Tomorrow is The Great Big Summit.

If you’re in Calgary and area please, come, join us and help us fulfill on the vision of ending homelessness in our city. Everything is possible when we work together.

For more info:  http://calgaryhomeless.com/get-involved/events/

There is no cost to attend. There is a cost to everyone if we don’t do this.

Art Journal Entry, February 16, ©2015 Louise Gallagher

She awoke and heard her heart calling, and her dreams took flight.

It was a thought that floated through my mind as I carefully crimped and folded paper for a giant flower I am making for our wedding.

“When I am sleeping, my dreams are trapped in the night, captive in my mind. Only when I awaken and open my eyes to the light of day can they take flight.”

I kept folding and crimping paper.

The thought persisted.

I finished the flower I was working on and pulled out my art journal. Time to give expression to my thoughts.

What I love most about art journalling is, there is no right or wrong way, there is no ‘I need to clean it up, balance it, lighten it if I want to sell it’, or hang it on a wall, thinking.

There is only the blank page calling.

The unknown waiting to be explored.

Art journalling gives me space and room to explore, colour, texture, technique, tones, mediums. I can layer, paste, paint over, embellish.

It allows me to create for the sake of creating without any attachment to the outcome — it is pure and total freedom.

Sometimes, what I create pleases me immensely. Sometimes, the end product is not quite what I wanted.

It is a lesson in acceptance of what is.

I want to keep changing, adding, painting over, ‘making it better’.

I want to make it all pretty and nice and easy on the eye, no matter how much time it takes!

Sometimes, living with the discord grating against my senses is as important as finding the harmony in every heart beat. Sometimes, it is in the dissonance of where I’m sitting I discover the essence of my being alive.

In the dissonance, I feel my breath catch, my fear of discord rise up and push me towards the edge of running away, of taking off, not in a flight of fancy, but a run of terror I might be caught, I might be seen as something other than perfect!  It is in those moments I discover how important it is to stand in the broken, to be present in what is within and around me and accept, I’m okay just the way I am.

Just as with writing I have to allow myself to ‘write bad’ to get to the good, in painting, I must give myself space to create for the sake of creating without measuring what I’ve created against some hidden yardstick telling me it’s not good enough.

It’s not about the outcome. Like life, it’s about the journey of discovery.

For today, take your thoughts off of what you’ll get out of your day and focus instead on what you’ll discover. Open your eyes wide to every moment unfolding and feel your dreams unfurling their wings in the freedom of being present to the awe and beauty of the world breathing all around you.

Go ahead. Do it. Who knows what wonders you’ll discover?

Namaste.

Let your heart take flight
30 x 36 Acrylic on Canvas
Louise Gallagher
Sold

The energy of life is an endless circle of renewal.
It is always renewing, repeating, recreating itself.
There is wholeness and harmony in life.
There is darkness and light.
Truth and lies.
Beauty and ugliness.
Simplicity and complexity.
Life is an eternal force, calling us always to dive deep into all its dimensions.
To explore completely its many facets.
Life is moving all around us, calling each of us to come home to the truth of our existence.
We are born full of life’s possibilities.
We are born magnificent, beautiful, complete.
We are perfect, just the way we are.

I didn’t know when I wrote my blogpost in the early hours of the morning yesterday that destiny had crashed into the life of someone I knew.

I didn’t know that where life continued here, out there it had ended for five people hurtling down a road to the intersection of their lives ending in one catastrophic crash.

I did not know.

Would I have written any differently? Would I have stopped to pay tribute to a man I greatly admired, then instead of now?

I do not feel right writing of this man. I do not feel worthy. Yet, I feel compelled to put into words my sense of sadness, sorrow, loss, if only to say, “You were a great man, Michael. I am honoured to have known you.”

Michael was tireless in his commitment to push the boundaries of his art out into the universe. He was committed to supporting others, furthering his craft and creating opportunities for others to further theirs.

Michael Green died on a Saskatchewan road on Tuesday. He was not alone. There were three others with him and one other in another vehicle. There was a third vehicle but the passengers in it live on. It is a blessing that not all lives were lost on that wintry stretch of road.

It is a tragedy that five were.

I am confused by the suddenness of death. Startled by the quickness of its arrival and in its wake, the deafening silence reverberating in the departure of those who followed it to ‘the other side’.

I want to reach out and say, Stop. Don’t go. Wait. There is still much to do. So much to be said. To be accomplished.

And only the silence remains.

I want to remind Michael that we have to plan that coffee we talked about when last we met just before Christmas. I want to apologize for not calling to set it up like I said I would. I’m sorry. I thought I had more time.

And now, there is no time to do the things I intended. There is no time for Michael and the others to continue to create and inspire and impact the lives of the thousands of people they touched, and would have touched, if tragedy hadn’t struck on a lonely stretch of road when three vehicles collided and forever changed the course of their lives and the lives of many.

Death is a lonely companion. It hears no song but its own voice calling those whose voices meant so much to the world around them, into the silence of its embrace.

I didn’t know him well, but well enough to know that the world has lost a great human being. A man whose gifts were shared with grace, whose generosity of spirit made it possible for others, no matter where they stood on the economic or social scale, to find their voice and sing out, loud and clear.

There are so many things that would not have happened without Michael Green’s vision carrying them into reality.

I am grateful for the things he did. The times his genius created space for wonder and awe in our world.

David van Belle’s, The Invisible Project, would not have happened without some of Michael’s brilliance opening the possibility of its creation.

This is My City’s inaugural year and its production of Two Bit Oper-eh-Shun? would not have been staged without his passion.

The panel with then Governor General of Canada, Michaelle Jean in attendance, needed his commitment and persistence to making it happen.

And these are just some of the things he did to create space for art and expression that bridged the world outside with the world inside the homeless community. And the list goes on.

There is so much he accomplished, and so much more he could have done if destiny had not decided his time was now.

His passing is a reminder that there is only this time right now to get whatever needs doing done. To make the phone call. Book the coffee. Create. Express. Share your gifts. Celebrate your life. Live. Be. Do.

Good-bye, Michael Green, Lacy Morin-Desjarlais, Michele Sereda, Narcisse Blood and Morley Hartenberger.

The world is a different place without your presence.

Years ago, when I was released from a relationship that was killing me, I felt lost, frightened, confused and alone. I had awoken with 72 cents in my pocket, a few clothes in a suitcase and my trusty Golden Retriever Ellie who had journeyed through the last harrowing two years of that relationship beside me.

I didn’t know what to do to find peace of mind and heart so, I prayed.

As a child, prayer had been a big part of my life. My mother, a devout Catholic, would make us four children kneel beside her every Friday evening in the living room of our home, no matter where in the world it was, and pray the Rosary. On Saturdays, my middle sister and I would go to the church with her to freshen up the flowers on the altar, and we would pray.

I was sometimes irreverent. Sometimes impatient, sometimes resentful of having to take time out from my play to pray. Always though, no matter what was going on around or within me, when I bowed my head and closed my eyes, clasped my child’s hands together in front of my heart and whispered the words of the Hail Mary, or the Our Father that began each decade of the Rosary, I felt a calmness descend and embrace me in its sacred warmth.

As an adult, prayer did not play much part in my life. In fact, for years, when my mother would say, “I’ll pray for you,” I felt a visceral reaction, a gut response of, “Don’t bother me with your faith and belief in prayer,” sizzle in my veins.

I realize today that my angry responses to her entreaties to pray for me had nothing to do with prayer, and everything to do with unresolved issues from childhood. I’m happy to say that today, I welcome my mother’s prayers, appreciating them for what they represent, a statement of her love and care for me.

Prayer also represents a powerful connection to the Divine.

On that first night after the police walked in and released me from an abusive relationship and I prayed, I wasn’t praying for anything in specific other than to drown out the pounding in my brain and hammering of fear within my heart. It worked.

I have used prayer intermittently over the years, often chanting in meditation or, on nights when sleep evades me, whispering the ancient words of the Hail Mary to allow peace to enter my mind and open the portals to sleep.

Prayer is a direct path into the sacred. A spiritual portal that connects me to the Divine, bringing me peace and calm. It soothes my soul.

I must confess though that when I say or type the word ‘pray’ or ‘prayer’, I feel a fissure of nervousness, a tiny worry of ‘what will other’s think’ scamper through my mind.

Will people think I’m trying to be all holy or devout? Will they think I’m getting all Catholic or religious on them?

If I were to write of Buddha, or Zen, there would be less mind-chatter tripping me up. Which means, I still have unresolved issues around faith and God and my thinking around what is spiritual and what is religious and what really does prayer do? I imagine the sleeping dragon within me is getting set to fire up my resistance to facing what is real and powerful and true to my heart.

So, I’ve decided to go on an exploration of prayer. To simply let my heart and soul and mind flow with ancient words of prayers written long ago and, with a group and the guidance of Andrew Harvey, explore the mysteries that prayer makes available, and the inner power and energy that it builds and sustains in birthing the divine human within.

The adventure begins tonight when the Igniting The Flame of Prayer course begins online.

I am excited!

And a wee bit nervous. I will be immersed in the holy adventure and, I will be confronting the dragon within.

And so, I breathe and I pray for peace and courage to embrace me.