by tashmcgill | Dec 5, 2013 | Church, Culture & Ideas, Spirituality
To anyone else watching that Saturday night, we were just two women, obviously friends, walking along a bridge – talking furiously, taking photos for tourists and watching the world go by.
But really, amongst the laughter and shared memories – we were clinging to one another. My dear friend and I are undesirably separated; first by an ocean and then by lives no longer conducive to near constant communication. So these moments together were precious, more precious than words can aptly describe or pictures display.
We’re both real women – one married, one not. Both in creative, unusual occupations, both smart, compassionate and both lonely for authentic expressions of womanhood in our everyday lives. Both leaning on each other to find a roadmap through this life and spirituality that honours our beliefs, our character and our relationship with God. Neither of us certain of where we fit or find a place in the Church as we know it, without having to compromise or apologise for something of our being.
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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.
