Category Archives: Essential Journey

What is real and present in this moment? Am I?

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There is a superstition that things come in threes. Christianity and other faiths are replete with references to the power of three as is mathematics and geometry. When, as the saying goes, “a shoe drops”, we wait for two more catastrophes to balance the bad, and put an end to its current cycle. As humans, we seek patterns and perceive orderliness, in Triaphilia (and no! Wikipedia does not have a definition for it! yet, but I found it used, HERE, and liked the sound of it.)

Last week, three things conspired to draw my attention to how and where I put my energies in every aspect of my life.

The first was a comment made by my friend Ian Munro on his blog, Leading Essentially. Ian was writing about getting centered at work and how challenging it can be to find and maintain balance in the midst of the “high pace of high stakes, high-rise business”. In his post, 3 Ways to Get Centered At Work , Ian provides doable suggestions on what everyone can do to “find and keep our centered, grounded self”.

On Saturday, I met with my beautiful soul-mentor, Kerry Parsons and five other women to share a meal, conversation and heart-inspired exploration on how to create, activate and evolve community.

As we stood in the circle just before bidding our adieus, one of the women commented that she wrote a daily blog for years, and then, one day, she quit. It was a year ago and she hasn’t missed it.

I heard her comment and let it sink into my being.

It is still sinking. In. Deep.

To write here every morning is a choice. An active decision to sit down and create, activate and evolve community through the exploration of what it means for me to be centered in my life in ways that inspires everyone who comes to share in this space to be centered in theirs. Through our shared centered presence, my vision is we ripple out to create greater balance in the world around us. Through our daily acts of grace, we inspire a world of love, peace, harmony and joy, together.

And the third thing has been my back’s misalignment. It has definitely caught my attention and given rise to my wondering on what brings me into balance, and where do I allow it to be present, or not.

I don’t have a clear answer. I am allowing the question to be my point of departure, allowing myself to live in its mystery without seeking the answer.

It is an uncomfortable place for me. To not search for and find a clear answer, to not define my path and place with words.

What I have is the knowing that to allow myself the grace of living within the question makes space for wonder, awe, mystery and majesty to emerge.

And so, I am committing to not commit to write here every day. I am committing to allowing myself to listen to my body, mind and spirit (see! there’s that 3 again) to guide me into awareness of what is real and necessary and evolving for and of my journey.

I don’t know the outcome. Perhaps there is none other than the freedom to move with grace and ease through each day without pressuring myself into appearing here for no reason other than I think I should because I always do. Which, may free me up to appear in a true and present form.

And that’s the exciting part. I don’t have an answer and am not searching for one. I am staying present in the journey of discovery of what is real and present in this moment, and letting what emerges, be what is.

As we are a community, I wanted to give you some insight into my thinking about being present and invite you to share where you find yourself in being truly present, or not, in your life. Where do you find yourself doing for the sake of doing, versus allowing your presence to emerge organically from the inside out of that place where you are living the questions and letting go of needing answers?

Namaste.

 

Pay Attention. Act with Intention. Live with Conviction.

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I have been struggling with my lower back. Struggling to sit, to walk, to feel comfortable without its aching reminder, I am out of balance.

It is getting better, but sitting is still the thing that makes it cringe.

So I have been honouring its call to be quiet, to relax, to lay low and let it heal — with the help of my chiro and massage therapist of course!

It was a great reminder.

Recent developments at work left me with a greater than normal workload.

They also gave me an opportunity to step into a greater role, should I choose.

And therein lay my dilemma.

My ego danced its little mincing waltz, singing gleefully as it spun out of control, “Oh goodie! Oh goodie!  Recognition and fame. A chance for everyone to know my name.”

My voice of reason, my heart song knew, as it always does, the truth. “Been there. Done that. This is not what I want in my life. It is not what gives me joy and makes my heart sing.”

And still, for all the voice of reason’s sound reasons, my ego mind laughed at it and attempted, as it always does, to drown out what my heart knows. In fact, I could almost hear it stomping its little crittery feet in its demands to hold reign over my thinking. “You listen to me girlie O. You think your heart knows best. You’re wrong! Listen to me. I won’t lead you astray. My beat is greater than any ole’ heart calling you to be free! Listen to me… or else!”

It was the ‘or else’ that almost got me.

I know the ‘or else’ well. It’s how I’ve talked myself into, and out of, the places I don’t want to be and the places I need to be!

If you don’t do this or that….. you might….. regret, fall, be mistaken, be fooled or be mislead into believing….. this or that was real, or unreal, or untrue…

Ah yes, the ‘or else’ is kinda deadly.

But this time, I was prepared.

I acknowledged the ego’s calling me to take on the mantle of the bigger title with the bigger profile with the bigger everything and I lovingly embraced it as what it is — a grand seduction of my child’s need to be seen, known, heard and listened to, or else…

And in my acknowledgement, I was able to reassure it that it is still important to me, still a part of me, it’s just not the whole of me.

And in the whole of me, there is a need to continue to breathe into the work I am doing without taking on more and more responsibility. Without being ‘in charge’ of the world.

I am okay doing what I do, the way I do it.

It provides me room for balance, for a sense of purpose in my ‘out there in the world’ work as well as room to explore my purpose of being elsewhere in the world work.

I almost don’t remember the month of October. It was so busy and so crazy with doing, doing, doing. And in the crazy, I got lost in the seduction of my own importance and fell out of balance. Out of sorts. Out of touch with my heart calling me to be at One with all that is emerging in my world when I let go of listening to my ego demands for attention, and give into my hearts calling me to Pay attention. Act with intention. Live with conviction.

And now, my body is telling me I’ve spent long enough sitting. Time to go lay down and stretch and give myself healing time.

 

No matter what, speak with loving kindness and compassion

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A friend asked me the other day if I am slow to anger or a quick outburst kind of person.

It takes a lot for me to move into anger, I told them. Generally, I’m able to recognize what’s mine and what’s not and figure out what I am powerful enough to effect, or not, and to let what I can’t change go. But, social injustice, mistreatment of people I care about, well, that’s another matter.

When my daughters were in  school they dreaded telling me anything untoward that may have happened in the classroom, especially if it involved a teacher calling them out or questioning their integrity. They knew I’d be there in a flash, flying in on my broom, sweeping away any obstacles that got in the way of my righting the wrong and setting the perpetrator straight. Years after graduating my youngest daughter told me she went so far as to log her cell phone number with the high school so that she could vet any calls. And I wondered why there were no parent/teacher interviews! 🙂

What I perceive to be social injustice is a hot bottom for me. I can deal with what I judge to be sheer stupidity — when people know better they do better.  I do not do well with unkindness and unfairness to others.

The same holds true in the workplace. I can handle heavy workloads, tight deadlines, sudden changes and even uncertainty in direction.

I do not do unfair treatment of fellow staff members well.

I have worked for many organizations where management claims people are their priority, that they are their greatest asset and always, their actions are the proof of the value and integrity of their words. And while I don’t think it is a hard tenet to live by — that people come first — I have found that many organizations struggle with walking the talk.

My challenge isn’t what other people are doing. It’s what am I doing about it? Am I aligned with my values and principles or am I off-side? Am I walking my talk or taking a side-trip to the land of no integrity?

I believe people, all people, deserve to be treated with integrity, fairness and kindness. I believe it is a measure of my worth how I respect other people’s worth. I have the right to my anger, I do not have the right to be cruel because, no matter the circumstances, I am always responsible for how I express anger and fear or any kind of emotion.

I am 100% responsible and accountable for me and I trust you to be 100% responsible and accountable for you.

And here’s the rub, sometimes, I forget about trusting in the responsibility and accountability of the other party. Sometimes, I think it’s all up to me. Sort of like how I used to believe I was responsible for starving children around the world and women being raped in war-torn lands. I think I need to fix it all.

I am not that powerful.

My job is to be true to me. To walk my talk. To stand in my values and principles and know that I am aligned. It’s not about judging your values and principles, it’s about recognizing where I am compromising or undermining mine and acknowledging what I’m willing to do to bring myself back into alignment — and then to do it.

I have been struggling with a situation in my life that is not sitting well with me.

It’s not about what other’s are doing. People will do what people will do. It’s about what am I willing to do to speak up, to strive for better. Am I willing to engage in the conversation? Am I willing to step into the discord and speak my truth, fearlessly, lovingly, compassionately? Am I willing to walk my talk?

For me, it begins with acknowledging what lies heavy on my heart and being willing to step outside the comfort of silence to be heard. As I’ve written here before, my job is to turn up, pay attention, speak my truth and stay unattached to the outcome.

Not always easy when I am emotionally engaged in judging who’s right, who’s wrong and what they need to do to change. From where I stand in stubborn, self-righteous, indignation, there’s little room for honest conversation.

Time to get off my high horse and step onto terra firma where I am grounded in the truth that my experience begins with me. To have my best experience I must let go of judgements and speak up with loving kindness and compassion.

 

When nothing is ever the same again.

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I am at a loss for words. I am lost in words tumbling around my mind like socks turning around and around inside a dryer. They are white, these words I cling to. I surrender. I give up. I give in.

I cannot create peace in a world of hatred. I cannot stop hatred from erupting in a world of intolerance.

On my way to a meeting yesterday, after I wrote my blog, I tune into CBC RAdio in my car and there it was, this breaking news story that would catapult my country into fear, dismay, uncertainty.

“Nothing will ever be the same,” reads one headline this morning. And I am afraid it is true.

Terror has struck home.

Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a 24 year old reservist standing guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier in Ottawa, our capital, is gunned down in broad daylight by a fellow Canadian. A 32 year old man who allegedly than ran into the Centre Block of Parliament and started firing. A gun battle ensued and he is shot dead.

It is the second day that a member of Canada’s armed forces is killed by reported supporters of ISIL. It is the second act of terror on our soil this week.

And nothing will ever be the same again.

Yet, my day continues on as planned. A presentation for the United Way. A meeting with the Emcee for the fundraiser I am part of planning for the Foundation I work for. It will be tonight.

And in between busy day happenings, my eldest daughter calls to tell me that one of her friends just had a baby and another, who works in the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, has spent the morning lying on the floor of her office.

I am elated about her friend’s baby but have not heard anything further on the news story from this morning. I do not make the connection.

And my daughter becomes upset by my insensitivity. Can I not see how this has changed? Everything. How can I blythely talk about the humorous antics of our Emcee, Bearcat Murray when her friend is terrified for her life and she is concerned about what kind of world has her other friend brought her innocent child into?

And I am reminded of that September day, 13 years ago. That day that changed everything.

I am reminded of hearing the news as I rode the elevator up to my office. How no one was working. Everyone was glued to their computer screens watching the horror unfold on the other side of the continent.

I am reminded of wanting to hold my children safe. Of leaving my office and going to my youngest daughter’s school and taking her out of class for the day. I could not imagine what the future held but I knew that in that moment, I only wanted to hold my daughters close. At the time, my eldest daughter didn’t want to leave her high school classmates. I’m okay mom, she told me when I got to the school to invite her to spend the day with her sister and me. I want to be with my friends right now, she said. We’re talking about it. It’s important.

And so, her sister and I left and enroute home, a girlfriend called in tears. She couldn’t get away from work. Will you go get my son and keep him with you, she asked? Her son is my ‘adopted son’, one of my daughters’ best friends. Of course, I tell her. And suddenly I have my 13 year old daughter and my adopted son and his best friend with me.

We eat pizza. Chatter. I do not turn on the news.

Let’s go to a matinee, I suggest and am horrified and humoured by their choice. I can’t remember the exact film but it was something like Beverly Hills Cop 2. Lots of shoot ’em up, laugh ’em out hijinks that while funny had all too surreal a connection to the events of the day.

I think I am a terrible mother. How could I let these youth see such gratuitous violence on a day when everything was changing, never to be the same again.

And there’s the thing.

Yes, our innocence, our naive belief that terror in the world could not come home to roost was torn apart that day.

But what didn’t change, what can never change, is our capacity as human beings to change it, stop it, create better.

We are creators of war and terror.

We are creators of peace and harmony.

We can do better. We must do better if things are to change for my daughter’s friend’s baby who was born yesterday into a world that is no different than the world was the day before. It is just our understanding of what we are capable of that has changed.

And we are capable of better.

We are capable of peace.

We deserve it. All of us. Every single human being on this planet we share called earth.

 

Haiku for peace

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I have been saddened, sickened, worried about the acts of war erupting around the world.

I have been immobilized by my fear, traumatized by my worry, sickened by my helplessness.

I have been consumed by my belief, there is nothing I can do, and my spiralling thoughts of how does this leave the world a better place for my daughters and their children yet to be born.

How does war create peace?

For every bullet that pierces a mother’s child’s body, a seed of rage, anger, regret and loss is sown within the hearts of all humankind.

Where does war end and peace begin?

How do arms held out in battle become arms outstretched in compassion for one another?

Can I find compassion for the warriors and the peace-makers? Can they co-exist on the battlefields of hatred, fear, judgement? Can they find common ground beyond the boundaries of their distrust of one another? Their belief in the righteousness of their cause versus the others?

I have been wrestling with these thoughts for many moons now. Struggling to find calm in the onslaught of violence that erupts everyday from newspaper headlines written in ink bleeding across reams of words claiming the righteousness of our right to carry arms against their wrongful doing.

Where is the right and wrong of war when no matter what side of the battlefield you stand upon, lives are lost, families are torn apart and young men, and now women, carry weapons of mass destruction rendering peace unassailable?

Where is the peace in war?

And so I write. I paint. I create.

I move into that space where loving acceptance of what is consumes me and I become conscious of my capacity to create peace in my world, to light up my world with loving kindness and compassion.

Peace Tree

Peace Tree

Haiku For Peace
©2014 Louise Gallagher

Dawn stalks night’s passage
a morning bird sings hopefully
the new day will awaken.

Night mourns day’s passing
calling for peace to rise up
bombs light up the sky.

Bullets pierce flesh
death falls indiscriminately
mothers cry together.

The morning bird calls
the light of day to awaken
a bud of hope opens.

 

 

Taking time for inner-balance is not a waste of time

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The Love Bird Mixed media on canvas 12 x 24"

The Love Bird
Mixed media on canvas
12 x 24″

Ian Munro, at Leading Essentially, writes a provocative post this week about restructuring his “Inner Board of Directors” and how that has helped him to focus on his strengths. One of the exercises Ian gives is to assess your response to a given situation by determining if it drained your energies or pumped you up.  And then, he gives practical advice on how to measure the outcome.

Yesterday, I spent several hours working on finishing a presentation I am giving on Tuesday morning. For me, the quiet and comfort of my office at home provides a more creative space to think in and to imagine. After six hours, I felt I had the framework for a strong presentation (it’s on Community Engagement) with the powerpoint slides created, but not ‘prettied up’. I like the task of creating the presentation. I’m not strong on making it look all pretty. But, I do have a team member who is really, really good at it so I sent it off to them to have the final product polished up when she’s in the office today.

A win/win. I used my creative strengths to build the presentation and today, she’ll use hers to create the actual powerpoint. I did what I love and she gets to do what she loves.

In the past, my IBOD might have been more tyrannical in its insistence that I can do the prettying up of the powerpoint. In the past, I might have listened. I might have believed I needed to do it all. That my worth was based on my ability to not only create the presentation but to do all the work of making it look good.

In a cost/benefit analysis of the presentation, it probably would have taken me an additional six hours, or more, to create the final powerpoint. a) I am rusty on powerpoint creation and all its intricacies and b) I like the ‘telling the story’ part of presentation preparation, not the creating the materials part. In recognizing my strengths and my limitations, I was able to minimize the time I spent doing something that might have drained my energy and left me feeling tired today.

Instead, I feel energized.

Not only did I finish working on a presentation I think will get my message across clearly and inspire others in their community engagement work, I also rewarded myself with several hours in the studio when I was done.

And in that time, I recharged and centered myself in that place where I can once again see, who I am is not measured by the work I do, or even how much I do. Who I am is measured by the passion, love and commitment I bring to whatever I’m doing. When I give my best in the moment of doing, I create my best and that is good enough for me.

It is something I’m becoming very conscious of as I immerse myself once again in the Way of the Monk. Path of the Artist course I’ve been taking with Abbey of the Arts.

When I do not balance, ‘out there’ time with inner work and creative-making space, I am prone to feeling more tired, anxious, despairing even. My thinking runs the gamut of  ‘why bother?” with lots of chatter about my own self-importance rubbing up against thoughts of how unappreciated I feel and other inner nonsense running havoc. Get the gist? I become defeatist in my thinking and narrow-minded in my outlook.  When I am detached from my creative core, my IBOD becomes more anxious and volatile. And then, who knows what kind of all hell breaking loose scenarios I can create?

Yesterday, when I was finished the work I needed to get done to know that I was prepared for my presentation Tuesday morning, (and not feeling anxious about it), I went down to the studio and set myself free to create without any agenda. And The Love Bird appeared.

What a gift. Of time. Of renewal. Of re-charging and inner-balancing.

What are you doing to keep yourself in balance? Where do you need to let the outer doing go to create some inner peace?

 

Encore weddings are one of a kind!

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My beloved and I are off to the Okanagan this weekend. Leaving Saturday morning we will spend the next four days touring the wine country and….. wait for it… deciding on a place to hold our wedding next April.

Yes, we’ve set a date, and a destination. Now, we have to actually pick the place.

There is something surreal about it all. It feels odd, weird, different (and I’m starting to get the ‘wonderful) to be planning an “Encore” wedding at this stage of my life. (I read that somewhere ‘encore wedding’ and thought it was kind of cute!)

And it feels exciting too!

C.C. is very engaged (I know, I get the play on words. 🙂 ). Deciding on the destination was not just a “Hey honey, I think we should get married ‘here’.” He has opinions. Preferences. Ideas.

Imagine that! A man who wants to co-create our wedding event!

And there are considerations. We both want a small wedding. Except, small to C.C. is 100 – 120 people. Small to me is 20 – 25. But then, at a normal family wedding on his side, family accounts for about 50 – 60 people. My side, we’re about 10.

Along with being about us, we both want the wedding to be about our children and us, about the joining of our families into one family. So, we have ideas on how we can create that sense of ‘we’re all in this together.” It’s important to honour all our ideas, including those of our children, and to incorporate them in some way so that it truly is an ‘us’ wedding.

And then, there’s the romance. We want it to be meaningful and memorable. To be a statement of our love. Of who we are as a couple. And to be fun and romantic and whimsical and witty too!

And that’s where the critter steps in. “Seriously? You’re 60 Louise. It’s not like you’re some young, blushing bride. You’ve been here before. Like, don’t get all gushy about this. It’s just a formality…..” And he goes on. And on. And on.

Okay, I tell him. I hear you. I’m not going to be wearing a frothy cupcake of a long white dress with a long trailing veil carried by a coterie of giggling bridesmaids and dancing flower girls throwing rose petals.

But I do want it to be a statement of who we are, a statement of our commitment together, and of our relationship — of how we are together and what we mean to one another, and what our family means to us.

And age doesn’t matter. And age does matter. Because at this age, we get to do it our way — and the best part… we know what ‘our way’ is!

So there! Take that you pesky critter and stuff it up your kazoo!

Which is why we’ve chosen the Okanagan.

Originally, we thought of the Russian River Valley in California which we both love. Challenge is, cross-border organizing seemed to be more daunting, and the distance meant more logistics to juggle.

We talked about Tofino, my daughters’ and my favourite place, but C.C. has never been and getting there is a full day’s journey, even from Calgary.

We also thought about having it here, at the golf club, and while it is appealing in logistical ways, we both love the idea of an away wedding. Something that provides an opportunity for those travelling to join us to experience another part of the country that is stunningly beautiful and filled with lots of wineries and sunshine and beautiful places to explore.

And did I mention, we both love wineries and wine country and wine? 🙂

Even the date is an opportunity to ensure our children know how important they are to our union. My eldest daughter has to be at Royal Roads University on Vancouver Island the Monday following the date to begin a 3 week residency. Which means, she’ll have to travel on Sunday from Vancouver to get settled in. Holding the wedding on the Saturday would just be too much of a time crunch for her, and having it the weekend before means she has to take additional time off work prior to her away stint.

Easy-peasie. A Friday wedding it is!

So, if anyone has any ideas, thoughts, creative inventions on how to make an ‘Encore Wedding’ one of a kind and the best kind of wedding there is, share away! I’m all ears and open mind and frothing at the bit to get creating. See, even if my dress won’t be all frothy and froufou, there’s a whole lot of frothing going on, she writes while taking a sip of her frothy morning latte!

And just to be clear…. while I may not be a blushing bride, I am a bride-to-be and I’m kinda excited about that!

BTW — for those of you who missed it, The Proposal happened last Dec 8. It was…. memorable.

 

 

 

She’s Back!

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For an entire year, my eldest daughter wrote a blog about recovering from an eating disorder.

Alexis did more than survive. She grew. She challenged. She stretched and pushed and drilled down into her roots and dragged out the things that were not working in her psyche and brushed off the dirt and shone up her soul. As the title, How I Survived Myself, suggests, it was more than just the stories of ‘me and my eating disorder’. Alexis writes about how she got through the stories she told herself about why she was/felt the ways she did to discover there was more to her story than the story of an eating disorder and a past that wasn’t working for her anymore.

Alexis is courageous. She is relentless in her desire to live life on the other side of fear, out in the bright clear air of harmony, serenity and joy, in that place where miracles happen on every breath and wonder abounds.

She is also honest. Breathtakingly so.

She hasn’t written on her blog for awhile, so on  Monday night when she called to tell me she had written another post, I was delighted. I know the power of ‘writing it out’. I know the grace of finding yourself on the page. I know how the words let go are the ones that lead to discovering the real story of your life. The one you choose to create after you let go of the one you’ve been telling to keep yourself playing small.

She’s Back!

Alexis blog post… And We’re Back.

And…we’re back.

In showbiz, as it’s sometimes referred to, these words signify the beginning of rehearsal after a break or hiatus. At the sound of the phrase, the company’s members immediately drop all other conversation and activity, the outside world all but vanishes, and the work resumes again.

I say the words now, because it’s the only way I know how to begin.

I’ll be honest, (’cause that’s what I generally try to be here) over the course of these past few months I’ve been on a recess from myself.

I’ve let the world outside steal my thunder, rain on my parade, and pull me away from all that matters.  

I’ve allowed myself into meaningless conversations (mostly in my own head), played a victim, and thrown an epic pity party for myself because life wasn’t going as planned.

After weeks on end of sitting in the epic pile of shit I’d created (though I would have told you then I wasn’t in it of my own volition) I found myself in a precarious circumstance: Was I going to keep on getting sucked in to my make-believe stories and backwards thinking, or was I going to let go and start to live again?

Now I’m not saying that that shit I was sitting in wasn’t real. Because in the grips of a depressive episode, the hurt feels about as real as it gets.   Keep reading!…

Prayer for the Hours

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Art Journal Page Praying the Hours Collage

Art Journal Page
Praying the Hours
Collage

How was your day, my daughter asks when she calls.

Fabulous! I exclaim.

What made it so fabulous? she queries.

I laugh. I’m in the studio.

Ahh, she says. You listened to your own words.

And I smile.

I listened. From the ears of my heart. Within the depths of my soul. I listened and heeded the call of the muse calling me to come, let loose, release, be present.

I am a layerer. I begin a painting, allow paint and image and colour and design and texture to merge and blend and create itself. And then, I layer over. And over until what becomes revealed is not at all what I first imagined.

It is always a mystery to me, that space where the ‘art’ emerges from the layers, that place where I trust in the process enough to allow what is forming to become what appears. To allow the incubation of an idea to become its illumination of the mystery.

In the course I’m taking with Abbey of the Arts, (The Way of the Monk, the Path of the Artist) we are invited to “Pray the Hours”, an ancient tradition of praying hte Liturgy of the Hours with its seven holy pauses throughout the day.

This is not foreign ground to me as much as uncomfortable terrain. It brings back memories of childhood. Of kneeling beside my mother in church desperately wanting to escape outside into the sun. Of reading Holy Scripture, searching for understanding and fearing the hand of God would strike me down if I did not attain the perfect posture of penitence.

What I resist persists.

I have confused religion with spiritual presence. I have confused the past with the present.

Last night, I spent time in the studio and delved into Christine Valters Paintner’s (the Abbess of Abbey of the Arts) invitation to grow in the awareness of the rhythms of the day.

I am grateful.

For the evening spent amidst the hours waxing and waning in creative flow.

I am grateful.

For the time and space to be present with the muse shimmering on every breath.

I am grateful.

For the hours. The rhythm of my day. The ebb and flow of earth’s heartbeat illuminating the space for me to flow in time.

I am grateful for, as Christine writes in The Artist’s Rule, Nurturing your creative soul with  monastic wisdom, “The artist’s task is to remind humanity that we’re part of a great family of being, that we are included in a cyclical process of companionship, disappearance, and reemergence.

The sun disappeared at the end of day. I held communion in my studio, basking in the glow of creative expression illuminating the page over which I toiled. And in time’s prayerful passing, the hours merged into the moment and I awoke to the joyful essence of my being at one with the Creator, the goddess, the divine.

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To read my Prayer for the Hours, please come visit me at my poetry blog.

Safe in this moment of possibility

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Walking into the studio to simply be present in its space has been a challenge for me this past week.

Fall has settled in and I have been building a nest to hibernate within, letting go of the possibilities of what comes next.

I resist that walk. I hesitate, tell myself I have other things to do, I’m too tired, too edgy, too anything other than present.

I lose myself into a novel. Turn on the television. Convince myself it’s okay to resist and tumble into that rebellious state where doing what is good for me, what is nurturing and supportive falls short of my conscious decision to not do what I know feeds my spirit.

I have been here before, in this space of rebellious resistance to the things that bring me pleasure, joy, peace, contentment. This place where I resist what opens my heart wide, sets it to beating fearlessly as I move into the flow of creativity coursing through my veins.

I am in my head. Walled up in rebellious denial of my power to walk through the barriers I have placed to keep me out of the heart-space of creativity where I am free to flow in all directions without needing a map, a guidebook, a plan.

In this space I ask myself questions that don’t have answers. They just have rabbit holes down which I slide into perpetual cycling in and out of rationalizing my state of being.

There is only one way to stop spiralling into resistance. Breathe and allow.

Breathe and allow.

Allow what is present without judging it or believing it will be forever.

Now is not forever.

And in the now that is not forever, I find the grace to allow myself to shift from inaction into action.

To turn away from the voice of resistance I must breathe and allow myself the sacred connectedness of sitting in front of a blank page, a white canvas and being present to my fear that what I create is not good enough or not right or that the timing is wrong, that I am not meant to create, or that I am too small to change, or too weak to deal with this state I am in.

There is no right or wrong or enough in creativity and I am never too small, to weak, to nothing. I am all that I am and there is only the act of creating exactly where I am at.  There is only the act of casting words upon a page or throwing paint at a surface upon which I have already begun to tell its story if only to change the story that was present when I walked away from the space of believing in all things are possible.

It is sacred ground this creative space. And I have been holding onto the fear I will fall if I believe in it.

I breathe and allow.

Now is not forever and in this not forever place I let go of my fear of being stuck, of falling and of flying.

I breathe and lovingly acknowledge I have moved away, changed, shifted and am holding onto the fear that nothing is possible. In the nothingness of standing in fear with my eyes closed, I cannot see the light shining.

It is in the fearlessness of those moments, those tender, fragile moments where I fear what might be revealing itself upon the canvas or the page that I must let go of my fear and simply stand confidently and unafraid and do that which I fear the most — trust.

Trust in myself. Trust in being present. Trust in the muse, in creativity, the Universe.

When I trust in what is, in where I am, no matter where I am standing, Love is with me, creativity abounds and possibilities open up in endless gratitude for my being present to each moment unfolding.

I have been amusing myself in the land of darkness. It is time to open my eyes and breathe into my fear. It is time to allow possibility, creativity, hope and joy to surface. It is time to let go and trust, no matter what appears, I am safe in this moment of possibility.