Magic flying by

If I have learnt anything, it is that life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows whether any of them will ever return? Margot Fonteyn

I am woman. I am an emotional being. I am not my emotions. My emotions are not me.

In The Diary of Anne Frank a moment that resonates with me every spring was her telling of how, while hiding with her family from the Gestapo, she would put her head beside a boarded up window and breathe in the smells of spring that seeped through the cracks. Hidden in a secret room, far from prying eyes, with fear and terror all around as the world careened into madness, she lifted her spirits on the promise of spring to release her from her place of darkness.

Within the illogical and senseless need for the Frank family to hide-out, there was beauty in that breath of air wafting through the cracks. There was beauty in her spirit as she sought to alleviate the sad and tragic surroundings of her day. Ann Frank caught each moment flying by, never letting fear override her belief in the possibility of life beyond the darkness.

In my life I have been called, Pollyanna, terminally perky, an eternal optimist. I have, even in my darkest moments, sought the light. Sought those moments of release from sorrow and pain by looking for rainbows flying through the air. For moonbeams dancing in the starlight.

I have never been disappointed.

They are always there. Just as the sun always shines behind swollen grey clouds, moments of magic hang suspended in the air, no matter my disposition, no matter my outlook.

It is, for me, an irrefutable fact of the universe.

Magic exists. Everywhere.

And just to prove it, I have a special treat for you in this Ted talk with master magician and brain technologist, Keith Barry. Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Keith Barry's software engineering of the human brain is indistinguisable from magic. Witty and direct, he celebrates human cleverness even while he's hacking it.

I see you. I love you.

There comes a holy and transparent time when every touch of beauty opens the heart to tears.This is the time the Beloved of heaven is brought tenderly on earth. This is the time of the opening of the rose. Jalal-ud-Din Rumi (Translated by Andrew Harvey from A Year of Rumi)

I sat in the meditation circle, closed my eyes and let myself sink. Deep. Deeper into silence. To begin, there was no music. Just a circle of five people grounding themselves in the essence of the universal flow of intelligence all around us.

And then, a piece of music began to play. Softly at first and then louder. I had no thoughts. No words. Just a deep open space of mystery within and before me that felt the music rushing through, like the wind through the leaves of a tree standing on a hilltop. Rustling. Stirring. Shaking out the branches. Fluffing up my spirit like a pillow being fluffed in the morning. Ironing out the kinks, smoothing out the wrinkles of the night.

My mind settled into softness. Into light. Into being at one with the flow in and through and all around me.

My mind settled and my heart opened up.

In. Out. In. Out.

Expiration. Inspiration. Inhalation. Exultation.

In. Out. In. Out.

I flowed. Energy flowed. Time flowed.

All was part of, in and of, the flow.

Of energy, time, love.

A figure floated into view. Just over my right shoulder. It was dark. Malevolent. It wanted me to stop. To divert my inner gaze from beauty to its darkness. In my mind's eye I turned and faced it. Smiled softly and whispered. "I see you. I love you." And it abated. Drifted away from the light.

I see you. I love you. Sawbonna. An African tribe's greeting. I see you.

I see me.

Ego. Persona. I see me and lift the veil of my being me to reveal, the beauty, the essence, the core of my being all that I am when I am not being me.

"In the creative space of your mind, a figure approaches," the meditation guide stated.

I sat in the silence and let myself flow. Release.

In. Out. In. Out.

Inhalation. Exhalation. Inspiration. Exultation.

A figure. There. In the distance. Coming towards me. Bent. Huddled over. Dark and creepy. Gnarled hands. Gnarled feet. Wrinkled and decrepit skin upon her face. She was old and contorted. She was me.

I see you. I love you. I whispered as I embraced this figure who is me and held her lovingly in my heart.

Afterwards, I would tell the group how I was hoping for maybe Mother Teresa or Jesus Christ. You know, some famous dude who would bring me all the wisdom of the ages so that I could become all wise, all knowing, all everything. And I got it all but not in blazing lights and neon letters screaming in the night, "Look here! Here I am!"

Nope, I got it in some bent over, dried up, dessicated, ugly old hag. Hello? Is this karma or just the universe's sense of humour.

No. It's me. She's me. I'm me. Just as the shadow over my shoulder is me.

All that I see. All that I know. All that I create. Good, bad. Ugly. Beautiful. It is all me and none of it is me. None of it is mine unless I make it so. None of it belongs to me unless I claim it. Anger. Hurt. Sorrow. Joy. Laughter. Disdain. Envy. Regret. Anticipation. Expectation. Fear. Peace of mind.

All of it is mine. None of it is mine.

I see you. I love you. I see me. I love me.

All there is. All that ever was. All that ever will ease pain and sorrow, all that will awaken joy and laughter is the one that I am when I am one with the One in Love.

Nameste.

The long view

A bend in the road is not the end of the road...unless you fail to make the turn. Author Unknown

Over at Writing without Paper, Maureen shares a Ted talk by Dr. Ken Kalmer, microsurgeon and mountain climber. He was with Jon Krakauer during the worst climbing disaster on Everest in 1996 and he continues to merge climbing and medicine on some of the world's most difficult and challenging peaks. Searching, as every climber does, for a route that's never been explored before.

Listening to Kalmer's fascinating speak at TedMed, an independent Ted event, I was pulled back into memories thrall. To that place where once the mountains loomed as inviting giants beckoning me into their domain. Luring me into believing I could understand the wisdom of their ages just by conquering the peak of their existence.

And then, all of that changed. A road ended. A bend was not navigated and I began to hate the granite structures stretched out across the western skyline like spikes on a sleeping dinosaur's back.

They were no longer 'the view' to the west. They were blocking the view to the west. And I hated them.

I know. I know. Doesn't make sense to expend emotional energy on inanimate objects that have been around for millennium, but, call me stubborn, call me self-centered, I did it anyway.

They had stolen the man I loved and I hated them. Okay. So, they didn't steal him in the literal sense. They didn't cost him his life but they were, on a deep, emotional visceral level within me, responsible for the break up of my marriage. And I hated them for that.

See, I was once married to a mountain climber. He's the father of my children. Once upon a time, my best friend and husband. He loved to climb. Lived for the weekends when he could turn his computer off at the engineering firm where he was a partner, push back his chair from his desk and shed his business attire for the plaid shirt and khaki shorts of climbing comfort.

He worked to afford his passion. And I wasn't it.

When I asked him why he lived to climb, he would always respond, for the experience of it.

I never quite got that. For the experience of it. Shouldn't there be a goal? Shouldn't there be a reason.

Sure there is, he'd reply. To get up and to get back down again.

There was a time when I climbed with him. Summitted several peaks in the Rockies. Snow and ice. Granite and sedimentary rock.

I slept out in a tent on a glacier at 30 below Celsius. I skied across crevasse riddled ice fields mentally going through the steps of an arrest while praying I never had to put the knowledge to use. I've walked summit ridges that ended and had to jump through three feet of thin air to get to the next piece of rock upon which I would crumble in gratitude for its solid base, the wild beating of my heart rumbling like a freight train through my mind. I mean, really, it was 2,000 feet straight down on one side and 6,000 ft on the other. We couldn't rope up because... well, he'd have to jump really fast to the other side of the ridge if I slipped and fell off. And so I jumped.

And it was exhilarating. Intoxicating. Terrifying. And I did it anyway.

Sometimes I climbed with him and his best friend Al and we made a funny threesome. Me, 5'2". Them, 6"2+. They'd carve footsteps in the face of a glacier and forget my legs didn't expand as far as theirs. They'd place pitons in rock faces only to have to add extras. When approaching the base of a climb, bushwhacking for me was a whole different experience. They'd step over fallen tree trunks and I would sidle my belly onto the log, my pack a pendulum carrying me over to the other side as I thrust my body forward, desperately trying to avoid snags and errant branches looking to trap me in their arms.

I was tiny but I was strong. I kept up. I lead the route. I persevered.

Even when the going got tough.

It was in the tough going that the emotional toll of our failing relationship began to wear against my resolve to keep up, stay ahead, never give up.

Throughout the twelve years we were together, most weekends found me following in his footsteps and ski-stride. Most weekends found me loaded down with backpack, crampons, ice axe, helmet, pitons and rope. Most weekends found me living it large in valleys and atop peaks, soaking up the view, the elements, the sheer joy of finding myself atop a mountain and seeing the long view.

And then, our daughters were born and mountain peaks and cliff faces lost their allure as I gazed into their innocent faces and vowed to never let them down, to always stay focused on the long view of their lives. I wanted to be with them. to create for them. To live for them. To be around for these marvels of wonder who had catapulted into my heart, leaving me breathless with the sheer beauty of their being in my arms.

He wanted to be with them too and he wanted to keep climbing. To keep finding one more ascent. One more route to reach that elusive peak he'd never before summited. That challenging route he'd never yet overcome.

I couldn't align his desire to put himself at risk with our responsibility to only take reasonable risk for our daughters sake. And I resented him for that. Resented that he took their presence in our lives with such equanimity that nothing changed, nothing shifted. Couldn't he see? Everything was different. Everything had changed.

It was me who couldn't see. He knew it had and he was falling under the thrall of their loving gaze. He headed to the peaks not to get away, but rather to rejoice in their presence in the only way he knew how -- alone with nature. alone against nature. alone in nature.

I remember before their birth friends who would come from the east for our annual ski trek into some remote mountain cabin. They wouldn't fly on the same helicopter. Why should we, they'd ask? If something happens to the chopper, it's best if only one of us is at risk. They had three young children. They didn't want to leave them as orphans.

I didn't understand. And then, I did.

And so, my husband kept climbing to find himself amidst nature's glory and I kept following less and less. Our separate paths led us to a bend in the road where he went left and I went right and we found separate vistas to enjoy. The bend became the end and we travelled on separately yet forever joined through these two miraculous beings who depended upon us to always be there, always care, always love them.

There are a thousand routes to the summit, and only one way to enjoy the view. And that way is to open your eyes and breathe deeply of the sheer beauty of being high up in the air with only a piece of rock holding you there.

There are a thousand routes to happiness, and to truly enjoy it is to close your eyes, open your senses and breathe deeply of the sheer exhilaration of being alive -- no matter where you are.

The summit is not the end of the road. It is the beginning. Getting there was easy compared to getting back safely. Often, on the descent, you're tired, worn out, and the 'mountain high' is waning. Often, a mistep leads to a mis-calculation, of route, weather, terrain and suddenly, what appeared 'the easy', becomes 'the hard.'

I thought having children was easy. And then, I learned what it meant to be a parent. I thought, being a wife was a cake-walk, and then I had to take the leap into singledom loaded with the resolve to not look back, to not regret the summit not climbed. I thought, falling on the road of life was the end and then I found the bend and the ending became the new beginning.

What I know is so much less than what I don't know. Sometimes, my short-view is impeded by my belief that this is now and will be forever so. Once upon a time, I hated the mountains. Hated that they stole from me the man I had promised to love 'til death do us part. I hated that they stood, silent, immobile, immutable. I hated that I thought they knew the secret to his heart and would not open the door to my entreaties to let me in.

And then I learned, there are many lessons to be gathered from these giants lying across the horizon to the west. They are not immutable. Immobile. Impossible to reach. They are, the keepers of the 'long view'.

They are not 'the end'. They are the possibility of new routes, new paths, new directions. It's all in my perspective.

Once I stood with a man on the summit of our relationship and failed to make the bend in the road together. It was the end.

And yet, in the long view, it was the beginning.

Of new roads. New vistas. New ways of being.

That's the thing about endings. There's always a beginning waiting to open up to possibility when we find a different path to the summit of living in the exhilaration of the moment that is opening up before us like the long view from the top of the peak.

Nameste.

A Song of Joy

Joy is the feeling of grinning inside. Melba Colgrove

He is smiling. Grinning shyly. This father who walked into my office holding a CD case in his hands. He was in the shelter for other business. A project he was working on for our donor recognition.

A co-worker had sent him to see me. "Louise can help you. She can connect you to people in the business," he told him.

He walked in. Shook my hand and I invited him to take a seat in the blue chair across from me. I'm a little non-plussed. I'm in the middle of something. I've got to get the copy finalized for the newsletter. My slides finished and submitted to the team organizing the Pecha Kucha night next week where I will be presenting. I'm busy. I don't have time for this stranger. Who is he anyway? The chatter in my mind is irritating. I quieten it and push my irritation aside to listen, attentively, to what he has to say.

He holds the CD case towards me but doesn't release it. "Before you play it let me give you a little background." His voice has a lilt to it. A gentle burble like a stream running through a forest high up in the mountains. "It all started with my daughter. She was eight you see. And she didn't understand. We were at a mall and there was a man pan-handling and she wanted to know why he was doing that. I tried to explain but didn't really have the words. And so, I wrote a song. I like to write music. It's not what I do and I have no desire to be in the business. It's just something I do."

And he handed me the CD case. Passed it over like a school boy handing in his report hoping it passes the grade. Hoping that when it's returned, it's not filled with red ink marks covering the words he so painstakinly and carefully crafted out of nothing.

I put the CD in my computer and click play.

And I listen. Quietly at first and then I feel myself slipping. Into silence. Into that place where magic and wonder convene upon a playing field of joy rising out of nothing more than man's ability to touch hearts with the beauty of our song exposed from the inside out.

I listen. Deeply.

It is beautiful.

A young girl's voice. His daughter. Asking her father. Him. Why? Why does he do that? Why doesn't he have a home?

And the father answers. I can't give you the answer. All I can do is show you how to make a difference.

And the young girl sings, No one should be alone for Christmas. Everyone should have a home.

I am silent when the song is finished. Silent and tearful.

The young girl's voice is not refined. It is not 'perfect'. But it is sweet. Sweet and innocent. And in its sweetness, in its echoing innocence is all the sorrow of mankind's struggle to make sense of our human nonsense. In her voice is the question we all have asked and let go of finding answers to -- Why do we do that?

And beneath the question is also the path. The path achingly exposed like a flower opening its bud to the first rays of the morning sun. It is a path, if we will just stop and listen to our children. To ourselves. To each other. It is a path that will take us away from sorrow, away from pain, away from hurting ourselves and each other. For in her voice is the gentle tenderness and innocence and hope and the possibility of knowing what can happen when we care for eachother, for ourselves, for our world, as if it is all that matters in our world.

In her voice is the future.

And in my heart is joy.

This stranger who walked into my office an unwelcome guest has brought me a gift I cannot repay.

He has brought me joy. The joy of knowing, we are One. One people. One world. One voice. We are One in creating a world beyond poverty and disease and violence and addiction and homelessness and deceit and corruption and war and genocide and abuse and babies dying of starvation and mother's leaving their children behind because of Aids.

We are One.

We are One when we hear our children's questions and search beyond what we know into that place where all we know is we can no longer let our children down. We can no longer leave their questions unanswered.

I sat and felt my heart beat within my body and felt the joy rise within me. I can make a difference.

"I'd love to help you," I said. "I'd love to be part of getting your song heard."

*********************************

This story, which happened to unfold yesterday is for this Tuesday's, Blog Carnival hosted by Bridget Chumbley at One Word at a Time and Peter Pollock of Rediscovering the Church.

The Blog Carnival is my bi-weekly "Oh Goody it's Tuesday" wake-up. I do not write these entries before the date. I always wait to discover what will appear in the early Tuesday dawn that will respond to the one-word prompt Bridget and Peter provide so that what I write comes straight from my heart filled with the images that are driven from that place just below my consciousness where imagination waits to be set free.

Last night, before I went to bed, I read Glynn's entry over at Faith, Fiction, Friends and let the idea of what I was going to write about JOY percolate through my dreams. I'd had a different story formulating when I awoke and then, when I sat down after my meditation, this one appeared, just as the father who walked into my office appeared and lit my heart with joy.

I love the writing process! And I love the idea of a one word prompt igniting my creativity.

You can take part in the action -- you can read, or you can contribute -- the choice is yours. Quick! Click on this link and get ready to be inspired, to be catapulted into a joyful world of wonder! Go here for a list of links to all of the contributions, which are posted throughout Tuesday and often through to the end of the week.

The Blog Carnival's FaceBook page is here.

I can fly. Watch me!

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts. Salman Rushdie

Here's my story -- and yup -- Call me crazy. Call me stubborn. Gosh, call me infantile, but I'm sticking to it. Or perhaps I should say, it's sticking to me, 'cause it seems that no matter how hard I try, the story always sticks.

I am the last child in a quartet of siblings born to an Irishman and a Frenchwoman. My father lost a case of beer and twenty-bucks 'cause I was born a girl and my mother always regretted the day of my birth -- I was supposed to come at least two minutes earlier to be born the day before on the Day of the Immaculate Conception.

That's me. A disappointment and unwanted.

At least that's the way the story was always told -- and yes -- I am the one telling the story so I always remember to laugh when I get to the part about the case of beer 'cause you know what a joke that is? Right? Don't you? I'm telling a funny story here. Anyway, I don't even like beer. You'd have thought he could at least have bet something a little more classy...

Now, here's where the story gets interesting. I'm the only one telling it and I don't remember when I heard it. I'm pretty sure I didn't make it up. I mean, why would I tell such a sad pathetic tale on myself?

So, here's what I figure happened. Somewhere, way back when before time was born, this story got sent out into the universe and spent a gazillion years spiralling through space until the day I was born. "Whew!" it sighed as it saw this gentle miracle of life come into the world. "Here's a human I can stick it to, ooops, I mean, stick to." And so, it stuck to me like dried up egg yolk to a knife. It stuck and I claimed it as mine.

Now, dried up egg yolk is irritating and so are yucky stories. But all the scraping and washing and scrubbing doesn't completely wash away the yolk if you don't wake-up in time to see the cosmic joke unfolding.

I didn't crack the egg and the story was never mine to claim as my own. Because we all know the universe was hatched from a giant cosmic egg just like the ancient Egyptians once believed -- I mean, that stories been around for centuries. How could it not be true?

'My story' became the issue yesterday when my friend MK asked me the question, "So, what's your elephant in the middle of the room?"

"I don't have one," I replied. (Pause. Take a breath. Stop breathing. Stay still. Listen closely in the vacuum created by my assertions I am free of elephants. Can you hear the shadow laughing?)

"Everyone has an elephant," he said.

"Not me," I replied confidently. "I've got a dog and a cat. No elephant."

"Perhaps you are the elephant," he replied.

Ouch! Ok. Truth time. He didn't say that. But I think I heard him think it. I'm sure I did. Because wouldn't you know it. Within a few hours that thought began to percolate in my brain and I sure as hell didn't plant it there or even crack the stupid thing open!

And that's the problem with irritating thoughts. They don't stick like dried up egg yolk. They flow like a cracked egg into a frying pan, sizzling and steaming and flowing around the pan where ever they want to go unless you reign them in and cook the heck out of them.

I think I'd like to burn this one up. Who wants to be an elephant? I'd rather be a gazelle. Or cheetah. Something sleek and fast and mysterious. But an elephant? Lumbering. Colossal. Oh, and they're got these memories that never let go.

Oh dear. There's my elephant. The thinking that never forgets to ruminate and masticate over the story I tell to remind myself why I am the way I am and why it's not me creating the problem and really, if people just listened to me they'd understand, I don't have problems. I have answers! I really really do and your life would be so much better if you just stopped and breathed and did it my way because, heck, your way obviously isn't working for you anymore.

Oh dear. There's that arrogance thing again. Me blindly leading me with answers I made up. What if ... I am the elephant. Not the 'your butt's as big as an elephant's ass' kind of elephant joke. But rather, maybe you can't see the elephant because it's actually sitting on top of you. You're under the elephant's ass and you've been looking for the problem everywhere but where it's sitting kind of joke.

Elephants are heavy. And I'm sure you know the story of how they train an elephant to never wander by chaining it's foot to a log when it's just a wee lass and then as it grows, replacing the chain with a thin rope that it doesn't believe it can break and is never willing to test the theory of relativity against because it knows, without a doubt, that the rope is stronger than it.

Time to break the rope. Time to crack the code of the story I tell on myself. It may be a sticky story, or not. Doesn't really matter what the consistency of the story is if it's keeping me tethered to the belief -- I am a disappointment. I am unwanted.

Anyway, there comes a time when every good woman (and man) must free herself of the story that keeps her living small, living under the disbelief she cannot fly.

I can fly.

Watch me!

PS. But first, I'm off to fry me up some eggs and maybe even burn the heck out of some toast...

Nameste.

PPS: The question is: Where's the elephant in your life?

An Expectant Uncertainty

Time sets the stage; fate writes the script; but only we may choose our character.

Liam Thomas Ryder

When I was 23 I had an argument with my parents and brother that set me on the path of self-discovery. They didn't like me. Were pretty clear in the words they used to describe me. Pretty vocal in their judgements. Now, I must mention that this conversation was fuelled by alcohol on their part and exhaustion on mine. I'd come to the party late. Unprepared for the ambush that awaited me. And I was confused. I didn't think I was a bad person but if these individuals who knew me so well thought I was so vain, conceited, selfish and unlovable -- maybe they were right.

I had a friend who told me 'hogwash'. Don't let others determine your character. Don't let others tell you your worth.

I heard him but I wondered. These people are not just 'others'. These people are my family. They have known me all my life. What if they're right?

"Is that who you want to be?" my friend asked.

No, I replied with certitude.

Problem was, I didn't really know who I was if I wasn't who my family told me I could be. And so, frightened, alone, confused, I set out to find me.

It has been an amazing journey. I've travelled highways and bi-ways that even I, in all my wild imaginings, could not have imagined.

There are things I have done that were not so nice. There are things I have done that were wondrous. And, there are those things that stand out, that absolutely define me. None of them do I regret. Not one of them can I change. And some of them continue to resonate, to expand my being, to nourish my spirit and open my heart to the wondrous, miraculous and mystical power of Love.

In Love, I participated in the greatest gift of all. A gift that continues to fill my life with wonder. A gift that continues to fill my world with Joy. It is, The gift of my daughters. There is nothing in my life that compares to the gifts they have given me. To the joy with which they have filled my world. The gift of their lives touching mine has opened me up to truth and beauty, love and compassion, sorrow, joy and laughter. They have opened me up and set me free.

It was the moment of their births that resonates with me every day. I remember holding them after they were lifted out of the womb and being in awe of their beauty and perfection, the miracle of their beings.

I remember wondering, "If I can see the miracle in my daughters, what is stopping me from seeing the miracle of me?"

And so the journey unfolded.

It has at times been awkward. It has at times been painful. I have hurt those I love. I have been hurt by those whom I believed loved me. I have been deceived. I have been awoken. I have been touched and nurtured, loved and celebrated. I have been given amazing gifts and wondrous moments to stand in awe of the power and the beauty of the human spirit. I have been given forgiveness. I have been given grace.

Through it all, through every step, every moment, every breath I have been supported and loved and carried by the unseen presence of a Divine Spirit I could not see, nor touch, nor feel. At times, I did not believe it was even there. I did not believe it cared about me.

At times, I have questioned my right to be in this world. I have struggled to keep myself here. I have hidden from my light. I have fallen into darkness. I have let go of truth. I have embraced the lie that I was unworthy. And I have fallen. Fallen and fallen into the dark because it felt so welcoming, so safe, so secure. I fell so far into the dark it took a miracle of the Divine kind to set me free.

And I was blessed.

For in that moment of Divine intervention, I was given the gift of my lifetime. I was given the truth of my existence in this human realm. The irrefutable fact that -- I am a being of light. In this exact time and place to live this one wild and precious life passionately in love with all I am, all I can be when I let go of certainty and leap into Love.

It is an expectant uncertainty this place I'm in. I know me. I love me. I am Love. I see Love all around me. I see each of us as our unique and beautiful expression of Love.

In this place of not knowing what tomorrow may bring, I reach for expectancy and touch uncertainty. What will unfold will be an expression of the Divine and the Divinity of my world. It may not be to my plan, nor my control. I may not be able to determine or hold onto my planned outcome, but no matter what unfolds, it will always be a reflection of the steps I take, the words I speak, the choices I make. It will always be an expression of Love. For in light, or darkness, in uncertain times and expectant uncertainty, I choose Love.

The certain thing is, this moment shall pass into another. And in its passing, when I step confidently and humbly in Love, I am certain of one absolute: I am an expression of Divine grace resonating through every cell of my being at peace with my human condition unfolding in the wonder and awe of Love.

Nameste

Thank you to Kat over at "Hey Look, A Chicken!" who inspired me this morning in her beautiful post, The Graciousness of Uncertainty.

TedX and Voices

We become the stories we tell ourselves. Dr. Nick Nissley

I was really blessed on Thursday with the opportunity to spend the day at a TedX Calgary event. Despite horrific weather snarls, technical difficulties and a late start the day unfolded with inspiring words and ideas shared by speakers from as diverse a viewpoint as mountain climbing to James Nguen, a Lost Boy of the Sudan sharing his story "The Long Journey Home".

There were so many powerful moments. So many inspiring ideas. Ken Low shared on leadership. Life is the Christ journey. It is the Buddha seat. "We all die so others may live," he said. It is the story of life. Recreating itself with every being. Ken is the founder and president of the Action Studies Institute dedicated to mapping out the dynamics of adaptive intelligence in human systems and pioneering the development of a new discipline – human learning ecology.

"If you're in a story you don't like, change the story," said Dr. Nick Nissley, Executive Director, Leadership Development at The Banff Centre.

The unexpected theme of the day was Voice.

Finding it.
Sharing it.
Giving space for it.
Shifting it.
Building it.
Creating it.
Moving it.
Expanding it.

Voice.

And as this is a beautiful Saturday and the snow is gone, buds continue to blossom and the sky is big and inviting, I am off to go out into the day.

I saved this one video to post today -- Maureen over at Writing without Paper and I must be in sync, as she too shared this amazing choir today.

Have a blessed Saturday filled with wonder and joy. May your voice be clear. May you be heard in truth and beauty. May you hear the sound of hearts calling and souls singing and may you live as the One you are waiting for.

nameste.