Category Archives: Radical Wholeness

This Box

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When faced with a problem or situation I’m trying to find my way through, I like to challenge the statement, “Think outside the box,” by reframing it to, “Create as if there is no box.”

If there is no box, what could you do?

We live in a world of invisible assumptions that become ‘the box’ that defines us. It is the container in which we live our lives, see the world around us and call, reality, when in actual fact, reality is just the story we’ve constructed to give meaning, sense, context to the box.

For those of us who identify as female, depending upon our age, there are many invisible assumptions that create the boundaries of our box. ‘Women are caregivers.’Women are emotional. Women are the weaker sex….’ In some cultures, past and present, the box is/was constructed of statements such as, “Women don’t vote. Women don’t own property. Women do not have a voice. Women don’t go to school.”

Today, as gender becomes more fluid and more and more voices are pushing against limiting beliefs and practices that would have them fit into a box that is foreign to them, the box that makes up our perceived reality can feel more strained as those who care deeply about the walls that hold their box in place, fight back to keep their walls from crumbling.

It isn’t that they’re wrong/Others are right. It is a pushing out of the walls that can feel more constricting to others than those whose box is different or does not fit social norms of the day.

We are all human. We all live in a box constructed of social norms that are inculcated into our psyche and beings through our mothers and fathers and their mothers and fathers and so on and so on. These boxes and the societies that constructed them have defined what it means to be human, and in my case, a woman.

It isn’t wrong. It isn’t right.

It is what we, the humans who make up the society in which we live have created, and work hard to keep in place in defense of ‘order’ and the ways we think things need to be. We are all participants in and of the evolution of that society and the box that holds it in place. It’s just some of us are at the edges pushing out, while others are in the middle pulling in and away from the edges.

Which brings me back to the statement, “There is no box.”

In actuality, when I challenge myself with the statement, “There is no box.” I am challenging my perceived reality of what it means to be human.

And that can feel scary. From the moment we are born, everything we do, say and believe is modelled on the world around us. That is our box.

And because it’s our box, the box becomes the framework of our life story.

And because my box is my life story that keeps me fitting in within the society in which I live, challenging it leaves me feeling vulnerable, unsettled and disconnected from myself.

Breaking free of the box that has become my life story is a journey into self.

It is not a head game. It is a whole body experience.

And that is where the challenge arises. My box is built on the necessity that to keep ‘the box’ intact, we must be a head strong culture. Conditioned through the generations to believe what we think is reality; we cannot see that what we think is reality is actually a story constructed to keep us feeling safe, secure and happy in our box.

Activating my body knowing, getting into my body to be within the world around me, requires unravelling of centuries of conditioning that have evolved into my believing today, my reality is constructed of what I think.

Reality is not what I think.

It’s what I experience when I am grounded within all of nature. When I experience my body as part of the universe, as the birdsong being as integral to this moment as the coyote sitting at my back fence or the river flowing past, I become an active participant within all of nature’s unfolding, Embodied in the world within and around me, I step away from head strong manipulations of reality, to being one with the reality of this moment right now.

In that place, my story falls away and I know peace. I am it.

And then I laugh.

Heady thoughts?

Body imaginings?

If there is no box, why does my head hurt so much?

Namaste

_______________________________________________________

If you managed to read through this, I should let you know, these are my musings, my wandering thoughts, my free fall writing this morning. I am exploring what it means to imagine and live as if ‘there is no box’.

It is a fascinating proposition. I’d love to hear what you feel and perceive. Can you hear your body talking. Does your head want to have its say?

And I smile again. And breathe with my belly expanding out and in. Ahhhh…..

The Rootball

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Morning mist on the river

As I slipped into meditation this morning, a mist was floating along the surface of the river. When I opened my eyes 20 minutes later, the mist was gone, the sun shone bright. Shadows of naked tree trunks slid across the ice towards the west.

The sun breaks through

I smiled. How appropriate.

The question I had asked before meditating was, “What is here? Will you show yourself to me?”

I was not disappointed.

I am deeply engaged in a course on Radical Intimacy. Much of the time in this course is spent feeling from the womb, being within and of deep feminine wisdom.

This morning, I ‘saw’ a rootball, like one of the ones I hold in my hands when I am planting new spring flowers just bought from the nursery. Gently, I remove the plant from the pot, release its root ball and lovingly place it in the earth.

And that’s what I did with my feminine ‘rootball’ this morning. I gently began the process of untangling my roots.

I am unearthing my divine feminine essence that lives always within the womb of our humanity.

I’m growing. Deepening. Becoming, more and more, the essence of me. It is a lifelong journey, this becoming. A journey I dive into, retreat from, engage with again, retreat from again, in a lifelong dance of engage/retreat/enact – engage/retreat/inact…

I am smiling.

Sometimes the retreat is long. Sometimes, I am like the mist that floated along the river this morning. I follow the river’s course. I get lost in the confusion, uncertainty, despair of the times, and must allow the sun to disperse the mist hiding me from my truth — I am always becoming. Whether in engagement, retreat, acting out or taking action. I am always becoming.

I like this journey!

Like a Leaf Falling

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I am deep in meditation when a leaf flutters down through my awareness, drifting effortlessly into view within the deepness of my knowing.

Softly it whispers. “Like a leaf falling, time moves without your hands guiding its passage.”

What the…?

My first reaction is to shoo the thought away. I mean seriously! I am in meditation. I’m not supposed to be having thoughts!

It won’t be shooed.

There it is again.

I sigh.

My breath deflates.

A thought rises up out of my belly. Resistance is futile. Meditation isn’t about emptying the mind. It’s about being present within all my body to this present moment. And in this present moment, a leaf is whispering to me.

As gracefully as I can muster, I yield to its presence and allow it to settle gently onto the crucible of my knowing, I am held in this present moment, embodied within all that is present here and now, within and all around me. We are all connected.

That leaf and me. That breath of wind. The tree releasing its golden gifts. The earth catching them on its fertile ground.

We are all here, embodied in this present moment. Effortless. Complete. Timeless.

And I breathe.

It is the timelessness that surprises me.

I mean, isn’t all of life about the passage of time?

Time is a man-made construct, some voice within whispers.

Huh?

The construct of time was created by man to somehow make sense of and claim nature’s natural nature to Release. Let go. Be.. Be present. Man doesn’t like the present moment. Man is caught up in fixing the past or designing the future.

In nature, there is no concept of ‘time’. No past. No future. There is only this present moment where all things that are present exist fully alive, fully here, being and becoming.

In this moment, the invitation is to Release. Let go. Be. Release. Let go. Be.

In Philip Shepherd’s work on The Embodied Present, there is an exercise where trainees are invited to walk outside and allow the body to guide them to stop periodically beside a tree or flower or leaf, neither intentionally nor non-intentionally, and state, “I am here.”

The ‘here’ is not a declaration, a claiming of ownership, a marker placed judiciously in time and space. It is simply a statement of communion with all that is present wherever the body has guided you to stand and state, “I am here.”

This morning, as I sat in meditation, a leaf fluttered into view carrying with it a reminder to get out of my mind and into my body. To let go of having to know. To Release. Let go. Be within all that is present in the world around and within me.

And in that sacred nature, to be open and alive within the vast, ineffable mystery of a falling leaf as it drifts effortlessly on the wind’s whispering incantation to Release. Let go. Be.

Namaste

It’s a beautiful morning

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Sitting in morning meditation the idea floats into my body/mind/spirit… “I am not alone.”

I call it an idea because it is more than ‘a thought’. It is a feeling, a sensing, a knowing… “I am not alone.”

It is the sensitivity to being wholly present, embodied within this moment with all of life, nature, everything and everyone in this world.

It is all I am, all that is, all that grows and breathes and lies inanimate in and all around me.

The idea floats into my being, present and connected, and as it begins to flow gently through my body, like water drifting down through pebbles in a glass, I feel a sense of peace embrace me and fill me up.

I sip from its nourishing waters and tears gently begin to flow down my cheeks as I fall effortlessly into the beauty of all that is. Present. Here. Now.

When I open my eyes the world outside my window is bathed in carmine-hued morning light. The leaves are tinted autumn gold and the river flows past in reflective homage to the day breaking through night.

It’s a beautiful morning.

Namaste

Photosynthesis

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The view from where I sit

This is a land of trees. Trees that march across valley bottoms, up rolling hills to merge, somewhere far off in the distance, with the horizon falling down towards earth.

“It’s easy to see how someone could get lost in the woods here,” I mention to my beloved as we drive east, across the TransCanada Highway that has only been a link from east to west and west to east since 1965.

The trees sprawl out in every direction stopping only at the shores of the mighty Lake Superior whose northern edge we traverse in our eastward drive.

Thirty-four hours and over 3500 kilometers later, we reach Georgian Bay glittering like a pale sapphire under the hot July sun. We spend two delightful days visiting with C.C.’s oldest brother and his wife and then move further east, through Algonquin Park to Barry’s Bay.

We are here now at the shore of Kamaniskeg Lake where we will visit with our dear friends U and A for the next week before flying home.

And I feel it all.

Permeating my skin.

Sinking deep into my bones.

Infusing my senses with its beauty.

The silence.

The quiet of the lake.

The birds twittering in the trees.

The stillness.

Soft. Sensuous. Sibilance.

There is no breeze caressing the leaves, stirring them into story-telling.

No tell-tale gusts of wind rippling the water’s surface.

There is only green. Miles and miles of green caressing the deep blue waters of the lake which the trees surround like lovers merging their bodies into one as they lay entwined on a bed of leaves beneath a hot summer sun.

And in the presence of the silence, in the depth of this stillness and the narrowing of the distance between my body and nature, I find myself breathing. Deep.

I am here. Present. Embodied in the stillness of it all.

Photosynthesis
by Louise Gallagher


The quiet enduring embrace
of nature
fills
   my spirit
calming
   my city-riddled nerves
easing
   my busy-minded thoughts
into the silence
  immersing me 
    like the trees
     conspiring  
with the sun
to transform carbon dioxide 
into life
   giving 
     birth
      to life
again and again.

In the presence of trees
silently standing sentinel
to nature’s ways
    I find 
      myself
         falling
with grace
   sliding softly
into nature’s 
    quiet 
       enduring
          embrace
again and again.

Unfurling

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I awoke with the first stanza of this poem drifting through my mind.

When I wrote it down, the second stanza wrote itself out as if it knew its truth long before I heard the words calling.

When I went in search of an image to include with it, the image above was the first image I opened on my computer. It is from the Sheltered Wonder art journal Icreated last year to mark all I’d learned, experienced and grown through during the initial months of our sequestered solitude.

The body knows even when the mind doubts.

Yesterday, in response to a comment by the lovely and thoughtful Kiki, I told her I wished I’d taken a video of the raw journal. And then… while I was looking for something else, I accidentally uncovered the 19 sec video I’d taken of my Learning to Fly art journal before I started to create the images and quotes.

The body knows even when the mind doubts (or as in this case, forgets).

Since completing the LtF journal, I have been working on pieces for the Vale’s Greenhouse, Cultivation of Art Show and Sale I’m in June 18, 19, 20.

Initially, I was hesitant. Worried. Fearful of moving from art journal to canvas.

I love the freedom of the art journal. There is no right or wrong way. There are no rules. Anything goes.

The Canvas… well there my mind starts to impose rules. It has to be ‘good’. Sale-worthy. Meaningful. Impressive…

I balked. Stalled. Procrastinated.

And then I listened to my body. I sank out of my thinking mind into the font of knowing deep within my belly.

Just start, my body whispered. Just start and let whatever is yearning to appear find its way into expression.

And so I did.

And so it has.

And I am reminded again, the body knows even when the mind doubts.

Blossoming – mixed media on canvas board – 10 x 10″
Nurture your dreams – mixed media on canvas board – 10 x 10″

Waiting out the storm

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The morning started out cool, damp and gloomy yesterday. As the morning progressed, it didn’t get much better.

By the time Beaumont the Sheepadoodle and I went for our long walk, the temperature was still hovering close to freezing.

“I should dress warmly,” I told my rational self.

My irrational self had other ideas. “It’s late May,” that voice inside my head that loves to be contradictory insisted. “You shouldn’t have to bundle up.”

This is Calgary. Snow in May is not uncommon.

In 1986, when I was in the final weeks of my first pregnancy, (my due date was May 28) we were also in the final stages of finishing a renovation on our house. The back end was still covered in a big tarp as our contractor raced to complete construction before I gave birth.

Fortunately, my daughter decided to wait three weeks before putting in her appearance June 19th, but that’s a whole other story.

At the time, we were racing to finish the renovation when the weather decided we needed one last big dollop of winter. And I mean BIG TIME dollop. A HUGE dump of snow.

So yeah. Snow is not uncommon in Calgary in May.

Alas, it’s also not uncommon for my mind to decide it knows better, or to forget being obstinate is not necessarily a good thing.

Which is why, when Beau and I were walking on the path that wends its way through the woods along the river, I had to stop under a tree, pull the linen scarf I wore around my neck primarily for decoration, up over my head, and wait out the sleet that was almost snow. Note to self: linen scarves do not offer much protection from the elements.

Beau had no need to wait. Oblivious to the white stuff falling from the sky, he sniffed and snuffled through the grasses, bound over fallen logs and headed into the river for a drink.

By the time the sleet/snow stopped I was feeling mighty damp. Because I had told myself I didn’t need to wear my fleece lined rain jackiet, my sweater coat offered about as much protection as my linen scarf.

And none of that mattered.

As I stood under the canopy of the forest, I listened to the birds twittering and tweeting in the trees. A pair of Canada Geese honked as they flew overhead. Two ducks floated on the river just out of Beau’s reach. A squirrel complained vociferously about Beau’s presence on his turf. A woodpecker pecked on a tree trunk somewhere close by and the leaves whispered stories of their unfurling as the wind rustled through the branches.

It was magical. Mystical. Beautiful. And, I might have missed feeling, hearing, seeing, experiencing the sounds and sights of the forest so deeply had I not stopped under a tree to wait out the squall.

Which makes me wonder… how much beauty do I miss when I’m busy living my life as if getting to the next moment in time is all that matters? How much of the mystery and wonder do I not experience because I’m busy marching through inclement times determined to better life and get ‘this stuff’ over with so I can get to the ‘good stuff’?

Living on the river reminds me, every day, that it’s not about bracing myself to face every storm as if I can get the better of nature. Nor is it about trying to protect myself from life, or arm myself to avoid falling or getting wet.

It’s about listening to the calling of the trees, the birds and all of nature and allowing all of nature to unfold naturally, effortlessly, calmly, without my trying to control it.

And yes, it’s a good idea to put on a rain jacket when the skies are cloudy and grey. But it’s not the rain jacket that makes life beautiful and magical and full of awe. It’s your attitude.

Whether you storm head first into inclement weather, or wait it out under a tree, being present to all that is around you, savouring the moment full of the sights and sounds of nature, makes all the difference in the world, no matter the weather, or even how well you’re dressed for it.

Namaste.

Leafing Out – Lessons from the canvas

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Leafing Out — Mixed media on canvas – 10 x 10″

I find some transitions hard.

Like going from autumn to winter. Here in Alberta it can happen in less than a day, just as spring can pop out and then be burdened again with snow. Some days, like this morning when Beaumont the Sheepadoodle and I went for our walk, I’m not prepared for the sudden leap backwards from 22C (72F) yesterday to 3C (37F) this morning – my hands were really cold!

Another transition I find challenging is moving from working in my art journal to a canvas. My mind starts chattering about how ‘There are rules when painting on a canvas.” “A canvas can’t be wasted.” “Make it good.” “Don’t mess up.” “This isn’t as much fun…’

Which is what happened when I went back to working on a painting I’d begun a couple of weeks ago in preparation for an art show I’m in next month.

The under-painting

I had an idea of what it ‘should’ be. Big pops of colourful flowers on the background of smaller flowers I’d already painted.

I worked hard to make my vision come into reality.

But it just wasn’t happening. I felt stiff. Confined. Like it was all just turning to muck and mud.

I took a breath. Stepped back. Made myself a cup of tea and contemplated what was going on.

It wasn’t that the painting was awful. It was that my mindset was full of ‘stinkin thinkin’.

I was getting caught up in my expectations of how it should be, versus allowing whatever was seeking to appear to find its way into expression.

I wasn’t letting it be. I was trying to make it become…

And that’s why I was feeling so frustrated and uncomfortable. That’s why the critter was prattling on about how I couldn’t paint. How I wasn’t good enough. How my art sucked.

To find my inner knowing/intuitive self, I had to shut off my thinking mind and get into my ‘belly brain’. I needed to allow myself to sink deep into my body so that I could be present with the process instead of trying to force it into what I was trying to make it become.

It was a great lesson.

Getting stuck in your head. Dousing yourself in self-judgement. Self-criticism. Self-harshness and a desire to control the outcome all play a role in limiting joy, self-expression, creativity and passion.

To live life fully I must release myself from expectations. I must let go of the outcome to fall deeply into the process of being alive in this moment. Right now. Unfolding in all its ineffable mystery.

When I hold on too tightly to the outcome, I lose sight of where I am, what I’m doing, how I’m being in this moment right now.

I’m pretty sure spring leaves don’t tell the tree, I’ll only leaf out if I can be 3 inches long, two inches wide and a certain green hue. And they definitely don’t say, “Oh. And I’ll only unfurl if you promise to not make me turn orange and fall later in the season.” They leaf out fully immersed in the journey of leafing out.

To be fully immersed in my life, I must release my need to control the journey and throw myself with wild abandon into each moment unfurling in the deep unfathomable mystery of life.

Namaste

.

Brave Beauty

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Brave Beauty

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.

He Gave Her Words

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He Gave Her Words – mixed media on canvas paper 9 x 12″

Yesterday, when I stepped into the sheltering welcome of my studio, the muse whispered a tantalizing thought “He gave her words.”

Curious, I followed her lead.

I tore a page from an old book I keep on hand for just such occasions. I pulled out my GelliPad (a rubbery mat used for mono printing) and laid some colour down. Using the round end of a paintbrush, I drew a vase and flowers, laid the book page down and pulled a print.

The words on the page showed through. Cool. I kept going.

Pulled out a piece of deli paper, laid some more paint down (mostly darks), made more marks and pulled another print.

On the canvas paper page of my art journal, I collaged strips of paper from an old dictionary onto the page. The words defined on the torn strips all had to do with flowers. I collaged the deli paper printed page and then the printed book page onto the background and set to work creating a cohesiveness to the piece with paint pens, markers and fingerpainting – I had decided, somewhere in the process, that I wouldn’t use any brushes on this page. So I didn’t.

When I was finished, I placed my hands on the page, took a breath, closed my eyes and asked, “What words do you yearn to release?”

And the poem below came into being.

I am sharing my ‘process’ because it is, in so many ways, a reflection of life. We start with a desire to live life as best we can. We set goals. Follow dreams. Discover and use our talents. We gain knowledge. Expertise. Experiences. We layer on wounds. Scars. Cracks. They form the stories we tell ourselves about why or how we can or can’t do something. Those stories, made up of all the words we use to tell them to ourselves, again and again, create pathways, ruts, habits. Sometimes, we question their existence. Often, we accept them as natural limitations.

And then, one day, if we’re lucky or if we’ve hit such a devastating patch we cannot fathom how we will go on, we have no other choice but to start questioning the stories we’ve told ourselves about how we got to this dark and foreboding place. In our questioning, we start to unravel the words that formed those limiting beliefs that trapped us in believing this, this place where we feel so lost and alone and hopeless, is really all there is. Isn’t there more?

And then, if we’re really, really quiet, if we’re really, really still, we hear that voice deep within calling us to awaken. To open our eyes and heart and arms to the infinite mystery of who we are when we stop questioning our right to live wild and free and outrageously ourselves.

That’s when we begin the journey back to our truth. To the stories we tell ourselves, not of our limitations but of our limitless capacity to live wild and free and outrageously ourselves.

Yesterday, I stepped into the studio and the muse whispered, “He gave her words.”

I did not question, “What does that mean?”

I did not ask myself, “How on earth am I going to create something around ‘that’.”

Instead, I dove in. I let my intuition, my inner knowing guide me, unquestioning, into the creative expression of the muse’s invitation. I allowed ‘whatever yearns to appear’ to appear as I expressed myself without limiting my expression of my intuition by listening to all I tell myself I know about words and making sense of them or art and all I know about making it happen.

I stepped into the studio yesterday. I let go of ‘knowing’ and allowed myself to be present to the process of unveiling the mystery of what was seeking to be revealed.

And in the end, isn’t that what life is? A journey of exploration? A great mystery to be revealed with every step we take in its unfolding? Wild and free and outrageously ourselves.

He Gave Her Words
by Louise Gallagher

He gave her words
ripe and plump
full 
of plundered promises
plucked
from the strings
of memory
playing a melody
he vowed would never die
with the turning of each season.

He gave her flowers
colourful and bright
full
of tomorrows
never-ending
cast upon indolent days
spent languishing
beneath a summer sun
burning
hot against her skin.

He gave her promises
vanishing
like flowers 
wilting
beneath autumn’s kisses
bleeding colours 
dry
fallen
upon the frozen ground
of winter’s ice-cold breath.

He gave her words.
She gave her heart.

His words faded.
Plucked dry.

Her heart beats.
Fierce and free
of his words.