Calgary Art Walk Fetival

My girlfriend F & sweet little L invited me and my son L to go to her mother-in-law (grandmother) Art Exhibition today in an art gallery located in Inglewood. I soon realized it was part of the Calgary Art Walk Festival happening this weekend (September 18 - 19th 2010) around various galleries throughout the city. Downtown, Inglewood and the Beltine art galleries put out their finest and most interesting arts for this fun and enjoyable art venue.
The Art Gallery is called ArtPoint Gallery & Studio Society and is located at 1139 - 11 Street SE in the Calgary's oldest neighbourhood of Inglewood. One of my favorite neighbourhoods in Calgary. This place reminds me a lot of my past neighbourhood when I lived in Edmonton, the White Avenue. But in my opinion, homey and smaller! Many art galleries and little antique stores. White Avenue is getting to commercial and trendy, little small family coffee shops being replaced by mega famous Starbucks and Second Cups, and little bookstores not able to compete with Chapters, etc. I think Inglewood still keeps this feeling of simplicity and warmth of small stores. When you enter this old dusty bookstore, or find an old gentleman sitting behind the counter of an antique store, or little restaurants with live music, etc. I really like that heterogeneous, historical and deep feeling.

Inglewood is the home of the famous Spolumbo restaurant too. Do you know about the Spolumbo sausages? Personally I think they are lean, tasty and delicious. Perhaps I should dedicate a whole blog story about them, because in fact they are so good that they deserve a special mention. Their story is quite interesting too. Nowadays you can find them literally everywhere: Safeway, SaveOnFoods, Sobeys, etc. and they cater to business around the city. My company use them in their meetings and I often get to savour them at our lunch and learns.
Inglewood is located immediately across the Elbow River from Fort Calgary and was established in 1875 after the fort was built. These days, the neighbourhood is a shopping and art district and home to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary (previously mentioned in my other blog story).

ArtPoint Gallery has an eclectic group with about 25 artists showing art in all sorts of different medias. ARTPOINT is open Thursday & Friday from 1 to 5 pm, and Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm. My friend's mother-in-law name is Charlene Turner Kroeger and her exhibition was called Myths & Stories, an artist who loves to paint portraits and people.

Thank you my dear friend F! We had a great time there today! My son L chase your little L all over the gallery, but he had fun specially at the waving and spuning gallery area. Wanted to see more, but we had other plans for the day and we're running out of time. But it was a fun thing to do! I LOVE art galleries...

We also made sometime to pop into the Calgary Moms Trade Fair this afternoon.

The Sundial Way of Living: Carpe Diem

Today I would like to talk to you about the Sundial Way of Living Concept. But what exactly is the Sundial Way of Life? As you know the sundial is a device that measures time by the postion of the Sun. And as the sun moves across the sky the shadow-edge progresses aligning to different hour-lines in the plate. By tradition sundials have a motto. The motto is in a form of a epigram (witty poem): Sometimes sombre reflections on the passing of time and the brevity of life, shows transience of the world. 'Do not kill time, or count only sunny times...'

A more detailed information regarding the Sundial Way of Life can actually be found in a book called Seimei no Jisso (Truth of Life), Vol. 7 by Dr. Masaharu Taniguchi. Dr. Masaharu Taniguchi founded a non-denominational institution called Seicho-No-Ie in 1930 in Japan. I grew up being part of Seicho-No-Ie thanks to my Dad. It is part of me since childhood and now as an adult and having my own family I've been trying to practice and understand its teachings. And more I am finding it to fits well my life and my beliefs.

One can learn and practice the Seicho-no-Ie philosophy through simple actions, such as positive thinking, spreading kindness, and being joyful. As you begin practicing the Truth, you will begin to understand Truth in its entirety. "Seicho-No-Ie" literally means "the Home of Infinite Life and Growth.

Simply the Sundial Way of Living say that we should see only the bright side of people, things and circumstances. To reinforce it in our life, one of good ideas is to write the diary recording only good parts of our lives (I guess that's where this blog comes handy). Upon starting the diary, you will find good results lining up on your way. Because we try to recall what good things happened at the end of each day, write it and appreciate it by writing the Sundial Diary. I found this cute example online. I think you may find quite interesting!

We use the power of words by thinking good, and expressing with words (praising, thanking, etc...) and facial expression (smile, etc...), over time. This will enhance the power of goodness on you and others around you. Caution: it can be contagious! What we think will manifest into the world. This is obviously going to result into more good things inyour life, we would attract more good things into the lives of people around us. Lets try to put this wonderful idea into action...

Come along and grow old with me; the best is yet to be.
Let others tell of storms and showers; I mark only the sunny hours.
Be as true to each other as this dial is to the sun...