Tag Archives: spirituality

Tolerance and Flexibility

Posted on April 5, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Despite the weather, we had a great day. Many students do not attend Fridays. In past years, we attended every second Monday. Our administration changed that this year without consulting parents or me. I struggled with it for several months and made a dramatic shift a couple of months ago. I decided to devote Fridays to art i.e. drawing, painting, and building. I am not an artist in that sense, but was able to get access to resources from a friend who is an artist and an excellent teacher. The students enjoy the change. We built kites today and I felt a positive and life-giving energy in the room. I thought of this poem by Lao Tzu.

Living humans are soft and limber.

Dead they are hard and rigid.

Living, the 10, 000 grasses and wood species are soft and crisp.

So “hard” and “rigid” accompany death.

“Soft” and “limber” accompany life.

So if armies are coercive, they do not triumph.

When wood is strong, the axe comes out.

Strength and dominance reside below.

The soft and limber belong higher.

16 Comments

Posted in Education, Leadership, Lesson Plans, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Art, creativity, education, Educational Leadership, Kites, Lao Tzu, Mindful Practice, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Tolerance and Flexibility. Bookmark the permalink.

Each a Poet

Posted on April 3, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

We are each creative in our own personal and unique manner. It requires a mindful, contemplative approach to life to allow us to see ourselves as the poets, authors, and artists of our lives. It is in those gaps between the stimulus or gift we receive and the response or offerings we return to the world. The world and universe surround and envelope us in its richness. We pause and realize our world, its gifts, and our opportunities. It is in those pauses we refresh and create.

We journey

We occasionally pause

Muse a moment…

Soak in the world…

In so many ways;

Our hearts touched.

Its sounds–

A luxuriant symphonic backdrop;

A barely audible sigh;

Scarcely heard

Always there

A gentle pulse.

Its sensual touch–

Soft caresses…

A tender lover

It embraces

Wraps us in its arms

A safe place.

Its smells

Drift on a breeze

A rare restaurant

A delectable menu

Its richness

Appetites soothed.

Its sights

Visually adorn nature’s wall

Blend colours and materials

Masterpieces hung

Set upon the mantle

Shaped from nature’s gifts.

The world expresses itself;

Not in words

Yet, as a poem

We are each poets

Served and serving

We craft a life.

20 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Each a Poet, Mindful Practice, poetry, response, spirituality, stimulus, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Fluent

Posted on March 24, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Kathy and I made it to Phoenix, but it was quite a day. The flight was delayed for four hours due to mechanical problems. Considering the alternative, I am grateful, but it made for an incredibly long day including a time change. I leave you with a short, poignant John O’Donohue poem which echoes Life is a River.

I would love to live

Like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise

Of its own unfolding.

It was a day full of surprise. I look forward to my weekly digital sabbatical and the unfolding that I will witness.

21 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Sabbath, Synchronicity and tagged creativity, Fluent, John O'Donohue, Life is a River, Mindful Practice, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

The Grasp of Your Hand

Posted on March 21, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I injured my hand years ago playing hockey and later a dog bit it badly causing even more damage. It is badly bent and scarred. We walked as a family weekend mornings when our sons boys were young. One son would check my hands and quickly change sides if he had not chosen the ‘gnarled one.’

What made him choose that one? One person suggested it was to touch the hand in a way that offered a healing touch. We each need this whether it comes from those close to us or from a divine source. We need the comfort of being cared for in ways that heal.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote this beautiful poem which described the need for the intimate touch of loved ones when we stumble which I do on life’s journey. I am not alone on this journey.

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but
for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling
Your mercy in my success alone; but let me find
the grasp of Your hand in my failure.

25 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, eloquent questions, Mindful Practice, poetry, Rabindranath Tagore, spirituality, teacher as transformer, The Grasp of Your Hand. Bookmark the permalink.

The Truly Great

Posted on March 19, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Spring is near and should arrive in a few days. This March was reminiscent of last March with lots of snow. Last year, we had a tragedy as a young woman died in a car accident during the worst storm. She was an older sibling of former students and, although she was not a parent, she subbed for her mom as a classroom helper. I was apprehensive the first time, but it was an incredible and indelible experience. She made such an impact on the students and left me comfortable with the idea older siblings had much to offer.

Thich Nhat Hanh spoke about when people they leave their mark. When I pay attention, I can recognize this young lady’s greatness in our classroom. Stephen Spender wrote a lovely poem that reminds me of the greatness people leave. I pause and can how “these names fêted” by many of nature’s gifts. I smile having witnessed this greatness.

I think continually of those who were truly great.

Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history

Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns,

Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition

Was that their lips, still touched with fire,

Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song.

And who hoarded from the Spring branches

The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious, is never to forget

The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs

Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.

Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light

Nor its grave evening demand for love.

Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother

With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,

See how these names are fêted by the waving grass

And by the streamers of white cloud

And whispers of wind in the listening sky.

The names of those who in their lives fought for life,

Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.

Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun

And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

8 Comments

Posted in Community, Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, education, Mindful Practice, poetry, spirituality, spring, Steven Spender, teacher as transformer, The Truly Great, Thich Nhat Hanh. Bookmark the permalink.

I pastori (The Shepherds)

Posted on March 14, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I might have posted this lovely poem by Gabrielle D’Annunzio in September as I began school, but it speaks to me. Perhaps, I am better off to read it at other times than the beginning.

I recalled the poem, when I heard of the election of the Pope, Francis I. I thought it was a fitting name for the person who would be a shepherd. I hope he fulfills his Jesuit tradition of social justice and teaching.

When I heard the name he chose, it reminded of St. Francis of Assisi. Kathy and I used the Prayer of St. Francis as part of our wedding ceremony and hangs on our bedroom wall.

September, let’s go. It’s time to migrate.

Now in the land of Abruzzi my shepherds

leave the folds and go towards the sea:

they go down to the wild Adriatic

that is green like mountain pastures.

They’ve drunk deeply from the Alpine fonts,

so that the taste of their native water

may stay in their exiled hearts for comfort

to deceive their thirst along the way.

They’ve renewed their hazelnut sticks.

And they go along the ancient bridleway,

that is almost like a silent grassy river

in the traces of the ancient ancestors.

Oh voice of the one who first

discerns the shimmering of the sea!

Now along this coast moves the flock.

Without movement is the air.

The sun bleaches the living wool so that

it almost blends into the sand.

Swishing, stamping, sweet sounds.

Ah why am I not with my shepherds?

12 Comments

Posted in Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged education, Franciscans, Gabrielle D'Annunzio, human-rights, I pastori, Jesuits, leadership, Mindful Practice, poetry, prayer of st francis, spirituality, stewardship, teacher as transformer, The Shepherds. Bookmark the permalink.

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

Posted on March 12, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I am often challenged to see life’s challenges as ways to grow; to turn the bitter into wine. It has become easier with age, maturity, and perhaps wisdom. It is easier to embrace change as inevitable and life is a transient journey I am on. Nothing remains constant and static. It becomes easier to reclaim my voice with an attitude of resilience. I stand in ways that allow me to move back and forth into the pain and breathe. Rilke spoke of this so well in this wonderful poem.

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.

Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell.

As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength.

Move back and forth into the change.

What is it like, such intensity of pain?

If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth: I flow.

To the rushing water, speak: I am.

21 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, poetry, Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

The Donkey

Posted on March 9, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I was not sure I would post tonight, but as I read comments left on don’t worry, be happy I came across one from Valerie. Valerie suggested a poem by G. K. Chesterton. We regard the donkey as a beast of burden, but it serves a literal and figurative purpose in the Christian world and perhaps beyond.

Literally, the donkey, that simple beast of burden, carried Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. This simple animal symbolically in the Middle East of Jesus’ time was an animal of peace. Today, figuratively we recall Jesus used this beast of burden as his mode of transport elevating it.

When fishes flew and forests walked

And figs grew upon thorn,

Some moment when the moon was blood

Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry

And ears like errant wings,

The devil’s walking parody

On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,

Of ancient crooked will;

Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,

I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;

One far fierce hour and sweet:

There was a shout about my ears,

And palms before my feet.

15 Comments

Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, G. K. Chesterton, Jesus, Mindful Practice, Palm Sunday, poetry, spirituality, The Donkey. Bookmark the permalink.

Preface to Leaves of Grass

Posted on March 2, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I re-blogged Distraction and Love yesterday. John posted it originally at What is Real True Love? He followed up to comment and left a long, wonderful comment with quotes. What distracts us? I only ask and answer that question when I have the space and solitude. It is in those moments that I can hold my questions and have enough compassion to receive the answers. I was led to this passage by Walt Whitman from John’s comments. I gently question my facts and truths, learned throughout my life in the quiet of meditation and prayer.

I love his beard and hair. When I grow up, I might look like him. I hope to find the wisdom Whitman spoke of so eloquently. Enjoy.

“Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote you income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take your hat off to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul your very flesh shall be a great poem.”

23 Comments

Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, eloquent questions, leadership, Leaves of Grass, Mindful Practice, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Walt Whitman, What is Real True Love. Bookmark the permalink.

Stillness, Silence, Insight, Clarity

Posted on February 24, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I am reading Buddha’s Brain which summarizes the neuroscience about the benefits of meditation and solitude. The authors, Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius, intertwined science and poetry from practitioners of contemplative practices.

A few weeks ago, I began to blog differently and blogged less each day plus plus continued to take a day away from the computer. I thought I would feel less connected, but I feel more connected. I might have more clarity when I blog as I move in and out of stillness and quiet. I leave you with this short and profound poem by Tenzin Priyadarshi from the above noted book.

If there is no stillness,

there is no silence.

If there is no silence,

there is no insight.

If there is no insight,

there is no clarity.