The Art of Life: Aware

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Aware

The Beach at Hulopoe

Lana'i HI

Gillian Cornwall, c. December 2012

Awareness is a process and, self-awareness, in its entirety, impossible to achieve as the human animal is too amorphous in its being (or, rather, its becoming) to pin to a moment of complete self-understanding; nevertheless, I attempt to gain on the state, if only to get a brief glimpse of myself, a flash in the headlights and then the taillights a second later.

In these fleeting moments, I am aware of the unstoppable nature of self. I acknowledge the chips and cracks, the wear marks and the pieces that still shine - the whole lot held together with duct tape and glue and bits of string. All of these restoratives made of moments of courage and strength and desire to go on.

It's all that I am. There is no magic, no special anything. There is just 'me', standing naked and flawed and prepared to continue - expecting nothing and hoping for the best. The scars on my landscape are bold facts, integrated into the fabric of my being. They teach. They remind. They are the key to change - both the way I think and the way I behave.

I accept myself as I am now, in this moment, and this acceptance allows me the depth and breadth of peace required to maintain the open channel through which love flows, deep and eternal, with integrity.

-Gillian Cornwall, Edited: December 15, 2013.