My weather app said it was going to be warmer today.
Now it says tomorrow.
I lie in bed sip the latte my beloved made me. Furnace hums. Sun streams in through the open blinds of one of our bedroom windows.
Daylight savings time rises later. I want to stay under the covers.
The muse urges me to open my eyes and rise.
Flow Like The River
By Louise Gallagher
Trapped
behind eyes
closed
tight
fear
holds onto
nothing
but the darkness.
Closed off
I sit
eyes shut
holding back
tears
I dare not release
fearful
they will flow
like the river
never-ending.
Lost,
I swallow
my fear
and open my eyes
dam
bursts
tears fall
and I am set free
to flow
like the river
into Love
never-ending.
I have tolerated a lot of bad behaviour in my life.
I have had men hit on me with the promise to support my career if I slept with them.
I have had men offer money for sex, because I was standing in a hotel lobby by myself or walking down the street at night.
I have had men ask me to take notes at a meeting, not because that was my role, but because I was a woman.
I have had men ask me to grab them a coffee, again, not because that was my job, but because I was a woman.
And, I have had men tell me crude jokes, or make suggestive comments on the phone, confident they will not be corrected, abraded, or called out.
Sure, it may seem small potatoes in the big picture of the pressing dangers women face all over the world, everyday — Rape, war, violence against women, female genitalia disfiguration and so many other inhumane practices that do not serve our humanity well.
But, gender-based biases, where I allow bad behaviour to be the norm, or laugh them off with a wave of my prettily manicured hand and shrug as if to say, “Oh well. Boys will be boys,” does not change anything.
Boys will be boys and they deserve so much more than being the target of women’s ire and disdain. Or being boys who hurt women.
It was Gandhi who said, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” Yet, even he could not escape the more carnal elements of his human nature. In his own letters, he wrote of his ‘experiments’ of sleeping naked with young women in his bed to test his resolve of chastity and promote the celibate life as the path to peace. (Source) He gave little thought to the impact of his actions on the mental health of his young female companions.
We can’t just BE the change we want to see in the world. We must ensure the changes we make change us for the better. And, that they are good for everyone. Not just the one.
Change doesn’t just depend on our doing the small things and the big things to create better, it means being ‘the better’ we want to see in the world.
Let’s begin changing ourselves so that in those changes, we change our world. Because when I change, my whole world changes around me — let my changes create better for everyone.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY (IWD) (March 8) is an important day to celebrate women’s social, economic, cultural & political achievements + call for gender equality
This year’s IWD theme is – “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality,” highlighting gender gaps in STEM education and careers — and calling attention to the online harassment many women face.
International Women’s Day is also a reminder of the long road ahead. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned Monday that women’s rights are being “abused, threatened and violated” around the world and gender equality won’t be achieved for 300 years without urgent action.
Tomorrow's Promise
by Louise Gallagher
Mellow evening light
melting
orb of sunlight
sinking
the horizon
softening
shadows
hide behind naked trees’
extended
lacelike branches
welcoming
all who travel
its snow-covered paths
Walking silently
in nature’s garden
I breathe in the beauty
of winter’s
frosty breath
lingering
expectantly
with the heat
of a long kiss
fending off
an inevitable farewell
opening to the possibility of
spring’s promised unfurling.
I cannot change the seasons
turning
I can only walk in nature’s beauty
savouring the light
passing
through each day
flowing
like a river
carrying the promise
of new tomorrows.
There is a question that people often ask when faced with a decision, or the thought of doing something that feels… risky, and outside their comfort zone…
The question is, What’s the worst that can happen?
It’s a good question. As my father used to say, the worst that could happen if you ask for what you want is that they’ll say No. At least then, you have an answer.
But here’s the thing… what if the question isn’t ‘what the WORST that could happen, but rather, ‘What’s the BEST that could happen.
What if, in asking, what’s the BEST, we open the door to possibility? What if, in asking, what’s the best, we discover the inspiration to move forward, to claim what we desire, to create what we dream of, to become our true, uncensored, unlimited selves?
What if the invocation of possibility that comes with asking,What’s the BEST is the invitation to turn towards love.
Because when I think of What’s the WORST that can happen, it feels like I am stepping into fear. Turning into the darkness where my motivation to do something is dependent upon the level of fear I experience in the worst I imagine that can happen.
There is lightness in thinking about the BEST that can happen. There is the invitation to move into all that is possible when I step out of the darkness of fear to claim the light of love as my own light shining for all the world to see, I am here. I belong. I am.
Unmoveable
by Louise Gallagher
Still
I sit
unmoved
by the earth
orbiting
through time
passing
where I sit
still
unmoveable
in my desire
to hold on
to all
I believe
I am
when I sit
still.
Opening
my eyes
see
I must
let go
of sitting
still
to release
my hold
on being,
unmoveable.
I sit in meditation and release my thinking mind into my body. I ask my deep, inner knowing, to fill me up with connection, awareness, guidance.
“We come into this world knowing the infinite belonging within life that brings us into being,” the wise woman whispers.
Huh?
What on earth does that mean.
Listen, she whispers.
I sink deeper. I listen, deep.
And I feel myself opening, opening, opening.
All my life I have strived to ‘be equal’ to be as good as, and at times, better than, ‘a man’.
But what if none of this journey is about being equal to or better than.
What if the mystery of the feminine I strive to uncover and connect to is as much a part of the whole as the masculine that has been buried beneath mountains of patriarchial patterning that would have white maleness be the measure of the worth of all?
What if equality has nothing to do with it?
What if this journey is about becoming something profoundly other than what is known now?
What if, in all my striving, I let go of holding onto all I think I know and believe about who I am in relation to ‘the other’ so that I can become all I am in relation to me?
What if in my becoming, I allow the expression of my infinite belonging to draw the threads of my being into a beautiful, magnificent expression of my destiny woven through life’s constantly evolving journey?
What if the story of my life isn’t ‘what I make it’ but what I become as I live it untethered to the known as I explore the all of who I do not know me to be?
What if it is not about striving to be, and simply becoming my story in this time where I sit, still, and unmoveable yet constantly moving and changing, moving and changing?
Heady thoughts to ponder beneath this grey sky day where snow blankets the earth and the river runs deep, its surface movement blocked by ice stopping its flow while beneath the ice, the river moves, constantly reaching out towards a distant sea.
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.
Ice cold, waters flow
winter drifts stealthily past
spring stirs and sleeps on
Winter’s icy grip holds me in its thrall. Ice clogs the river divided into two snowbound channels that flow in sluggish, selfish disregard of my desire for spring to arrive.
I watch… the river flow… the sun creep across the farside bank… mist rise and cars drive over the bridge as this giant ball we call our home keeps spinning through space on its journey around the sun, oblivious to the hands of time turning fast over calendar pages.
We humans create such angst for ourselves. Such trauma and grief.
I awake and scan the headlines on my phone. I open my Wordle App and feel some satisfaction in figuring it out in three guesses.
I’ll take the small wins on this ice-cold day. The tiny moves that bring me guilty pleasures and simple joys and remember, that even though it seems the Arctic air will hold us in its grip forever, this too shall pass.
All things do.
Spring shall come.
The snow will melt
And life will continue to move on despite our struggles to hold it still,, to change the past, to change the course of life’s rivers flowing.
My father taught me how to bake bread. I was 17, in my final year of high school. We were living in Germany at the time and I was busy trying to make a plan for the rest of my life. It wasn’t going well.
“Here, I’ll teach you how to bake bread,” my father said one day in his usual gruff voice that left no room for argument.
From the first knead I fell in love.
It’s a love affair that has never ended, though there have been times when the challenges of baking sourdough during Covid’s lockdown almost soured me on my passion!
But I digress.
Baking bread from scratch is one part science, one part alchemy and one part Love with a hearty dollop of magic thrown in for good measure.
Along with its capacity to lighten any burden I may be carrying and calm my fears or tears, baking bread also deepens my connection to the ‘now’. It brings me full circle back to life’s mysteries, beauties, and sometimes inexplicable inconsistencies.
On Monday, while snow fell and the temperature began its steady climb down into the sub-zero zones of Arctic climes where it currently rests in defiance of my demands it rise up again, I heated a cup of water to just the right temperature (110F), poured 3 teaspons yeast onto the water in a large bowl, threw in a pinch of salt, gave it a stir, and let it rest for five minutes.
The water, salt and yeast responded well to each other’s presence and frothed joyfully in the bowl.
A cup of flowr. A cup of grated cheddar. A good healthy whisking, a second five minute rest and the ooey gooey mess was ready to receieve its final ministrations.
It is the simplicity of bread-making I love the most. Three ingredients (plus whatever extras, like cheddar, parsley and herbs, you want to throw in). A bit of attention to measurements, the water to flour combination does not require accuracy, just a good feeling in the dough’s bounce back response prior to its first rise.
Of course, it’s important to pay attention to the details – the water can’t be too hot or it will kill the yeast. Too cold, the yeast won’t awaken. The biggest demand on the breadmaker is our willingness to let the magic happen without poking and prodding it along.
Bread-making, if you’re doing it from scratch and by hand, requires patience, time and muscle. After the second five minute rest, when you start adding flour to the mixture to create the doughball, arm-strength is vital. Not only are you thickening up the gooey mess, you’re moving it around to make sure the flour, water and salt are combined and the gluten is stretched and coerced into activation.
And that’s where the ‘stress-relief’ comes in.You get to punch and roll, punch and roll as you apply your full arm power to the process, ’cause it’s the kneading that puts the gluten to work. Plopping the dough onto the counter and giving it a couple of tepid roll-overs just doesn’t make it work!
You gotta knead that baby doughball into an elastic-like consistency where the gluten knows, with great certainty, that its only job in life is to stretch in all directions beyond the confines of its small-spongle like birth-form to become what it is destined to be – a baked to perfection, crispy on the outside, light and airy on the inside, delectable concoction whose only calling in life is to inveigle you into smearing a copious serving of butter and jam onto its fresh out of the oven goodness and devour it with moans of delight.
Kneading is the stress relief. Consuming is the delight.
On Monday, in anticipation of our family dinner of ten that evening, I baked a cheese-braid loaf of bread in honour of my eldest daughter who would not be joining us at the table. It is her favourite and I have never created a family dinner without one loaf gracing the center of the table(or two if she’s present as, as along with C.C., she tends to nibble away at the loaf until the product that appears on the table looks like a horde of gophers had free-reign with its preparation).
It is an act of Love. A reflection of the strength and stretchy nature of our family circle that has spanned decades and generations, been stretched at times to its maximum capacity to hold pain and grief, sorrow and sadness and still bounce back to hold us all together.
I baked a loaf of bread on Monday. The family circle remains strong, reminding me that no matter the times, or weather outside, we are all connected through Love’s enduring embrace.
Thanks dad for the life lesson! You taught me well.
Dare Boldly 