Karl Gallagher

KARL GALLAGHER: POEMS & PAINTINGS From the Introduction: 'At age thirteen I was probably suicidal, though I never actually thought of killing myself. Years later I understood that what I had been going through was acute anxiety and depression. I simply felt miserable and longed to be free of the way I felt. One day in desperation I began to pray. I would get up in the early hours of the still dark Melbourne winter mornings and walk to the Catholic Church at the end of our street in St Kilda. For days I prayed at the foot of the large crucifixion of Jesus, I prayed for deliverance from my life and I put all my heart into it. From the age of sixteen I met guys from different parts of town - the different inner suburban gangs. I had the energy of a seventeen year old, the belief that I was immortal, and the juvenile brains that went with it, and wheels to get around town and leave a trail of destruction in our own lives and that of others. My consciousness in those days was very primitive. I came out of prison a few days after my twenty-first birthday. I was attending night classes at the School of Art at R.M.I.T. four nights a week and starting to make friends there, Alison Hill was the first. The same year I started at R.M.I.T. I had moved into a rooming house in Gertrude St, Fitzroy, and a book called 'The Holy Barbarians' came into my hands. This book introduced me to Alan Watts (The Way of Zen), Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, Erich Fromm, Freud, and Jung. I was also reading Christian mysticism - Theresa of Avila et al, and a book called The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, a 15th century author. The Thomas à Kempis' book induced me to go back and re-read the New Testament. I had known through my readings that 'grace' comes out of the blue, spontaneously, almost randomly, according to divine will. That is what happened to me. For several days this experience was with me. All my fears and worries were removed. I was given the certainty that God was a living dynamic presence in which all beings and things existed in. I believe that in that experience I was seeing the manifestation of the Universal Spirit, right there in the midst of everyday life, with the cars and trams roaring along the street, people hurrying to get to work, going about the business of everyday living. For years I never spoke of this experience to anyone. It was not a drug-induced experience. Soon after this event I met Paul Smith and heard the name Meher Baba for the first time. A few months later I made a conscious decision to accept Meher Baba as my spiritual master and surrendered my life into his care and protection. I have never regretted that decision, made almost fifty years ago; in fact I have a deep sense of gratitude'. Poems & Paintings in full colour. Large Format 7"x10" 110 pages. New Humanity Books amazon.com/author/smithpa