Winter’s returned for a quick blast of chill. The lawn, which was quickly beginning to show its roots, is once again blanketed in the white fluffy stuff.

Where ever I go, the conversation inevitably returns to ‘the weather’. Grumbles. Complaints. Groans of dismay. I mean seriously, yesterday was the first day of spring and this is what the weather gave us?

This too shall melt.

This too shall pass.

Time will flow onward. Seasons will shift. The earth will continue to travel its orbit around the sun and the moon and planets will continue to hold their space in the universe.

These are the things I count on. These are the things I know.

It is perhaps why I hold fast to my belief in Love and its power to heal all, shift all, move all.

There are so many things in this world I can’t count on or at least predict with any degree of certainty.

Weather will always happen. But I don’t know what it will be with any guarantee one day to the next — at least, not living here in Alberta at the foot of the Rockies where our favourite saying is, “Don’t like the weather? Wait 5 minutes.”

We can’t count on people living forever. Because we don’t.

We can’t count on buildings standing forever. Because they don’t.

We can’t really count on mountains standing forever either because if you look at the totality of our planet’s formation, plates have shifted, glaciers have advanced and melted, seas have receded and rivers have carved new paths.

What hasn’t changed, what cannot change is the power of Love to create, to evolve, to be present.

And then, I laugh at myself as I write that because if I look way, way back, back to the time of the Neanderthals, do I really know if Love was all around?

And that’s the thing. I have to, no make that, want to believe it was. It is my belief and I want to believe in something I know I can count on. In that awareness, I get to choose what I believe.

And I believe, Love is the answer.

Art Journal Theme 4: Gratitude

Yesterday, while working with a group of individuals with lived experience of homelessness, one of the participants spoke of their battle with addictions. Their battle with cancer. Their battle to claim their heritage, their birthright, their voice, their humanity.

They shared how as an Aboriginal, it was their responsibility to come to the sweat lodge, to pray, to heal. “If we are to change the 28% of the homeless population who are First Nations and make it zero, we must all come to the sweat lodge. We must all pray. We must all heal.”

I was thinking of them this morning as I looked out the window and saw all the snow that fell overnight.

They are sleeping rough. It’s easier to stay clean and sober. Easier to avoid the negative distractions that a shelter, along with the care provided, also offers. When so many desperate people come together, desperate things can happen. “I may not be living right,” they said. “But I am walking right.”

Walking right.

In walking right, there are some things they shared the things they’d learned, the things that can always be counted on.

The change of heart that comes through forgiveness.

The gift of peace that comes with gratitude.

The healing of shame that comes through self-love.

“I didn’t like who I was when I was homeless,” one of the participants, also First Nations, said yesterday. “And because I didn’t like who I was, I kept trying to drown who I was.”

Today, clean and sober, studying at the University, they have a purpose, a drive, a desire to give back, to make a difference, to teach what they have learned so others can find their own way to healing. They are walking right.

The world has not treated these individuals kindly. They were not given an EASY button to press to make it all better.

They have struggled and hurt and fallen back. They have gotten up and been beaten down, again and again.

And still, they move forward. They push through. They struggle onward. And they shine.

Because no matter what, I believe the human spirit desires to be free of what hurts us, to be released from what holds us back, to be clear of the past.

I believe that Love motivates only goodness. Love creates only better. And they are living testaments of the power of Love to create change, to heal.

As I listened to the conversation yesterday I felt the peace and joy of knowing that what I count on was visible in that room. It was there within every breath. Every word. Every action. Because in their desire to walk right, Love can always be count on to show them the path to walking right.

Love.

It is the only answer I count on to walk right.

I was taught at a very young age not to trust my own thinking, not to believe  myself.

When I was born my mother was in a massive depression. My eldest sister, at 8 years old, became my care-giver. A tough task for a young girl but given that taking care of my mother and her two younger siblings had always been her task, she welcomed me into our family and began to care for me too.

For my mother, sad, lonely, far from her family, having her daughter play the role of ‘mother’ was nothing new. When she told me her life story years ago, she shared how she believed it was a daughters responsibility to take care of their parents. For my mother, her depression stemmed from believing she had failed her parents the day she sailed away from India with my father and left them far behind on the shores of the land she loved.

My mother was homesick for family. My father didn’t have one.

Raised by priests in a Catholic boarding school, his parents had divorced when he was young. I never met his mother, even though we lived in England not far from her home for years. My grandfather was a mysterious character whom I only recall setting eyes on twice. He was not the kind of man to send special gifts on birthdays, or cards to commemorate notable dates. He was not the kind of person who stayed in touch.

When I was less than a year old, we moved to England and then a few years later, to France. My mother was happy, or as happy as a woman with severe depression can be. Her brothers and sisters had all fled India when independence came because the passports they held were French. Their choice was to either give up their French connection, or leave. They chose to move to Saigon, a place they’d never been, but a place that still fell under French protection. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a choice that gave them any greater security than India. When the Americans rolled in, they packed up once again and moved to France, the land whose passport they held but a land that held no deep roots for any of them.

In Paris, there were many family gatherings. Smoke filled rooms with loud conversations and wine flowing and music playing and people gesticulating wildly, passionately talking, defending, arguing, while my cousins and I ran between their legs or sat silently in separate groups, looking at each other, wondering how to communicate when we came from such different sides of the world.

We were the outsiders. The Canadians.  They were the ones that belonged.

This was their country. They held the label that gave them ownership of the land. We were the interlopers. The ones who had it easy in the richness of Canada while they were continually displaced, travelling the world looking for a home.

At least, that’s what I saw through my child’s eyes, or it could be that my belief came through the words of my father who despised Frenchmen and in particular, had little time for my mother’s family. My father was very vocal in his disdain and never missed a chance to let other’s know what he thought.

My mother wanted peace at all costs and sometimes that cost was high. I learned to not try to shake my father’s opinions. I learned to seek the conciliatory path.

When I was five, my father was transferred back to Canada. There was a family gathering in Paris. A wedding perhaps, or maybe just a farewell send-off for our family. My mother was distraught over leaving her family in France so when I whined about being tired, about needing to use the facilities, she did not want to leave the gathering and gave me to the care of her favourite brother to take me home.

It was under my uncle’s hands I learned to not believe in myself, to not listen to my truth, to believe that what I experienced wasn’t true if others said it wasn’t. Many years later when I asked my mother why she didn’t believe me when I told her what had happened, she sighed and told me what was true for her, she was powerless to do anything else. “What could I do?” she said. “He was my brother.”

Looking back at those events now, I see where my desire to be heard and seen and believed has fought continuously with my belief I do not deserve to be heard and seen and believed. I didn’t believe in myself. I didn’t ‘see’ me.

Today I do. I cannot change the past. I cannot undo what was done. I can love and accept and forgive and stand in my power today. Speak with my voice today. See with my eyes today and create with all my heart today the kind of world I want to live in. A world everyone believes in the sanctity of the human spirit and the power of love. A place where everyone has the right to be heard and all are seen as the magnificent, beautiful and shining lights they truly are.

In learning to trust in myself, to honour my voice, to cherish my thoughts, to create space for my presence, I have learned to honour the voices and presence of others, no matter their condition.

In this space, I do not have to give up my belief in the beauty of humankind and the power of love. I have to give up holding onto the disbelief we are anything other than miracles of life, each of us unique and precious, each of us on our own journey to the truth of who we are.

I have been retracing my artistic roots. Digging into the dirt of my past to find the confluence of my creative expression and the belief “I am not an artist”.

I have shared before the story of when I awoke to my desire/love/passion for painting. I was in my 40s. Alexis, my eldest daughter, already a phenomenal artist at 14ish, asked if we could go to the art store to buy her some canvas and paints. We went. Came home and I announced I was going to paint with her… and as they say, the rest is history.

That one decision to paint with my daughter set me off on a creative exploration that I continue to dive into today with joy and passion. It also awoke in me the awareness of a lie I’d been telling myself most of my adult life that I believed was true, “I am not an artist”.

Not true. I am an artist. I am a creative soul. A creativity diver. I love to express myself artistically. In every way possible. Seeing that lie masquerading as truth, I wondered, “What other ‘facts’ do I tell myself are true about myself that are actually lies? Where else am I wrong about my limitations?”

It has been a good question to explore, to push into, to pull out and stretch and roll around in. Like Ellie, the wonder pooch, whose favourite pastime as a puppy (and beyond) was to find the biggest mud puddle she could and lay in it and roll, savouring the question, “Where are my self-beliefs keeping me playing small?” has given me a vast and expansive playground to roll around in and dive deep into to find my creative expression.

And in the process, I am learning things about myself I never knew!

Having discovered my artistic elements are deep, I wondered, where did it begin? This belief I could not, did not, paint or draw. Sure, I’ve always been known as someone who likes to make things. Christmas wreaths, decorating the house for seasonal times, creating warm and inviting spaces, all of those things I did. But to put a brush to paint, to cover a blank canvas in colour and texture and design… no way. I didn’t do that.

And then, I did and I wondered, where did the belief I couldn’t/shouldn’t/didn’t come from?

As a young girl, I remember always doodling, drawing faces, eyes, mouths, figures in the margins of my notebooks. When my eldest sister ran for school office, or Teen Queen, I loved to make her posters. Beatniks were big in those days and I loved drawing beatniks and crafting clever sayings to convince people to vote for my sister.

It was the same with singing. I loved to sing. Sang with a small folk group in junior high but by high school, even though I entered talent contests and often performed in public, I didn’t pursue something I loved.

Funny how one memory will trigger another. Typing that statement I remembered Teen Town, a center for youth on the military base where I grew up. One of my classmates was an amazing artist and he created a huge mural. I remember wanting to create with him and not having the nerve. I believed, I wasn’t good enough.

In my 20s, I painted a mural on my bedroom wall. I loved it. My then boyfriend, not so much.

I dabbled in creative expression but always, my lack of confidence, my belief, I have no talent, wasn’t good enough, hindered my expression.

And while I cannot find the root cause of my shutting down of my creativity with the lie, I am not an artist, I do know that lack of encouragement, lack of positive feedback, and the belief if I was going to do it I had to be better than anyone else, or at least as good, kept me from exploring the possibilities.

I didn’t try. I didn’t explore. I didn’t do.

I kept quiet about my creative yearnings and buckled down to life.

I know that I am not alone. I know that I am not the only one who has had a yearning to express themselves and then stifled it beneath a blanket of well-trod platitudes to distance ourselves from our hearts-desires.

It is oh so human. and oh so sad to limit our lives with beliefs that begin with, I am not, I can’t, I don’t, I shouldn’t.

I may never know the root cause of my limiting belief. It doesn’t matter. In re-tracing my journey, I have found signs of creative expression that confirm what I know to be true today. In that light, I find strength, renewed energy and desire to continue to explore my creative intentions and express them in every way, any way I can.

In my expression, I give myself permission to dive in, spread out and shine my light as brightly and fiercely as I can so that all the world can see, there’s no one way to be human, to express yourself, to show yourself in the world. There is no ‘as good as the other’, or better than or worse than.  There is only what we each do to express ourselves freely. And in all our expressions shining brightly, all the world can see the wonder of each soul illuminating the dark!

And in our light, the world is a pretty amazing place!

I raised a toast to my brother last night, and to my sister-in-law. He had been on my mind most of the day, as he always is on St. Patrick’s Day, ever since a fiery crash ended their lives on that day in 1997.

Their passing changed so much. At the age of 17 and 18, my nieces were left without parents. My mother, who was still recovering from the loss of my father a year and a half before, lost her only son and still struggles to come to grips with the totality of that day. For my sisters and me, we lost our only brother. The sun rose and set on their only son, I liked to joke, and his passing left a gnawing wound it took me years to close.

Growing up, my brother was my idol.  Big brother. Protector. Constant thorn in my side. He liked to tease me. He liked to remind me of the importance of our birth order. I was the youngest. He was the only son. There was no question that he knew better. Was the best at everything. I was to heed his advice, follow his path. I was also to give way in the full length mirror that hung in the front hallway of my parents home. That was his territory. His domain. Standing in his way was not allowed.

I used to think it was vanity but I see from the distance of the years between, that it was more likely a case of insecurity. Handsome in a dark and dashing way, he was always worried about how he looked. Did he look too fat. Too thin. Too wide. Too anything? Was his tie crooked. Was that a stain on his shirt? Was his hair combed just right or was it too up. Too down. Too messy? Too tidy?

I never understood his need to be seen as perfect. To be constantly known as the best at whatever he did. It never left much room for mistakes. It never left any space for being real, I’d tell him on those rare occasions when I’d gather up my nerve and challenge him for time in front of the mirror.

Don’t bother looking, he’d say. It’s not going to do you any good. And then he’d rhyme off the litany of my flaws, as only a sibling could, and I’d give way to his right to take up space in front of the mirror.

It was tiring. Exhausting. Numbing. Struggling to hold space in front of the mirror and having to constantly give way.

As we grew older, we grew apart. I was tired of staying silent, and never learned to hold my space with grace where my brother was concerned. There was a time in my twenties when we didn’t speak for over a year. He’d done something I’d found very painful and I didn’t want to forgive him. It was my mother’s constant chiding and her tears that made me give in.  He was my only brother and forgiveness was the shortest path to love even in those days when I didn’t particularly feel like love was part of our equation.

At the time, I remember wondering why I even bothered to forgive him. He didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. It would be many, many years later, long after St. Patrick’s Day 1997, that I realized forgiving him had nothing to do with what he’d done, or even him. Forgiveness was the only way for me to find peace. With the past. The unresolved childhood rivalries that kept us vying for our parent’s attention in the front hall mirror, and kept us seeing each other as foes and not co-conspirators in surviving our childhood, or even friends.

My brother was quixotic. He could go from hot to cold and back again faster than he could change his shirt. And he did that often, and at great speed! He loved music and good Scotch and all things shiny. He loved laughing and talking loud and fast and sharing his opinions and living out loud. He loved to play a few bars of a song and ask, ‘Who’s singing that?’ And then he’d laugh because I didn’t know the answer and tell me who it was anyway before I even had a chance to guess. He loved to cook and entertain and people who met him felt like they’d been his friend forever. He gave to strangers. Helped out neighbours and had time for everyone, except I thought, he didn’t have time for me. The little sister who wanted only to be seen as something other than the mistake he’d long ago quit telling her she was.

And then, he died and I was left trying to understand the unfinished business of our relationship. I was left with my anger and regret and sadness that I’d never, ever found a way to tell him while he was living that it didn’t matter about the mirror. It didn’t matter about the words and the pain and the angst of the past. What mattered most was that we were family. He was my brother and all that really was mattered was and always will be, I love him.

I raised a toast to my brother last night and silently whispered into the night, I love you, George.

I know he heard me.

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose. Eric Allenbaugh

Mother Earth: Please forgive me
10″ x 24″
Acrylic on Canvas
2014 Louise Gallagher

When I was a little girl I was filled with wild enthusiasms, sparks of imagination and bursts of creativity. I was seldom quiet, was in constant motion and asked questions continuously.

A favourite game was to time me to see how long I could stay quiet without asking a question. I usually lost.

In an effort to gain peace from my constant chatter, my family chided me for being so noisy, so bubbly, so chatty. Dinner table talk centered around my father’s opinions and my brother’s counterpoints. There wasn’t much room for a girl to butt in, though I tried. Inevitably, I’d end up swallowing my tears, forcing a smile upon my face and pretending I wasn’t bothered by their ribbing.

Smiling, swallowing and staying silent became a habit. A not particularly healthy one, but one that kept me feeling ‘safe’, even when stepping into danger.

Breaking childhood habits, reordering traits, and rearranging responses is a prerequisite of a happy adulthood.

It’s also, at times, hard work.

You can take the childishness out of the adult but you can’t make the childhood disappear.

My pattern of dysfunction around ‘criticism’ can easily be triggered by my daughters’ responses to what I think of as me being ‘funny’ and then my automatic judgements of what I deem to be their judgements of my behaviour. One incident several years ago was the catalyst for my getting conscious of how my behaviour wasn’t working for me. I had gone to a reading of a play involving my eldest daughter. After the reading, I was goofing around, pretending to mimic my eldest daughter’s character in the play by speaking in a funny accent. As we walked down the stairs from the rehearsal hall, I chattered away in my accented voice, which, in retrospect, knowing my daughter’s serious nature and how passionate she is about any work she’s involved in, could have been deemed as mockery, versus the funny I was attempting to be. . My daughter, conscious of the people on the stairs below us, hushed me up. “Mum. That’s rude.” she said.

My visceral response was triggered by a long ago pattern of feeling less than, of feeling hushed as a child.

I shut up. I sulked.

Not a pretty pattern.

Awareness is the first step in changing any habit, in breaking patterns.

I am aware that my response to any criticism from my daughters triggers my feelings of childhood angst, of feeling belittled and mocked. Of being silenced when all I wanted to do was laugh or play or talk.

Has nothing to do with the circumstances I’m encountering today and everything to do with the trigger points within me.

Martial arts master Sang H. Kim suggest we, “Practice change. Change your hairstyle, change your breakfast cereal, change your jogging route.”

Changing how I perceive criticism begins with practicing accepting criticism in an open state. To be open I must Breathe and ask to be open. To expand, not contract.

Coming down those stairs I let down a wall that was holding me back from being all I desire to be. In my push to ‘be funny’ I was doing the very thing I had experienced as a child — ridiculing the efforts of the people I love.My daughter worked hard on her role in the reading. In my teasing, I was mocking what she did. And, I was embarrassing her by offending strangers with my imitation of the language of the play that happened to be part of their cultural heritage.

I don’t have that right.

On the surface, the pattern here is not my response to her criticism. It is my effort to ‘be funny’ and feeling like I was not allowed to ‘be me’. Beneath the superficiality of ‘being me’ is a deeper, darker need. My desire to be seen, heard, witnessed, honoured and cherished.

As a child, I acted out to gain attention.

As an adult, I sometimes do the same.

Time to break the pattern. Shift it up and switch it around. Time to act in ways that honour who I am and what I want to create in the world around me. As my friend CS often asks, “What’s the ripple you’re creating with that?”

I want to create ripples of calm and peace, love and harmony. To ‘be the change I want to create in the world,’ I must  become the stream, let go of damming up the flow and become vibrantly alive in the repose of being me, exactly the way I am, without fearing no one ‘sees me’.

It’s time to sink beneath the habits that create the ripples on the surface of my life and dig into the flow of what creates the more of all I want to live lovingly in the rapture of now.

Dream big.

It was the message from my dream and while I don’t remember much of the dream itself, the words kept floating through my mind as I awoke.

Dream big.

I remember being at my computer, typing. A man walked into my office and told me I had to write 7 Ways to Love. You mean I have to write about sex? (Funny where my mind goes in my dreams!) He laughed and said, Dream big. What are the ways? I asked, but he had left and I found myself on a beach, water lapping at my toes, sun warming my skin. The view was limitless. The sky arching towards earth, blue on blue where it met the water’s edge far off on the distant horizon. I was on a sailboat, the wind filling the sails, blowing my hair. I had one hand on the tiller and the fingers of my other hand skimmed the surface of the water. For all the wind filling the sails, I felt lazy, relaxed, calm. There was an island. I sailed towards it.

And then I awoke and as sleep left me, the words came into my mind, Dream big.

Hmmm….

7 Ways to Love.

1. Soften your heart. Don’t hold onto the angry edges of regret and fear and stories of how others hurt you. Soften your heart, let it breathe freely.
2. Give of yourself. Quit thinking about what others can give you. Focus on what you can do for others. Consider your gifts and share them freely, without looking for the ‘return on investment’.
3. Trust. Love is always present. Love  is all around. You are an expression of love in the human form. Trust that love is with you, in you, around you always. You are safe in Love’s embrace.
4. Be compassionate.  When feeling frightened, scared, worried that ‘someone will hurt me’, move into compassion. (goes with softening the heart) Remember that we are all struggling to find love, find that special someone, feel that special someway, know that special feeling. We all struggle to understand, ourselves, love, being loved, being loving, feeling less than, other than. We all share in the unknown journey of what it means to live life free of fear of being vulnerable and intimate with another.
5. Stand true to yourself. Don’t bend your values, beliefs, personality, desires, dreams, goals, don’t bend what is most important to you to fit someone else’s belief of who you should be, what you should do, how you should act. Stand true to yourself in all things. Be the “I” of your truth and if the winds should howl around you, stand true to the ‘eye’ at the centre of the hurricane and do not let the winds pull you off your course. In the same way, let others stand true to who they are. Do not attempt to change them to fit your needs. Create the space for them to be their best self and you be yours.
6. Stand in the broken. Be willing to feel the pain, know the hurts, experience the sadness. Don’t push ‘negative’ feelings away. Let them flow. Conversely, don’t hold onto the feelings that hurt you — anger that lasts more than 10 minutes is not anger of the present. It’s anger that has connected to something in the past. Let it go. Let it flow free. Give yourself room to apologize. Let go of being right and choose always to be ‘real and present’ even when your mind is screaming, Danger! Danger! You’re going to get hurt. (Trust in yourself. Trust in Love.) Know that now is not forever — unless you hold onto the broken pieces and never let yourself heal in love.
7. Forgive. The shortest route to Love is through forgiveness. Forgive the past. Forgive others. Forgive yourself. Forgive. You don’t have to name what you are forgiving. Adopt an attitude of forgiveness. When painful memories arise, repeat to yourself, I forgive. and let the painful memories be washed away by the healing grace of forgiveness. There is only one place painful memories exist — and that is in your mind. They are of the past. Cleanse yourself of the pain. Forgive. And when in doubt, move into Compassion. It fits hand in hand, heart to heart with forgiveness and love.

I awoke from a dream this morning that reminded me to Dream Big. I didn’t know what the 7 Ways to Love would be.

Trusting in the process, they appeared.

How cool is that!

Namaste.

I witnessed the beauty and wonder of the grace of the human spirit yesterday. It was amazing.

Two years ago, a remarkable young woman at The Calgary Homeless Foundation, Meaghan Bell, created a Client Advisory Committee as a forum for people with lived experience of homelessness to provide feedback and insight into CHF’s policies, practices and programs. Yesterday, along with Meaghan and co-worker, Nicole Jackson, five members of the Committee gave a noon-hour presentation on their recent findings from a Community Consultation they held to gather community feedback on the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness to date.

It is easy for the ‘experts’ to gather around a boardroom table to discuss best practices and research in ending homelessness. The intent is laudable. The actions admirable. But, do they work? What is their impact on those for whom they are being designed to serve? The Advisory Committee is the critical client voice that measures the ‘on the street’ impact of the work.

In the community consultations, there was much evidence that the focus on moving people from shelter to housing was imperative. It isn’t that shelters don’t do the job they are designed to do. They do admirable work in a very stressful environment. For people experiencing homelessness, however, getting stuck, feeling lost, experiencing confusion, isolation, marginalization and depression are real and debilitating factors in their lives. Through the inherently unstable and chaotic nature of emergency shelter, these aspects of homelessness are exacerbated. In addition, given that within the shelter system there isn’t a standard of care that all shelters must adhere to, people experience different levels of care at each shelter and sometimes from staff member to staff member.

Not knowing ‘the rules’, inconsistencies in level of care, feeling voiceless and powerless, were common responses to the question, “What’s not working?”

Of the five members of the committee who came to present, one is still living in shelter, with another individual in transitional housing waiting for a placement in permanent housing. Two of the individuals found housing through their own efforts with one being housed through CHF programming. However, one individual’s program was ending which means he is again working with an agency to secure new housing. The other is a senior who is currently on a waitlist for affordable housing so that she does not need to spend 60% of her income on housing, an aspect of life she claims is not uncommon for seniors living in poverty.

Throughout their presentation, the group was articulate, organized and passionate. Most of them have worked with the Committee for a year or more and care deeply about their peers whom they represent. This was poignantly apparent when one of the presenters talked about some of the responses attendees at the Community Consultation had written on the sheets that asked the question, “Who are you?”

“They answered, mother, father, artist, carpenter, kind, hard-working, and then one person wrote, ‘I am a human being’,” one presenter commented, obviously distressed by the answer. “Why does anyone have to write that they are a human being? Aren’t we all?”

“Several people wrote that,” another presenter chimed in.

We all share a desire to be heard, to be seen, to be known. Within homelessness however, there is often a feeling of being dehumanized, stripping each person of the one thing we all share, our human condition. 

It is a sad reality of homelessness. The very condition that we all share, the one irrefutable truth about each of us, is what people feel they lose in this place called homeless.

I was in awe yesterday. At the end of their presentation, each presenter shared a bit of their ‘story’ and what they are most passionate about. It was inspiring, enlightening and humbling.

No matter the condition of their lives, each individual is working with the committee to give back, to make a difference, to make life better for others. They didn’t rant and rave about the injustice of the homeless condition, they didn’t strike out against government and agencies and their fellow man. They spoke up for dignity, human caring, the right of every individual to be treated with respect, consideration and fairness.

And in their voices, I was moved to tears. In their courage, I was humbled.

I wasn’t alone.

One of my co-workers, a man who has come from the corporate sector to assist in building our housing portfolio stated at the end that meeting them, listening to their presentation and hearing their stories had changed him. “You have helped make me become better at my job, and be a better human being,” he said.

We all have a story. We all have wounds we carry close to our hearts, hurts and pains we harbour beneath our skin. We are all the same kind of different in our being human.

Yesterday, I witnessed five remarkable human beings stand in the light. Through their sharing, they illuminated the path so that others could see their way to the heart of ending homelessness.

I am grateful.

In the stillness of the morning, my mind casts off sleep and tethers my thoughts to day’s awakening.

In the quiet of dawn’s approach, I sit and type beneath the golden glow of my desk lamp as the darkness outside thins with each moment passing by.

In the quiet I feel my heart beating. I feel my body moving, the bones within each finger stretching with every letter I type, reaching out from a to z to connect the dots and create a picture for my day.

Awareness of this moment embraces me. Awareness of this moment passes into the next, second by second. And I awaken.

These are the moments of my morning. This is the quiet beginning of my day. I am grateful.

I like the morning. Always have. As a child, I seldom slept in. My body seemed to be wired to the dawn.

When my daughters were little, I was the one up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning while the whole house slept. Still am.

For me, morning-time is a time for reflection, for preparation. And anticipation.

It is the time of day when I ask myself, “What kind of day do I want to have?” “What kind of day do I want to create?”

What is my intention for the day?

My blog-friend Ann Koplow, shares photos today on her blog of her experience of intentionally walking around yesterday looking up. It’s well worth the visit to see what wonders she found simply by raising her head and eyes to see what was all around her as she journeyed through her day in Boston where she lives. Some of what she saw was always there, just unnoticed. Some, like the clouds, are passing whimsies created by nature. All are breath-taking and heart-stirring.

I like the idea of intentionally walking around looking up and taking photos of what I see. So often, I am lost in thought when I walk, or my eyes are focused on the ground before me — a necessity in the past few weeks as ice covered sidewalks everywhere! — that I don’t always see the world around me. I don’t see the people passing by. The artwork on walls. The clouds above. The magic and wonder all around.

In every moment, there is always time to look up and see. Really, really see.

Years ago, when I was healing from the relationship that almost killed me, I used to take Ellie the wonder pooch for a walk into the forest at the end of the street where I lived. My heart was broken in those days. My thoughts foggy. To remind myself of the possibilities within each moment, I would walk through the forest and consciously lift my head to look up into the sky stretched far above the towering pines. I would stop and stand still and listen to the whisper of the pine needles, the birds tweeting, the tiny forest creatures rustling beneath the deadfall and see. Really, really see the sky far above.

In that act of lifting my head and focussing on the infinite expanse of sky above me, my heart would lighten, my thoughts would clear and I would feel peacefulness envelop me. In the lifting up of my eyes, I felt the hopefulness shimmering all around me and the limitless possibilities of the day stretching out before me. 

And in the quiet of simply standing in the forest and seeing the wonder all around me, gratitude arose and darkness vanished into light.

I still do that now. Stop and simply look up to feel and see and sense the moment all around me. Albeit I don’t do it as frequently, but many years later,  just the act of tilting my head back and looking up into the sky above always reminds me that now is not forever. The possible exists in every moment.

In the quiet of the morning, I contemplate the day awakening and set my intention for the day.

Let me see, with my whole heart, let me feel with my whole being, the wonder all around. Let me see into the hearts of those around me the beauty of their spirits shining. Let me see the possible, know the promise, feel the passion in every breath I take.

Namaste.

Veiled Dreams
Acrylic & Mixed Media
©2014 Louise Gallagher

I started a painting. Some might have thought it was done. In fact, one friend did. But it didn’t feel complete to me. It felt like just the beginning.

So I asked for a dream to show me the path, to give me the story to fill it in.

When I awoke, the story began….

On the river, she felt at peace. There was no need to change directions, to shift course. A river never flows backwards and she always felt like the river was moving her in the right direction, no matter where it took her.

There was a tiny part within her, a germ of an idea, a yearning, a wish to be part of the sea of life flowing all around. But the river was seductive. The river held her in its flow, far from shore, always moving. Always flowing towards the sea.

One day, while lying on her wooden raft, drifting upon the surface of the water, she noticed an oar floating towards her. She reached out and caught it as it floated by. She put it on the raft beside her and stared at it. She wasn’t sure exactly how to use it. She wasn’t sure what to do with it. But she liked the design on its wooden handle. She liked the feel of the smooth wood beneath her fingers. And she liked the words carved upon its handle, “Fear robs you of life. Love gives you life. Surrender your fear and fall wholeheartedly into Love.”

She had loved once, and lost. She would never love again, she had decided long ago. She didn’t believe in Love. Didn’t trust it. Love hurt. She was determined to never be hurt again. The light of day gave way to darkness and she fell asleep. Normally on the raft, her sleeps were deep and dreamless. But this night, she dreamt of a great city rising up out of the forest that edged both sides of the river. There were people in the city. They were laughing. Dancing. Singing. They were happy.

She wanted to find them but had to reach the shore. She picked up the oar and began to paddle until eventually, in spite of the river’s pull, her raft bumped up against the sandy beach and she stepped off the raft’s hard smooth surface onto the cool sands. Slowly, carefully, she began to walk through the forest towards the sounds of laughter she could hear far in the distance. As she walked through the forest, birds sang and flitted amongst the trees that were adorned with leaves that shimmered in the sunlight that filtered through the branches. Flowers grew in sunny meadows and deer and other forest creatures grazed on the green, green grasses.

Eventually, she came to the edge of the forest, to the place where a beautiful city of sparkling glass and shiny steel grew up into the sky. Everywhere she looked, people walked and rode bicycles and enjoyed the sunshine and the day. They were happy.

She didn’t understand. How could they be so happy? What were they laughing and singing about? Bemused by all the joy she felt in their midst, she walked from the forest’s edge into the city. What she saw amazed her. People greeted each other with hugs. People shared the food they had, never holding on to more than what they needed to feel complete, enough, full.

Confused by the beauty she witnessed everywhere she looked, she became frightened. She didn’t trust beauty. She didn’t trust people. What if it was all a lie? A dream?

Her fear washed over her. Frightened, she turned to run back through the forest to the river’s edge but the way was blocked. Where once there was a road, a darkness had descended. She turned back towards the city and again there was light and laughter.

She didn’t understand. Looking back, there was only darkness. Looking forward, there was only light.

And then she awoke. Morning had broken. Sunlight streamed down and warmed her skin. She felt the pull of the river dragging her along. She felt the sadness of being adrift begin to descend as her dream began its journey back into the mists of memory.

Lying back against the hard wood of the raft, she reached one hand out to touch the paddle she had rescued from the water the day before. She ran her fingers along the design etched into its handle and felt the ridges of the words inscribed into it. “Fear robs you of life. Love gives you life. Surrender your fear and fall wholeheartedly into Love.”

She remembered the city. The people smiling. The beauty and laughter and joy.

Fear called her back. Fear pleaded with her to let the river keep pulling her out to sea.

But once truth is seen, there is no hiding from it. There is no undoing of truth. The river continued to flow towards the sea, but on this day, with the sun caressing her skin and the birds singing in the trees on the distant shore, she picked up the oar and began to paddle her way towards the shore.

And now, the painting continues, and so does the story.

This is how dreams unfold.

This is how magic begins.

The is where trusting in the process takes me.

This is where creative expression awakens.

Last week, on my “I did it my way.. and my way wasn’t working” post, my friend Ian, who writes thought-provoking and insightful posts on leadership over at Leading Essentially, posed the question,

“What I’m wondering about is the need to rebel against oneself. When we say what we mean to ourselves (and subsequently do what we say) are we paying attention to which internal voice is speaking? Is it our essential voice that guides us from the heart which deserves our faith? Or is it our adapted (that which you refer to as the critter voice) voice that tries to tie us to our past, keep the status quo? That voice is often worthy of internal rebellion!”

It is a good question. Which voice do I listen to and which one am I rebelling against?  My essential voice that guides me from the heart, the voice that knows the true essence of my magnificence and never questions the miracle of life? Or, my adapted voice that holds onto memories of why it’s not safe to play big, why it’s best to keep small and quiet and not rock the boat?

I believe that often, when I am acting out, it is because I am rebelling against the idea of being great. I don’t want the responsibility nor the commitment to being my best at all times. The critter tells me, it’s too tiring to always be on purpose. It’s too much to expect you to turn up for your higher good at all times. Why not take a break?

This morning, I stepped onto the scale and even before I did, I knew the news would not be good. Sure enough, 2 lbs more than last week.

Not a big deal. It’s only 2 lbs, the critter says with authority.

My essential voice whispers quietly in the deepness of my soul. “Do you feel better or worse right now knowing you’ve not kept your commitment to living true to your body’s needs for healthy food, exercise and care?”

I would like to rebel against my essential voice’s quiet assurance. Seriously? It is only 2 lbs. But my essential voice is right. How do I feel about me, right now? It’s not about the pounds. It’s about the actions that have led to the pounds piling up. It is 2 on top of the previous 2 on top of the previous 2. And each 2 has resulted in my critter’s cajoling me to accept my lesser self’s desire to be lazy, uncommitted and unfocused. Each 2 has been a result of my critter having its way in my head because I’ve been rebelling against doing what is best for my higher good.

If I am to rebel, it is best to rebel against the one who would keep me playing small. Keep me acting out against my higher good.

And sometimes, “it’s just too much work,” the critter says. “Take the path well-travelled.”

Alas, in my desire to take the path well-travelled, in my need to let myself off the hook of self-responsibility, I undermine my own well-being. I let go of my own higher good.

It is an interesting conundrum. In my rebellious desire to treat myself with ‘kindness and ease’, I am actually being unkind. I am not holding myself accountable and responsible for my own well-being.

My essential self knows that living in the beauty of my magnificence, there is no question too hard, no step too big that I cannot make. In the light of my essence, all is ease, all is achievable, all is in balance.

My critter self. Well… he likes to hold me down. Not because it’s best for me. He does it because he’s afraid I’ll get hurt if I step too far, leap too high, shine too bright. Remember when you were a child, he says, and you danced, and sang and drew and played like no one was watching? And remember when people started to watch and told you to be quiet. To settle down. To quit thinking you were so shiny and bright? Remember? You got into lots of trouble for being so ‘loud and obnoxious’. You don’t want to get in trouble now. Trouble’s not good. Settle down. Toe the line. Be quiet.

My critter self, even though he repeats all those awful things I’ve learned to believe about myself over the years, is not trying to make trouble. In his twisted reality, playing small keeps me out of trouble.

My essential self knows the truth. The trouble comes when I let go of my light and choose to stand in the shadows of living life inside the walls of my comfort zone.

My essential self knows, this is my one and only life. I deserve to live in the light of Love and when I do, there is no need to rebel against the darkness. In Love, the light shines through every crack.