Category Archives: Sabbath

Children

Posted on December 22, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

This is my first Christmas not teaching, but I think of what it means to be in the classroom frequently and the impact adults have on children. Children are nature’s gift. They are the future and need to be nurtured and cherished in that respect. Christmas is a time we can remember the gifts we sometimes take for granted for the rest of the year. It is a time to pause and recall the reason for the season. It was a particularly important gift brought to us in the form of a child that we can see and understand in the form of our children.

Children–

Nature’s gift;

Craft and hone–

Appreciate their future;

Nurture and cherish–

Under watchful gaze mature,

Cradled in loving community.

Elders shepherd;

Care and tend–

A most precious flock

Share wise words

Open hearts

Act prudently

Generous, ceaseless, joyful work

9 Comments

Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged children, Christmas, community, creativity, education, Mindful Practice, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

The Old Poets of China

Posted on December 17, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I am back including my posts. Mary Oliver wrote this beautiful and short poem which points out the need for quiet time. I accomplished a lot during my break. I flew home twice and am back in Edmonton for Christmas. I spent the time away from the blog completing the course work and getting ready for the next part of the journey: my dissertation writing.

Wherever I am, the world comes after me.

It offers me its busyness. It does not believe

that I do not want it. Now I understand

why the old poets of China went so far and high

into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.

33 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, sabbath, teacher as transformer, The Old Poets of China. Bookmark the permalink.

Parable

Posted on November 17, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

As I check out for Sabbath, I came across this playful poem by Richard Wilbur. Some days, it is nice to allow the horse to find the way home. It would our personal quixotic and random journey on that given day.

I found this poem n a book about reading and writing poetry called Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver. The great poets have an eye for great poetry. Life is a dance that brings its own rules.

I read how Quixote in his random ride

Came to a crossing once, and lest he lose

The purity of chance, would not decide

Whither to fare, but wished his horse to choose.

For glory lay wherever he might turn.

His head was light with pride, his horse’s shoes

Were heavy, and he headed for the barn.

5 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, Don Quixote, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, Parable, poetry, Richard Wilbur, sabbath, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Shepherd

Posted on October 26, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I have a three-week break and will head home for a couple of weeks on Monday, so will be offline for a couple of days. It is a longer sabbath than normal, but it will be a long day on Monday. The wanderer is going from thought country and will find his way home as William Stafford suggested in this poem. We are each shepherded home in some fashion, at some time.

According to the silence, winter has arrived—

a special kind of winter. I, its inventor,

watch it freeze in calendars and stare

out of clocks. I do not feel its cold.

Across a certain farm evening crows go flying,

intervals of the sky that I have seen before,

the bearing of a river. I advance, a wanderer

out of thought country, that serious quiet place,

Till according to the silence all the light is gone

and according to the dark all wanderers are home.

27 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, poetry, Shepherd, spirituality, teacher as transformer, William Stafford. Bookmark the permalink.

The Need to Win

Posted on October 19, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Yesterday, I was writing and getting ready for class this morning. I pulled The Promise of Paradox by Parker Palmer off the shelf and looked for a reference. When I opened the book, it was to the page with this poem on it. When I focus on the need to win, as Chuang Tzu suggested, I am drained of power and divided against myself. The way to victory is to let go of the chase for victory and the avoidance of defeat.

We talked about the binary world we live in. Winning and losing are part of this binary. They sit at extremes and point in opposite directions. When I let go of and let myself enter the between space, I find my way better.

Take care and enjoy Sabbath.

When an archer is shooting for nothing

He has all the skill.

If he shoots for a brass buckle

He is already nervous.

If he shoots for a prize of gold

He goes blind

Or sees two targets—

He is out of his mind!

His skill has not changed. But the prize

Divides him. He cares.

He thinks more of winning

Than of shooting—

And the need to win

Drains him of power.

15 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged Chuang-Tzu, creativity, leadership, Mindful Practice, Parker Palmer, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, The Tao. Bookmark the permalink.

The Sunset

Posted on October 14, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

There is an interdependence I often lose track of in life when I get busy. It was nice to get away from the reading and writing for a few days. Black Elk, a holy man of the Oglala Lakota, said these words many years ago and they resonate with me today.

I recognize that interconnectedness when I allow myself to find a higher vantage point. My daily life, surrounded with by busyness, focuses me on the particulars. The spiritual vantage point, which elevates me, allows me to see sometimes the fuller circle.

Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all,

And round beneath me was the whole hoop of the world

And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell

And I understood more than I saw

For I was seeing in the sacred manner the shape of all things of the spirit!

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that make one circle, wide as daylight and starlight,

And in the center grew one mighty flowering tree.

12 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged Black Elk, community, creativity, Mindful Practice, nature, Oglala Lakota, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, The Sunset. Bookmark the permalink.

The Blessing

Posted on October 10, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I begin an extended Sabbath tomorrow morning with a three-day retreat. It has been a productive week and it feels good to take a break from the reading and writing.

I came across this poem by James Wright yesterday. It speaks about the gifts and blessings I miss when I are not attentive. Part of the progress has been a result of good conversations which, at every turn, seem to add something new to the thinking needed to move forward. By looking at what is there, I find what I search for and blossom.

Just off the highway to Rochester Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken within kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tuffs of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is as delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

21 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, James Wright, Mindful Practice, poetry, sabbath, teacher as transformer, The Blessing. Bookmark the permalink.

The Week End

Posted on October 6, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I was sitting in the library this afternoon and this began to form first in my head then on the screen. Usually, there is an intermediate phase and I jot something down. This was more spontaneous than normal and I think it is a bit rough around the edges, but I liked it when I re-read it.

The week end–

Sabbath arrives;

I disconnect–

I find new rhythm;

Here, I am soul full–

Here, my soul retrieves me.

It’s a mystery–

Reveals undefinable spaciousness;

Sans mots–

Without sound, it rescues me;

Yet, I hear its voice–

It offers refuge;

It guides me home.

17 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, The Week Ends. Bookmark the permalink.

Making Peace

Posted on September 29, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Denise Levertov wrote this wonderful and I think it is a good way to bring my week to an end as I head to Sabbath. Stephen at Grow Mercy posted this earlier and I did try to share it with those who follow my blog. It did not make it over and this was the next best thing I could do to get it to you folks. Take a moment and visit Stephen’s blog.

I used a lesson plan with my students where we talked about a culture of war and a culture of peace. They had to describe each one and we did them separately. We have many more words that come to mind when we talk about peace. I filled whiteboard, they would share for an hour, be disappointed when it was over, and the quiet ones were always present. There is a presence in peace. The students ran out of ways to describe a culture of war very quickly.

A voice from the dark called out,

“The poets must give us

imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar

imagination of disaster. Peace, not only

the absence of war.”

But peace, like a poem,

is not there ahead of itself,

can’t be imagined before it is made,

in the words of its making,

grammar of justice

syntax of mutual aid.

A feeling towards it,

dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have

until we begin to utter its metaphors,

learning them as we speak.

A line of peace might appear

if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,

revoked its affirmation of profit and power,

questioned our needs, allowed

long pauses. …

A cadence of peace might balance its weight

on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,

an energy field more intense than war,

might pulse then,

stanza by stanza entering the world,

each act living

one of its words, each word

a vibration of light–facets

of the forming crystal.

14 Comments

Posted in Education, Lesson Plans, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, Social Justice and tagged creativity, Denise Levertov, education, eloquent questions, Grow Mercy, Making Peace, Mindful Practice, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Modern Life and Activism

Posted on September 24, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, shared this many years ago. It resonates even more in 2013 as we find ourselves entrenched in busy lives and struggle to find our way out of the activism and overwork. He suggested it is a form of violence on ourselves that does not let us find restful moments. The more inner peace we have the more we can share it with others. We host ourselves first and others feel invited into the banquet that results.

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence … [and that is] activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.

The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work [and life] fruitful.”