final page and insert in the “Learning to Fly” art journal I’ve been working in.
I have been MIA from social media for a few days. Though, for me, ‘MIA isn’t – missing in action’. It refers to ‘Mesmerized in Art-making’.
I have been creating and, when I get so immersed I lose sight of the world around me, of all that is happening as I dive deep into creative exploration.
Yesterday, I completed the final pages of the Learning to Fly art journal I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.
This morning, I’ve come up for air, but not for long, I’ve an art show to get ready for in June and another project I’ve started to work on that has a deadline I can’t miss and a host of small tasks to complete.
Life is full and wonderful!
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About this artwork:
As I sat down to work on this page, I wrote out a little story that had popped into my mind and was calling to be released. It guided the page’s creation.
“Standing at the river’s edge she cast her dreams out into its rushing waters. And the river caught her dreams and carried them out to a distant sea where mermaids sang and dolphins leaped and stars were born in the skies above.
As she stood watching her dreams float away, she heard the mermaids’ sweet song and built a boat of wishes strung together with her hopes untied from her fears. Holding onto nothing but her desire to catch her dreams, she set sail to find the distant sea she’d always dreamt of.
And then, one day, while she was sailing to the murmur of the mermaids chanting, surrounded by leaping dolphins and falling stars cascading into the waters all around, she heard the calling of her wings unfolding.
Joyfully, she cast aside all her doubts and leapt into the unknown, light as air, radiant as a moonbeam.
And in that moment, she flew high and fell in love with her dreams soaring all around as life unfolded in the mystery and magic of her dreams coming true.
“What a most glorious adventure,” she called out to the sun and the moon and the stars and the sea. And the mermaids sang and the dolphins danced and stars shimmered in the depths above and below her.
And so… the story begins…
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The story was freefall writing that simply appeared on the page, the consonants and vowels pouring out the tip of my pencil.
I felt immersed in the magic and mystery of dancing with the muse, untethered from the need to ‘get it right’, perfect, ‘just so’.
What a gift of nature!
___________________
My art table when I began in the morning…
The photos below are the final spreads from the journal –
The Choice — mixed media page — Learning to Fly art journal
Yesterday, I took a risk.
I’m glad I did.
The affirmation, confirmation and support I received filled my heart with gratitude and joy. I felt alive.
Which got me wondering… Do I take enough risks?
Oh, not the jump out of an airplane or ski down virgin terrain on a steep backcountry mountain kind of risk but the emotional, spiritual, deeply personal risk of vulnerability.
Sadly, I think the answer may be… not often enough.
Which is why I write here.
To teach myself to live life wide open. My heart unlocked. My psyche unsheathed. My entire being unarmoured-up.
To stretch my vulnerability muscles, to expand my willingness to be real, authentic, known. To increase my capacity to live outside my comfort zone – I must choose vulnerability.
‘Cause in many instances, that’s what living ‘sheltered’ behind our protective walls and habitual nature of hiding our ‘true nature’ is – A fear response to dangers unknown about which we are constantly negative fortune-telling in order to protect ourselves from hurts we experienced in the past and fear will happen again.
It is such a convoluted story we tell ourselves about what could happen. And because we don’t want it to happen, we tell ourselves we have to armour-up when in reality, disposing of our armour and allowing ourselves to be wholly present and vulnerable is what keeps us safe.
I remember when, after being released from a relationship that was killing me, I received a call one morning telling me that the man who wanted me gone had escaped from jail. “We don’t know where he is,” the detective told me on the phone, “but we figure he’s probably going to try to find you.”
In one instant all my hard won peace of mind evaporated and I was catapulted into a raging storm of fear engulfing every cell of my being. I remember taking Ellie, my Golden Retriever who had gone through much of that journey with me and been my ballast and comfort for so much of it, for a walk in the forest where we had walked every day since his arrest.
Suddenly, every rustle of leaf, every crack of twig, every shadow was ‘him’ waiting to leap out of the bushes and drag me back into the past.
I remember standing amidst the towering pines and crying, trying to force myself to keep walking further along the path. I couldn’t do it. I turned and ran back to my apartment, slamming the door shut and lying on my bed sobbing.
And then… it struck me.
He had absolutely no idea where I was and had no way of finding out. We had had zero contact since his arrest months before.
While he was a danger, he was not a real and present danger. It was my thoughts playing havoc with reality.
I had a choice. Live behind locked doors or go out into the sunshine. I unlocked the door and Ellie and I went for our walk.
Sure, there were niggles of fear wafting around me but I chose to risk facing them rather than armour-up against them.
It has been a constant learning in my life. To un-armour myself when my mind is screaming at me to raise the drawbridge, man the ramparts and take cover.
And the only way I know to do that is to face what I fear and risk — being vulnerable, real, authentic — and… to love myself, all of me, warts and wisdom, darkness and light, beauty and the beast.
And so… I write it out.
What about you? Are you willing to take a risk today?
“Nature is full of natural balance that it shares freely. To find your balance, spend time in nature.” Learning to Fly art journal spread. Mixed media on scrap paper
“Find value in all things.”
In this case, the opportunity (and challenge) was to use the page I tore out of my art journal the day before, (because I didn’t like it) in a way that brought beauty and meaning to a new spread in a way that pleased me.
Along with moving me beyond the ‘3C’s’ of negativity, it’s a self-imposed, ‘reuse, recycle, reduce’ way of art-making.
Like the boxes and drawers and bins in my studio filled with scraps of paper and ephemera – As a mixed media artist everything has possibility. From the junk mail flyer to a receipt to the strip torn off a page of newsprint I’ve painted to the frayed ribbon wrapped around a bottle of Balsamic Vinegar I got as a gift from friends – there is creative potential in it all.
Like us. From the frayed and tattered dreams we carry tucked away in a deep corner of our hearts to the wounds and scars we cover up with layers of smiles and idle chatter or misdirected anger, to the wonder and awe that seeps out through our tears in the most unpredictable and untimely moments – there is creative potential for new life in it all.
What will you do with the forgotten pieces? The hidden gems of your soul?
Yesterday, as I walked with Beaumont through the woods and sat on a rock at the river’s edge and watched the sun fairies dance on the water and the rocks shimmer with the light caressing them where they lay on the river’s bed, I thought about my ‘mistake’ from the day before. “What do you have to teach me?” I asked the sky and the air, the trees and the river flowing steadily past.
“You will never know until you look beyond ‘the mistake’ to see its infinite possibilities,” whispered the wind and the trees, the sky and the air and the river.
When I got home, I stepped into my studio, picked up ‘my mistake’ and let its possibilities become my guide.
I stepped away from expectation and my querulous asking of, “Why did I mess it up?” to shift into that place where instead of thinking, “Why did this happen to me?” I stayed open to the possibility it was happening forme.
That’s when wonderment and awe seeped onto the page.
It was a great lesson for life. Step away from keeping myself mired in the victim’s place of thinking ‘bad stuff’ happens ‘to’ me to sink deeply into wonderment of its true value by asking myself, ‘What does this happening have to teach me? What gem will it hold that will enrich my way of being present in my life?”
I hope you try it. The next time something happens that feels heavy and ‘wrong’ or you feel you’ve made a mistake… I hope you try stepping away from the ‘why is this happening ‘to’ me’ to “What does this happening have ‘for’ me?”
I hope when you do that doors of possibility fly open and you are flooded with the delightful awareness that you are not a victim of circumstances. You are an instrument of life full of limitless possibilities!
And when stuck. Go spend time in nature. Nature always offers up a myriad of opportunities to see beyond ‘the yuck’ into the value of all things. Including your pain and woes, trials and sorrow, missteps and mistakes.
And in that space, miracles abound, magic expands and the unfathomable mysteries of your life unfold in wonder and awe.
There was a time when she believed if she could just be somewhere else other than where she was, everything would be okay.
There was a time when she wished for nothing more than to be someone else other than who she was.
What she couldn’t see in looking for another way of being is that no matter what she wished for, she could never be anyone else other than who she was.
What she couldn’t see was that the parts of her that didn’t fit her well in this place, would not fit her any better in another.
Fearful that she would never find her way, she attempted to jettison her past, extricate herself from being herself to become someone she thought others wanted her to be. “Perhaps if you change directions, or even just your clothes, you’ll find yourself another way,” her nimble mind whispered like the wind blowing down from the mountains, calling her to run away.
And she ran, and ran and still she found herself where ever she was at, trying to run away from the one she could never leave behind, herself.
“Perhaps if you simply stand true to who you are, stay present to what is here in this moment, you’ll find yourself right where you’re at,” her loving heart whispered into the howling of the wind.
Frightened by her heart’s calling and tired of constantly running away, she fell to the ground and rested right where she was at. And in her sleep, her heart beat strong, and her mind grew restful as the truth of who she is set her free to run wild like the wind through her dreams.
“There is nothing to fear in being you,” her heart whispered. “Who you are is who you’ve always been. Perfectly human in all your human imperfections. Beauty and the beast. Loving and loved. A child of the universe, seeking her way into the light of her own brilliance shining brightly on the path of her creation.”
Like coyote and the wind, there is always a calling to venture into another space, some distant place where what is here will not be there. It isn’t until we quit searching for somewhere else to be that we discover, everything we need to be free is here right now, because, no matter where we go, we are where ever we go.
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This piece originally appeared on my blog August 27, 2014. There is more to it if you want to read the rest — CLICK HERE
My original plan was not to write about body image this morning. But, a facetime call with my eldest daughter this morning where I shared part of a conversation I had yesterday with a beautiful friend who dropped to pick something up redirected my thinking.
My friend and I were talking about body image (why do I feel compelled to ensure you know we did it ‘safely’?) I was telling my friend how I had found some photos of me with my eldest daughter when she was born and I mentioned how I was surprised to see I wasn’t ‘fat’!
“Why did I always think I was fat?” I asked my friend. Now let me caveat that statement — I am not fond of that word ‘fat’. It is not a loving way to describe or to view myself but, honesty and speaking truth is vital to change. I can’t think of a time in my life when I didn’t think I was fat.
Now, I should also mention that much of my life I always thought of myself as very fit — which I was — but it didn’t matter how much I ran or swam or skied or climbed or worked out — I always thought I was fat!
My social and psychological conditioning as well as media representations of ‘beauty’ have instilled some really dysfunctional ideas around body image that I continue to work on unravelling — it is a huge challenge. These ideas and attitudes are deeply embedded in my psyche.
My friend replied that she too shares the same issues. She is a good 8 inches taller than me and has always been beautiful in my eyes. In her own, not so much.
It is said that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.
When we look in the mirror, we are beholding ourselves.
How beautiful do you see yourself?
Do you see your natural beauty or do you compare yourself to some media instilled measurement of beauty and find yourself less than, other than, an artificial construct of beauty?
Twiggy was the standard-bearer of my age, I told my daughter this morning. She defined beauty when I was in my teens.
Kate Moss was mine, she replied.
We are both under 5’3″ tall. Supermodel status was never in our genes. Yet, through the power of media and peer pressure and social conditioning, (and air-brushing) we, like millions of our peers, wanted desperately to emulate a way of ‘looking’ that was/is unachievable.
And there’s the catch. ‘Looking’ like someone else’s definition of beauty is not sustainable nor loving.
Being who I am, being myself as I am and loving myself from the inside out without judging how I ‘look’ and finding myself wanting – that’s the measurement of success and beauty I want to live by.
What about you?
Who/what defines beauty for you?
Do you love yourself completely, just the way you are?
It’s a tall order. To love yourself completely, just the way you are. I’m still working on it.
The painting I’ve used to illustrate this poem is from my She Persisted Series. When I wrote this poem yesterday, I considered going into the studio and creating a painting to go with the words (but after six hours of cleaning the garage, I was too tired! – Not sure why I thought it would only take a couple of hours but hey! I’m always the optimist.). I still may do that but this painting, which is No. 37 in the series, felt ‘right’.
I AM NOT BROKENby Louise Gallagher
I am not broken
though I do have cracks
I am not cracked
though I do have wounds
I am not wounded
though I do have scars
I am not scarred
though I do have cuts
I am not
My breaks
Or cracks
Or wounds
Or scars
I am not my cuts.
I am beautiful.
Whole.
Full
of incomparable
broken places
revealing
cracks
healing
wounds
bursting
into wisdom
scars strengthening
cuts that cut deep
to forge
beauty from
the ashes
of the places
that have shaped
me.
I am not broken.
I am.
Beautiful.
Brave.
Bold.
I am woman.
I am me.
I hadn’t intended to write two poems yesterday morning but… having spent much of my life learning to heed the muse’s urgings, I could not ignore her call to write this one out.
Late spring snow melts velvet purple petals preen eager green grasses shoot out of winter moist soil
And the seasons turn and the sun shines warm and Mother Nature dances as my heart expands to embrace brave beauty budding up out of the ground.
As I sit at my desk this morning I watch two robins chase each other through the trees. An opportunistic squirrel, taking advantage of what I assume to be their amorous intentions, raids the birdfeeder while chickadees hop along the fence, tweeting and twittering. I think they’re telling the squirrel to get lost.
A man in an inflatable raft drifts into view on the river. He drifts with the current, a fishing line trailing behind him as he uses one oar to gently guide him along. He passes in front of my window, under the bridge and out of sight. I imagine him full of hope.
And the trees stand still. Yesterday’s breezes gone. Buds are appearing along their branches, tiny shoots of hope leafing out in possibility.
High above, the blue sky is dotted with islands of fluffy white clouds that lay seemingly motionless, like a warm woolly blanket covering the earth below.
And I awaken.
There is much to be done today. I am in spring cleaning mode.
The deck. The storage area in the back of our basement. Both done.
Today, after my prerequisite morning walk with Beaumont the Sheepadoodle, I tackle the granddaddy of all cleaning chores. The garage. There are closets and cupboards that also need my ministrations but they can wait for a rainy day. The weather folk have promised a warm, almost hot for this time of year in this northern clime, day. It’s a good day to clean the garage.
Later, after I’ve soaked off the dust and grime from the garage in a leisurely bath, I shall venture into my studio and keep working on pieces for an art show I’m in this June.
I have a lot to do. My body of ‘saleable’ work not yet big enough.
I used to joke that you could always tell when I was writing. My toilet was sparkling!
It was my avoidance tactic.
And I wonder…
Is cleaning out the garage (or scrubbing the toilet for that matter) avoidance or preparation?
I’m choosing to reframe it as ‘brave preparation’.
Creative expression requires presence.
Presence requires full embodiment in the moment.
Embodiment calls for ridding my thinking mind of clutter.
So… I clean and clear and declutter.
It is a brave thing to do.
To create I must dare to release myself from thinking mind directives and allow myself to flow, unguided, along the river of creativity that courses through my veins and the air around me. I must allow myself to be carried on the current, like the fisherman in his raft. Trolling for nothing but a little nibble of an idea to seed itself in the fertile soils of my imagination.
I am cleaning out the garage this morning.
I am stepping into the beauty of brave creativity.
When I am talking with my 10-month old granddaughter I like to pretend her baby-talk is really a conversation we’re having about… well… who knows what? Neither of us really do, but I love to pretend that she is telling me some outlandish, totally engaging story and will answer with nursery rhymes. As in, “What? You saw the cow jump over the moon? Oh my goodness. What did the moon do?” And when she replies with some indecipherable sounds, I respond. “Oh. Really? And then you heard the little dog laugh? Oh my. What did his dish do?”
As I worked on my ‘moonstruck’ spread in my Learning to Fly art journal yesterday, memories of my recent two weeks with my grandchildren kept floating through my body. My mind savoured each morsel, my hands remembered the touch of their skin, my olfactory nerves their sweet just-out-of-the-bath smell. My fingers traced the line of their chin and felt their tiny hands touching mine while my eyes savoured the memory of their beautiful faces smiling at me.
And I painted and splashed paint and drew stars and a moon as the magic and mystery of memory envelopped me.
it was one of those sublimely calming and delightful afternoons where news of still rising case counts and possible harsher restrictions faded away beneath the sounds of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” and one of my new favourites which continually urges me stand up and dance around my studio, Sam Ryder’s “Tiny Riot“.
If butterflies can use their wings to turn the wind to hurricanes
You and I can break the chains, it takes a day to
Start a tiny riot
Stop being so goddamn quiet
Got a spark in your heart so strike it
Crush your way up here
Turn the pouring rain to a tidal wave
And here’s the serendipity and pure magic of it all. This morning, I checked out Eugi’s Causerie to see what this week’s prompt was and was a little disappointed I’d already shared my art journal page with all the butterflies fluttering.
“Oh well,” I told myself. “If it’s meant to be it’s meant to be.”
And then I began writing my blog not thinking about butterflies but rather, thinking about the magic of my afternoon in the studio and the wonder and awe of time spent savouring memories of time with my two grandchildren.
When I wrote about the music I was listening to, I included “Tiny Riot” as one of the songs I was listening to because… well… I probably listened and danced to it 3 or 4 times while I painted yesterday.
But here’s the thing. I’d never focused on the lyrics before and thought it might be fun to include a few lines here. And that’s when the magical became mystical and wonder and awe enveloped me. Because, when I looked up the lyrics, butterflies ‘fluttered’ their way onto the page.
Isn’t life just the most magical, mystical, magnificent journey?
I hope your day is full of magic and mystery, wonder and awe and that serendipity catches you in the most unexpected moments of joy!
Namaste
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While I started this post not intending to have it be in response to Eugi’s prompt “FLUTTER” — it is!
It’s fun to play with a prompt – and easy to do too!
Just click on over to Eugi’s Causerie to either read what others have created or contribute your own! I do hope you do. There’s lots of wonder and awe fluttering around the many beautiful responses!
A friend and I were talking about what it means to be vain. how as children of the 50’s/60’s there was this belief that to talk about yourself in a positive way was somehow wrong.
Phrases like “don’t toot your own horn” and “don’t grandstand” proliferated the emotional landscape casting a shadow on one’s ability to shine. To grow in confidence and strength and determination to use your talents to the best of your ability and the betterment of the world around you.
“What’s in it for you to keep playing small?” I asked my friend when she mentioned how she still struggles to believe in herself. After a childhood full of admonitions to hide her light, she wants to let it all out, but fear keeps getting in her way.
She laughed and said, “Lots of aches and pains.”
And that’s the thing, the person we hurt most when we hide our light and shelter ourselves from shining bright and fierce is ourselves.
We are born to shine.
We are born to play big. To step outside our comfort zones and grab center stage of our own lives.
We must if we are to create better.
Because, when we shine bright, we light up the world around us so others can see their way through the dark. The more of us shining bright and fierce, the greater the light in the world and the greater the possibility of real and meaningful change in how we move through the darkness.
So… ask yourself today, “Who benefits most when I stop playing small and shine my light as bright as can be?”
I hope your answer is bright enough for all the world to see there’s nothing to fear in lighting up the darkness and a world of better to be gained!
Learning to Fly art journal 2 page spread – mixed media
It is back. This need to check the data every day. To scan news headlines for what’s happening now in a world that seems hellbent on conflict and destruction.
It was gone for awhile, this need. I wanted it to stay away. Yet here it is again. Unbidden. Uninvited. Unwanted.
So I shift my approach to dealing with its presence. Instead of searching for data and world events, I read articles on post-pandemic life. I seek advice on how to step out into the world, without being riddled with anxiety and guilt, once critical mass on vaccinations is reached and restrictions can be safely lifted.
And then, I dip into one of my social media feeds and feel discouragement rising like the third-wave surge of sickness and death. How will we ever arrive at a post-pandemic world when there are those who believe wearing a mask is a sign of weakness? That following restrictions is sheep-like behaviour destined to transform one into a lemming falling over a cliff?
I turn off my social media feeds. I step back from the edge of the abyss where I feel myself getting pulled into the undertow of a debate that feeds my anxiety and drives me deeper into the data as if somehow, somewhere, some number will help make sense of it all and send this virus packing and stop this ‘us versus them’ debate.
One of my aunts, who lives in southern India, has only been out of her apartment once in over a year. She is tired. Anxious. Frustrated. Worried. When she phones, I can feel her loneliness ringing in my ears with every word she rattles off in her rapid-fire French about how limited her life has become through these months and months of Covid. “But what can I do?” she asks without waiting for an answer from me. “To stay alive I must stay at home but I am so lonely.”
Her two remaining siblings live in France as do the majority of her nieces and nephews. She cannot travel to visit any of us nor can we travel to visit her. “I have a dream to come and visit you one more time in Canada before I go,” she tells me. I tell her I want her dream to come true.
And so, together, we wait for the world to right itself. For vaccination counts to surpass the 75% mark. For sickness and death counts to plummet.
Three weeks ago my youngest daughter and her partner became statistics in the Covid case count. They are two of the over 146.8 million of the reported cases as of yesterday’s count. Fortunately, while they said they’d never felt so sick, they did not succumb to the virus as my cousin Linda did in Paris last spring. They have recovered and stayed on the life side of the ledger. Linda is one of the over 3.1 million who did not.
And here’s the thing. They are not ‘cases’ or a number on an ever-increasing count. They are my loved ones. Just as the other 146.6 million reported cases were someone else’s loved ones.
Which is why I will do whatever it takes to keep my loved ones safe. I will get vaccinated. I will wear a mask. Keep my distance. Stay sequestered with my beloved whose lungs, should he become infected, might not be able to withstand the viruses onslaught. We have only received the first vaccination and while the risk and severity are lowered, they still exist. .
And sure, there are those who would call me a sheep. Who would rally against my precautions in the name of their rights.
I get it.
Masks can be annoying. Keeping away from human contact challenging and depressing. There are still many unknowns. Still too much uncertainty and question marks and confusion over so many unknowns. And the unknown and uncertainty breeds anxiety. It feeds fear.
But certain things remain known. Masks work. Keeping safe physical distance works. Being vaccinated is a better safeguard than not being vaccinated.
The virus will not go away on its own. But if it can’t find enough hosts to keep replicating itself, it will eventually lose its grip and fade out. (I know that’s not a scientific explanation but it makes sense to me.)
Just as doing the right thing, whether I like it or not, makes sense to me too. It’s for the sake of myself, my loved ones and for all of us.
And in my world, doing the right thing is never the wrong thing to do.
Which means, I must do the right thing for myself today. I must lovingly wean myself away from diving deep into statistics, into watching news feeds for world catastrophes and natural and manmade disasters, from scrolling social media feeds urging me to cherish my rights over the right to life of all humanity.
I cherish my right to life. I cherish the right to life of all human beings on this planet.
And so, I breathe and say a prayer for all humanity.
May we find a way to survive this latest surge without tearing our humanity apart.
May we find a way to honour one another, to show tolerance and grace in the face of adversity and differing views.
May we all remember we do not have a guidebook on how to behave during a pandemic. That we are all struggling with the knowns and unknowns. We all feel the fear and anxiety. We all feel the constraints.
And may we all remember, we all want to live in our own way.
May we all live to tell the story of our survival.
Learning to Fly Art Journal page – Creativity is the art of letting courage draw you out of fear.
What if life is a run-on sentence? What if to mark the moments you must insert commas and periods and exclamation marks and question marks that give you pause to breathe, to gather your thoughts, to treasure the moment and dance and run about and fall into life’s drift like a river flowing into the sea?
What will your life be made of? A series of words strung together with an occasional comma haphazardly inserted without thought to its significance? Will you throw in a period here and there simply because you’re out of breath and need to catch up to yourself without letting yourself go full tilt into experience every precious moment, wild and free of limiting punctuation?
Or will you festoon your journey with question marks expanding into exclamations dancing upon the lines of every story you live to tell along the way towards that point where the final mark is a joyful celebration of all the highs and lows you’ve captured upon your journey? Will your life end on a period? A sigh of dismay the end has come? Or, an exclamation of bliss you’ve sucked the meaning out of every sentence ever lived?
What if life is a run-on sentence and the only way to mark the passing moments is to insert punctuation where ever you can to give yourself time to breathe, to savour, to capture the scent of every moment, the ebb and flow of every tide, the feel of every drop of rain, the whisper of every breath of wind and leaf falling?
What if life is a run-on sentence telling the story of your life dancing towards the final period that falls into place with grace and ease as you take one last inhale and let it all go.
Would you? Could you? Live it. Over. Out. Full stop. Period.
__________________
This piece is pure ‘fun’. As I walked this morning the thought… “What if life were a run-on sentence?” kept flowing through my mind.
I decided to let it all run out and this is what appeared.
Dare Boldly 