Tag Archives: Gadamer

The Wine and the Cup -Rumi

Posted on September 22, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Rumi‘s poetry resonates through the centuries. This short verse reminded me that life is the way we are open up to it. What we receive depends on the number and quality of windows allowing light to enter life.

Gadamer referred to the questions we ask, which open up life, as eloquent . We enter questions as though they are living without presupposed answers ready for exploring.

The moonlight shines into our questions and the size of the cup is of our making. The quality of life is the quality of the windows in our life. Do we age like good wine as we mature? Are we mindful to the character of our living?

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Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged conversational journey, creativity, eloquent questions, Gadamer, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Rumi, teacher as transformer, The Wine and the Cup. Bookmark the permalink.

Harrowing

Posted on July 18, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Parker Palmer wrote this poem with double-meaning in the title. I can live life as a process which ravages, furrows, and scars m face. Living in the past does this. Life is harrowing that way. Or, I leave the travails of yesterday as humis or humility as a foundation for a new crop. I can turn soil, make it richer, and create a greener world.

The poem reminded me of Gadamer‘s concept of fused horizons which is emerging as a central concept in my journey. We can build on the past by using it, good and bad, as a way of making the future a better place. Today’s view; this moment is the place we find our way from.

The plow has savaged this sweet field

Misshapen clods of earth kicked up

Rocks and twisted roots exposed to view

Last year’s growth demolished by the blade.

I have plowed my life this way

Turned over a whole history

Looking for the roots of what went wrong

Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.

Enough. This job is done.

Whatever’s been uprooted, let it be.

Seedbed for the growing that’s to come.

I plowed to unearth last year’s reasons—