Sometimes we get really lucky and meet someone like Louis, someone whose communication transcends the ordinary and takes us to another world, inside and outside ourselves. Louis Alan Swartz has been a deep inspiration to me and one of my best friends. He passed away last week and my article this week is a tribute to him.

Louis wrote poetry. Poetry that transformed hard hearts into gentler ones, transformed lost hope into optimism, transformed extreme grief and loss into glorious new love.

This is the power of transcendent communication. It makes you see the world with new eyes. You lift your eyes from the keyboard and point them to the stars.

Louis looked past the “behavior” of humankind and into the heart of humankind. And that’s who he talked to.

I, and the very large and growing “Louis Fan Club,” are feeling deep grief and joy for our memories. Louis hated to see me cry. His last communication to me, as I was weeping over the pending loss of him, was, “I am alive!” And he is. In all the glorious poetry he has generously given to the world. Poetry he created with another dear friend of mine, the fine artist, Diane Woods. I will share a little bit of it with you.

“My purpose in life is to wake the sleeping spirit of man.

“You are constructed of magic.

“You are here to pervade joy.”

– Louis Alan Swartz

With love,

Ingrid