Let's Talk

The Hands of Time Sculpture - By Crystal Przybille

at The Empress Hotel - Victoria, BC

There is little in this world that can top a great conversation with a friend, new or old, over a cup of tea, coffee, ...beer. There is something powerful and comforting in the verbal exchange between two people. It can be likened to a restoration of the mind, a revitalization of our systems and our souls.

Lately, I feel like I'm down a pint, running low on this front. First of all, it seems absurdly difficult just to find time with a friend or acquaintance. Secondly, I wonder if it is becoming a dying art? Is it? Are simple, in-person, one-on-one conversations going the way of the Dodo and the hand-written letter? I sure as blazes hope not!

While I am no less an avid social media hound than the next person, there is nothing that can match the feeling and energy exchanged between two, free-thinking people in an open, passionate conversation. It is akin to mental love-making and meant to leave both parties inspired and rejuvenated.

I know that it can be terribly satisfying to hold a conversation with someone who sees your point of view and agrees with you on all fronts. I have enjoyed this experience many times and felt oh so vindicated through the nods and agreement with my own perspective but what of the exchange that challenges and takes you where you have never ventured?

I will never forget the first conversation I had with someone well-versed in quantum physics. This one was over a pint - which helped me open my mind, I'm certain. I remember how great it felt to be taken to such a foreign world, a world beyond my knowledge but not beyond what made sense to me on a cellular level. I remember how, the very next day, I was scanning the shelves of my local book seller, eager to purchase a 'beginner's guide' - naive, perhaps, but I did find something to get me started. I read many web sites on thermodynamics and quantum physics and slowly ploughed through the book I purchased, having to read each page a dozen times before it made any sense to me.

This one conversation reminded me, for the gazillionth time, that the world and its possibilities, my possibilities, are unfathomable, how with each word, each encounter, we grow and move and learn.

Conversations expand and excite me. They keep me guessing and wandering down the path that is my life. They are undeniably necessary to my existence, my growth and my quality of life. Conversations are irreplaceable.

Coffee and a chat, anyone?

-Gillian Cornwall, July 23, 2017

Original Post, c. July 27, 2014

Cornerstone Cafe - Fernwood

Gillian Cornwall, Victoria, BC c 2014

The Art of Life

Matter - c. Gillian Cornwall, 2011

Some of you may notice that I have changed the name of my blog from its original title, "Gillian's Art Blog" to "The Art of Life" and, in recognition of the change, after approximately nine years of posting, I have named this post to match.

As of late, I have been feeling that the title was no longer reflective of what I wish to accomplish here. 

"...and what might that be?" You may well ask. 

My goal is to create a place where I review experiences and events (my own and others) through a lens which sparks thought and opportunity for conversation around topics through which we may find common threads. It is through these threads that we weave the fabric of our lives and relationships. I want this to be a place through which we question ourselves and our histories, a place where we allow one another to reinvent ourselves based on collective and individual experience. I want this to be like a safe house, a place to come and go at will. I hope that you will come by and visit often. I hope this will be a place where you can express your thoughts and worries as you choose and a place where we can grow together through an exchange of ideas and thoughts. 

Where are we if we do not have safe spaces in which to question, learn and grow? Where are we if we cannot experience the emotions we have been given? Let love guide us here. Let us breathe through our fears and expand with light. 

I am grateful to all of you who spend their time and energy in this space. I have been blessed to get to know some of you outside of the realm of this blog and you are a source of such love, light and learning to me. 

When I think about energy, as I do often, and I read the work of today's scientists as they look at factors such as physical cosmology, quantum physics and thermodynamics, I become more and more convinced of the relativity of our imprint and the expansion capacity of our energy. Who we are and how we behave in our lives does matter, both individually and collectively. This is the art of life. If each one of us is a unique colour, together we create the ultimate rainbow, the most exquisitely detailed picture or the blanket of many threads which keeps us together, protected and warm. 

Physicists and cosmologists have recently come to believe that the universe is, in fact, expanding and that expansion is accelerating. Whatever is causing this universal acceleration has been named dark energy but its origins are not yet known. Is it possible that as our comprehension expands, so does the universe itself? I am not a scientist but I am an explorer of ideas, of possibility.  

Tomorrow it will be two years since my brother died. I feel him with me. The likelihood is, I always will. His life was essential to the person I am. He was a teacher, a protector and a friend. His life expanded my own and thus, I believe, his life impacts all of those who are impacted by mine. This is the ripple effect of energy. This is why I have renamed this space "The Art of Life". 

I hope I will see you all here often. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your lives and thank you for being a part of mine. My gratitude for this opportunity is boundless. I hope we will be able to share our thoughts and ideas here for a long time. With every wish for joy and peace. 

-Gillian Cornwall, c. August 17, 2014

Family Swim - Sunset

Waikiki Beach, Hawaii

Gillian Cornwall, c. December 2006

Let's Talk

The Hands of Time Sculpture - By Crystal Przybille

at The Empress Hotel - Victoria, BC

There is little in this world that can top a great conversation with a friend, new or old, over a cup of tea, coffee, ...beer. There is something powerful and comforting in the verbal exchange between two people. It can be likened to a restoration of the mind, a revitalization of our systems and our souls.

Lately, I feel like I'm down a pint, running low on this front. First of all, it seems absurdly difficult just to find time with a friend or acquaintance. Secondly, I wonder if it is becoming a dying art? Is it? Are simple, in-person, one-on-one conversations going the way of the Dodo and the hand-written letter? I sure as blazes hope not!

While I am no less an avid social media hound (I love me some Twitter) than the next person, there is nothing that can match the feeling and energy exchanged between two, free-thinking people in an open, passionate conversation. It is akin to mental love-making and meant to leave both parties inspired and rejuvenated. 

I know that it can be terribly satisfying to hold a conversation with someone who sees your point of view and agrees with you on all fronts. I have enjoyed this experience many times and felt oh so vindicated through the nods and agreement with my own perspective but what of the exchange that challenges and takes you where you have never ventured?

I will never forget the first conversation I had with someone well-versed in quantum physics. This one was over a pint - which helped me open my mind, I'm certain. I remember how great it felt to be taken to such a foreign world, a world beyond my knowledge but not beyond what made sense to me on a cellular level. I remember how, the very next day, I was scanning the shelves of my local book seller, eager to purchase a 'beginner's guide' - naive, perhaps, but I did find something to get me started. I read many web sites on thermodynamics and quantum physics and slowly ploughed through the book I purchased, having to read each page a dozen times before it made any sense to me. 

This one conversation reminded me, for the gazillionth time, that the world and its possibilities, my possibilities, are unfathomable, how with each word, each encounter, we grow and move and learn.

Conversations expand and excite me. They keep me guessing and wandering down the path that is my life. They are undeniably necessary to my existence, my growth and my quality of life. Conversations are irreplaceable.

Coffee and a chat, anyone?

-Gillian Cornwall, c. July 27, 2014

Cornerstone Cafe - Fernwood

Gillian Cornwall, Victoria, BC c 2014