Today is Canadian Thanksgiving. We celebrated yesterday with two sons and a partner due to work schedules. We will celebrate again for American Thanksgiving. This is in part due to my time in the US completing my PhD and we have extended family who are from the US.
The idea of two Thanksgivings led me to reflect. What am I grateful for each day? I am thankful for family, friends, good neighbours, good health, a house that will feel like home as it is built on our original property, and many other people and things.
What if we thought of each day as a day to give thanks, a thanksgiving?
I wrote this poem called Thanksgiving several years ago.
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.
My first introduction to her was the album that had “He thinks he’ll keep her” which came out shortly after I was walking through a divorce – sigh – rather took off, me being a fan, given that first intro that said what I needed to hear and also felt fairly true for me, at the time – :D. For each stage and phase of life, there music for it, eh? 🙂
I find a lot of her songs speak to life’s vagaries. The one you mention speaks to how males sometimes see the women in their lives as accessories, rather than humans of equal standing.
You are right that we need to be thankful each day for the blessings in our life. Everyone needs to look for those small things that brighten their day – a smile, a flower, a favorite book. Be thankful for everything that makes you feel good inside.
Thank you Bette. We celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving and, as we have family from the US who live in Canada now, we get to celebrate American Thanksgiving.
RT @mariarosa_456: “It is the hour to be drunken! To escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or… 8 hours ago
RT @mariarosa_456: "Empty space. Strong winds. Just a moment of life. Little miracles among many thanks, then dreams or not life goes on. N… 8 hours ago
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Beautiful poem! Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!
Thank you Ka Malana.
Happy thanksgiving.❤️
Thank you Laleh.
🙏
So beautiful🧡Happy Thanksgiving❤️🌷
Thank you Lara and right back at you in Montreal.
Happy Thanksgiving…and Grateful Day – I’m a MCC fan, but this share had missed coming onto my radar – thanks for sharing!
You are welcome and thank you. I have listened to MCC for years and this was a new one for me, as well. For that I am thankful.
My first introduction to her was the album that had “He thinks he’ll keep her” which came out shortly after I was walking through a divorce – sigh – rather took off, me being a fan, given that first intro that said what I needed to hear and also felt fairly true for me, at the time – :D. For each stage and phase of life, there music for it, eh? 🙂
I find a lot of her songs speak to life’s vagaries. The one you mention speaks to how males sometimes see the women in their lives as accessories, rather than humans of equal standing.
You are right that we need to be thankful each day for the blessings in our life. Everyone needs to look for those small things that brighten their day – a smile, a flower, a favorite book. Be thankful for everything that makes you feel good inside.
Yes, a smile is easy to give and has universal meaning.
How time flies : ! Happy Thanksgiving ! 🙂
It does. Happy Thanksgiving
Gratitude is everything. We are ever mindful of how blessed we are. 🙏
It is. Even being grateful of the missteps and negatives can be essential.
Absolutely! Nobody does this life without them. And learn, we do. 🤗
Beautiful poem and post, Ivon. Wishing you and yours A Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you Bette. We celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving and, as we have family from the US who live in Canada now, we get to celebrate American Thanksgiving.
Wonderful! We have so much to be thankful for and family is on the top of the list. 🙂
Lovely, Ivon.
Thank you Cynthia.