Category Archives: Mindful Life

How to Regain Your Soul

Posted on July 6, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I opened a poetry anthology to the index and this title jumped off the page. It has been an eventful week. I settled into Spokane including a place to lay my head this fall. When I come here, I find I feel I am in community. It was word-of-mouth that led me to the apartment I will have. One person told me to check with another who referred me to another and eventually the circle was complete.

When I am here, I drop some screen time with no television. I turn my computer on and listen to CKUA the greatest little radio station in the world.

I need to settle into a regime now to tackle the reading, writing, and research that is around the corner. Gonzaga has excellent to a beautiful river walk to the Spokane Falls and Riverfront Park which I visited in its heyday. Spokane hosted the World’s Fair in 1974 and I was in Nelson BC then and came down with friends.

The river walk is a great place to let my brain relax, my mind to expand, and physically be invigorated. Last summer, as I walked, I found my poet’s voice and I am counting on that happening again over the next couple of weeks. I regain my soul in nature as William Stafford so eloquently puts it. When we got to Waterton, it was dragonflies over Red Rock Canyon that were my white butterflies.

Come down Canyon Creek trail on a summer afternoon

that one place where the valley floor opens out. You will see

the white butterflies. Because of the way shadows

come off those vertical rocks in the west, there are

shafts of sunlight hitting the river and

a deep long purple gorge straight ahead. Put down your pack.

Above, air sighs the pines. It was this way

when Rome was clanging, when Troy was being built,

when campfires lighted caves. The white butterflies dance

by the thousands in the still sunshine. Suddenly, anything

could happen to you. Your soul pulls toward the canyon

and then shines back through the white wings to be you again.

20 Comments

Posted in Community, Education, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry and tagged community, creativity, Gonzaga, How to Regain Your Soul, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, Spokane, teacher as transformer, William Stafford. Bookmark the permalink.

Ask Me

Posted on July 3, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Last night, I read, more like re-read, the first two chapters of Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer. I find it so interesting to read something for a second, third, or fourth time. I always discover something new in the process. It might only be a word, a sentence, a turn of phrase, but it provides new insight. As I read last night, it was no different. Parker included this poem by William Stafford. I had to read several times, because the words are not in perfect order, but life is not either.

Parker Palmer is on Facebook and I follow him. Today, he posted a July 4th tribute with Leonard Cohen performing Democracy on Youtube. The link is Parker Palmer for those interested.

I am in Spokane and somewhat settled in. As I struggle a bit with making sense of my dissertation topic, this poem makes perfect sense. It is precise and piercing in its questions and somewhat disquieting. In those moments of perturbation, life makes more sense and I learn.

Sometimes when the river is ice ask me

mistakes I have made. Ask me whether

what I have done is my life. Others

have come in their slow way into

my thought, and some have tried to help

or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say

You and I can turn and look

at the silent river and wait. We know

is there, hidden; and there

are comings and goings from miles away

that hold the stillness exactly before us.

What the river says, that is what I say.

17 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Synchronicity and tagged Ask Me, creativity, Democracy, facebook, Leonard Cohen, Mindful Practice, poetry, teacher as transformer, William Stafford, Youtube. Bookmark the permalink.

Harvest Home

Posted on June 24, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Tomorrow is my last day. I looked for the poem I thought would speak most eloquently to the role teachers can play. Bettye T. Spinner wrote this lovely poem. What if our classrooms were poetry meant to be lived and learned? It would speak to the wonder and awe of each day we spend with children.

In the ideal

it is harvesting

the work we do–

a reaping of crops grown

from ancestral seeds,

a gathering of first fruit,

from vines that traces their sources

beyond geography,

beyond gender,

beyond the bleach

and blush

and black of skin

and root themselves in watery grace,

in knowledge that nurtures us all.

In the ideal

our classrooms fill, like cornucopia,

overflowing with the bounty of our grange.

Life stories, heaped among the texts,

spill into hallways of our schools,

crowd the sidewalks or the subways

or ride yellow buses home,

altering the form of knowing,

changing heads,

changing hearts,

changing history,

bringing harvest

home.

32 Comments

Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Bettye T. Spinner, community, creativity, education, eloquent questions, Harvest Home, Mindful Practice, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

I Am a Teacher

Posted on June 22, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

A student gave me this poem Thursday. The Alberta Teachers Association published it in their monthly newspaper recently. Susan Holland, a retiring teacher, wrote it. Is there such a thing as a retiring teacher?

The poem encapsulates many of my current feelings and points to the impact we have on children and families. The gesture of giving me the poem is deeply meaningful and I am grateful to receive and share it.

I Am a Teacher

You are my children.

We triumph together when you master cursive.

We struggle through long division.

I wipe away your tears when something bruises you elbow

Or someone bruises your heart.

You read to me—I read to you.

We laugh over silly jokes or stories.

I introduce you to new words—

You refresh me with new perspectives.

I wasn’t there when you were born.

I don’t tuck you in at night …

Or dance at your wedding.

But, you are my children.

And as June draws to a close

I grow melancholy.

You will move on and I will stay behind to start again.

And as the years pass you blend, merge, and mingle—

Warp and weft intertwined into my universal child.

I am a teacher.

You are the fabric of my life.

30 Comments

Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged Alberta Teachers Association, creativity, education, eloquent questions, I Am a Teacher, Mindful Practice, poetry, school, Susan Holland, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Happiness

Posted on June 17, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Jane Kenyon wrote this thoughtful poem about happiness. It is the flip side of a country song that suggests we look for love in all the wrong places. Happiness is right there in front of us. We see it and struggle to recognize it. Perhaps, it is just too obvious for us to see it and grasp it. There is just no accounting for happiness, because it just shows up and finds us.

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

4 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, happiness, Jane Kenyon, Mindful Practice, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Sanctuary

Posted on June 16, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I am beginning to feel the leaving part. It is hard after almost 15 years in a place that helped me find my voice as a teacher, a learner, and, most importantly, as a person. Here, I watched young people grow and flourish. What I want to try to remember is the Buddhist understanding of departure. We take something with us from each experience and leave something behind. We are never fully gone from where we were or separated from those we were with. There is something indelible left on both sides of the relationship.

One thing that the leaving part has done is given me some words to write. That has been the gift of the last year: I find words in many places and experiences.

A true paradox this space-

Not always quiet–

Still a sanctuary;

In this space–

Refuge emerged.

We co-created

Learned together–

Grew as one,

Remained individuals

Not easy things to do.

Relationships flourished–

Built inseparable bonds.

In this rectangular circle,

Welcomed each others presence

Witnessed each others human essence

Called each others name

Called those names from the heart.

When we leave–

And, we must,

We look at our time together

Look back with reverence

With no regret.

19 Comments

Posted in Community, Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, Uncategorized and tagged community, creativity, education, Mindful Practice, Sanctuary, school, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Now I Become Myself

Posted on June 15, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

We had a very good day. We are beginning to say good-bye. It has taken many years for me to reach this place. As May Sarton suggested, I ran madly many times seeming to think that busyness was the order of the day. Or I wore the faces of other people. I think these faces were often mine, but that they masked the real me. It was hard to let the guard down and be my self at times. It is easier and easier and I can stand still right here in this moment and now in this moment. Ah, what a feeling.

Now I become myself. It’s taken

Time, many years and places;

I have been dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people’s faces,

Run madly, as if Time were there,

Terribly old, crying a warning,

“Hurry, you will be dead before—”

(What? Before you reach the morning?

Or the end of the poem is clear?

Or love safe in the walled city?)

Now to stand still, to be here,

Feel my own weight and density!

The black shadow on the paper

Is my hand; the shadow of a word

As thought shapes the shaper

Falls heavy on the page, is heard.

All fuses now, falls into place

From wish to action, word to silence,

My work, my love, my time, my face

Gathered into one intense

Gesture of growing like a plant.

As slowly as the ripening fruit

Fertile, detached, and always spent,

Falls but does not exhaust the root,

So all the poem is, can give,

Grows in me to become the song,

Made so and rooted by love.

Now there is time and Time is young.

O, in this single hour I live

All of myself and do not move.

I, the pursued, who madly ran,

Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

27 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, May Sarton, Mindful Practice, Now I Become Myself, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

A Healing Place

Posted on June 13, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I have not walked much lately due to time constraints. Nature is a place that allows me to learn about myself and create. Kathy and I spent a lot of time there last spring, summer, and fall. I struggle to write when I am not spending time walking. Today, we had a tornado watch and warning. As I drove home, the sky was dark to the north and east. Lightening flashed across the sky. I was reminded of the power nature holds and, at the same time, its healing touch as a creative source. I am not separate from it. I am a small piece.

This place–

It is a space,

I walk with purpose;

Yet, without purpose

There is no destination here.

The ground uplifts,

The sky shelters,

Breezes cool,

Leaves whisper secrets,

The Sun reveals.

Just be…

Be one;

Not above

Not below

I am integral.

A refuge

Nature`s wisdom shared

I am comforted

I heal

Just be.

5 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged A Healing Place, creative source, creativity, healing touch, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

The Poet’s Obligation

Posted on June 10, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Pablo Neruda wrote this lovely poem which reminds me of the words I speak or write. They carry messages to others who cannot find their way out to the world. It is the poet’s obligation to observe and record with each sense the world he or she lives in. I think in the busy world we live in it is increasingly important we are each a poet and carry messages to the shrouded heart.

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to who ever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or dry prison cell,
to him I come, and without speaking or looking
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a long rumble of thunder adds itself
to the weigh of the planet and the foam,
the groaning rivers of the ocean rise,
the star vibrates quickly in its corona
and the sea beats, dies, and goes on beating.

So. Drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea’s lamenting in my consciousness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the sentence of the autumn,
I may be present with an errant wave,
I may move in and out of the windows,
and hearing me, eyes may lift themselves,
asking “How can I reach the sea?”
And I will pass to them, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing itself,
the gray cry of sea birds on the coast.

So, though me, freedom and the sea
will call in answer to the shrouded heart.

14 Comments

Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, Mindful Practice, nature, Pablo Neruda, teacher as transformer, The Poet's Obligation, the sea. Bookmark the permalink.

In the Quiet Curve of the Evening

Posted on June 9, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Life is uncertain. One thing I am certain of is unconditional love of a Creator and those close to me. I cannot explain or describe what they mean, but I have faith they exist.

Last weekend, Kathy and I participated in a special event for her niece. She was commissioned as a minister of the United Church of Canada. We sang this hymn during the celebrations. I am not sure how to credit the song. Julie Howard wrote the lyrics, but I did not find links for her. As I head into the Sabbath, the words say it all for me.

In the quiet curve of evening,
in the sinking of the days,
in the silky void of darkness, you are there.
In the lapses of my breathing,
in the space between my ways,
in the crater carved by sadness, you are there.
You are there, you are there, you are there.

In the rests between the phrases,
in the cracks between the stars,
in the gaps between the meaning, you are there.
In the melting down of endings,
in the cooling of the sun,
in the solstice of the winter, you are there.
You are there, you are there, you are there.

In the mystery of my hungers,
in the silence of my rooms,
in the cloud of my unknowing, you are there.
In the empty cave of grieving,
in the desert of my dreams,
in the tunnel of my sorrow, you are there.
You are there, you are there, you are there.