Category Archives: Leadership

Wouldn’t it be wonderful

Posted on April 9, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

if you were a butterfly and I was a bee wouldn’t it be wonderful we would fly and be free in a world full of somethings in a world full of woe wouldn’t it be everything to fly to and fr…

Source: Wouldn’t it be wonderful

I had a long day. It began in Fernie, BC in the midst of great ski country. I got as far as Olds, Alberta, within view of the Rockies, and encountered car trouble and was towed home. We have a regular shop we take cars to, so we dropped it off.

What a treat it was to find this poem and image waiting. What if we were butterflies and bees? We could live in a world of somethings.

David at Barsetshire Diaries suggested we need a contemporary Dr. Seuss. Perhaps with a concerted effort we can match his wit and wisdom and as Jonathan at By the Mighty Mumford commented we would have a Seuss on the Loose. Oh, that is so wonderful and Seussian.

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I Am the Tree

Posted on April 7, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Where do the boundaries between the subjective and objective worlds end and begin? Is there a boundary between our inner and outer worlds?

Etta Blum writes a poem that asks those questions. There is a continuous moving between the inner and outer worlds. Parker Palmer uses the metaphor of a Möbius strip with an inner ant outer edge. When we run our fingers along the edge, we can do so seamlessly without lifting our fingers.

We are like a tree with a bird at the top. Each of us is part of the world we each live in and, if there is a boundary between each of us and it, it is thin and permeable as to appear non-existent. In a sense, we are the world and it is each of us. Like the bird in that tree, we have a niche where we thrive and live most fully. We return there to feel that sense of being and purpose.

I am the tree ascending.
At the topmost branch
I’ve become the bird,
starting from tip to
climb into above.
After-
ward, cloud.
Why not?
My purposes are clear.

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Posted in Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, education, eloquent questions, Etta Blum, I Am the Tree, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Parker Palmer, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Freedom…

Posted on April 5, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Life in itself is an empty canvas, it becomes whatsoever you paint on it. You can paint misery, you can paint bliss. This freedom is your glory. ~ ` ~ Osho &nbs…

Source: Freedom…

There are series of pictures and quotes in this post about freedom. Life happens to us and there is no question of that. When we have freedom, we respond to what happens.

Others’ freedom depend on our love in ways that they know they are free. Love does not place conditions. Thomas Merton argued we call it falling in love because we open up, make ourselves vulnerable, and risk being hurt. The opposite is also true. When the love is returned without condition to us, it is a great gift.

With the gifts of love and freedom intertwined, we fly with the wings we receive. We attend to and mind the others in our lives and even those we do not meet. Love and freedom resonate beyond our horizons.

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Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized and tagged community, creativity, Freedom, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Rumi, servant-leadership, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton. Bookmark the permalink.

To Myself

Posted on April 3, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

In being mindful, I think the person I overlook sometimes is myself. When I mind my self, I mind others better and I offer a better version of my self to them. In this way, mind is a verb. I attend to and care for my self and the other.

As well, myself is two words and not one. The self I mind and attend is real, even if it is mine. Better takes on an ambiguous meaning. What does it mean to do something better? I leave certainty behind, because better does not come with fixed criteria.

W. S. Merwin wrote this poem about being mindful to one’s self. In other words, to fully mind my self. When I fully mind my self, I continuously find my self anew, even in those moments I feel lost.

Even when I forget you
I go on looking for you
I believe I would know you
I keep remembering you
sometimes long ago but then
other times I am sure you
were here a moment before
and the air is still alive
around where you were and I
think then I can recognize
you who are always the same
who pretend to be time but
you are not time and who speak
in the words but you are not
what they say you who are not
lost when I do not find you

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Posted in Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, servant-leadership, spirituality, teacher as transformer, To Myself, W. S. Merwin. Bookmark the permalink.

Today, Like Every Other Day

Posted on April 2, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

For me, there are poets, like Rumi, whose poetry stand the test of time. After almost a century, the poetic text lives and remains ambiguous searching for meaning.

Now, I don’t play a musical instrument. I sing poorly. I have two left feet, so dancing is out of the question. What Rumi calls on each of us to do, in our particular and unique fashion, is to express ourselves and be creative.

Thich Nhat Hanh said that the extraordinary is found in the ordinary, the ordinary tasks such as doing dishes and enjoying a cup of tea. As we do, we meditate about those who enrich our lives through their efforts. We celebrate people who contribute to our lives in a human and humane manner.

Yes, I do wake up empty, but it is an emptiness that can be filled with each way I celebrate my humanness.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don’t open the door of your study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

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Lost

Posted on March 31, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

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.

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Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, conversational journey, creativity, David Wagoner, education, Lost, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, servant-leadership, spirituality, teacher as transformer, transformative education. Bookmark the permalink.

walk your path…

Posted on March 29, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Photo post by @arganesh3.

Source: walk your path…

The quote included in the post involves walking our path in a responsible and responsive way. We walk with others. Others walk with us whether it is beside us, behind us, or in front of us. They walk their path, as we, in turn, walk our path.

The etymology of the word truth involves faithfulness to someone or something, beginning with ourselves as we look inward and search for our particular truth. In this sense, truth is unique to each person, but there is fidelity and faithfulness that serves as a pledge or covenant to other things and people we encounter.

When we walk our path, it is our path, but we find ourselves in the company of others and things. The world and its beings lead us, constrain us and guide, as we lead, constrain, and guide them. We each share our particular truth with thhe world and others in and through these relationships. It is essential to be mindful and attentive to those relationships as we discover our particular truth.

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Freedom to choose

Posted on March 26, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space there is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. ~Viktor Frankl Sometimes we make decisions in t…

Source: Freedom to choose

Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist and neurologist who developed a school of psychiatry called logotherapy which is the search for meaning in life. He used his experiences as a Holocaust survivor to help inform his findings.

Humans choose their responses and seek life’s meaning. When we lose our meaning in life, we drift, feeling rudderless and without mooring. What keeps us grounded is the choices we make in life and the meaning we find in life. For example, becoming a teacher, a farmer, a parent, etc. gives life purpose and calls us to take action.

We express who we are through responding to the continuous calling, the vocation, that we find through various meaningful roles. When and if we find our life’s meaning, it allows us to make a difference in the world, for other sentient beings, and for the non-sentient elements of the world. We care for all aspects of the world and feel connected to it

Thomas Merton suggested some humans find there calling and others search throughout life, unable to find it. Perhaps, it is they do not hear what calls them and are unable to respond. Mindfulness and silence open spaces to hear the calls that give our lives meaning and make living meaningful.

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Kindness: The Time For It Is NOW

Posted on March 25, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”~Desmond Tutu Yesterday, as I was ordering a coffee, an older lady came into t…

Source: Kindness: The Time For It Is NOW

Sirena bracketed her post with a Desmond Tutu quote and one by Ralph Waldo Emerson reminding us kindness is a powerful antidote for many of the challenges we face in the world. A kind heart allows us to put the human face on others and see them as people.

Several years ago during a particularly cold winter, Kathy and I boosted people’s batteries several times. We did it because it was the right thing to do without consideration as to what we might receive back.

One day, on the way home from a hockey game in rural Alberta, I lost control of the car and we ended up stuck on the edge of the ditch. It was cold, we were on a narrow piece of road at the top of a hill, and there was truck traffic. The first vehicle by had a chain and two-way radio to let truckers know we were there and got us out.

As we drove on, we noted that the earlier acts of helping people with dead batteries had somehow come around and, in our moment of need, someone acted kindly towards us.

When we are mindful, we recall that others need our kindness and that the kind acts echo through time and space.

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A Light Breather

Posted on March 23, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Theodore Roethke wrote poems that attempted to connect the inner and outer worlds we inhabit simultaneously. While exploring the outer world, it is important we find quiet in the inner world. In those quiet moments, moving back and forth we find ourselves staying.

The metaphor comparing this movement to that of a snail challenges me to think deeply about what living and breathing mindfully is. What do I notice? And, who and what notices me? As I move, am I sensitive to the world that I move through? Or, do I walk heavily chasing those who which to join me away?

The spirit moves,
Yet stays:
Stirs as a blossom stirs,
Still wet from its bud-sheath,
Slowly unfolding,
Turning in the light with its tendrils;
Plays as a minnow plays,
Tethered to a limp weed, swinging,
Tail around, nosing in and out of the current,
Its shadows loose, a watery finger;
Moves, like the snail,
Still inward,
Taking and embracing its surroundings,
Never wishing itself away,
Unafraid of what it is,
A music in a hood,
A small thing,
Singing.