It is the end of a busy week. It might be the busiest since I came home from Spokane. I don’t coach ice hockey any more, but I help in several ways. For example, I am helping a young man who coached with me several years ago get a hockey related business off the ground. I also facilitate coaching clinics which help coaches with their work. In Canada, this is a time of the year when hockey is busy. It is important to take a break, a Sabbath from the busyness and business.
I came across this poem by Hermann Hesse who is better known as an author of fiction such as Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Journey to the East. He was a wonderful writer of prose writing in a poetic and mystic voice.
The poem reminds me to stop and pause, to listen attentively to the world and my self. It is in the mindfulness that I hear the questions being asked by the world and me. It is in those silences that the world and I create together speaking to each other in richness in our silences.
Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
Or a dog howls in a far off farm,
I hold still and listen a long time.
My soul turns and goes back to the place
Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
The bird and the blowing wind
Were like me, and were my brothers.
My soul turns into a tree,
And an animal, and a cloud bank.
Then changed and odd it comes home
And asks me questions. What should I reply?
Teacher as Transformer 