Story (Helen Martins): Helen Martins was an outsider artist, someone who has had no training in the arts and lived in a small dry Karoo town, in the heart of the arid region of South Africa. Her life was stuck in darkness and, as the youngest of ten children, she was neglected by her father and a mother who became confined to bed. She was deeply shy and felt plain and unattractive. Her father was a large figure who abused his wife. Once her parents had passed away, she woke one night from a dream. In this dream she saw light, light out of the darkness of her life. She began to let light into her home by crushing up many colours of glass, fixing it to her walls, creating glass suns on the windows and hanging mirrors everywhere to reflect the light. She loved owls and created them almost wherever your eyes fell, with large glass eyes. In this way she transformed her life which had been one of sad darkness, to one of light, in her Owl House.

Story Essence: Despite her awful suffering and darkness, Helen Martins literally rose up out of the dark and ashes of her life. Her home today is a museum, visited by people from all over the world. In a very real way, she filled her special place, which only she could fill. As her vision began to grow, so her outer world began to glow.

Specific Action: How do you think you can fill your unique space? How will this uniqueness inside of you begin to glow? Think of how something in your life might begin to unfold. What is this 'something'?

By finding our unique space, we can literally emerge out of darkness and suffering. Instead of feeling sad, we begin to feel a unique purpose. Tomorrow we will consider again our freedom to choose, the freedom of our will.

This image is a creative representation of the inside of the Owl House. It is not meant to be representative. Created with the assistance of Canva.com