Category Archives: Mindful Life

Smart Cookie

Posted on February 25, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Richard Schiffman counsels that when we are hunting for something, whether it is a cookie or wisdom, it is harder to find it. What we look for can sometimes be right there in front of us, but, in looking for it, we cannot find it. In fact, what we are looking for can end up in the most unexpected places: in a jar in Tennessee.

It is in mindful, sensitive being in the present moment that what we look for finds us. When we apply this to leadership and education, it is about listening to the world and others.

What we each seek is unique to each of us. When we tell the stories and speak the poems about what we seek, we do so finding the words that suit our stories and our poems. Leaders sense this and offer others space to find the words for their stories and poems. In finding and choosing our paths and our words, we can become the smart cookies we seek.

The fortune that you seek is in another cookie,

was my fortune. So I’ll be equally frank—the wisdom

that you covet is in another poem. The life that you desire

is in a different universe. The cookie you are craving

is in another jar. The jar is buried somewhere in Tennessee.

Don’t even think of searching for it. If you found that jar,

everything would go kerflooey for a thousand miles around.

It is the jar of your fate in an alternate reality. Don’t even

think of living that life. Don’t even think of eating that cookie.

Be a smart cookie—eat what’s on your plate, not in some jar

in Tennessee. That’s my wisdom for today, though I know

it’s not what you were looking for.

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Posted in Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, conversational journey, creativity, education, Leadership. Servant-Leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, Richard Schiffman, Smart Cookie, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Prayer to Mansur Al-Hallaj

Posted on February 24, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Source: Prayer to Mansur Al-Hallaj

Prayer is about listening to the world and is part of an internal conversation. The Sufi prayer is about listening closely. Each stanza of the poem begins with a word that entreats God guide me in sensing the world more deeply, not as something I hear, but as something all my senses are able to engage with.

We think of leadership as action and speech, but it is about sensing the world in a sensitive and mindful manner. Leadership is about a conversation and the questions we ask. It opens up space where there are no preconceived answers and followers can be part of conversation and lead, as well. Leadership and its communication is about community, a gathering of people who do not always agree, but hold something in common.

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Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized and tagged conversational journey, eloquent questions, Mansur Al-Hallaj, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, prayer, spirituality, sufi poet, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Dreams To Reality Take Determination

Posted on February 23, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Source: Dreams To Reality Take Determination

The Jesse Owens movie that is coming out is a reminder of the importance of dreams and a person’s determination to follow those dreams. We often forget his story and how he helped break down race barriers in a quiet way with his dreams and determination.

He attended Ohio State University without a scholarship, working several jobs, married, and found time to practice and compete. All this in an era when it would have been unusual and challenging for an African-American to attend an NCAA school like Ohio State.

Kathy worked with one of his grandchildren who told her that Jessie Owens was a quiet and humble man. He worked as a playground supervisor giving back to children and providing a positive role model for young people to follow. Jimmy Carter suggested Jessie Owens did more to break down racial barriers through his determination and his efforts were “a prelude to helping others.”

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Posted in Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized and tagged community, Jessie Owens, Jimmy Carter, leadership, Progressive Education, social justice, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Be Still in Haste

Posted on February 20, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

I find Wendell Berry’s poetry speaks to me about being mindful and attentive in each moment I live. It calls me to be present and explore the mystery in each moment, knowing each moment carries me like a river flowing without knowing where it is going.

The etymology of anarchy suggests we continuously begin anew in each moment. It is not a free-for-all with no rules. Instead, the universe provides us with the rules of what it means to live in that moment. In being present, I come to understand each moment is a re-beginning that is forever unfolding.

Taking the time to be present, allows me to be still even when the world and others are in haste.

How quietly I
begin again

from this moment

looking at the
clock, I start over

so much time has
passed, and is equaled
by whatever
split-second is present

from this
moment this moment
is the first

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Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Sabbath and tagged Be Still in Haste, creativity, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Wendell Berry. Bookmark the permalink.

Types of Rose Flower by Color – Red Rose Bud

Posted on February 20, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Dreams by Langston Hughes

Source: Types of Rose Flower by Color – Red Rose Bud

When I taught, I used this poem and Mother to Son written by Langston Hughes. The two poems carry deep thematic meanings about living life, having dreams to follow, and not making excuses when we come up short. I found that for junior high students these themes were important and helped them focus on how they were becoming adults.

Dreams give us a way to imagine we can figuratively fly in life. Mother to Son reminded us that it was not always easy to follow those dreams.

The red rose buds in the pictures add to the imagery about how fragile dreams are in real-time. We need to nurture them and bring them to life as we feed them.

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

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Posted in Education, Lesson Plans, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized and tagged creativity, education, Langston Hughes, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, roses, teacher as transformer, Wallpaper Tadka. Bookmark the permalink.

Living Things

Posted on February 18, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Anne Porter used poetry to describe how text becomes a living thing, always seeking new meaning from readers and listeners. As we read and listen, we find new meaning in the words, the spaces, and the punctuation.

Text is not only about the words, but about the context (who, where, and when), pretext (previous meanings), and subtext (what is hidden from sight). As we read and listen, we ask questions that cannot be fully answered.

Our poems
Are like the wart-hogs
In the zoo
It’s hard to say
Why there should be such creatures

But once our life gets into them
As sometimes happens
Our poems
Turn into living things
And there’s no arguing
With living things
They are
The way they are

Our poems
May be rough
Or delicate
Little
Or great

But always
They have inside them
A confluence of cries
And secret languages

And always
They are improvident
And free
They keep
A kind of Sabbath

They play
On sooty fire escapes
And window ledges

They wander in and out
Of jails and gardens
They sparkle
In the deep mines
They sing
In breaking waves
And rock like wooden cradles.

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Posted in Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Anne Porter, conversational journey, creativity, education, eloquent questions, leadership, LivingThings, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Live

Posted on February 15, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Notes: Full poem here: a blind flaneur. Poem Source: quotes from books

Source: Live

David posted this wonderful Mary Oliver quote. We can embrace the world as a place that amazes us and not merely one we visit in passing. I love the paradox of simultaneously being bride and bridegroom embracing and being amazed.

When we live fully, we engage in a conversation full of questions that can never be fully answered, but that guide us in our journey. This life is not about a planned legacy, but one that emerges in the memories we leave for others.

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Posted in Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged community, conversational journey, creativity, leadership, Live, Live and Learn, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

The Other Kingdoms

Posted on February 11, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Mary Oliver writes such wonderful poetry, even when it looks like prose. I find a depth in the words and spaces that calls me to reflect upon the cultural and personal constraints that surround me. Certainly, I need those constraints. They guide me through the moment-to-moment actions of my daily life. I need those words that help me make sense of the most immediate world that I often take-for-granted.

What if I lived in the north? I would need those many words and an awareness of what the snow told me to survive. I read today that mother orangutans spend 7-8 years with each offspring. During that time, the mothers appear to teach the ways of life necessary for the offspring’s survival. I say appear, because we cannot communicate with them well enough to know with certainty. There is something mystical about that existence that cannot be fully grasped. So even in the orangutan world, there is a culture and communication that helps them negotiate their terrain instinctively.

I love the line “Their infallible sense of what their lives are meant to be.” Just like the lilies of the field, those other kingdoms exist in ways that allow the world that includes us to grow sweetly wild, when we are attentive and mindful to the world.

Consider the other kingdoms. The
trees, for example, with their mellow-sounding
titles: oak, aspen, willow.
Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north
have dozens of words to describe its
different arrivals. Or the creatures, with their
thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their
infallible sense of what their lives
are meant to be. Thus the world
grows rich, grows wild, and you too,
grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too
were born to be.

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Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, The Other Kingdoms. Bookmark the permalink.

Delight in the preciousness of every single moment

Posted on February 10, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Source: Delight in the preciousness of every single moment

Pema Chodron reminds us that when we are given lemons make lemonade (in this case strawberries) and savour it by being fully present to the task. Thich Nhat Hanh describes sipping tea, doing dishes, and listening to another person while giving the task and person one’s fullest attention.

Leaders who remain attentive and sensitive to their actions and speech, as well as to their employees, invite followers into a safe space.

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Posted in Leadership, Mindful Life, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized and tagged leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Pema Chodron, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Thich Nhat Hanh. Bookmark the permalink.

When the Shoe Fits

Posted on February 6, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

The Trappist Monk Thomas Merton is better known for his spiritual prose, but he was an artist and poet, as well. Eastern philosophies, including Buddhism and Taoism, inspired his writing, including his poetry, and his theology.

When we are at ease with our actions and speech, we work with remarkable dexterity. We understand technology as tools, however the etymology includes techne which is art and craft and logos has to do with speaking, discourse, and the rules that guide that speaking. Craftspeople and artists take time, gather their thoughts (become full of thought), and speak with and through their tools in creating artifacts which in turn call us to gather our thoughts in their use.

Merton’s poem speaks of the ease and knowing one’s craft so well that conversations with and through tools feel right as the craftsperson experiences tools and creating intimately. The human and their tools form a mindful and caring relationship. John Dewey proposed that mind was a verb. We mind, care for, appreciate, and attend to our tools and they respond to this mindfulness.

From the Chinese of Chuang Tzu

Ch’ui the draftsman
Could draw more perfect circles freehand
Than with a compass.

His fingers brought forth
Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind
Was meanwhile free and without concern
With what he was doing.

No application was needed
His mind was perfectly simple
And knew no obstacle.

So, when the shoe fits
The foot is forgotten,
When the belt fits
The belly is forgotten,
When the heart is right
“For” and “against” are forgotten.

No drives, no compulsions,
No needs, no attractions:
Then your affairs
Are under control.
You are a free man.

Easy is right. Begin right
And you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right. The right way to go easy
Is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy.