Category Archives: Sabbath

Untitled (Where are you going)

Posted on August 17, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

We flew across Canada today, returning from holidays. We spent time in nature and exploring historical roots in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Maine but is nice to be going home.

We discussed that this is the first time we went on an extended holiday in many years. We spent over two weeks on the road and it is tiring. The days we stayed put and did not move from one place to another allowed us to recoup.

This poem reminded me of home’s importance. When we stop and take a moment to see the place we call home through new eyes, we see and feel its heart, the rhythm of what home means. Peter Levitt concluded it is in extraordinary moments we find the place closest to our hearts.

I am reading James Hillman and he suggested we sometimes limit our thinking about the heart to a physiological pump. The heart serves a greater purpose in that we find our purpose within it and have courage to follow those purposes. It is being in the moment we find courage and confidence to feel at home in each moment. The heart is a rhythmic source for our moment-to-moment journeying. We are always going somewhere and it is important to be at home wherever we end up.

Where you are going

and the place you stay

come to the same thing.

What you long for

and what you have left behind

are as useless as your name.

Just one time, walk out

into the field and look

at that towering oak—

an acorn still beating at its heart.

5 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, James Hillman, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Peter Levitt, poetry, teacher as transformer, Where Are You Going. Bookmark the permalink.

O Slave, Liberate Yourself.

Posted on August 9, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

The second stanza drew me into Kabir‘s poem. We search for homes throughout life. It is right there embedded in each moment. When I am awake in each moment, the search is easier. I become aware and attentive sensing each moment’s transience.

When we let go and stop grasping, we are released from slavery and tyranny chasing tails and tales. When we fail and chase, the feeling enslaves us and it is worse than death. Living each moment is the antidote to this feeling and is liberating.

O Slave, liberate yourself.

Where are you, and where’s your home,
find it in your lifetime, man.

If you fail to wake up now,
you’ll be helpless when the end comes.

Says Kabir, listen, O wise one,
the siege of Death is hard to withstand.

13 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, Kabir, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, O Slave Liberate Yourself, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Walking Meditation

Posted on August 3, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

We attended a wedding yesterday and it was late when I got home. I prepared this post in advance and took a few minutes today to post it. After this, I begin or re-begin sabbath, which was largely a Saturday and Sunday event this week.

When the boys were young, we would get up on weekends and go for a walk. The boys wanted to hold our hands. One son always checked my hands out. He often started with my left hand and I felt his fingers checking my palm. Not finding what he wanted he moved to the right side and completed the search. My right hand is scarred from various events and scar tissue built up leaving a bump. As we walked, our son would hold that hand and now and again rubbed the scar and bump. I don’t know if it was that reassured him, he was reassuring me, a combination of those things, or none of the above. In those moments, it was easy to sense being, linked together and holding hands.

In today’s world, we hurry to get somewhere. It is not clear where somewhere is and we are victims to trying to get out of this moment. Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us we should walk peacefully, not thinking of arriving anywhere but here. When we do this, we walk in peace and walking is peace. In holding hands, we touch each moment and kiss Earth with our feet. We feel Earth through and in our feet, its scars and make it safer for us and Earth.

We see commercials with people holding hands singing about making the world a better place. In hand-holding, we are linked physically and united. It is not an abstraction as we feel other people and Earth in linking and walking.

Take my hand.
We will walk.
We will only walk.
We will enjoy our walk
without thinking of arriving anywhere.
Walk peacefully.
Walk happily.
Our walk is a peace walk.
Our walk is a happiness walk.

Then we learn
that there is no peace walk;
that peace is the walk;
that there is no happiness walk;
that happiness is the walk.
We walk for ourselves.
We walk for everyone
always hand in hand.

Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom under our feet.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Print on Earth your love and happiness.

Earth will be safe
when we feel in us enough safety.

22 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged community, conversational journey, creativity, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Thich Nhat Hanh, Walking Meditation. Bookmark the permalink.

When I Am Wise

Posted on July 26, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

I am not sure which Mary Gray wrote this poem. I found it, enjoyed it, and wanted to share it with others.

The poem has a Mary Oliver quality to it. Something speaks to us when we give it time and space. When we listen carefully, the wind blows through the grass giving its a voice we hear when we slow down resting our head on the ground. Humbling ourselves, we are closer to the voices of small things, the dankness of humus (the root word for human and humility), and the friendliness of weeds in our life.

As children, we often forgot our names losing ourselves in precious moments in a world larger than we were. It enveloped us and everything it revealed was wondrous. We recall running with outreached hands into the world, its silence, its disarray, and the inviting of small things in the grass which were more at our level. I remember the ladybugs, spiders, ants, etc. which were smaller than I was, entranced by them and by all that was immense. It was in those moments I was wise as I listened in ways that sometimes escape me as an adult.

When I am wise in the speech of the grass,
I forget the sound of words
and walk into the bottomland
and lie with my head on the ground
and listen to what grass tells me
and small places for wind to sing,
about the labor of insects,
about shadows dank with spice,
and the friendliness of weeds.

When I am wise in the dance of grass,
I forget my name and run
into the rippling bottomland
and lean against the silence which flows
out of the crumpled mountains
and rises through slick blades, pods,
wheat stems, and curly shoots,
and is carried by wind for miles
from my outstretched hands.

17 Comments

Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged community, creativity, Mary Gray, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, When I Am Wise. Bookmark the permalink.

The Loon

Posted on July 19, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

I woke up Friday morning at about 2:30 AM and could not get back to sleep. Finally, I turned the light on and read from a book by Jacques Derrida. It was not as exotic as hearing a loon out on the lake Mary Oliver writes about, but I found refuge reading about the Derridean concept différance.

The word is a deliberate misspelling of the word difference in French and the verb differer which means both to defer and differ. It is the space and time we defer to what and who is different as we encounter it and them. A person would not hear the difference (différance) in speech, but would see it in print. Still, if I did not know the word, I could easily not see the difference in writing.

Needless to say, I found my way back to sleep in the magical reading I found in the hour or so that lapsed. Today, I recalled the times camping, hiking, fishing, etc. where the loon called and I stopped wondering whether it spoke to me or someone else in that moment? Was it deferring to some difference I could not sense and imagine.

Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive
strikes me from sleep, and I rise
from the comfortable bed and go
to another room, where my books are lined up
in their neat and colorful rows. How

magical they are! I choose one
and open it. Soon
I have wandered in over the waves of the words
to the temple of thought.

And then I hear
outside, over the actual waves, the small,
perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,
and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out
to the fading moon, to the pink flush
swelling in the east that, soon,
will become the long, reasonable day.

Inside the house
it is still dark, except for the pool of lamplight
in which I am sitting.

I do not close the book.

Neither, for a long while, do I read on.

12 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, eloquent questions, Jacques Derrida, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, teacher as transformer, The Loon. Bookmark the permalink.

The Guest House

Posted on July 12, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Rumi wrote this beautiful poem 800 years ago. The message rings true today although we might resist it at times. Perhaps, in busyness and haste, we avoid the messages received in the guest house that our being and becoming entails. When we slow down encountering each guest as a transient event moving on, we learn lessons learned readily and easily.

In sabbath moments, whether a few minutes, hours, or days, we welcome these unexpected visitors. We recognize they will leave and, in treating them honourably, they may move along quickly allowing delight to return.

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.

26 Comments

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

Good Night

Posted on July 6, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

I was not in the US for the first time in several years for July 4. Yesterday, I recalled how it was unusual and refreshing to greeted with “Happy 4th” when I would meet people and go into various businesses in Spokane. For one day, I found differences seemed to be set aside and there was a celebratory feel in the air.

Carl Sandburg suggested there are many ways to say good night. As I enter my week-end Sabbath, the July 4 weekend ends. The word spell has several meanings. We can think spelling words in a living and celebratory story and we can think of it as a magical feeling experienced in living life with the fullest awareness possible.

Many ways to say good night.

Fireworks at a pier on the Fourth of July
spell it with red wheels and yellow spokes.
They fizz in the air, touch the water and quit.
Rockets make a trajectory of gold-and-blue
and then go out.

Railroad trains at night spell with a smokestack mushrooming a white pillar.

Steamboats turn a curve in the Mississippi crying a baritone that crosses lowland cottonfields to razorback hill.

It is easy to spell good night.
Many ways to spell good night.

6 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged Carl Sandburg, community, creativity, Fourth of July, Good Night, July 4, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry. Bookmark the permalink.

Words

Posted on June 29, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

I read Emmanuel Levinas today. He suggested we experience phenomena in sensual immediacy. There is no recapturing the full essence in words. Humans are blessed with words which transform what we experience into something less or something other than its essence.

I attended a meeting the other night and another person commented when we name something it creates a permanency and assumes characteristics according to categories. In a way, the experience become inert.

Dana Gioia points out words’ shortcomings. This is not positive or negative, but is about awareness. When entering into each moment, it is important to fully experience that very moment which is indescribable. The world is filled with wonder and is thus wonderful. We recall that nature, living and non-living, needs no verbal praise. Our relationships and living in the world we co-inhabit are praise the praise. We need not summon airy words, but can sink into the living world’s sensuality. Sabbath provides opportunities for silence, deeper exploring, and the praise we offer without words.

The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.

And one word transforms it into something less or other—
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.

Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper—
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always—
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.

30 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, Dana Gioia, Emmanuel Levinas, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer, Words. Bookmark the permalink.

Biology: A Course Review

Posted on June 14, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

I read this poem several times. It brings to life the hidden reciprocity of life. Humans take for granted the way living happens and all phenomena are co-dependent. I read a bit of Alphonso Lingis today and he pointed out life is contingent upon relationships enveloped in reciprocity placing us in vulnerable spaces in this world we cohabit with all phenomena.

Maryiln McEntyre‘s poem reminds me of the vulnerability we encounter in life without realizing it. Life is, at once and paradoxically, strong and precarious. We cannot own something we hold in common with another and others. Humans encounter life as a covenant when we accept both its strength and fragility.

If you forget what axons do,
or how a virus invades a cell,
remember this—

that light becomes food.
That the seasons rhyme,
a different word each time

turning soil into living song.
That all things work together.
Even death. Even decay.

That this is the way
of the world we got: what is given
grows by grace and care

and knows what it needs.
That life is strong, and precarious,
full of devices and desires.

That what we hold in common
may not be owned. Control
is costly. Close attention

is the reverence due
whatever lives and moves,
mutant and quick and clever.

That our neighbors—
the plankton, the white pine,
the busy nematodes–

serve us best
in reciprocal gratitude:
what they receive, they give.

The way the heart accepts
what the vein delivers and sends it on,
again. Again.

12 Comments

Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged Alphonso Lingis, Biology: A Course Review, community, creativity, Marilyn Mcentyre, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Wind, Water, Stone

Posted on June 7, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

We continuously act on the world and it acts on us. There is a constant interacting shaping us and the world. Sabbath represents a space when we take time, a few moments, an entire day, and try meet the world more fully. We step beyond the busyness and entering a welcoming spaciousness that holds us.

Octavio Paz provided a beautiful metaphor that brings the continuous interacting to life. Humans, similar to water, wind, stone, hollow spaces, disperse their gifts, and provide shelter for each other. We act in ways offering uplifting opportunities to others . As we step into Sabbath’s spaciousness, we encounter the sculptures, the holding spaces, and the transforming that is always happening around us and in us. We take time and sing, whisper, and find stillness in those spaces.

The water hollowed the stone,
the wind dispersed the water,
the stone stopped the wind.
Water and wind and stone.

The wind sculpted the stone,
the stone is a cup of water,
The water runs off and is wind.
Stone and wind and water.

The wind sings in its turnings,
the water murmurs as it goes,
the motionless stone is quiet.
Wind and water and stone.

One is the other and is neither:
among their empty names
they pass and disappear,
water and stone and wind.