Category Archives: Nature in All Its Glory

A Simpler Life

Posted on August 7, 2018 by ivonprefontaine

Kathy and I are doing some house cleaning and it is interesting what we find.

Kathy looked through some papers we had stored and found poetry I wrote in 1969, in Grade 10. There are things that are consistent in life and one of them is seeking moments of solitude and silence, which I wrote about in this poem. I took liberties and edited the poem, orginally called The Simple Life.

It is good to be alone at times,

Sheltered by comforting trees,

The wind singing a song,

Here, I experience freedom and peace,

For the moment, worries set aside.

Minnows dart at the water’s edge,

Dancing between light and shadows,

Seemingly, without a care,

There, they experience home’s safety;

Its primal call.

Here, this is me,

I experience a simpler life;

An unseen hand beckons me,

I wave to this simpler life,

Enjoying it each time I return.

I took this picture in Waterton Lake National Park several years ago. I came around a corner and there was a doe and two fawn. I could have touched the one fawn it was so close, but it was separated from its mother. I stood as still as possible, moving slowly to get the camera ready. The mother whistled to the one fawn and waited until the young one found its way over to her, back to the safety of where it belonged.

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Posted in Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Synchronicity, teacher as transformer and tagged creativity, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, photography, poetry, silence and solitude, solitude, teacher as transformer, waterton lakes national park, writing. Bookmark the permalink.

this…is who we are

Posted on August 4, 2018 by ivonprefontaine

via this…is who we are

I read this post the other day on the blog Lead Our lives. It resonated with me.

When I see myself as somehow separate and distinct from the universe that envelops me, I mistake my place in the universe as that of an outsider, a visitor, and spectator.

When I think of myself in that way, I allow myself to believe and shape a universe I can somehow master. This is unrealistic and sets me up for failure.

Alan Watts and Parker Palmer write about faith and fidelity as opposed to belief. When I have faith and trust in what is to come, I set aside the idea that life is plannable. Yes, I need plans, but they are in flux, open to improvisation in each ensuing moment. When I form a rigid set of beliefs, I end up in a binary and polarizing place, where only my answers are right and certain. When I am follow with faith and fidelity, I seek answers in the diversity and flux of the universe.

In the post, there is a reference to Father Richard Rohr who used the quote from Rabbi Rami Shapiro in one of his daily meditations, which I also receive. Whatever I call God, it is intriguing how much diversity and beauty in that name.

Mount Robson is a place I drive by frequently on trips to and from British Columbia. It is magnificent and is a symbol of uncertainty. As often as I drive by it, I cannot know it completely. It stands as a deep mystery. Having said this, I have faith each time I drive in this direction it will be there. Its majesty is grounded in both mystery and certainty that come together.

Robson

Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged Alan Watts, life, Parker Palmer, quote, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, relationships, Richard Rohr, spiritual thinkers, spirituality. Bookmark the permalink. 7 Comments

Wednesday – native prayer

Posted on August 2, 2018 by ivonprefontaine

via Wednesday – native prayer

Dymoon shared a beautiful indigenous prayer attributed to Chief Dan George (born Geswanouth Slahoot) who was an actor, author, and activist. He did not become an actor until he was 60 and worked as a longshoreman, logger, and musician, as well as being chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in British Columbia.

The prayer reminds me that nature is a place to be. We are not separate from it, but live in nature’s midst. Nature’s gifts, including silence, are a rich bounty we cannot live without. Gulls at Neurotsis Inlet

I took this picture several years ago walking along the North Saskatchewan River, which runs through Edmonton. Nature is always with me.

Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged Chief Dan George, environment, nature, photography, poem, prayer, writing. Bookmark the permalink. 7 Comments

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

Posted on July 28, 2018 by ivonprefontaine

via Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

David shared a wonderful poem by Mark Nepo. It reminds us life is not something to plan. Life is something we live. We exist in a state of flux and float in the breeze like a bird trusting the currents of the stream.

We took these pictures in Glacier National Park. It reminds me how nature just exists. There are no plan as such and no purpose than to be in a paricular moment. The waterfall does not care that we build roads and drive on them. It just flows.

Posted in Blogging, Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged David Kanigan, Glacier National Park, Live and Learn, Mark Nepo, mindfulness, nature, poetry, reflect. Bookmark the permalink. 15 Comments

Doors

Posted on July 9, 2018 by ivonprefontaine

The other night, we watched a re-run of the Montana episode of Parts Unknown hosted by the late Anthony Bourdain. I enjoy watching the series and this episdoe about Montana drew to it as we have visited Montana several times.

Bourdain ate with a poet I had not heard of before: Jim Harrison. He spoke about being part of nature and how he feels small under the big sky of Montana. I looked him up and felt I should have heard of him before. He was a celebrated and well-published poet.

I chose this poem as it speaks to how we create binary choices in a complex world and universe filled with a myriad of choices that we follow depending on the spirit. For example, we often think we have to separate the economy and the environment.

The etymology of economy is from the Greek, oikos, meaning household and suggests keeping a good house. We only have to think about animals and how they do not soil their living quarters to understand how economy and ecology are related.

Harrison created wonderful imagery about the sky being a door never closed, but the sun and moon are not doorknobs. He lived in Montana for years where the sky is big and stretches on, as does the land.

I had to look up Dersu Uzala. It was a movie made about a man who lived his life integrated with nature and the universe, who dies when he moves inside.

I’m trying to create an option for all
these doors in life. You’re inside
or out, outside or in. Of late, doors
have failed us more than the two-party system
or marriages comprising only one person.
We’ve been fooled into thousands of dualisms
which the Buddha says is a bad idea.
Nature has portals rather than doors.
There are two vast cottonwoods near a creek
and when I walk between them I shiver.
Winding through my field of seventy-seven
large white pine stumps from about 1903
I take various paths depending on spirit.
The sky is a door never closed to us.
The sun and moon aren’t doorknobs.
Dersu Uzala slept outside for forty-five years.
When he finally moved inside he died.

I took this picture several years ago as I looked from Alberta towards Montana across the field, with fresh bales of hay in the forefront and the mountains and sky forming the backdrop.

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Posted in Blogging, Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer and tagged blogging, community, Dersu Uzala, Doors, Jim Harrison, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Montana, nature, poetry, spirituality, stewardship, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Nature’s Melody

Posted on May 28, 2018 by ivonprefontaine

I have not written a poem for a while. I try to journal each day. I started this poem about 10 days ago, left it for a few days, and came back to it today. I feel rusty in the writing, but it is a beginning.

When I walk, I listen, subscribing to the idea sound completes itself in in-between spaces. Without spaces, sound lacks rhythm and melody. When I am mindful, I recognize a particular sound. Also, I can recognize unfamiliar sounds in those spaces.

Nature’s voice is always in melody,

She raises and lowers it effortlessly.

Spring breezes filled with rustling and whispering,

Shrill winter storms shrieking and whistling.

Soft showers murmuring in gentle ways,

Thunderous storms that shake and amaze.

It is in pauses melody is completed,

It is in silence sound is fulfilled.

Several years, we were in Jasper National Park and saw this cow elk. She was quiet and did not move. We were there for a few minutes before we noticed her. There were others who arrived before us and had not seen her. It was in the silence and calm we noticed her.

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Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Writing and tagged community, creativity, Jasper National Park, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, photography, poetry, teacher as transformer, writing. Bookmark the permalink.

The Summer Day

Posted on May 24, 2018 by ivonprefontaine

I could have entitled this post calling, vocation, voice, etc. Mary Oliver shares what it means to be called and how we respond to this call through our particular life. Voice and vocation share etymology and come from the Latin verb to call: vocare.

Mary Oliver captures the essence of a calling with a metaphor of a grasshopper, which has its role to play and expresses herself in how she fulfills this role. This poem reminds me of Matthew‘s verse about the lily of the field and how God provides for each plant and animal. We each have a role and place in a complex way of being and we each respond according to how we interpret what that might mean.

The first three lines and the last two, as questions, speak to me. I am never certain of what life holds for me. Life emerges as eloquent questions that are open and not foreclosed by easy answers, yet emerge from the first three questions. I ask eloquent questions without predetermined answers. They inform my dialogue with the world and with others.

Since completing my dissertation, the last question has become part of my thinking about the themes. It was not in the dissertation, but is essential to experiencing and understanding teaching as a calling, which holds deep spiritual meaning.

I posted my dissertation on Academia and an executive summary on Medium.

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

I took this picture in Yellowstone several years ago. I was about 25-30 feet (8-10 metres) away from this wonderful animal. He knew I was there, but seemed unconcerned. We were both living our lives.

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Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Writing and tagged community, conversational journey, creativity, dissertation, eloquent questions, Mary Oliver, mindfulness, nature, photography, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, writing. Bookmark the permalink.

Silently Blooming

Posted on May 2, 2018 by ivonprefontaine

via Silently Blooming

Shobna provides a beautiful images and Thich Nhat Hanh‘s quote about silence. Parker Palmer says that community and solitude form a paradox. They do not exist without one another.

It is in moments of solitude I find meaning in living in community. What I share in common with others far outweighs what makes me different although the differences are essential to what makes each of us unique beings.

It is in moments of silence I look at my life as if it were a mountain revealing its story through the striations it formed throughout its existence. In silence, my life takes on meaning. It is there that my relationships take form and mean more than they did in the busyness of the day.

Mountain's Layers

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The Spring Paradox

Posted on April 8, 2018 by ivonprefontaine

I am in Spokane now, reading, writing, and preparing for two presentations at the end of the month. It is unseasonable here, but it is at home, too. Rain and snow go with the low temperatures.

I wrote this about the paradox we experience in spring. It is a time of rejuvenation and resurrection, literally and figuratively, yet it is not always easy to see, unless I watch closely. Each day, as I walk, I see signs that contradict each other: sullen skies, a glacial wind, flowers showing, and robins gathered to feed.

Leaden, sullen rain-heavy skies,

The wind glacial;

Absent a lover’s warm touch,

With precision, it cuts through cloth,

Touches skin with icy fingers.

Have faith the calendar counsels

Nature speaks in other ways;

Daffodils reach through the earth,

Robins find food washed up on the sidewalk,

I hear spring is here.

I took this picture of the first robin I saw last spring. There was still snow. The robin posed for me, more interested in finding food than fearing me.

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Merry Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

I wrote this poem several years ago about the magic provided by the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) and Christmas. What message was in those celestial colours and sounds? As a child, I thought the sky talked to me and told me a creation story.

I grew up in Northern Alberta and Christmas was a special time. I recall cold winter nights. I mean they were cold–almost minus 40 at night. Our windows upstairs were almost completely frosted over. On moonlit nights, the light kept me awake or that is what I told others.

During Advent, my mom and older brothers walked across the street for evening Mass. The younger ones, including me, went to bed. I did not fall asleep right away and would watch out the window for them to come home. I thought no one saw me, but my Mom would come up and tell me to go to bed.

At that time of year, I recall is the Northern Lights and how you could hear them as well as see them light up the sky as they danced across the sky. We don’t see them very often in Edmonton with the urban light.

When we spend time at the farm at Christmas, we hear and see them again. On cold nights we hear the train (about a mile away) and it sounds like it is coming through the house.

Small children–

Breathlessly awaiting,

Peering through frosted window

Soaking it in.

Heavens rippling–

Lights undulating;

A celebratory fury

An indisputable guide.

This old house speaks;

Nature answers–

Heavens crackle

Sweet symphonic sounds shimmering.