I was laid up for the last few days. I have allergies and this time of the year is always a challenge. I think I picked up a bug to give me a double-whammy. I slept a good part of Friday and Saturday and, on Sunday, was upright for most of the day.
I am not sure if I will post later. While sitting upright and not doing much else on Sunday, this Wendell Berry poem kept poking at me.
Living is paradoxical. Parker Palmer described how this creates tension in living. Just as we think everything is as it should be, something pokes at us and unsettles us, calling on us to begin our real work and commencing the real journey. Being mindful and attentive remind us to be still and look below the surface of what is happening.
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.
This is Athabasca Falls. The river upstream is quite wide and as it comes around the corner suddenly narrows. In Wendell Berry’s poem, it is impeded and creates a great force that carves out solid granite.
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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.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Very impressive photo. Hope you will feel better soon.
It is an interesting place. The power of water has carved out a new route and we walked in the old river bed. It is only about 10 feet wide. The river around the bend is probably 75-100 feet wide.
quite excellent, glad you’re feeling better
I was more active today, including taking my daily walks. The poplar fluff is flying and it is one of big allergies.
Best wishes also from me/ us. Thanks for the nice posting! 😉 Michael
Thank you Michael.
Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
Sometimes our lives get so busy, we have to get set down to let our minds create.
We do. Sometimes, our bodies tell us we need to slow down.
Feel better soon!
Thank you.
Ivon, I hope you continue to improve. Thank for posting, even as you recover. Both Parker Palmer and Wendell Barry offer us so much. I have learned that when we slow down – either by conscious choice or by being forced to – we begin to see what we have long missed, outside of ourselves and if we do our work, inside of ourselves as well.
I find spending quiet time is so helpful.
I so like this thank you. And this poem is reassuring too.
Get well soon
Thank you.
Feel better, Ivon. Allergies suck. 😉 xoxoM
They do. I am getting there.