Category Archives: Reflective Moments

The Way Sunshine Smells

Posted on May 9, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

We picked dandelions and put them on the kitchen table in a mason jar. My mom would take them and put them there not saying they were weeds. Members of Kathy’s family ate dandelion greens as a salad. As our boys grew up, they picked dandelions and we put them in vases for a few days as the dandelions gave up their prime moments and shared the way sunshine smells.

Tamara Madison wrote this poem about daffodils not dandelions. It reminds me of the wonder we live in. Nature is transient. It moves at its pace and sometimes we pay attention to it. In a world filled with busyness, it is hard to realize we have little control over what happens outside our self. We control our personal responses to the world and its phenomena, human and non-human. When I reflect on what is was like to be a child and the many things I did not take for granted, it points out the transience I live with and a way to approach it. Daffodils and dandelions are the way sunshine smells and honoring me with their presence, as I honor them.

Ten daffodils stand in a pasta sauce jar
giving up their moment of prime
to brighten this cluttered kitchen table.

Yellow lovelies, I am honored
to have you here. Outside you’d be
just another bit of the great flowering world,
but in my kitchen, among the papers,
the bottles, the bananas growing tired
in the bowl, you are amazement itself.

Outside amid the orange blossoms,
the roses, the sweet alyssum,
your light scent would be lost.
Here, you turn this morning kitchen
Into a festival of fragrance – you
are the way sunshine smells.

8 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, Tamara Madison, teacher as transformer, The Way Sunshine Smells. Bookmark the permalink.

The Guest House

Posted on May 9, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Several years ago during a difficult time, I read this poem and it spoke to what I was going through. From time to time, I recall the poem and how it helped me meet life differently. I compartmentalized life, including my emotions, in unhealthy ways. Emotions and accompanying experiences are guests coming and going and not staying for life.

I treated life as different buckets containing each part as if I could easily separate them. Rumi reminded me life is holistic and involves life flowing with no clear boundaries between parts. It is all oneness.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

16 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, Rumi, spirituality, teacher as transformer, The Guest House. Bookmark the permalink.

Rhubarb

Posted on May 8, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

We have rhubarb in our backyard and it yields fruit through the summer. Kathy and I grew up where rhubarb was inexpensive and plentiful. It made great pies, jams, canned fruit, and was edible, with sugar, when eaten raw as it is tart.

It is interesting to note how, as we age, we notice things that seemed less relevant earlier. Larry Schug reminded me about rhubarb. I took this particular plant for granted as I grew up, but they create miracles as do other plants and animals in our world. Rhubarb provided an inexpensive dessert and snack that, as I recall, seemed available year round in some form.

When I reflect on nature, I see miracles and the ordinary is more powerful than when taken for granted. Nature is a great provider and takes care of human needs in ways that are not always readily evident unless I take time to see treasures provided.

By April, sour red stalks
push elephant-ear leaves
into near-earth atmosphere.
Rhubarb plans ahead,
years, decades even,
lives sustainably on the interest
of sunlight stored under ground,
having folded up its solar collectors
in September,
when the days grow too short
to make sugar.
See how simple is a miracle.

14 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Larry Schug, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, Rhubarb, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

I Worried

Posted on May 6, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Life has aspects we cannot change about and worrying simply comes to nothing as Mary Oliver suggests. There are many things we do not control even when we think we can. It is important to let go and recognize these phenomena as part of the unfolding of life.

Although Mary Oliver includes phenomena outside our control, she includes advice on how to deal with the lack of control. We can go out and sing or act in ways that are creative and life-giving. We can accept the world as it is and not try to correct it. Nature will do what she naturally learns to do. Our role is to be in the world, live in it lovingly, and attempt to do no harm in our living.

We control certain phenomena in the sense we can avoid what is destructive, but there are things that we learn and taught in living naturally.

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall

I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,

lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And gave it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

25 Comments

Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, I Worried, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

When Someone Deeply Listens To You

Posted on May 3, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

When we listen to our self closely and deeply, we open our self up to listening to others and the world deeply. In turn, the world and others are able to listen to us deeply as we create vulnerable spaces exposing ourselves and holding that dented cup out with certainty that others will respond.

John Fox wrote this poem about others listening to us. The process begins within us and moves out. When we are unable to listen to our self, we should not expect others can listen to the person we are unable to listen to, our self. Spending time in meditation, taking Sabbath breaks makes this possible.

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you’ve had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your barefeet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

40 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged community, creativity, John Fox, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer, When Someone Deeply Listens To You. Bookmark the permalink.

Elegance

Posted on May 3, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Kathy and I drove to British Columbia today. It is about an eight-hour drive so lots of time for quiet and conversation. Driving through mountains there is a lot to behold in the pure silence married to nature’s stillness.

At one point, Kathy commented how at this time of year the mountains in the distant seem closer with snow coming down further. During the summer, the mountains are snow-free and do not stand out the same way. Today, it looked like there had been snow in the past couple of days contrasting the darkness.

Linda Gregg’s poem captures how human silence provides humans with opportunities to witness nature’s pure stillness. In moments of pure silence, we feel ourselves embedded in something larger containing us and everything else. There is a sense of smallness and, yet, a sense of largeness in this exquisite elegance. In these moments, we feel a deep sense of caring from the world and towards the world.

All that is uncared for.

Left alone in the stillness

in that pure silence married

to the stillness of nature.

A door off its hinges,

shade and shadows in an empty room.

Leaks for light. Raw where

the tin roof rusted through.

The rustle of weeds in their

different kinds of air in the mornings,

year after year.

A pecan tree, and the house

made out of mud bricks. Accurate

and unexpected beauty, rattling

and singing. If not to the sun,

then to nothing and to no one.

11 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Elegance, Linda Gregg, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

What Was Told, That

Posted on April 30, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Rumi wrote poetry 900 years ago and it still resonates in the 21st Century. We see the world change and live in its busyness trying to keep pace with the change. It is hard to turn inwards, see the beauty that exists within, and acknowledging its importance in helping us keep pace.

Regardless of faith and even when we do not have it, there still exists a source deep within each of us that when we touch it and let it speak to us is able to guide us in wonderful and amazing ways. I found the peaceful drive today in the lee of the Rocky Mountains inspirational and something that I share with the world and with each person in the world.

What was said to the rose that made it open was said

to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong

and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made

sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in

Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush

like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in

language, that’s happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,

chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

10 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, Rumi, teacher as transformer, What Was Told That. Bookmark the permalink.

Initiation Song from the Finders Lodge

Posted on April 25, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

I did not realize Ursula LeGuin wrote poetry I knew she wrote prose and the poetry was a pleasant surprise.

Besides the last line about always coming home, two other lines stood out. The first was letting my fingertips be my maps. This suggested being in touch with the world I live in; feeling it in a visceral way. When I close my eyes, the world reaches into me through my body. In there, the world lives in my soul which is house which is not a house. That feels Zen-like.

Ted Aoki wrote about bridges which were not bridges. Teachers invite students into learning. In those spaces, anything happens and teachers intuit their way around.

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well-loved one,
walk mindfully, well-loved one,
walk fearlessly, well-loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
be always coming home.

12 Comments

Posted in 21st Century Education, Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, education, Initiation Song from the Finders Lodge, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, servant-leadership, spirituality, stewardship, teacher as transformer, Ted Aoki, Ursuala K. LeGuin. Bookmark the permalink.

Back from the Fields

Posted on April 23, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

When we are children, we are free to just be. Somehow, we lose this being as we mature. We are serious, but it is fun, fantastic, and ordinary things that make a good day.

Peter Everwine reminds me when returning from the fields it is important to remember visible and invisible reminders of what makes a good day. Sometimes, it is barbs, snaggle-teeth, and grinning ones that are easily overlooked. I don’t notice what attached as I ran in the fields. I recall them later as literal and figurative reminders of my adventures.

Until nightfall my son ran in the fields,

looking for God knows what.

Flowers, perhaps. Odd birds on the wing.

Something to fill an empty spot.

Maybe a luminous angel

or a country girl with a secret dark.

He came back empty-handed,

or so I thought.

Now I find them:

thistles, goatheads,

the barbed weeds

all those with hooks or horns

the snaggle-toothed, the grinning ones

those wearing lantern jaws,

old ones in beards, leapers

in silk leggings, the multiple

pocked moons and spiny satellites, all those

with juices and saps

like the fingers of thieves

nation after nation of grasses

that dig in, that burrow, that hug winds

and grab handholds

in whatever lean place.

It’s been a good day.

44 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Back from the Fields, creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Peter Everwine, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Lie Down

Posted on April 19, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Nancy Paddock wrote this wonderful poem about letting go and just being in the world and not separate from it. I loved her imagery created in getting me down to ground level where we can live differently.

When I am at ground level, I am in the world and not outside and over it. I spend time in sabbatical wandering uncharted territory. This theme is emerging in my dissertation where I compare teaching to a hermeneutic exploration of the classroom, it participants, and living topics like a rich, textured landscape we navigate relationally. At ground level, teachers encounter, interpret, and understand a particular world that is their teaching and no one else’s teaching.

Parker Palmer has a quote about teachers using technique until the real teacher shows up. It takes time and patience; togetherness and solitude to bring this about. As I write and read, I think about what that meant and means to me as a particular teacher who is still coming to be in new ways particular to me.

Lie down with your belly to the ground,
like an old dog in the sun. Smell
the greenness of the cloverleaf, feel the damp
earth through your clothes, let an ant
wander the uncharted territory
of your skin. Lie down
with your belly to the ground. Melt into
the earth’s contours like a harmless snake.
All else is mere bravado.
Let your mind resolve itself
in a tangle of grass.
Lie down with your belly
to the ground, flat out, on ground level.
Prostrate yourself before the soil
you will someday enter.
Stop doing.
Stop judging, fearing, trying.
This is not dying, but the way to live
in a world of change and gravity.
Let go. Let your burdens drop.
Let your grief-charge bleed off
into the ground.
Lie down with your belly to the ground
and then rise up
with the earth still in you.