Category Archives: Poetry

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.

“I” [“No, no, there is no going back”]

Posted on April 6, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

I purchased Wendell Berry’s latest book, Our Only World, on Sunday at Auntie’s, a small, independent book store since 1978. If you live in or near or visit Spokane, it is a nice location with restaurants near by.

After my purchases, I realized I had not used one of his poems in some time. I chose this one. I think it might be easy to say this is a bleak poem, talking about death. In a literal way, that makes sense. I take it figuratively.

Jacques Derrida contended that in becoming who we are the previous “who” repeatedly dies, but leaves memories and traces to be recalled. I read this poem, similarly. Who I am is metaphorically a grave of memories and traces that belong to me, but I share in various ways with others and the world. The tree is me standing guard over those memories. Guard might be too protective. Instead, similar to a tree’s rings signifying its age and even various years’ conditions, the tree represents the memories and stories about my living.

The tree allows me to recount my story, but not as it happened. My stories contain gaps, uncertainties, and ambiguity. I repeatedly edit them, filling in blanks, recalling events, and forgetting other things. As I recount my stories, they form a fictional account of who I am, where I’ve been, when I thrived, and when I struggled, similar to the rings on that poetic tree.

No, no, there is no going back.

Less and less you are

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.

You have become a sort of grave

containing much that was

and is no more in time, beloved

then, now, and always.

And so you have become a sort of tree

standing over the grave.

Now more than ever you can be

generous toward each day

that comes, young, to disappear

forever, and yet remain

unaging in the mind.

Every day you have less reason

not to give yourself away.

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Posted in Community, Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Auntie's Bookstore, community, conversational journey, creativity, Jacques Derrida, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, Spokane, teacher as transformer, there is no going back"], Wendell Berry. 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

13 Comments

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.

10 Comments

Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, Rumi, servant-leadership, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Thich Nhat Hanh, Today Like Every Other Day. Bookmark the permalink.

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.

17 Comments

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.

Be a Person

Posted on March 30, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

When we do something, even small things, it is important to the world and others. Our words and actions call out to the world and others. We invoke the world to respond and share something important with us.

William Stafford wrote about being a person. Who we are is what calls to us and our response to it. The call gives us purpose and voice. In our dreams and imagination, we find that calling, that sense of purpose.

Perhaps, it is about becoming the person who we are, and not just being the person who stands in this spot and moment. We are always becoming a person that we cannot fully imagine and anticipate in advance, but somehow that person resembles who we were just a moment ago.

Paulo Coehlo said that “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” In dreaming, we are always becoming a new person and the uncertainty of that makes life interesting for us and others.

Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke
the owls. Invoke winter, then spring.
Let any season that wants to come here make its own
call. After that sound goes away, wait.

A slow bubble rises through the earth
and begins to include sky, stars, all space,
even the outracing, expanding thought.
Come back and hear the little sound again.

Suddenly this dream you are having matches
everyone’s dream, and the result is the world.
If a different call came there wouldn’t be any
world, or you, or the river, or the owls calling.

How you stand here is important. How you
listen for the next things to happen. How you breathe.

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Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Be a Person, community, creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Paulo Coehlo, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, William Stafford. Bookmark the permalink.

Wild Geese

Posted on March 27, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Mary Oliver is one of my favourite poets. I find her poems call me to spend time, reflect quietly, and read them anew many times. I think what I consistently get out of her poetry is that we are not alone in the world.

We live together, but it is not just a human world. It is a world full of other beings, objects, and roles that shape our lives and we, in turn, shape the world. Most of the time, our relationships with the world, others, and things is unconscious. The world exists out there somewhere in taken-for-granted ways.

When we are mindfull and present, we notice the world. Mary Oliver uses the words harsh and exciting, but we are not accustomed to the novelty that continuously emerges and, when it calls, it seems harsh. As we live more fully, the world calls to us and we hear it. The harsh sounds help us remain attuned to the world.

The world excites us with its refreshing newness. We discover the extraordinary in the ordinary; what we have taken-for-granted.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting . . .

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

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

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.

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Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged A Light Breather, community, creativity, eloquent questions, Leadership. Servant-Leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Theodore Roethke. Bookmark the permalink.

We dance for…

Posted on March 23, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Photo post by @jamesscarberry.

Source: We dance for…

Albert Einstein is one of my favorite sources for quotes. What do we dance for today? Dancing is a creative movement that signals powerful human emotions are at play in a particular event.

Natalie shared a quote that reminds us humans dance in sad moments, as well. On a day, when a few attacked, killed, and injured their fellow humans, our dance should dance away the fears and tears and create dreams filled with hope. It is important to remember hateful words and actions against others is wrong.

Dancing is an integral part of human life. Even Friedrich Nietzsche,who was not considered a happy person and religious person, reminded us that “we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” In fact, he argued he “would only believe in a god who could dance.”

I believe that a God we all believe in is one who joins the human community in dance in moments such as today. Thich Nhat Hanh suggested “the pain of one part of humankind is the pain of the whole of humankind.”

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Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Social Justice, Uncategorized and tagged Albert Einstein, community, creativity, Dance, Friedrich Nietzsche, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, Sacred Touches, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Thich Nhat Hanh. Bookmark the permalink.

The Invitation

Posted on March 19, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

I am not familiar with Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s poetry, but, when I found this poem, it reached out and called me.

What questions do I ask myself, that I cannot answer. There is an eloquence in those questions that leads me to new questions, without knowing the answers. When I sense the world in one way or another, I am unable to sense it in any other way.

What if I live the wildness of life and I allow myself some abandon, not carelessness? I can dance with that wildness and not care about what others may think, hopefully making the world a better place.

When we open our hearts to the other, their standing in life is about who they are as a person rather than what identifies them: their job, their age, where they live, etc. When we open our hears to the other, it is an invitation to be human and humane with them.

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day.

And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,

“Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.