostly Live.” ~ His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Source: Nothing Can Be Done 2 Days Out of the Year

This is a wonderful reminder of the essential nature of mindfulness in our lives. To be present, is to accept that we live in one moment at a time. In each ensuing moment, our life is created.

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The Real Work

Posted on February 12, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

I found it interesting that as I searched for a poem I typed in the words The Real Work by Wendell Berry. As Google anticipated, another search emerged: The Real Work by Gary Snyder. This book of essays emerged from a series of interviews and talks Snyder conducted over several years.

Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder are writers, environmentalists and farmers who live in Kentucky and California respectively. Together, they wrote a book called Distant Neighbours and shared their views about the real work they undertook as writers, environmentalists, and farmers. How each of them understood and wrote about real work echoed the other.

Real work happens not when we find ourselves going through the work aimlessly and mindlessly. It emerges when obstacles arise and we are mindful and attentive in our work. It holds our interest through baffling us and our being unsure of what to do next. As we work thoughtfully and our mind is employed in meaningful acts, our work sings like an impeded stream and makes us whole. It is like we our speaking through our work and its meaning to us.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

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Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, Synchronicity, teacher as transformer and tagged community, creativity, Gary Snyder, mindful leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer, The Real Work, Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitude

Posted on February 11, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow. /Kahlil Gibran/ Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitude

Source: Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitude

This is a short and powerful quote by Khalil Gibran accompanied by a glowing flame. It is in those moments of true solitude we find ourselves and who we are lights the path ahead.

Solitude embraces us in its questions without pre-known answers. We we engage the deepest parts of our self in conversation. Engage means to pledge and in solitude we can pledge to make a difference in the world.

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Be Kind Whenever Possible

Posted on February 10, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

In the midst of living life, be KIND. If life is one of success, be kind and show others the way. If there is joy, lift others up and be kind. If there is a setback, be kind. This moment sha…

Source: Be Kind Whenever Possible

The post linked provides a short list of what benefits we accrue when we are kind and two quotes that support the personal need to be kind. As challenging as it is sometimes, being kind is essential to our personal well-being. We feel better when we are kind to others. When we smile, we share what is good in our life with them and acknowledge them as a person.

The Dalai Lama said to be kind when it is possible and it is always possible. Kahlil Gibran counselled kindness is a manifestation of strength and resolve. When we are kind to others, we are mindful and present to them and their needs in that moment and act towards them in an uplifting manner.

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Solitude. A Photographic Journey.

Posted on February 9, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least, and it is commonly more than that, sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolu…

Source: Solitude. A Photographic Journey.

The photographs are wonderful and a quote accompanies each speaking to the essential nature of spending time with our self. It is in reflective moments that we spend in solitude that we rediscover who we are in trying to make our self whole.

The Hasidic scholar, educator, political activist, and philosopher Martin Buber said “solitude is the place of purification.” Through dialogue with our self, others, and the world, we grow to understand who we are and our place in the world in relationship to others.

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Absence

Posted on February 8, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

I’ve come to understand that absence lies at the heart of our seeing more clearly. It’s often in something’s absence that we suddenly begin to see, whatever it is, in a new light.…

Source: Absence

Jacques Derrida said one cannot speak of something without acknowledging its opposite. When we hear black, it is natural for us to think of white. He went so far as to say that to claim one is atheist acknowledges the very possibility God exists.

Absence make the heart grow fonder, particularly when we love something or someone deeply. The Khalil Gibran quote at the end is essential to how we come to appreciate what and who we have in life. It is in the moments absence we grow to understand how much we love. It is in those moments we grow to be mindful and attentive when absence turns to presence.

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All That We Share (Watch!)

Posted on February 7, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Video post by @davidkanigan. This is a great post from David and worth the few minutes it takes to watch it.

Source: All That We Share (Watch!)

As I watched this video, it reminded me of an undergraduate class I took. It was the only class non-special needs undergraduate students could take.

I recall how our text and professor focused on the idea that we have far more in common than what makes us difference. At the core, we are each humans and, when we see each other in that light, it makes all the difference.

When we take time and are mindful to each person present to us, we can grow and understand their presence is a gift to each of us. The differences make us each a unique star in the universe, but there is more to each of us that makes us the same.

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The Shadow

Posted on February 6, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Last night, as I posted, the words of a paragraph began to take shape as a poem and Mary Oliver’s words echoed for me.

Today, I took those words and echoes and finished the poem. It has been some time since I wrote a poem. Perhaps, without the urgency of writing a dissertation, this just happened. As well, the break without a need to read and write may have helped and freshened my desire to write differently.

There is no sense of urgency.

Here, I am in the shadow of nature

It uplifts, holding me close.

Nature reminds of less mechanical ways and times;

Of just being and living in the moment.

Pelicans dive bomb the surf in an instinctive search,

Oblivious to me, they bob on the waves.

At night, stars fill darkness and stillness,

They wait to be touched.

Oxen pull a plow across the hardpan soil,

They follow a deep-rooted instinct lost on me

The horse trotts a path, familiar to it