by tashmcgill | Oct 5, 2009 | forgiveness, god ideas, Uncategorized
Forgive Thy Brother – by Scott Erickson of The Transpire Project
tonight with the moon full and low in the sky, blue
finally to write about you, to talk about you, with love
the way i used to, with hope and promise and joy
finally i am sick of ache, weighted arrows in my shoulder
harnessing my force, good or bad, from reaching you
forced I am, into stepping close enough again
fallen into embrace, to rest the weight of it upon you
done. … with just space enough
for continuing despite what we have … chosen to forget
i’m still learning what love is, learning who i am…
…. the moon demands all of my attention to this task, to love you
brother.
Strictly Personal.
I stumbled upon this painting by Scott and was stopped in my tracks. Here was an image that seemed to capture the wrestle in my mind for the last few months.
Getting to America, to this place, these people – this movement, was meant to be a definitive stepping stone. A brilliant release from a scarred and troubling chapter in my life – where things ceased to be true as I had known them to be. It was a scar of my own doing, and yet not. I doubly owned it with the other partakers, yet carried it so heavily. Struggling not to be a victim, to forgive, to move on.
But it takes time, and this place is like a sharp lens, a focusing ring pulled tightly towards my body.
My desire to genuinely forgive and be a better person as result of my mistakes, my justification and my grief is like a taste in my mouth. Yet I doubt my ability to do it.
But maybe the desire to forgive, to carry on, to grow beyond my borders is enough. Maybe that’s all there is. Maybe this kind of confession and forgiveness offers nothing else but… desire. Actually achieving some palpable, tangible feeling would be too noble, too gracious for someone as incomplete as what I am.
That being said, I am moving closer towards what I want to think and feel in regards to forgiving, than I used to be. Good news, huh?
by tashmcgill | Aug 30, 2009 | Uncategorized
I’ve been thinking recently, and possibly some might have noticed, the lack of regular posting here. There are lots of potential reasons…
1. Too much going on to form coherent thoughts.
2. Too many things that are inappropriate to talk about in this forum.
3. Quality not quantity.
This third, I can reference right away.
I’ve noticed, in surveying some of what I’ve written in the last few years that the immediacy and accessibility of blogging technology to ‘publish’ my thoughts has possibly led me to a lazy place when it comes to the craft.
Storytime
When I was at high school, I shared an English class with a girl who simply a phenomenal writer. She had a distinct style, her talent was obvious to see, as was her passion. At school – I was focused on radio & media. That form of storytelling was more important for my career path. And sharing a class with Jenni, whose rising star absorbed the disciplinary focus of our teacher at the time… well, left me feeling lacklustre about my own prospects as a writer.
If it hadn’t been for my English & Media Studies teacher, Mr Bates.. (I google him often, just in the hopes of finding him again)… well, possibly none of my writing would have ever found the public eye again.
It’s amusing, considering how much of my business and communications skillset come from simple, well-practiced art of writing. And I still have more in me.
I left that 5th form class thinking I would never be published and never attempt it. I’ve graduated my early twenties, making a living from it without shame and owning the craftmanship required to ‘write’… or (how I think of it).. “be compiling words” in many forms for many reasons.
My love of language and construction leads me to journalism, poetry, prose, lyricism and storytelling through script and visual medium.
So.. the Blog?
The temptation with blogging is to be too undisciplined in my execution.
Not enough thought or precision put to style, word choice, construction, punctuation and process. So here is my dilemma..
If in every other medium, I am well-edited, processed, re-written, outlined, architecturally sound both in flow and ideological progression – is it permissible to be so stream of consciousness in blogging? Or does that reveal the weaker flaws in my writing?
Is this like a journal of thoughts (I’m still scarred by those who simply consider this an inappropriate forum for what is published here… though they have little idea of the catalogued journal and notebook system in place for that which is much more private) – so it’s “casualness” permissible?
Or, like meeting someone for the first time – because this becomes my most prolific publication source, should I make more of an effort when it comes to first impressions?
I’m going to start reviewing those posts which have led me into trouble. You can expect that I’ll re-publish those posts previously removed, revised and edited.
The difficulty is that I want to be a good writer. Mostly because I want to say things that are meaningful, more than saying nothing in a beautiful way. I’m no Jenni, but now.. rather than suspecting I’m not remotely deserving of my ‘teacher’s’ attentive discipline and correction.. I’m looking for the process myself.. in hopes of sending her a book one day.
So, in true McGill style.. I’ve said in several hundred words what I could’ve accomplished in 35.
All writing deserves the attention of craftsmanship, to refine the thoughts interred and the manner of architecture around them. My suspicion is that blogging has made me lazy, so I’m attempting to turn the tide.
Feel free to offer your thoughts & comments. Am I the only one that feels this way from time to time?
by tashmcgill | Aug 28, 2009 | Uncategorized
Stones like these
are just like fuel underground
You stop my feet
from floating up when I come down
I go up
and watch the world spinning round
But I came down
You can’t see
that I’m like dust on the ground
The wind picks up
and then it blows me around
I go up
and watch the world spinning round
But I came down
Finding out the northern lights
Out Of The Moon
Last year, I spent about (what felt like forever) 5 months in a waiting/interviewing/paperwork process to look at the possibility of coming to work in the US. It didn’t work out at the time for a number of reasons – but I’m here now for 4 months.
The first of these months is nearly over, my brain and feet and breath finally settled into a rhythm of life here. There are sunshine skies that last forever. Long evenings. All the tastes and aromas of life are different, prioritized differently, examined and enjoyed differently.
At first it’s the large things that take your notice but eventually it’s the smallest of things that catch your attention. Like the sky. Here’s what I sent home recently..
the sky is blue today. that kind of blue they call azure. and though it’s light, warm blue – it’s like a hundred thousand translucent layers so the sky feels deep and warm. how can the sky feel deep? and yet it does.
so am i at at the bottom looking up or the top of the sky is really earth?
everyday i look out from my office across to hills that are brown and covered in houses that are made to keep the light out. they are made to keep the light out because the sun carries heat so strong in the middle of summer that the only way to survive is to stay in the dark as much as possible. isn’t it funny that back home our houses are built to catch the light because of the warm it brings and here they have windows the size of shoeboxes?
everything seems brown and covered in dust because of drought. strange isn’t it. and california – you think of it as being a beach state, and certainly San Diego as being a beach town.. but really – the beaches are beautiful yes, but thin strips of sparkly sand and that same reflected azure sky carried in water. it’s 10% beach and 90% desert which affects my theology.
The sea blows in a marine layer every morning – it’s like a sea fog that hangs in the sky instead of along the ground. and why not – because the sky is so vast and huge, so warm and blue – i would, if I was marine layer – want to hang in the sky.
most days it blows out again, and the warm breeze is left on my skin, the dryness of the air making my skin tight and dry in places unusual. and why am I telling you these things? well because my story at the moment is found in the geology, in the air and in the shape of the desert all reflecting my spirit and my heart.
The moon is upside-down, but I am getting used to the view.
Strange & Unusual Observations
After four weeks, I get surprised with the phone rings. It was the most familiar sound back home. I was used to eating and drinking and sharing life with with multiple people from multiple worlds every day. I’m surprised with the sense of vitality I miss from that.
Without my phone ringing all the time – I do feel more relaxed.
Change and life carries on exactly the same at home (so I am assured) yet I constantly feel anxious about the life that carries on without on it’s own path & trajectory – so perhaps I have an over-inflated sense of self-importance.
It’s easy to be here, it’s easy to make a new life when you have something to do. My list of things I want to do is constantly expanding, mostly filled with places I’d like to visit, things I want to see and do and dreams of wide highways, mountains, green that covers me like swaddling clothes, desert rocks and Yosemite, Yellowstone and Yukon.
I like, no, I love this space. I love these people too. I feel at home. Even if the moon is upside down!
by tashmcgill | Jul 5, 2009 | New Zealand
This is a poem that speaks of the beauty of this land, the song of the tui.. which you can listen to here.
Song Of The Tui
Suppose, sweet eyes, you went into a distant country
Where these young islands are nothing but a word;
Suppose you never came back again by Terawhiti:
Would you remember and be faithful to your bird?
And when they boasted there of thrushes, larks and linnets,
Would you hold up a stubborn little hand,
And say: “Not so! I know a sweeter singer
Than any bird that cries across your land!”
Would you, remembering, tell them of the Tui?
Wild, wild and blinding in its wildest note.
They – they never heard him, swinging on a flax–flower,
Mad with the honey and the noon in his throat.
They say that in the old days stately rangatiras
Slit his tongue, and made him speak instead of sing;
We would rather see him shining and gold–dusted,
From a morning kowhai flinging wide the spring.
So, my little sweet eyes, if you go a–sailing
Out beyond Pencarrow, and come not again,
Hold unto the southlands in the pure October,
When the Tui’s sweetness ripples through the rain.
— Eileen Duggan
by tashmcgill | May 13, 2009 | Culture & Ideas
I’m going to be moving house soon. Granted, every year, I’ve wondered, for all six years I’ve been in my little cottage.. will this be the year it’s finally time to move? It’s been a glorious little home.
So I’m ruthlessly going through my worldly possessions (it feels like there are a lot of them, but I’m putting a huge amount down just to the 37sq metres of living space.
This little article here is full of interesting thoughts around possessions and the sentimental significance we attach to stuff.
Of course, the real power of those objects is found in the internal monologues, memories and pictures inside our hearts, those objects are like hyperlinks to those stored images, scents and sounds.
But why do I hold on? I hold on to photographs, instruments and books. Pieces of art and gifts and silly little things. As I try and undo and put aside, I find myself looking at the “memories” I’ve been keeping, slowly wondering why, and unraveling a girl I was a long time ago.
It’s the journey and reflection I see of myself that lashes me to Objects. Still, it’s time to let many of them go, begin afresh and new.
“Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.” Yoda.
