by tashmcgill | Mar 27, 2017 | Culture & Ideas
My whole life, I have thrived in front of an audience. I am a communicator. I have delivered my best work in front of a microphone, in front of an audience and on the published page.
Ask me to write or speak to a room of thousands and I cannot hide the sparkle in my eye. But there is truth in what a wise person once told me – that we craft the skills to communicate well long before we have anything to say. So I spent the last twenty years learning how to say it.
And now I think I have something to say, at last. Several somethings, actually.
Early in life I was labelled a ‘bossy girl’. My mother tells the story of a family friend dragging me home from a playdate exclaiming ‘I will not be told what to do by a five year old!’.
For most of my teens and twenties, I made a reputation for myself as opinionated. I wanted to change the way people think (still do) and therefore think and live differently. The world has a way of disqualifying the young from being able to lead thought revolution. I think it has to do with the idea you have to earn your stripes and pay your dues, both of which really just mean ‘do the time’. Actually I knew who I wanted to be – a person of insight and wisdom and I was practicing my voice, learning how to say what I thought.
Experience ≠ Wisdom
Experience and the sheer passing of time may lead to observational wisdom, the accrual of shared wisdom, but wisdom and insight stands alone. I set out at a young age, inspired by the ancient thinker Solomon, to pursue wisdom. The ability to perceive and understand situations differently. Thinking differently will always lead to living differently.
Being opinionated has led me to broken-ish relationships, getting fired and lots of meetings where I was expected to apologise. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I did not.
My strength has also been one of my greatest insecurities – a fear that if I speak my mind or say the ‘wrong’ thing, I will inevitably push people away or lose those I love. It has terrible implications for my most precious interpersonal relationships when I want to be vulnerable.
But it has also led me to the greatest learning of my life and some of my very best ‘being’.
Being a person who can tell the truth in love when no one wants to hear it. One who sticks it out on the side of the miserable. The one who tackles tough subjects, suggests alternative perspectives and facilitates conversation, not just lectures. And occasionally still the one who digs her heels in to get her way. I have learned when not to say I told you so and when to say it with grace.
The toughness of it – the sheer bloody hard work of this ‘think differently’ life has taught me to be a better communicator, a better writer and a better thinker. You have to learn over and over again how to say what you think and how to think better and better.*
A good friend of mine recently offered some words of encouragement, in her blunt and direct way. “You’re a bit of a powerhouse of opinion. You have insight.”
She also reassured me that giving thoughtful opinion and insight delivered with love isn’t the same as the bossy, stroppy twenty-something girl I fear being known as.
There’s no need to worry so much about whether my opinion or insight is right or wrong, or whether it’s ready to be said. I need to trust my gut more often and listen to my body. Perhaps it is more important that I say it in such a way, my love is unmistakable regardless of whether I’m talking to my friends, my readers or my clients.
In my opinion, with love.
*I am incredibly blessed to have worked with some of the best thinkers I’ve encountered, who have taught me to refine and practice the art of thinking in a variety of contexts. I’m forever grateful and will continue to learn and practice.
by tashmcgill | Mar 15, 2017 | Culture & Ideas, Spirituality
Every so often a window blows open in the wind and rain lands in unwelcome places – the fresh laundry pile, the pile of books beside the bed, the pot plant. We shield ourselves from rain in the construction of wood, concrete and glass over our daily lives, but sometimes a crack appears in the ceiling, our umbrellas turn inside out or we get caught by surprise.
We hustle to open our umbrellas while clambering out of cars on our way to the office or the grocery store. We try to avoid the rain, to escape the wet. Why this aversion of skin to rain? Why do we run from it?
There was no shelter on the path I walked home from school and I hated the plastic rain coats we used to wear. Hated them with a passion so during winter and spring, it was nothing to arrive home soaked to the bone. Under the trees of Great South Road I would surrender to the forgone conclusion but I didn’t mind it as much. Damp, uncomfortable wool and polyester of my school uniform clinging to my body, hair at maximum frizz and curl or relented to the weight of the water. Drenched in the rain, I’d strip off and take a warm shower.
Why is water so cleansing and good, so welcome when it flows from pipes and faucets but when water falls from the sky, raw and uncontrolled it makes our skin jump, our shoulders hunch and our faces fall inwards with new wrinkles around the nose and eyes? How can I leap into oceans, rivers and lakes and climb to waterfalls gleefully when I choose to do so but when the water chases me, pouring out of the sky, I flinch?
When I began wearing glasses, I started to flinch from the rain in ways I hadn’t before. Rain can be like tears, hard to see through. Exposes the weakness of my sight. Reveals that clothes are just fabric, susceptible to the elements as we are. I am exposed in the rain.
Is it the control I resist relinquishing? The rain falls without invitation. The intimacy of the raindrop that falls, catching on the skin of my neck, coursing a stream into places unseen? Exposing my vulnerability with the abruptness of the touch that comes without invitation? These questions lead me to ask what I must do to recapture the delight of the child that jumps in puddles.
When I was even younger, a large cyclone bore down on my city and we watched from our classrooms as great grey clouds rolled across the sun. We lost the light into greyness for a week, only knowing the dampness of our toes inside our shoes from the moment we left home. Across puddles and in those uncomfortable jackets, drips escaping down sleeves and soaking into socks we never feared the rain. Even the discomfort of the squelch… it was a joyous delight. I watched the floodwaters in the playground and at intersections on the way home like swimming lakes to be conquered. Rain was an adventure, to see what the weather might do.
One summer camp, we were flooded out by a summer storm. Buses evacuating one thousand teenagers into a local high school and I found myself forming a group of volunteers to load and unload trucks in the storm. Hair plastered against cheek, I felt brave and strong to stand in the rain so, doing what I could to help out.
What changed between then and now? Was it when I started to wear expensive shoes and carry an iPhone in my pocket or when I exchanged my polyester and cotton for finer fabrics? When did I learn to love the sound of rain on the roof and against the window pane, feeling secure and under shelter more than the cool splash of the elements and wind against my skin?
I used to be so raw and unashamed to be exposed. At least, I think that’s how it was. Maybe it’s just I’ve become used to being dry. Maybe I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be exposed to the elements. Maybe you have to? We get so used to waking up in the morning, jumping into routine and the clothes we wear, the roles we play that we need a reminder. We need to be pulled back into the elements from which we come.
We are 90 percent water, after all. Shouldn’t the rain feel like coming home? We spend so much time in our lives looking up and out to find meaning and connection that when the universe comes falling on our sacred skin, comes reaching towards us – we flinch. It’s a touch we’ve forgotten but somewhere, it feels familiar. A memory of the kids we used to be – curious, shameless and delighting in the sensation and freedom of being drenched. Fearless in our vulnerability.
This weekend I spent a lot of time in the rain and let myself relax into it. I didn’t rush out of the falling water. I stood above a waterfall in the rain and let my glasses get misty. I didn’t want to get back in the car. Watching the water cascade over the falls and touch me at the same time, I wanted to be raw and vulnerable again. I wanted to be exposed. Inside, I felt the storm was inside me and the best I could do was surrender to the storm that was falling down on me.
It was gentle. It was momentary. It was happening all around me and I simply had the invitation to be in the midst of it or to run back to shelter. I felt the raindrops that landed on my neck and the dampness of my cheek. I resisted the urge to flinch. I welcomed the rain and it felt like a caress I had been waiting for a long time.
Floodwaters will rage from time to time. Storms will come and rain will fall then sometimes not fall. It’s a rhythm and cycle of how the earth works. Despite our best intentions, our storm water systems, drainage and strong buildings – rain still falls. Sometimes it creeps in through the cracks and sometimes it will be torrent. We build and construct our plans to control the impact of the rain but we cannot make the weather. “Rain, after all, is only rain; it is not bad weather.”
“Rain, after all, is only rain; it is not bad weather. So also, pain is only pain, unless we resist it, when it becomes torment.” – The I Ching
We cry out when dry, thirsty and stricken with drought for the rain to come – when we are ready. We turn and run from floodwaters that expose our weakness and threaten our security. But I would rather be rain-soaked and taken by surprise by the proximity of God, than ever to be dry again. Let it rain.
If theology is a conversation about our ideas of God, then talking about rain is a good place to start. What if we could learn to live in rhythm with the rain? We are meant to live in communion with our environment and each other. To nurture it more than we do and in return, be nurtured by it. The rain is our life-source, after all. We could learn to live around the rain and in the rain, rather than build our palaces to hide us from it.
I have never felt so close to the Universe as under the raw sky in a canvas tent, smelling the rain and dirt as the Earth goes about the business of replenishing and withdrawing from itself. I have had moments of profound aliveness walking through the bush soaked in rain to bathe at the bottom of a waterfall; listening to the birds and forest sing with the life-giving refreshment the rain brings after the heat of a summer day.
If you watch and wait, the clouds will gather and cover the sun. The rain will fall and the earth opens, releasing her fragrance again. Green appears from the dust and the crickets, birds and trees rustle into their songs again as the light emerges from the passing storm. The earth breathes, the water cools and refreshes the land.
That’s the thing about God. Ain’t no bully, despite what some say and demonstrate. God is gracious and gentle. When we flinch, God rarely pushes. I believe it is in the nature of the Universe to be so, allowing us the wilful fortitude of closing the door on unwelcome invasion and waiting for the beauty of invitation. We, yearning for control in a world that seems spinning, so often say no. The universe gently persists and reminds us with a raindrop or two, that our vulnerability is welcome with God.
by tashmcgill | Mar 10, 2017 | Poems, Prose & Poetry
Someone once said to me that poems ought not to need explanation, but some do. I differ in opinion because it suits me. This is a poem about Love and Love is not.
–
Before I knew anything hard or cruel
like the world is
I believed in fairy tales
with one dubious eye open – but even then
never wanted one
never thought Love would look a certain height or weight
or would gaze at me through eyes a certain colour
with skin a certain hue
I only hoped Love would be nothing
like I had seen in a movie or read in a book.
I hoped Love would be an new idea.
–
I hoped Love would be an anchor,
as steady as concrete or steel
and at the same time warm,
I wanted a paradox of my own to explore.
I hoped Love would feel strong
and sound like a cheerleader
believing each of my
mad, genius, over-sized and wonderful ideas
was in fact, wonderful.
I wanted to Love to find me wonderful, an endless curiosity.
An unending conversation.
–
Later the hard nature
of the world taught me
how I did not know
could not know
the touch or voice of Love,
the sound or the feel of it.
I spent long hours talking to
the stars and the moon instead
to the curve of the earth and rippling sea
cheeks made damp by
my own ocean of salt water
my days poured out like sand
a broken hour glass
I spoke aloud and asked
how I could not know the
sound of Love’s voice
after listening so long
unless I had never heard Love at all.
–
Before the Universe answered
in that long silent pause of breath that is
light reaching between two stars within my sight –
that long of a breath I was left waiting.
The Universe still did not answer me
but a feather fell at my feet saying
‘Love is itself, warm and waiting
stretched from the stars to the moon.’
But this truth I refused, my body shaking.
–
I climbed to my high place
stared out into the sea
in my smallest voice
whispered to the Silent in my silence.
…….
It occurred to me perhaps
I knew what Love should be
because I knew so well
what Love was not.
I said to the Love strung between
the stars and the moon and the sea
‘Let it be kind, strong and generous
when Love comes to me.’
–
I met Love on a Thursday
but we did not recognise each other.
I was following feathers and
by the time I did see Love in
kindness, strength and generosity
I had learned that when Love is strong,
Love will probably be stubborn and
not all kindness is admirable but
there are other things that Love is.
Even kindness takes some getting used to.
Love was busy telling me
what Love is and is not
and Love didn’t want me.
I leaned in and learned the lesson anyway
what is was to listen and talk to Love
and then I returned to my high place
as close to the moon as I could stand
far above the sea, and said to the Universe
Now that I know what Love feels like,
sounds like and looks like –
I think I must talk to Love no more.
It occurred to me that silent or speaking,
telling me what is and what is not,
Love and the Universe are much the same.
And the Universe was still silent.
–
