Tag Archives: leadership

Invictus

Posted on December 28, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Life is a spiritual event. Those people and things we love inspire us to keep our heads up and our souls unconquerable. William Ernest Henley provided us with wonderful words that echo this way of understanding life and its relationships.

Apparently, this was Nelson Mandela’s favourite poem. When I read it, I understand what made it important in his life and what it reveals about leadership.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

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Posted in Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Invictus, leadership, Mindful Practice, Nelson Mandeal, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, William Ernest Henley. Bookmark the permalink.

Dharma

Posted on December 24, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

The way the world and the universe are in order is something we take for granted in daily life. We overlook the ordinary, but there is importance layered in the ordinary. It is here we find the extraordinary. We come and go and, when we pay attention, so much is revealed about the world and the way we help create it.

Billy Collins shared a common, everyday way to examine the patterns of life, the Dharma of the world we live with all the time by examining a dog and the way she lives life without worrying about life.

The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her dog house
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Ghandi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

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Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Billy Collins, creativity, Dharma, leadership, Mindful Practice, philosophy, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

The Contract: A Word From the Led

Posted on December 21, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

We often think of leadership from the perspective of the person in charge. What about those who follow? What does it mean to be led by a particular person? I find, at times, that I get in a hurry to lead and forget to listen which is such an important part of leadership.

William Ayot provided this insightful poem which offers advice for the leader through the eyes of the follower. Leadership is about serving and mindfulness which intersect with integrity.

And in the end we follow them –

not because we are paid,

not because we might see some advantage,

not because of the things they have accomplished,

not even because of the dreams they dream

but simply because of who they are:

the man, the woman, the leader, the boss,

standing up there when the wave hits the rock,

passing out faith and confidence like life jackets,

knowing the currents, holding the doubts,

imagining the delights and terrors of every landfall;

captain, pirate, and parent by turns,

the bearer of our countless hopes and expectations,

We give them our trust. We give them our effort.

What we ask in return is that they stay true.

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Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, leadership, Mindful Practice, poetry, servant-leadership, teacher as transformer, The Contract: A Word from the Led, William Ayot. 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.

[HOW MANY MOMENTS MUST (AMAZING EACH]

Posted on October 10, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I enjoy e. e. cummings‘ poetry. I read it several times and it reminded me of my other reading today. I read Alfred North Whitehead for part of the afternoon. It has been pretty circular as well, but at the end it comes to the same point. Life is full of uncertainty and mystery which is what is worth embracing. A good portion of life is missed if I am not attentive and mindful of the world.

how many moments must(amazing each

how many centuries)these more than eyes

restroll and stroll some never deepening beach

locked in foreverish time’s tide at poise,

love alone understands:only for whom

i’ll keep my tryst until that tide shall turn;

and from all selfsubtracting hugely doom

treasures of reeking innocence are born.

Then, with not credible the anywhere

eclipsing of a spirit’s ignorance

by every wisdom knowledge fears to dare,

how the(myself’s own self who’s)child will dance!

and when he’s plucked such mysteries as men

do not conceive–let ocean grow again

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Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Alfred North Whitehead, creativity, ee cummings, leadership, Mindful Practice, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

East Coker

Posted on October 7, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

As I write, I am beginning to see learning as based on hermeneutics. We learn the world by reading it. We learn about our self by turning in and listening. In all this, we observe and hopefully find meaning. It could be in the form of words, images, and is just as easily what is left out. T. S. Eliot reminds us of the challenges of learning language and finding meaning them in. We learn, unlearn, relearn all in cyclical fashion. We read the world and try to make new sense of it with each iteration as we move back and forth between the whole and the parts to make sense of either. It might seem all a waste, but perhaps it is not.

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years–

Twenty years largely wasted, the years l’entre deux guerres

Trying to use words, and every attemp

Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words

For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which

One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture

Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate

With shabby equipment always deteriorating

In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,

Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer

By strength and submission, has already been discovered

Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope

To emulate–but there is no competition–

There is only the fight to recover what has been lost

And found and lost again and again; and now, under conditions

That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss

For us, there is only the trying, The rest is not our business.

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Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, East Coker, education, hermeneutics, leadership, Mindful Practice, T. S. Eliot, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Tilicho Lake

Posted on September 30, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I used to ice fish. I went with others and would catch a few, usually more than others. Once I caught my fill, I lay on the ice and with my head covered watch fish swim past. Different fish move at different paces. Northern pike ease past the hole and whitefish move much quickly. There was never certainty. I did not know if I was going to catch fish and see fish. Some lakes were too deep, but occasionally a fish would come up the hole and catch a breath of air.

I used to feel like I could leave everything behind and just be. It is much like when Kathy and I hike in the mountains. There is a being that does not count on any certainty. It just is. David Whyte wrote this poem. I think the prayer of rough love is just being there, in the moment, and ready for what comes. There is a beauty in that and I think a fearlessness I need to cultivate.

In this high place

it is as simple as this,

Leave everything you know behind.

Step toward the cold surface,

say the old prayer of rough love

and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands

will stare into the lake astonished,

there, in the cold light

reflecting pure snow,

the true shape of your own face.

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Posted in Leadership, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, David Whyte, leadership, Mindful Practice, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Tilicho Lake. 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.”

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Posted in Mindful Life, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, leadership, Mindful Practice, Modern Life and Activism, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Thomas Merton. Bookmark the permalink.

Vocation

Posted on September 18, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I re-read Parker Palmer‘s Let Your Life Speak. It is the one time of the day I don’t take notes I just read. Last night, I began Dietrich Bonhoeffer‘s Life Together.

Parker Palmer wrote about the shared etymological roots of vocation and voice. William Stafford expressed a similar message. We find our way through life as we make meaning out of life. It comes with the good and the not so good which sometimes, when we look back in the rear view mirror, we realize the reverse is true.

I am reading on my dissertation topic: curriculum and technology use. I chose a couple of books which say the same thing about schooling and it would be a radical departure. Education is about conversations, integrates roles of teacher, student, and subject. We find our stories, our voices, and our calling in life in and through circles of conversation. Here we let the silence speak as well. It is a mindful way to live and requires our full attention.

This dream the world is having about itself
includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,
a groove in the grass my father showed us all
one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell
something better about to happen.

I dreamed the trace to the mountains, over the hills,
and there a girl who belonged wherever she was.
But then my mother called us back to the car:
she was afraid; she always blamed the place,
the time, anything my father planned.

Now both of my parents, the long line through the plain,
the meadowlarks, the sky, the world’s whole dream
remain, and I hear him say while I stand between the two,
helpless, both of them part of me:
“Your job is to find what the world is trying to be.”

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Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, conversational journey, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, education, leadership, Mindful Practice, Parker Palmer, poetry, teacher as transformer, vocation, William Stafford. Bookmark the permalink.

Pure Relationships

Posted on August 17, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Today, as I read, I came across this passage from the work of D. H. Lawrence. It is not a poem, but the words have a poetic quality to them and allow me to consider what life is all about. Life is relational and that is not limited to people. I live in relationship to everything I come in contact with. In the busyness of life, this is a gentle reminder to acknowledge the relationships consciously. I witness pure relationships in these acknowledgement, these accomplishments.

The passage has a Zen quality, but it reminded me that until about 300 years ago our souls were inseparable from our physical being even in western culture.

“If we think about it, we find that our life consists in this achieving of a pure relationship between ourselves and the living universe about us. This is how I ‘save my soul’ by accomplishing a pure relationship between me and another person, me and other people, me and a nation, me and a race of men, me and animals, me and the trees or flowers, me and the earth, me and the skies and the sun and stars, me and the moon: an infinity of pure relationships, big and little, like the stars of the sky: that makes our eternity, for each one of us, me and the timber I am sawing, the lines of force I follow; me and the dough I knead for bread, me and the very motion with which I write, me and the bit of gold I have got. This, if we knew it, is our life and our eternity: the subtle, perfected relation between me and my whole circumambient universe.”