Tag Archives: mindfulness

When Someone Deeply Listens To You

Posted on May 3, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

When we listen to our self closely and deeply, we open our self up to listening to others and the world deeply. In turn, the world and others are able to listen to us deeply as we create vulnerable spaces exposing ourselves and holding that dented cup out with certainty that others will respond.

John Fox wrote this poem about others listening to us. The process begins within us and moves out. When we are unable to listen to our self, we should not expect others can listen to the person we are unable to listen to, our self. Spending time in meditation, taking Sabbath breaks makes this possible.

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you’ve had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your barefeet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

40 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged community, creativity, John Fox, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer, When Someone Deeply Listens To You. Bookmark the permalink.

Afternoon on a Hill

Posted on May 1, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote this beautiful poem which reminded me about how the greatest things are sometimes about those things which touch us, but we do not necessarily touch them. The world greets us in the form of the sun, flowers, its geology, sky, etc. We sense these things in the fullest way. They reach into us and touch us deeply in a spiritual way.

When we are present in the world, it makes the world come alive, we only need to sit, and it makes us feel fully we are part of it and not outside it.

I will be the gladdest thing

Under the sun!

I will touch a hundred flowers

And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds

With quiet eyes,

Watch the wind bow down the grass,

And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show

Up from the town,

I will mark which must be mine,

And then start down!

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Posted in Uncategorized and tagged Afternoon on a Hill, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

What Was Told, That

Posted on April 30, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Rumi wrote poetry 900 years ago and it still resonates in the 21st Century. We see the world change and live in its busyness trying to keep pace with the change. It is hard to turn inwards, see the beauty that exists within, and acknowledging its importance in helping us keep pace.

Regardless of faith and even when we do not have it, there still exists a source deep within each of us that when we touch it and let it speak to us is able to guide us in wonderful and amazing ways. I found the peaceful drive today in the lee of the Rocky Mountains inspirational and something that I share with the world and with each person in the world.

What was said to the rose that made it open was said

to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong

and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made

sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in

Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush

like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in

language, that’s happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,

chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

10 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, nature, poetry, Rumi, teacher as transformer, What Was Told That. Bookmark the permalink.

Initiation Song from the Finders Lodge

Posted on April 25, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

I did not realize Ursula LeGuin wrote poetry I knew she wrote prose and the poetry was a pleasant surprise.

Besides the last line about always coming home, two other lines stood out. The first was letting my fingertips be my maps. This suggested being in touch with the world I live in; feeling it in a visceral way. When I close my eyes, the world reaches into me through my body. In there, the world lives in my soul which is house which is not a house. That feels Zen-like.

Ted Aoki wrote about bridges which were not bridges. Teachers invite students into learning. In those spaces, anything happens and teachers intuit their way around.

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well-loved one,
walk mindfully, well-loved one,
walk fearlessly, well-loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
be always coming home.

12 Comments

Posted in 21st Century Education, Community, Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, education, Initiation Song from the Finders Lodge, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, servant-leadership, spirituality, stewardship, teacher as transformer, Ted Aoki, Ursuala K. LeGuin. Bookmark the permalink.

Back from the Fields

Posted on April 23, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

When we are children, we are free to just be. Somehow, we lose this being as we mature. We are serious, but it is fun, fantastic, and ordinary things that make a good day.

Peter Everwine reminds me when returning from the fields it is important to remember visible and invisible reminders of what makes a good day. Sometimes, it is barbs, snaggle-teeth, and grinning ones that are easily overlooked. I don’t notice what attached as I ran in the fields. I recall them later as literal and figurative reminders of my adventures.

Until nightfall my son ran in the fields,

looking for God knows what.

Flowers, perhaps. Odd birds on the wing.

Something to fill an empty spot.

Maybe a luminous angel

or a country girl with a secret dark.

He came back empty-handed,

or so I thought.

Now I find them:

thistles, goatheads,

the barbed weeds

all those with hooks or horns

the snaggle-toothed, the grinning ones

those wearing lantern jaws,

old ones in beards, leapers

in silk leggings, the multiple

pocked moons and spiny satellites, all those

with juices and saps

like the fingers of thieves

nation after nation of grasses

that dig in, that burrow, that hug winds

and grab handholds

in whatever lean place.

It’s been a good day.

44 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Back from the Fields, creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Peter Everwine, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Talk About Walking

Posted on April 1, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

When we were in Waterton Lakes National Park two summers ago, we were able to go down the big lake into Montana’s Glacier National Park and hike. As we got off the boat, we asked one of the guides where a good place to go would be. He asked where we wanted to go and I answered, “Just for a walk and see where it takes us.”

It would be difficult to get off the ‘beaten path as it is pretty rugged country. Despite this, I think some days it is nice just to wander and wonder where the day takes us. Philip Booth does a wonderful job reminding us there is so much outside these walls we think of as our life.

Where am I going? I’m going
out, out for a walk. I don’t
know where except outside.
Outside argument, out beyond
wallpapered walls, outside
wherever it is where nobody
ever imagines. Beyond where
computers circumvent emotion,
where somebody shorted specs
for rivets for airframes on
today’s flights. I’m taking off
on my own two feet. I’m going
to clear my head, to watch
mares’-tails instead of TV,
to listen to trees and silence,
to see if I can still breathe.
I’m going to be alone with
myself, to feel how it feels
to embrace what my feet
tell my head, what wind says
in my good ear. I mean to let
myself be embraced, to let go
feeling so centripetally old.
Do I know where I’m going?
I don’t. How long or far
I have no idea. No map. I
said I was going to take
a walk. When I’ll be back
I’m not going to say.

13 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged conversational journey, creativity, Glacier National Park, mindfulness, nature, Philip Booth, poetry, Talk about Walking, teacher as transformer, waterton lakes national park. Bookmark the permalink.

The Red Wheel Barrow

Posted on October 4, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

When I make life complicated, it becomes more complicated and entangled. I felt rushed this afternoon. I have class, I needed to finish two papers, and wanted to do some reading. I took a deep breath and it got simpler. I uncomplicated my day by letting go a bit and seeing what was important right in front of me.

When I step back a bit and let life find its path, it becomes much simpler. This does not deny life’s complexity, but complexity and complicated are different. The first looks for patterns and the other ties knots around and among things. Complexity is in many ways reflected in the mirror of a simple life and what it reveals. Sometimes it is the obvious things that are right there in front of me only waiting to be acknowledged like a red wheel barrow.

In a few words, William Carlos Williams brings to life the simplicity in life which helps me wend my way through the complex relationships and patterns.

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

15 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized and tagged creativity, John Carlos Williams, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer, The Red Wheel Barrow. Bookmark the permalink.

Creativity

Posted on March 30, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I am grateful for the comments I received. The link to the radio show is not working today. I made minor changes, but still did not get through. I will work on this and see what I can do to correct the problem.

I believe the Internet is a place to build community, enhance conversations, and create relationships previously impossible. I think it requires a mindful approach, and serial single tasking to do this, but it is doable. There are creative spaces in any community that makes all this possible.

A pause,

A whisper,

A gentle voice,

In that gap–

Mindful response to stimulus.

The gap grows–

A mindfully tended space

Nourished and fed,

Attended, become aware

Sow with care.

Blossoms ready themselves–

Creativity appears at the door

Heartfelt listening

There senses merge into one

Receive that gentle lady.

She is a visitor–

Long awaited;

Not chased after–

In that spaciousness

There creativity wraps me in her arms.

10 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Community, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged blogging, community, creativity, Internet, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Posted on February 26, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

This is not the poem. I chose a part that speaks to me deeply. I tend to be a bit of rebel. I know it hard to believe, but I am always willing, when others are not, to shake up the things as they are. T. S. Eliot said it so well: “Do I dare/Disturb the universe?” I find comfort some days in the power of that question. What in my universe needs to be disturbed? Even as I grow older, what does wisdom call on me to do that ruffles my feathers and those around me?

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea…

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

14 Comments

Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, eloquent questions, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, T. S. Eliot, teacher as transformer, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Bookmark the permalink.

Life Arrives

Posted on October 18, 2012 by ivonprefontaine

I read comments today in response to yesterday’s post, Transformation, and found words emerging. They remind me of the unnecessary chase. I only need patience and life arrives in each moment, fully revealed in its extraordinary nature. Life is not a race or hunting trip in which I seek the biggest prize.

When I seek

When I chase

Am active

I fail.

Patience

When I sit

I need not seek

Life discovers me.

Found

I wait

Life arrives

I only need sit.