Category Archives: Mindful Life

The Coffee Shop

Posted on August 31, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I spend time in the local coffee shops, read, and write. I did a lot of my blogging in that venue; however this summer I rearranged my schedule and blog at home. I notice a gentle energy in these settings and in a busy world it is a place to take time and just be.

The coffee shop;

Misnamed I think–

I sip tea

I try just be present.

We gather;

It is about talk–

A communal space,

Congregate and converse.

Companionship’s richness;

Found in quality

I cannot assign a number

It is a fool’s errand.

It is in laughter,

The reminiscing,

The sharing,

We find ourselves.

15 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Community, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged blogging, community, conversational journey, creativity, Mindful Practice, teacher as transformer, The Coffee Shop. Bookmark the permalink.

The Layers

Posted on August 28, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Stanley Kunitz wrote this lovely poem about life and the journey we take. I look back and I am tempted to see litter and not layers of good. It seems so much easier, at times, to see the past in this light. Something speaks to me from deep within me and reminds me to consider the good that happens. When I take time and place this at the forefront there is so much more energy given to live and know I am not done with the changes.

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes.

11 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, poetry, spirituality, Stanley Kunitz, teacher as transformer, The Layers. Bookmark the permalink.

The Thought-Fox

Posted on August 25, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I used this poem with students to explain the source of poetic inspiration. It is probably already there and sneaks out to find literary life and expression. Ted Hughes described the creative process of poetry writing as an animal quietly emerging and appearing.

I will sit, close my eyes, and write each day in my journal. Perhaps, a thought-fox will creep out of the shrubbery of imagination. Sabbath is a good time to start.

I imagine this midnight movement’s forest;

Something else is alive

Beside the clock’s loneliness

And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no stars:

Something more near

Though deeper within darkness

Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,

A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;

Two eyes serve a moment, that now

And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow,

Between trees, and wearily a lame

Shadow lags by stump and in hollow

Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,

A widening deepening greenness,

Brilliantly, concentratedly,

Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox

It enters the dark hole of the head.

The window is starless still; the clock ticks,

The page is printed.

8 Comments

Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, education, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, teacher as transformer, Ted Hughes, The Thought-Fox. Bookmark the permalink.

The Space of Silence

Posted on August 21, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I got away from writing poetry, but I felt it nibbling at the corners of that part of me throughout this hectic summer. As I get ready for the next part of the doctoral journey, I spent more time writing purpose statements, editing them, and edging closer to something workable. With a full course load in September, I know my schedule will look different. Something I need daily is silence and pauses where things percolate academically and creatively. I got back to my yoga mat more this last week or two and I feel good with the silence that I find in those moments. It is another meditative space where wisdom comes calling.

Rush,

Seek blindly

Grasp and cling.

Be present—

Pause—

Receive each moment’s gift.

Gently wrapped—

A bow in place—

Wisdom concealed.

In spacious silence—

A wordless symphony—

Plays serene melody.

Unrecognized tailor—

Silence stitches—

Weaves life whole.

17 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, reflection, spirituality, teacher as transformer, The Space of Silence, Yoga. Bookmark the permalink.

What Ties Me to the Earth Is Unseen

Posted on August 17, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

This was a busy day. We head out for the evening shortly to spend time with friends. We ran around to get ourselves organized a good part of the day.

Mark Nepo wrote this lovely poem which is a reminder of the need to slow down and find the silent space of sabbath. The lake offers me a place to light down similar to the heron and find the quiet needed to rejuvenate the spirit. This quiet finds its way into my life without a full awareness sometimes. It just appears and I embrace it as it helps me weave my life together.

My heart was beating like a heron awakened

in the woods, no room to move. Tangled

and surprised by the noise of my mind,

I fluttered without grace to the center

of the lake which humans call silence.

I guess, if you would ask, peace

is no more than the underside

of tired wings resting on the lake

while the heart in its feathers

pounds softer and softer.

11 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, Uncategorized and tagged creativity, Mark Nepo, Mindful Practice, poem, sabbath, spirituality, teacher as transformer, What Ties Me to the Earth Is Unseen. Bookmark the permalink.

Pure Relationships

Posted on August 17, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Today, as I read, I came across this passage from the work of D. H. Lawrence. It is not a poem, but the words have a poetic quality to them and allow me to consider what life is all about. Life is relational and that is not limited to people. I live in relationship to everything I come in contact with. In the busyness of life, this is a gentle reminder to acknowledge the relationships consciously. I witness pure relationships in these acknowledgement, these accomplishments.

The passage has a Zen quality, but it reminded me that until about 300 years ago our souls were inseparable from our physical being even in western culture.

“If we think about it, we find that our life consists in this achieving of a pure relationship between ourselves and the living universe about us. This is how I ‘save my soul’ by accomplishing a pure relationship between me and another person, me and other people, me and a nation, me and a race of men, me and animals, me and the trees or flowers, me and the earth, me and the skies and the sun and stars, me and the moon: an infinity of pure relationships, big and little, like the stars of the sky: that makes our eternity, for each one of us, me and the timber I am sawing, the lines of force I follow; me and the dough I knead for bread, me and the very motion with which I write, me and the bit of gold I have got. This, if we knew it, is our life and our eternity: the subtle, perfected relation between me and my whole circumambient universe.”

16 Comments

Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, D.H. Lawrence, leadership, Mindful Practice, poetic quality, Pure Relationships, spirituality, teacher as transformer, western culture, zen. Bookmark the permalink.

What Have I Learned

Posted on August 14, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I engaged in several virtual and face-to-face conversations over the past week about what learning and education should look like today. Gary Snyder summarized some of this in this thoughtful poem. I believe we need to focus more on the tools children need than the content. That is not to say content is not important. It must stretch, challenge, and allow growth.

Curriculum has narrowed, become content, and the use of tools. It does not always focus on the proper use of tools and development of habits, skills, attitudes, practices, dispositions, etc. What role does discernment play in today’s schools? What eloquent questions, with no presumption of answers, are teachers and students alike asked? Content, in the form of knowledge and information, becomes the currency of the realm and wise application is often pushed aside. 21st Century education requires a mindful approach. An approach that recognizes the changing of the flowers in each moment.

What have I learned but

the proper use for several tools?

The moments

between hard pleasant tasks

To sit silent, drink wine,

and think my own kind

of crusty dry thoughts.

–the first Calochortus flowers

and in all the land,

it’s spring.

I point them out:

the yellow petals, the golden hairs,

to Gen.

Seeing in silence:

never the same twice,

but when you get it right,

you pass it on.

19 Comments

Posted in 21st Century Education, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged 21st Century Education, creativity, education, eloquent questions, Gary Snyder, leadership, Mindful Practice, poetry, stewardship, teacher as transformer, What Have I Learned. Bookmark the permalink.

Sometimes

Posted on August 13, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I registered to attend David Whyte’s retreat called Poetry in the Woods in November. His poetry speaks to my heart and the retreat is about being in touch with the heart.

I spent considerable time today talking about what I love: teaching and learning. I know I will miss each of them and want them in my life in some form. What I do not want is to be involved in teaching and learning focused on rules and not children. It is important for me as I enter this phase not to assume answers, but to be open to questions, particularly prickly ones. They are the ones I sometimes turn away from. I need to turn to them, receive them, and hold them gently.

I need to let questions find a space to emerge. which suggests less trampling through the forest and more quiet approaches. It is where the wisdom appears from, those questions which need my silence to be heard.

Sometimes

if you move carefully

through the forest,

breathing

like the ones

in the old stories,

who could cross

a shimmering bed of leaves

without a sound,

you come

to a place

whose only task

is to trouble you

with tiny

but frightening requests,

conceived out of nowhere

but in this place

beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what

you are doing right now.

and

to stop what you

are becoming

while you do it,

questions

that can make

or unmake

a life,

questions

that have patiently

waited for you,

questions

that have no right

to go away.

28 Comments

Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, David Whyte, education, eloquent questions, Mindful Practice, Sometimes, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

I Believe in All That Has Never Yet Been Spoken

Posted on August 10, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I am getting back into a groove after my first full week home. I let things flow a bit this week. Rilke suggested letting go or not contriving in this poem. When I don’t over plan, I find I am more open and accept the flow of things much like the beginner’s mind of a child. Watching children engrossed in play is a reminder that can happen for me as an adult and, as it does, the river widens and flows in every widening channels. Life becomes somehow larger, but not in an explainable way.

Posting images of our trip through Glacier National Park is believing in all that has never yet been spoken. Nature allows me to speak without using words. It is a palette of creation which speaks without speaking and shares without words. It just is and teaches through its presence.

The role of sabbath is to rest on the swelling and ebbing currents and rest in each moment. Perhaps, as I do, I take an expanded mind and soul into next week.

I believe in all that has never been spoken.

I want to free what waits within me

so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear

without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,

but this is what I need to say.

May what I do flow from me like a river,

no forcing and no holding back,

the way it is with children.

Then in those swelling and ebbing currents,

these deepening tides moving out, returning,

I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels

into the open sea.

28 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged blogging, creativity, Glacier National Park, learning, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, Rainer Maria Rilke, sabbath, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Logan’s Pass

Posted on August 9, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Logan’s Pass includes the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park. When I looked, the view was spectacular and breathtaking. The park was named for the many glaciers that are part of the landscape and so visible through Logan’s Pass. The glaciers are slowly receding and some estimates suggest they may be gone by mid-Century.

Looking straight across from the road, you can see the ice and snow almost at eye level and further out is Jackson Glacier. The road is dotted with short barriers and are not very wide.

The Montana sky is a constant backdrop for the mountains, the ice and snow, and the green in the foreground.

A person constantly feels like they are on the top of the world here. People refer to Glacier National Park as the Crown of the Continent and closeness to the tops of the mountains is a reason. Waterfalls are often in view.

Here, there are no real barriers at the edge of the road.

Kathy took this picture over her shoulder. It shows the switchbacks and curves in the road.

I enjoy the contrast provided by the grey granite and the white snow and ice. There is stability and, at the same time, instability visible in nature. The granite looks like it forms a stairway to the top of the world.