Today’s post is short. I was hooded today and the poem that ran through my mind was Mindful by Mary Oliver. This is the ultimate poem for me on a day like today. There is always something that can more or less kill me with delight.
Several speakers today reminded us that it is not the extraordinary we are looking for, but the ordinary that propels us into the extraordinary. Being mindful and attentive in and to the world is an essential element in being propelled.
Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
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 
Congratulations and well done!
Thank you Cindy.
Congratulations, Ivon! May what you are next called to do fill you with passion and delight.
Thank you Russ. I will listen carefully for the call that brings passion and delight.
Well done, Ivon.
Leslie
Thank you Leslie.
🙂
AWE I love this! Hooray for you! Perfect poem for this! Good luck to you! 🙂
Thank you Michelle Marie on all counts.
Congratulations, Ivon!!
Thank you Teresa.
Congratulations in propelling yourself from the ordinary to the extraordinary. ❤
Thank you for a wonderful comment Olga.
Congratulations!!!! 🙂
Thank you Victo.
Congratulations on your PhD!
Thank you.
Indeed, congratulations, and well done!
Thank you.
Congrats Ivan, for the long haul. Love the poem too… apropos.
Thank you Bruce.
Congratulations!!
Thank you.
Congrats Ivon and well done.
Loving the image! 🙂
Thank you Carolyn on both counts.
So happy for you. Congrats.
Thank you.
Congratulations, Ivon! What an achievement.
Thank you Cynthia.
Congratulations! Thank you for the poem today.
Thank you and you are welcome.
Yes, congratulations for this phenomenal achievement. I have always believed it is not so much what is achieved as what is shared, not what you learned but the knowledge that expands it, not the goodbyes but the hellos. Your life is what you make it. Blessings!
Thank you Maria. I agree. This was not a journey of one, but of community that supported me along the way.
Many congratulations Dr Prefontaine – and thanks, as ever, for sharing your journey. Simon
You are welcome and thank you Simon.
Congratulations, Ivon! Wise words!
Thank you Amy on both counts.
CONGRATULATIONS !!!!
Thank you Lara
Congratulations, Ivon!
Thank you Richard.
Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
DSI HOOD HE ALITEPOCKET BCKKEEPANDICH CASE E NEXR EGOO? INE LHAVEMY DAD’S DID!
Congrats!! And may poetry continue to radiate in you 🙂 I remember when you introduced me to Mary Oliver’s poems in one of your previous posts ~ and thank you again for that xx
You are welcome Christy and thank you.
Congratulations, scholar!
Thank you Emilie.
You wear it well, Ivon! 😉 xoM
Thank you Margarita.
Congratulations!!
Thank you.
Big Congrats! And MO is ALWAYS a fine choice! Aloha, Ivon.
Thank you Bela. She always is.
Congrats, Ivon! And best wishes for this next step, I am sure your teachings are as valued by your students as they are by your readers here.
Thank you Tom. Several former students commented on Facebook.
Congratulations, Ivon, on your wonderful achievement!!
Thank you.
Congratulations 🙂
Thank you.