by tashmcgill | Sep 7, 2011 | Writing Work, Youth Work
Earlier in the year, Marko asked me to come onboard as a contributor for Slant33. The key idea is to ask a range of pertinent, insightful and thought-provoking questions (one a week) with three different voices offering their answer for discussion and commentary.
I jumped at the opportunity as I really trust Marko’s insight as a thinker and leader to help facilitate the process and range of both questions and perspectives, but also because I love the idea of a column that offers so much engagement and depth in one sitting. Even as a contributor – waiting to see what people are going to say, how it differs from your own, what it adds.. it’s really a fun and stretching process. Here’s my first contribution answering the question, “in what practical ways do you find solitude and rest?”
I’d love you to have a read and offer your thoughts and comments on the site – I promise your voice will enrich the conversation!
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by tashmcgill | Jul 22, 2011 | Prose & Poetry
We forget that the seasons of life do not move as quickly as the seasons of spring, winter and fall. For some of us, we have never been known in summer; in full bloom. Some of us are re-emerging, seen for the first time.
I wrote this poem when as I was stepping back into myself after some time away. I realised that while the reflection of myself I saw in the eyes of others was familiar to me; they were seeing me for the first time.
Oh, the possibility that we could see ourselves new again, recognising our strength, our beauty, our wonder as if for the first time and without fear.
Fierce.
This woman is like an army in front of me
Like a great tiger out of hibernation
Everything about her uniform is strong,
she is oiled like snakeskin
I forget, you have forgotten her – before the Hiberation,
that great dark winter when she watched
hovering from the north west east south borders of you
And you, hidden in the corner, did not know me
before the winter; cracking brittle icicle heart.
That underneath, she is entirely fierce
You over there could not know, you there, have pushed it from your mind –
That I am always summer.
Always, like an unshakeable,
immovable living oak tree, a cedar, fragrant – I am drenched
in some internal sunshine, I am always summer merely beneath snow
My blazing flesh becoming sacred, holiness of ash and ice
I have a secret, layers of secrets over hidden things and the most
furthest hidden thing in my heart, beating like a drum…
I do not need to feel happy to be happy
Happiness is in me like spring, summer and snow
now that I have remembered
How to roar from within to always be warm,
the dancing hunt of the tiger, the flight of the dove –
do not forget me again (I will not forget myself)
I do not need to be happy as some people need happiness
or melancholy as fuel, not to be happy or sad
the deepest melancholy is joy to me in summer, spring or snow
I fear nothing, I am not burdened by desire – I am freer
than one who tries to satisfy the burn
the burn instead delights me
i do not need to feel happy to be happy
I am fierce, like summer.
Fearless like this army within me.
by tashmcgill | Jun 24, 2011 | Culture & Ideas
I have a Just-In-Case box. Everytime I move house, I unpack it until eventually I need to repack it to move again. Sometimes, I’ve been known to take items from the box with me on travels to foreign lands, beach walks and up windy hills before dawn. It’s the box of things I keep Just-In-Case I need to remember, to reconnect or to rekindle something in me or between myself and old friends. Adding something to the box is never easy – it’s almost always bittersweet. To keep a memory sometimes means to have lost a present reality. Like when my aunty died, or my grandfather, or my first dog.
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by tashmcgill | Jun 9, 2011 | New Zealand, Writing Work
By faith alone. Five years into a wild ride of running my own business, being my own boss…essentially putting all my worth and energy and effort on the line to be who I am.
By faith alone. Five years have flashed by like a blur in a myriad of hardships, lessons and successes. Yay!
by tashmcgill | May 5, 2011 | Community, Culture & Ideas, Food & Drink, Girl About Town
Once upon a time, there was a girl who started a business. She had an office off the main road, behind a building, down an alleyway, up some stairs and straight on the left. She would work late into the night, sometimes stopping for dinner or meeting a friend for a drink.
She always bought her coffee from the same place just in the block she called home, she believed in local economy. And so, one night whilst thinking about a work project and meeting friends for a catch up drink, she found herself downstairs from the office and just on the corner, sitting in the corner bar of the block she called home.
Although a whisky drinker from way back, her palette was mostly developed around wine – but with a fondness for the refreshing sting of Stone’s Ginger Wine, she ordered the Whisky Mac and a love affair was born.
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