Reflections on Life’s Illusions
Welcome to Reflections on Life’s Illusions, a website dedicated to exploring writing and photography as spiritual practice. Emerging as part of the creative process that generated the book of the same name, the writing found here responds to the question of how the stories we tell about experience shape our perceptions of what it means to be alive. The photographs tell those stories in a different way, framing a momentary image that points in the direction of the artist’s heart-felt experience. All the writing and images are the result of the search to uncover how we can become more aware of the messages contained in the deepest, often unconscious stories we tell ourselves. May these words and images provide you inspiration to look deeply into your own mind and heart to discover the mystery beyond words from which wonder and awe arise and create life and love. What is that mystery and what is it calling you to do?
The Book
“[An] introspective memoir reflecting on the power of stories amid sociocultural upheaval….Painted with rich, evocative details….. a compelling glimpse into what it means to be alive” – Booklife Review/Publishers Weekly
Dive into the pool of memory with Jane Gallagher as she searches for a path through today’s cultural controversies, uncovering their roots in the explosive era of her youth between 1954 and 1975. Exploring the impact on her growing psyche of the vast array of cultural extremes that swirled around children in the baby boom era, she weaves a tapestry of stories that includes McCarthyism’s anti-communist paranoia, the Vietnam War, Watergate and systemic racism beside the birth of second wave feminism, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement and more, weaving in the voices of leading intellectuals beside her own. Colorful stories of personal experience are woven in counterpoint to associated social commentary, including a search for personal identity, meaningful relationships and a rewarding career. Personal and cultural perspectives intertwine in reflections on the character of the times she’s lived through, including grief following a quick succession of political assassinations and the impact of the birth of rock ’n’ roll and the hippie movement beside the atrocities of Jim Crow racism. Culminating in the repercussions of a life-changing hike through the mountains of Peru, a focus on the outer journey throughout the book is coupled with reflections on the corresponding inner journey to reconnect with wonder, joy and awe.
Now available anywhere books are sold.
About the Author
Jane Gallagher lives with her husband in the green woodlands of Vermont’s mountains where she writes. She retired in 2016 from nonprofit development consulting to New England based nonprofit organizations working to address social and environmental injustice at local, regional and state levels. A mother of two and grandmother of three, she holds a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from Carleton College in Minnesota and an M.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University in Massachusetts. When not writing or reading, you might find Jane out working in the flower garden, hiking, biking or cross-country skiing, contemplating nature and life’s endless mysteries, or enthusiastically playing games of imagination with her grandchildren.
About the Author
Jane Gallagher lives with her husband in the green woodlands of Vermont’s mountains where she writes. She retired in 2016 from nonprofit development consulting to New England based nonprofit organizations working to address social and environmental injustice at local, regional and state levels. A mother of two and grandmother of three, she holds a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from Carleton College in Minnesota and an M.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University in Massachusetts. When not writing or reading, you might find Jane out working in the flower garden, hiking, biking or cross-country skiing, contemplating nature and life’s endless mysteries, or enthusiastically playing games of imagination with her grandchildren.
Contact
Please direct all inquiries to:
Reflections on Life’s Illusions
P.O. Box 131
38 North Main Street
Waterbury, VT 05676