Tag Archives: teacher as transformer

Oh, my friend

Posted on May 7, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Spring has sprung the last couple of days. I reminded myself about paying attention to the little things in life. About this time last year, I was discouraged and it was paying attention to small things, things I take for granted like brushing my teeth. I simply began to say, “Take a moment and do this.” It worked, as slowly I found myself seeing the extraordinary and underlying beauty of life. I turned in and found words which sounded like majestic melodies. Sufi poet Ezzeddin Nasafi wrote this poem about building bridges with love. I discovered this begins inside me and moves outwards, a flow and gift from me to the world.

Oh, my friend:
Love makes the world of creation a
possibility
and the ecstasy of ascension a will.
Look around yourself and see a universe
saturated by the fragrance of love.

If there was no loge and the endurance for
such longing, then who could
beautify words
into majestic melodies?

If there was no breeze to gracefully
caress the
hair of the beloved, then how could
the lover
see the revealing face of the beloved?
Such longing is to gracefully return to the
Provider, in the state of perfection.

Oh, my friend:
do not become a slave of worship, but
understand the meaning of worship;
understand the meaning of Divine, Allah,
and practice to be pious and peaceful;
become a true human being, as becoming a
true human being is the key to salvation.

Oh, my friend:
if you have chosen an inner path,
remember
that we all are travelers, our moments are
passing and we are passing with them.

Your wealth will not remain forever
and your
pain will not last, so do not become a
slave to
your wealth nor to your pain.

If you are a person of an inner path,
then you
are a person of peace, so make peace with
yourself and your surroundings.

17 Comments

Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged beauty of life, building bridges, community, creativity, Ezzeddin Nasafi, inner path, Mindful Practice, Oh my friend, poetry, spirituality, sufi poet, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Monet Refuses the Operation

Posted on May 5, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I came across this provocative poem today by Lisel Mueller. It reminded me life is less about certainty and more about uncertainty. Today, I find beauty and wisdom in the uncertainty that I refused to acknowledge in my youth. Then, I desired an impossible certainty in life I could not be promised. When I sat down and wrote today and post, I was certain it would be a one of my poems, but this one spoke to me more clearly. It found a space to enter my world that I would not allow for in my youthful days. In uncertainty, questions are unanswered and answers have a hazy quality similar to haloes around streetlights in Paris. What does the future hold? What a beautiful question which is only be answered moment by moment.

Doctor, you say there are no haloes

around the streetlights in Paris

and what I see is an aberration

caused by old age, an affliction.

I tell you it has taken me all my life

to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,

to soften and blur and finally banish

the edges you regret I don’t see,

to learn that the line I called the horizon

does not exist and sky and water,

so long apart, are the same state of being.

Fifty-four years before I could see

Rouen cathedral is built

of parallel shafts of sun,

and now you want to restore

my youthful errors: fixed

notions of top and bottom,

the illusion of three-dimensional space,

wisteria separate

from the bridge it covers.

What can I say to convince you

the Houses of Parliament dissolve

night after night to become

the fluid dream of the Thames?

I will not return to a universe

of objects that don’t know each other,

as if islands were not the lost children

of one great continent. The world

is flux, and light becomes what it touches,

becomes water, lilies on water,

above and below water,

becomes lilac and mauve and yellow

and white and cerulean lamps,

small fists passing sunlight

so quickly to one another

that it would take long, streaming hair

inside my brush to catch it.

To paint the speed of light!

Our weighted shapes, these verticals,

burn to mix with air

and change our bones, skin, clothes

to gases. Doctor,

if only you could see

how heaven pulls earth into its arms

and how infinitely the heart expands

to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

25 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, Synchronicity and tagged creativity, eloquent questions, Lisel Mueller, Mindful Practice, Monet, Monet Refuses the Operation, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

What I Have Learned So Far

Posted on May 1, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I wonder if I do enough. Is there more that I can do? Certainly, I discover the seed Mary Oliver referred to in quiet moments of meditation. What can I do so it grows and I move beyond indolence? Yesterday, a former student visited. He is a success story in my career, a young man who was disengaging from school in late elementary. His parents supported our efforts and the result was a high school graduate, a married man with two children, and he is headed to Africa for work.

He reminded me through his visit that I had done more than talk the good story. We sowed the seed and it flourished.

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

17 Comments

Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, education, eloquent questions, leadership, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, poetry, teacher as transformer, What I Have Learned So Far. Bookmark the permalink.

For the Raindrop, Joy Is Entering the River

Posted on April 30, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

It was a long day with lousy weather, but I wore sandals without socks. I was an optimist today and felt the warm weather, just around the corner, will be more joyfully experienced. A student asked why I wore sandals and I answered him that way. I want to be hopeful about what is coming. There is enough unhappiness in the world without adding to the weight of it. Weather is a small thing, but small things add up and I can begin that thinking here. I lighten the weight of the larger things in life. I appreciate the richness of life as Ghalib writes about in this poem.

For the raindrop, joy is in entering the river –
Unbearable pain becomes it’s own cure.

Travel far enough into sorrow,
Tears turn to sighing;
In this way
We can learn how water can die into air.

When, after heavy rain,
The storm clouds disperse,
It is not that they’ve wept themselves
Clear to the end?

If you want to know the miracle,
How wind can polish a mirror,
Look:
The shining grass grows green in spring.

It’s the rose’s unfolding, Ghalib,
The creates the desire to see –
In every color and circumstance,
May the eyes be open for what comes.

6 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, education, For the Raindrop, Ghalib. poetry, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Only on Special Days

Posted on April 27, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

We changed the tires on my car today. An acquaintance has a mobile tire service and comes over each season. I opened the big garage door to retrieve the tires. When I closed the door, Kathy moved a bag out-of-the-way and retrieved a book from it by Leonard Nimoy called Will I Think of You. Nimoy writes poetry and this is one of his books of poetry.

I chose this poem, because it reminded me that each day is special when I am with those who care for and love me. It reminded me that I sometimes take those people for granted, but they make each day special.

Only on special days

Birthdays, Holidays

And other days….

When those who

Give to each other

And live for each other

Travel

For hours or day

Or for an instant

To hold

Or dream-hold

Each other

To exchange

Heart-warmth

And body-warmth

When we commemorate

And celebrate

The Special days

Of a life of love

Then and especially then

Because the day is special

As your glorious being

Is special

I will think of you

Only when we’re together

And I can think of nothing else

And everything else

Because we together

Are everything

And our togetherness is

All things

Then as always

And forever

I will think of you

13 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, Synchronicity and tagged creativity, Leonard Nimoy, Mindful Practice, Only on Special Days, poetry, Star Trek, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Splendor

Posted on April 27, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

“More often than not splendor is the star we orbit without a second thought, especially as it arrives and departs.” Thomas Centolella offered that line in the poem Splendor. I stop occasionally and recall what is good about this life; family, a fulfilling vocation, and friends found along the journey. Most days, I travel this orbit rather mindlessly and I need a momentary and mindful pause which brings my world into sharper focus.

Be mindful, weary traveler, be mindful of what you have and hold it close while you can.

One day it’s the clouds,
one day the mountains.
One day the latest bloom
of roses – the pure monochromes,
the dazzling hybrids – inspiration
for the cathedral’s round windows.
Every now and then
there’s the splendor
of thought: the singular
idea and its brilliant retinue –
words, cadence, point of view,
little gold arrows flitting
between the lines.
And too the splendor
of no thought at all:
hands lying calmly
in the lap, or swinging
a six iron with effortless
tempo. More often than not
splendor is the star we orbit
without a second thought,
especially as it arrives
and departs. One day
it’s the blue glassy bay,
one day the night
and its array of jewels,
visible and invisible.
Sometimes it’s the warm clarity
of a face that finds your face
and doesn’t turn away.
Sometimes a kindness, unexpected,
that will radiate farther
than you might imagine.
One day it’s the entire day
itself, each hour foregoing
its number and name,
its cumbersome clothes, a day
that says come as you are,
large enough for fear and doubt,
with room to spare: the most secret
wish, the deepest, the darkest,
turned inside out.

There is some of most of what the poet refers to in that picture.

14 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, nature, photography, poetry, spirituality, Splendor, teacher as transformer, Tom Centolella. Bookmark the permalink.

Cutting Loose

Posted on April 25, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Only four students attended today. These students struggle with school for various reasons. I think it is because they are cast aside by adults. They want adults in their lives to set boundaries and be real. I asked a student what he had learned after we completed a Math question together. He responded you are always right, meaning me. I made a mistake in my calculations. We laughed. I told another student I did not like Math when I went to school either. When adults lighten up and are genuine they make an impact on children who need help.

William Stafford reminded us to be genuinely human, cut loose, and have fun. Parker Palmer suggested: “Teachers live on the most vulnerable intersection of public and private life.” Yes, we are vulnerable , but children and adolescents smell the disingenuous when we are not authentic.

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.

Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.

Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path — but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on earth, again and again.

25 Comments

Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, Cutting Loose, education, Mindful Practice, Parker Palmer, school, teacher as transformer, William Stafford. Bookmark the permalink.

Cloud Painter

Posted on April 23, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I came across this thought-provoking poem that reminded me of a post several days ago, Slowly, Slowly Wisdom Gathers. We to lay on our backs and let clouds above drift across the sky. They paint their pictures in that blue; we remember our stories in them as we close our eyes, and we drift along with them. We know something is beyond the horizon of both the sky and our immediate life. Slowly, it drifts into view and it sharpens with detail as it enters this moment only to drift away. Nothing is permanent. Everything is transient. Jane Flanders wrote this poem as a testament to clouds and life move serenely across the canvases they rest upon.

At first, as you know, the sky is incidental–

a drape, a backdrop for the trees and steeples.
Here an oak clutches a rock (already he works outdoors),
a wall buckles but does not break,
water pearls through a lock, a haywain trembles.

The pleasures of landscape are endless. What we see
around us should be enough.
Horizons are typically high and far away.

Still, clouds let us drift and remember. He is, after all,
a miller’s son, used to trying
to read the future in the sky, seeing instead
ships, hornes, instruments of flight.
Is that his mother’s wash flapping on the line?
His schoolbook, smudged, illegible?

In this period, the sky becomes significant.
Cloud forms are technically correct–mares’ tails
sheep-in-the-meadow, thunderheads.
You can almost tell which scenes have been interrupted
by summer showers.

How his young wife dies.
His landscapes achieve belated success.
His is invited to join the Academy. I forget
whether he accepts or not.

In any case, the literal forms give way
to something spectral, nameless. His palette shrinks
ti gray, blue, white–the colors of charity.
Horizons sink and fade,
trees draw back till they are little more than frames,
then they too disappear.

Finally the canvas itself begins to vibrate
with waning light,
as if the wind could paint.
And we too, at last, stare into a space
which tells us nothing,
except that the world can vanish along with our need for it.

5 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Cloud Painter, creativity, Jane Flanders, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, Slowly, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

Posted on April 20, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I was reading blogs and came across a quote which, in turn, led me to this beautiful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I enjoy the mystery of the universe around me. Part of that mystery is the role we play and how we come to learn it or, for that matter, accept it. Thomas Merton, the Trappist Monk, in No Man is an Island, wrote some people are called and hear their call clearly. We are this person, this being, and are called to serve the world in these roles. He quipped for some the calling is to search and never find a calling. Hopkins and Merton were influenced by various schools of mysticism and this takes me back to the mystery of life as I head off on my digital sabbath.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

9 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Community, Mindful Life, Photography, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged As Kingfishers Catch Fire, blogging, creativity, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mindful Practice, mystery, mysticism, No Man is an Island, religion, spirituality, teacher as transformer, theology, Thomas Merton. Bookmark the permalink.

Leaving Home

Posted on April 20, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I posted Taylor Mali’s poem, Undivided Attention, the other day and found my way to his website. He taught for several years in the New York City school system and he has lesson plans on the site. I tried one with the students that examines the difference between the literal and figurative on Thursday.

Mali posed provocative questions and students wrote short paragraphs. Examples of these questions are “What happens to the dreams you don’t remember?”; “Which letter of the alphabet is the most intelligent”; and “Do leaves look forward to falling in autumn? Or do they hand on for dear life?” Students struggled as one of the instructions was to not explicitly name the thing in the question. They were to artfully describe their letter, the leaves, or what happens to dreams and present them in figuratively and not literally. There was a lot of conversation and some writing.

I took matters into my hands and wrote a short paragraph. I wrote on the fly so the language is a bit passive and words i.e. visage were not the right ones. Visage is French for face so would not have glanced around. When I model, I find the students make more progress.

“He frantically clung to life fighting a losing battle against nature and her forces. At wit’s end, he valiantly, vainly hung on not submitting to a cyclical reality. He sensed loneliness and not solitude. Assisted by gentle breezes his discoloured visage glanced furtively around. He was in this alone. His colleagues humbly had moved on ahead of him finding their way to become humus and rebirth in the next spring. What to do now? He realized this was not the end he had planned for and took his leave that autumn day. His job done and he wafted towards his destiny.”

Today, I crafted this into a poem. The language is a little more active and I hid the topic. The answer is in the tags.

Frantically he clings to life,

He wages a futile battle versus Nature,

Against all her marshaled forces.

Valiantly, he struggles,

Unwilling to let go,

He wages this vain battle.

He senses loneliness;

His, a solitary stance–

Sans ally.

Today, a gentle breeze rustles only him;

His discoloured visage turns–