Category Archives: Uncategorized

Gratitude is a Consistent Conversation

Posted on February 15, 2019 by ivonprefontaine

via Gratitude is a Consistent Conversation

Tina shares a wonderful post about gratitude.

I am in Phoenix for a few days and enjoy hiking whenever I go to somewhere new. The other day, I went with Kathy and others. It was a beautiful walk in the midst of an urban, which is not always visible, setting revealing its desert ecosystem.

As we walked, we talked about the beauty of the desert and the subtle colours and the richness revealed. To take note of the world we live in and who we share it with, animate and inanimate, is a part of the conversation we have to express our gratitude. For me, an essential aspect of the conversation is being attentive and mindful of the world I share.

Skyline Regional Park February 13

In this picture, you can see the skyline of the city in the background.

Skyline Regional Park February 13 #3

Skyline Regional Park February 13 #2

In the other pictures, there was a focus on the desert and its richness.

I apologize for the lack of editing on the pictures. I am using new apps and learning how to share and edit with them on the fly.

Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged blogging, conversational journey, Dialogue, environment, Gratitude, life, nature, Phoenix, Practical Practice Management, relationships, sharing, Tina Del Buono, writing. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments

Dance of the reef heron…

Posted on February 7, 2019 by ivonprefontaine

via Dance of the reef heron…

Sriram shares beautiful photos from nature along with poetry and quotes to complement.

Wendell Berry reminds me nature is a place of refuge among the wild things we share the universe with. It is in those spaces we dance with the heron and others.

Nadia Janice provokes me to pause and experience what I imagine as flight. Here, I imagine in ways the universe becomes even more than I experience it in my senses.

Several years ago, I wrote a class paper sharing how the Psalmists and Psalms resonated God’s voice and vision of the universe humans live in with all other creatures and natural phenonmenon. Our anscestors understood the universe as a place of wonder and imagined how it spoke to them and revealed itself in divine ways.

Posted in Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Social Justice, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged environment, faith, life, Living With a Damaged Skull, Nadia Janice, nature, photography, relationships, Sriram Janak, travel, Wendell Berry, writing. Bookmark the permalink. 12 Comments

A Poet is …..

Posted on January 25, 2019 by ivonprefontaine

via A Poet is …..

There is no shortage of quotes in this post by Penumbra Haiku, so I will not go through them.

Although she did not describe writing poetry in this quote, I add one from Mary Oliver: “I want to think of dangerous and noble things/I want to be light and frolicsome/I want to be improbable, beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings.”

When I write poetry, I want to be light, frolicsome, and play with language as my dangerous and noble thoughts take form and flight. In those moments, I appreciate living in the midst of wilderness that has no words, but is expressed somehow.

I took this video of the Spokane Falls two years ago, during a period of record high water flow. It reminds me that, even in the middle of a city, I am in the midst of my own wilderness seeking to be expressed.

Posted in Blogging, Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged blogging, language, life, Mary Oliver, nature, photography, poetry, Spokane Falls, video, wilderness, writing. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments

All One

Posted on January 23, 2019 by ivonprefontaine

via All One

Bela posted a lovely poem with a series of beautiful photos related to memories and re-membering. When we re-member, we make things whole with all members in place without surrendering mystery we cannot fully understand. Like a community, each member is related to one another.

The picture of the gnarled trees drew me. The trees remind me moving through time is not a fixed and linear path. Instead, beauty reveals itself in the detours and crags, re-membered as I reflect on where I have soujourned, joyous and painful. I am marked by joy and pain I experience.

I took this picture in Jasper National Park several years ago. The roots in random ways have emerged from the stones, offering a path up the hill amongst the trees they are connected to.

Posted in Blogging, Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged Bela's Bright Ideas, blogging, life, memories, mystery, nature, relationships, trees, writing. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments

Relative Sanity, Walls and Thomas Merton

Posted on January 21, 2019 by ivonprefontaine

via Relative Sanity, Walls and Thomas Merton

Bruce shared insights into how community is formed. He did this through the words of Thomas Merton.

I loved the first two words of the title of this post: relative sanity. Parker Palmer reminds me to be in relationship with others and the world I live in is always relative, but not relative where amoral is the norm.

It is relative based as it binds through common humanity we share with each other. We are related to and relate to each other. Cornel West suggests we are brothers and sisters in a genealogical line going back to times we do not remember, yet provides memory.

Thomas Merton suggests when we fall in love, we are vulnerable and risk being hurt. Living in community comes with vulnerability and risk, as well.

I took this picture several years ago and the waterfalls remind me of how the river has a memory of where it came from and. at the same time, it carves a new path forward. In carving its new path, it does so in concert with the rest of the world it flows through.

Posted in Blogging, Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, Social Justice, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged blogging, Bruce Witzel, Cornel West, ecology, environment, humans, life, love, Parker Palmer, social justice, Thomas Merton, Through the Luminary Lens. Bookmark the permalink. 9 Comments

Yes Mary. Everything Does. And Too Soon. Way Too Soon. (RIP)

Posted on January 18, 2019 by ivonprefontaine

via Yes Mary. Everything Does. And Too Soon. Way Too Soon. (RIP)

David shared Mary Oliver’s poem Summer in this post.

This poem poses many questions from its opening line to the closing. Who creates life and nature? How will I live my one wild and wonderful life? These questions are about the essence and mystery of life and living.

At the end of his post, David shared from another Mary Oliver poem, When Death Comes: “When it’s over, I want to say all my life/ I was a bride married to amazement.” If I only live a small portion of my life in amazement, I can fulfill what calls me to live most fully.

One of the amazing things about Mary Oliver’s poetry is, although she is physically removed, her voice remains alive and vibrant in the words she so eloquently shared with us.

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I took this picture in Jasper National Park several years ago. The flow of the river as it narrows becomes wilder and reminds me of the wildness I seek in life.

Posted in Blogging, Community, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged blogging, community, David Kanigan, essence, life, Live and Learn, Mary Oliver, mystery, poem, poetry, Summer, writing poetry. Bookmark the permalink. 12 Comments

The World Goes On

Posted on January 16, 2019 by ivonprefontaine

via The World Goes On

With his post, Eddie provided me with an opportunity to share and reflect on a Mary Oliver‘s poem Wild Geese.

The poem is about belonging to the larger family we each live within. It is also about being who we are and not fretting about what that might mean. Certainly, it is essential to living to reflect on who we are and who we are becoming, but we sometimes we let this become greater than the life we are living.

I think to experience the world and living most fully I need to be present and mindful of what I am experiencing and letting go in each moment. This is challenging, as the human mind scurries here and there, but, when I let go and am present, the riches are enriching and add to the becoming in ways I cannot predict and caculate in advance.

Moon Rise

I took this picture at Radium Hot Springs during an evening walk while on retreat there. I was surrounded by all the beauty nature has to offer in these moments.

Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged Eddie Two Hawks, life, Mary Oliver, nature, nature walks, photography, poetry, Radium Hot Springs, wild geese, writing. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments

New Beginnings

Posted on January 14, 2019 by ivonprefontaine

via New Beginnings

Wildflower Women posted a lovely quote from Mary Oliver ushering in 2019.

We celebrate moments as if they are unique to a particular time. To be present and live in the world fully, perhaps each moment is a New Year flowing endlessly in the form of a river.

As I embrace the present moment, I kiss possibilities of what will be in the following moment without knowing this in advance.

Whitehead contended the present moment is holy ground where the past and future are always meeting and becoming whole. Holy, whole, and healing are linked etymologically.

Kathy took this photo as we travelled to BC just over a year ago.

Posted in Blogging, Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged Alfred North Whitehead, blogging, imagine, Mary Oliver, Mindful, mindfulness, New Year, presence, Wildflower Women. Bookmark the permalink. 9 Comments

The Wisdom of the Universe in a Blade of Grass

Posted on January 11, 2019 by ivonprefontaine

via The Wisdom of the Universe in a Blade of Grass

Strawberry Indigo posted a wonderful piece that included some of my favourite writers: Walt Whitman, Mary Oliver, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Rabindranath Tagore each writing about a blade of grass and its wisdom.

It reminded me of the passage from Matthew 6:26 about lilies of the field, which exist for the sole purpose of their existence: “consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.They don’t toil, neither do they spin.” Other writers have made reference to lilies of the field. For example, Edith Wharton critiqued the rich and famous for their idle ways.

To be is to live fully and experience in living. It is to be present, living in the moment and mindful of the world as we experience it.

Daffodils, Lake, and Mountain in Glacier

Kathy took this picture of flowers, grass, trees, a lake, and mountains in Glacier National Park. Each of them just exists to be in the world, filling a particular role. One role is to make the world a better and beautiful place.

Posted in Blogging, Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized and tagged Consider How the Lilies Grow, Glacier National Park MT, Mary Oliver, mindfulness, presence, Rabindranath Tagore, Strawberry Indigo, Thich Nhat Hanh, Walt Whitman. Bookmark the permalink. 14 Comments

Feel a River

Posted on January 8, 2019 by ivonprefontaine

via Feel a River

Eddie shares a quote from Rumi. It reminded joy flows like a river through life. It takes on meaning in ways I cannot anticipate.

Fraser River Near Headwaters

I took this picture of Kathy and the Fraser River in East Central British Columbia. Around the bend is a waterfall one can hear, but not see from this vantage. The river flows.