My mother was born in India of Euro-Asian descent. At the time, Pondicherry was a French Protectorate with a very vibrant and strong Catholic community.

Devoutly Catholic, she affixed crucifixes above doors and kept statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus by her bed. She also ensured there were statues of Vishnu and Lakshmi and other gods all around the house, just in case.

The words of a prayer were never far from her lips, especially if one of us four children lost something or tested her patience (read mostly me). Where I was concerned, it didn’t take much provocation for her to quickly launch into a prayer to St. Jude, the Saint of Lost Causes.

I remember once, we were camping and my sister and I were using one of my father’s favourite camping pots as a bucket. We would scoop water out of the river and then throw the water back in as if it were raining. I was scooping and throwing and accidentally let the bucket go as I was throwing the water back in. I remember watching, aghast, as the bucket bobbed along the surface of the water, out of reach. My mother made me pray with her to St. Jude and a few minutes later, the pot was found safely tucked in between two rocks a bit further downstream. She was convinced it was St. Jude answering our prayers, just as she was convinced, God and St. Jude would never give up on me.

Yesterday, I read Agah Shahid Ali’s poem, “Lenox Hill” which arrived in my Inbox via The Poetry Foundation. Reading his powerful and provocative words, I was reminded of my mother and her many gods and goddesses and her deep abiding faith in the God of her faith.

This poem was born…

She Could Not Let The Gods Die
By Louise Gallagher

Tired now,
she prayed feverishly
to her Lord
God of her faith
committed 
to following His way
to the other side.

It was the way 
of the cross
she’d carried away
from the land of her birth
when she’d left
to follow the way
of a man
who appeared
like one of the gods
she could not let
die.

She carried her faith like a cross
but could not let the gods
of her land of birth
die
just in case.

You never know when you might need
a god of another colour
she whispered into the shroud
of mystery
that encircled her
in the dead of night.
You never know who will meet you
at the door
of Heaven or Hell or Svarga loka.

And when the time came
for her to pass over
through the gates
of an unseen world
she held tight
to the rosary she’d carried
with her from the land of her birth
as her lips silently moved,
praying feverishly for her soul
to achieve enlightenment.

I have never let you die,
she whispered with her dying breath
where karma met Moksha on the way
of the cross
releasing her from all earthly ties
free
to live in peace
forever 
on the other side.

Growing up, I was never particularly fond of the name Louise, though I did like its meaning, “Famous Warrior”. Named after my father, Louis, I felt trapped between my mother’s desire I be ‘a good girl’ and my father’s wish I be the second son he’d wanted.

I wanted to be Natasha. As in, a Russian Princess with black hair and piercing blue eyes and alabaster skin who wore rustling silk gowns and always got her way, and when she didn’t, threw tantrums and stomped her tiny slippered feet with impunity.

Or Rebekah. Grandmother to Joseph.  In the photos of her in the big, red-leather-bound book with the words, The Catholic Bible embossed in gold on the front that sat in a dominant place in our living room, Rebekah had black hair and dark eyes, like me. She looked beautiful, like I imagined my father’s mother to be. I never met my father’s mother, but she too was Jewish, which seemed exotic to my childlike mind. We seldom spoke of her. She divorced my grandfather when he was a child. The story my father told was that she didn’t want him so sent him away from London, England to boarding school in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan, when he was eight, while his sister stayed to live with her in London. Many years later I would learn that wasn’t the full story, but it was the story we grew up with.

I loved the story of Rebekah in the bible. How she cemented her place in history, used her feminine wiles and wits to create a dynasty and a place in history for her favourite son. In a house where my sisters and I used to joke about our brother that, “the sun rose and set on the son”, I liked how Rebekah knew exactly what she wanted and was committed to do what she needed to get it.

Rebekah’s path did not sit well with my mother. Women don’t behave like that she’d insist whenever I’d ask to read Rebekah’s story. It’s not ladylike to be so domineering, she’d say, before turning to a page she preferred we read.

Looking back, I can understand why my mother insisted we read only the stories that extolled the virtues she deemed to be ladylike. I wanted to be the things she did not admire in women. Independent, strong, willful even, like Rebekah, but was often told I was petulant and demanding, bratty even, like Natasha, my Russian wanna-be namesake.

For many years, I got lost somewhere between the pages of that red-bound-leather bible and the confusing messages of the world around me. “Be smart, but not too smart. Boys don’t like smart girls.” “Dream big, but not too big. Boys don’t like girls whose dreams are bigger than theirs.” “Be outspoken, but not too outspoken. Boys don’t like loud-mouthed girls.”

For my mother, there was never a question that being like Mary was the goal of every woman. Nor was there any question in her mind that I would ever attain such grace. I was just too flawed and imperfect to ever get there.

I didn’t particularly want to, ‘get there’. Yet still, I tried. And constantly failed. It felt like a set-up. By God. The Bible. The stories of men who dominated its volumes and its unrealistic expectations of women’s virtues. Society and its double standards. My body that, no matter how hard I wished it wouldn’t, kept turning into a body men desired.

I have long since come to terms with my name and nature and femininity. Time, and a whole lot of therapy, have given me perspective. But, as I began to write this piece I went back and read the stories of Rebekah and was transported back to those childhood days when my mother would take down the red-leather-bound bible from its perch and open it to a story she wanted to read.

In that memory I am reminded of the sacred nature of those moments. Of sitting close to my beautiful mother listening to her soft lilting voice, her hands fluttering in the air between us as she read the stories that meant so much to her. Of how each turn of a page revealed yet another stunning painting of a Biblical scene in living colour.

Sometimes, she’d read a story from one of the four Book of Saints that accompanied the red leather-bound bible.

The ones about the women saints, those who defied the odds, who did great things with great courage and even greater spirit ignited my imagination. I wouldn’t realize it then, but those are the stories that birthed the feminist in me.

I wanted to be like those saints. Not the pious part. That just wasn’t my gig. But the strong, committed, overcoming challenges and standing up to unrighteousness and corruption and wrong-doing in the world… now that part grabbed my dreams of who I wanted to be in the world. The challenge was always to find my path without having to be the ‘good little Catholic girl’ my mother dreamt I’d become.

It would take me many years, and buckets full of life experience, to find my own way.

And while as a child, I’d often rather have been out playing in the backyard, today, I am thankful for those times when I sat beside my mother as she read stories from the big red-leather-bound bible on her lap. I didn’t know it then, but in those quiet moments she was giving me many gifts. A love of beauty, of story, of art, of possibilities. And the courage to use my voice and gifts to create a better world today.

Namaste

__________________

About the Art: After our mother passed away at 97 years of age last February 25th, I brought home the stack of prayer cards she used every night to say her prayers. For several months, I worked on an altered book art journal, incorporating her prayer cards into each page. The 2-page spread above is from the printed copy of the finished book which I created of the altered book art journal (I wanted to give both my sisters a copy so needed to have it printed). The 3 faces are my grandmother, mother and me. If you’d like to view the print-copy of the book, you can see it here.

For me, the book stands as a testament to the power of art to heal hearts and the past while inspiring beauty in the present day and awakening courage to create a more loving tomorrow.

It took two days to complete. Two days of breathing deeply and allowing the muse to guide me.(In case you’re wondering, I’m referring to the finished journal page above.)

It’s hard. The letting go of expectations, of the need to ‘make pretty things’ and just be present within the process, allowing what wants to be revealed to appear in its own way.

It’s hard. But it’s worth it when it happens.

Not necessarily because the finished piece is ‘beautiful’ by artistic standards. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.

The ‘worth it’ comes in the sense of peace and calm that envelopes and holds me in tender arms of gratitude and grace.

Gratitude because in the process of unfolding I release the goal of ‘making art’ to my heart’s yearning to allow the art within me to become me. In its revealing nature, I discover hidden (to me) pockets of creativity, desire, whimsy, curiosity, wonder…

Grace because while immersed in the process I feel myself carried gently along a colourful stream of creative energy that feels singular to me yet is deeply connected to the collective consciousness of all of life.

And, because when I am flowing with the stream, worrisome thoughts of self-criticism, judgement, negativity, ‘the future’, ‘why am I doing this?’ effortlessly float away, setting me free to simply Be. Here. Now.

It is divine.

This place where I allow without pushing, accept without resisting, embrace without holding on, become without doing.

And then I smile.

Because I really, really want to explain this piece which is quite different in many ways than my normal work…

Because… out of the flow, my critical mind looks at the piece and says… Hmmm… you know you could have taken the stems off the dried flowers before you glued them in. Oh. And do you think the bottom half is cohesive with the top? They’re such different styles. And, seriously Louise, what is this piece all about?

I am a ‘meaning-maker’. If you’ve hung around my blog long enough, you know that I love to dive into the inner self and shine a light on its secrets, mystery and beauty. It is as natural to me as breathing.

When I made ‘the decision’ to include the dried flowers in the page I was a bit surprised but, as I was in the flow, I let it happen.

Plus, I have a stash of dried flowers from summers’ past and now felt like a good time to use some. The photo has been sitting on the edge of my studio table for months. Seriously months. It was on a card I’d bought a couple of years ago, unearthed when I was cleaning up my studio one day. I don’t often use other peoples photos in my work but this one has intrigued me for so long I decided to use it along with some of my dried flowers. It’s a blend of a very different look and feel for me as well as part ‘Oh. This is my style too’ (I paint botanicals a lot into my pages) — It felt wonderful to step outside my comfort zone and play fearlessly.

As I kept working on the page, I could also feel my ‘thinking’ mind’s questioning of what on earth was I doing?

Time and time again throughout the two days of working on this journal page, I had to bring myself back into the flow by repeating quietly to myself…

Breathe… Be. Here. Now. Breathe… Be. Here. Now.

The quote appeared once I was finished. Somewhere deep within me, is a sense of the threads of time appearing like pearls in a necklace. Polished by time and the sea and the tide flowing in and out and over and into an oyster’s shell, that little speck of dirt grating against its body transforms into something of beauty.

Like the dried flowers. Perhaps they were once part of a posy the woman held in her hands as she sat waiting for her lover to appear in the night…

And so… when I was done and closed my eyes and held my hands upon the page, its essence appeared in the words written on the lefthand side.

.”Like flowers preserved behind glass, her story wove strands of beauty throughout time.”