OTHER EXPRESSIONS

Once and Future Dreamers: Poems by

Two Counselor Educators Cynthia Baldwin C. Gilbert Wrenn

A pioneer in counselor education and a guiding light for generations of counselors, C. Gilbert Wrenn was a featured guest presenter along with his wife Katherine Wrenn at the Western Association of Counselor Educators and Supervisors (WACES) in Tempe, Arizona, November 19,1994. Wrenn, 94 years old, addressed issues of self-discovery and helping others in counselor education to discover themselves. He was asked to discuss what he has learned about himself in recent years and over a lifetime. His closing response was his poem, “Forward I Paddle.” Cynthia Baldwin coordinated the Wrenns’s appearance at WACES. Her poem, “The Great One in the Canoe: A Dream,” was written in 1993 before her connection with Wrenn.

Forward I Paddle

C. Gilbert Wrenn

Janus, God of the Beginnings, had two faces, One looking forward, one looking backwards. But the past is of little interest to me. What it has taught me is now within me. I need no focus there.

“My” Janus has but one face, looking forward, Forward, always forward. The future holds excitement for me.

Cynthia Baldwin is an associate professor in the Counseling & Educational Psychology Department, University of Nevada Reno, CEP/281, Reno, NV 89557-0029. C. Gilbert Wrenn is professor emeritus, 2645 E. Southern, Tempe, AZ 85282.

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And Promise.

That is why I would not choose to be an oarsman. They are always facing backward, They see only from whence they came.

My choice makes me the paddler in a canoe. I am facing forward. I see no past, I see only future. And the God within me supplies the energy, Guides the thrust of my paddle.

The goal, the dream, the promise. Enough to draw me on. As each shadowy form emerges Another appears in the misty beyond.

I face forward and paddle. Why? I can do nothing else and be true to my God. A God who must be always Seeking, even as I seek.

As I am drawn to what lies ahead, I eat and sleep and dream, as do all animals. But I do more than dream, I paddle.

The Great One in the Canoe: A Dream

Cynthia Baldwin

I was the Great One in the Canoe, Two fingers trailing in the holy Water, Rainbows of light dancing on the Water.

We are also two, a pair in many places: ’ two joyful strong brothers, two sisters with headdresses, a teacher-student in Africa; also two tumbling doves mated.

In two Indian tribes (one Algonquin) We were husband-wife as we are now. We were brought to rest on poles, With bright prayer bundles and sweet sages Where we sleep still,

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Hearing the prayers of our loved ones And the hymn of the universe.

And from there we can reach consciousness and presence Through dreaming other lives, Like the one present. And the sweet prayers of all our Relations, Both past and future, Resonate in the rocks and on the winds.

We are all One People. We live on, the Great Canoe moves foryard, Ever Present, ever Eternal.

When the two fingers touch the Water, We become present again and again- Learning love.

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