I Want To Write

Lana'i, Hawaii

G. Cornwall, c. 2006

What I want to write about is truth, as I know it - the truth as I see it. I want to write the passion, the filth and the joy. I want to write it all. I want to write from where life springs forth in all its mess. I see. I am whole. 

I want to write about how I know that if I remain open and fluid, the chaos will flow through me and I will know where I am in the midst of it. I want to write the perfection of science and art from my open thermodynamic system. I want to write about how one needn't fear love, giving love, if one expects nothing, fearlessly. I want to write from that place I've seen, that place I've been, in which I'm completely connected to everything, where there is no loss and no gain, where everything stands sublime. I want to write about walking through the shit and the quagmire along the way, how I push myself away and pull myself closer in the want and don't want of it all. 

Where are the heart and mind if not in this universal woods of life and story? Who have we created as the Big, Bad Wolf today? I want to write it all and write it again with new eyes everyday. Passion and madness like torn streamers and deflating, escaping balloons at the end of five year old's birthday party where you find gum in the cat's fur and a hot dog in the toilet. 

Passion and madness and sweet release. Chaos. Entropy. Acceptance. A toolkit of heart and mind and nonsense. Perhaps all of it is without sense. That is the sweet spot. Fear. Dirt. Sunshine. A friend told me that if you hit dirt hard enough it will become sunshine. I want to write dirt into sunshine and sunshine into dirt. I want to write.

Gumby and Pokey

Lana'i, Hawaii.

G. Cornwall, c. 2006

-Gillian Cornwall, c. February, 2011

Flow

I have decided to post this piece from 2011 as I feel it warrants a reprise. I hope it brings you joy and peace. 

Buddha - Hawaii 2006

Let love flow through you.

Do not attempt to hold it for questioning.

All will be well.

Walk the path of love rather than the path of fear.

Give what you have to give freely and without expectation.

Make way for those you love to follow their paths without impeding their journeys.

Hold up a light for them when they are in their darkest hours.

Hold up a mirror when they need to see their beautiful perfection more clearly.

Love freely.

This is a good job.

This is a good life.

This is a beautiful life.

All is well.

Blessings to all.

Love to all.

Love and blessings gratefully received.

-Gillian Cornwall, August 25, 2011.

Sarcasm, Irony and Clear, Kind Communication

Fog in English Bay, BC

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2009 

The Art of Language

Sarcasm: Noun. The use of irony to mock or convey contempt. 

More on this word from wikipedia

Irony: Noun. The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. 

More on this word from wikipedia

While recognized as literary tools, perhaps these should be known as massive bombshells of misunderstanding. 

This is what I am thinking. One has to be an extraordinary communicator in order to know where and when to pepper one's speech with irony. I have seen it used perfectly in poetry, fiction and dramatic writing; however, it is a rare phenomenon to experience its effectiveness in oral communication. In fact, personally, I have no use for sarcasm and find I only use it when backed into a corner and resort to it in retaliation. I always feel disappointed in myself afterward. 

When used in workplace communications or any relationships where there is an imbalance of perceived power, the results can be disastrous. Consider when and how to use these tools -  learn about them. Have you walked away from conversations wondering why someone would say something so unkind to you, only to find out years later, that somehow they were using a failed attempt at irony or sarcasm, alleging an absence of harmful intent? For in truth, all comedy and irony bears a weight of truth and is often used out of fear of the results of straightforward, clear communication.

In our world, language is changing rapidly, particularly with the use of technology. The art of written and spoken communication is in continuous flux. Perhaps this speed and offhandedness with which we can communicate might give us more pause to consider that which we say in advance of blurting. I am trying, though sometimes failing, to use clear and kind communication rather than irony and definitely in place of sarcasm. It isn't always easy but I want to ensure that people aren't walking away from me hurt or confused by a glib, thoughtless remark I have made.

Awareness. Intention. Kindness. Clarity. Let these words guide our path of communication. Do not let fear dictate our words and result in bitter strikes. Indeed, the pen is mightier than the sword but can wound as effectively. 

I suppose what is rather silly here is that I am simply saying something most of our parents taught us when we first formulated speech, "Think before you speak."

I wish you all a beautiful week filled with joyous, kind interactions that ripple out across the world. Thank you for taking the time to read this article.

-Gillian Cornwall, July 14, 2013. 

Open

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2009

Perspective - Creating the Positive Picnic Basket

Picnic Basket

Charmaine's Past and Present

Fort St, Victoria.

G. Cornwall, 2012.

Life doesn't always feel like a picnic but if you are prepared to have one anyway, looking for the positive in every situation, life does become more simple. 

The unexpected turns of life, the potholes, the sinkholes on our path, the barriers of our own creation, can be our demise or our opportunity to shift our thinking, our way of travelling through life, for what are we without these challenges. 

Stagnation may bring us peace, opportunity to rest for a time, but in the long run we must shift in order to grow. Even as my bus driver takes a wrong turn as I write this, there must be opportunity. I see it as extra time to write on my way to work and, as one of the elders on campus once said, "You're not late unless everyone has already gone home."

It is not the perceived errors in our life that define us, rather the way in which we mitigate them. How do we face change or loss? Is there loss if nothing is held tightly? Like all things, like thermodynamics, we will move to where there is space for us to be. This is how we grow and learn and gain perspective.

Do not fear the fall. Prepare yourself for it by living a life of gratitude, in peace, accepting that change will come and that all is well. Accept each breathe as a blessing in which to be present, an opportunity to live and to love with an open heart and an open mind.

A poem on perspective:

I elevate

I reach

beyond that which I believe

the land of exploration

the sensation

the bold and brave new world.

I search

for another way of being

something more freeing

with more meaning

where a hand reaches out 

for another hand.

For if we truly work together 

there is enough for everyone.

If I take away desire

-for stuff brings strife-

and focus on the stuff of life

If I let love be my fire

and make true

the path between me and you,

then I elevate,

I reach

beyond that which the world believes.

If I live a life of gratitude,

not servitude,

If I  feed the world 

with my soul, my light

then I will know

what it means to live free, to live right.

-Gillian Cornwall, c. July 7, 2013.

Big Island - Parker Ranch

c. Gillian Cornwall

Oil Pastel on Paper, 2007.

$200.00

PRIDE

Rainbow
G. Cornwall, c. 2012.

Pride. 

I revisit the word 

each year at this time 

often wish it was another 

mot du jour. 

This year I think of lions. 

This is my pride, 

stretched out, 

across the hot savanna. 

I have pride in my pride of lions, 

you women warriors, 

my band of women. 

Yes, you, you wild creators 

and lovers of life, 

child protectors and friends 

to the end. 

My pride, my pride.

Single mothers I see you

as you march on

I salute you

and you say,

"It's just what I do.

I'm a mom you see."

And I do see you

like a soldier of love

I see you

Toiling 

for the love of the children

through day and night

you fight for their right

to life,

to joy and love

You lift them high

right past you

so they would never know

your fatigue,

your loneliness,

how your love for your young

could break you open -  

it's so big

It hurts sometimes

you love them so.

Women, single mothers 

I see you

I honour and support you

Warriors of love

My pride

My pride.

-Gillian Cornwall, c. June 30

Wherever I Am, I Am Not Gone

The White Rose

West Saanich, BC

c. June 2013

This is a poem about how I believe we are all connected, all one. There is life in energy. As physics states, there is change in the condition of energy but never less nor more of it; thus, we are omnipresent in one form or another and inextricably connected.

Wherever I Am, I Am Not Gone

When I pass from this life

to what we name Death

will you cry and miss my presence?

Will I know 'missing' then?

I hope to ride the waves, 

the ocean of your cells,

to rise with you completely,

on your molecular tide,

receding in your dreamworld

as you fall to rest.

May I live among you,

rippling through life,

through eternity

as the wind upon the sea.

Open your soul and I'll flow through you as love.

No need to hold,

no need to fear,

for I am with you 

as you are with me,

across the miles,

across time,

in your arms

or in your thoughts. 

Live well.

I offer you my love,

my only gift in life or death.

I am as much your heartbeat 

as you are mine,

we are one,

always.

-Gillian Cornwall, rewritten June  23, 2013.

Frivolous Musings

A scene runs through my mind on replay. I hope you will allow me the frivolousness of the text and images - a simple wandering through time and imagined lives based on this island in the Spring and far too much Jane Austen.  

A man is walking through a verdant wood at dawn, a time when light appears as fragments, a kind of fairy dust, a zillion Tinkerbells who will create daylight upon holding hands. 

 

This man high-steps through knee deep bluebells. His skin has taken the waxy, blue-green hue of the surrounding vegetation as though he had popped his head through the loam this very morning. 

He leans into his destination, his pant legs damp with morning dew.
 

He pushes forward to his love in her country manor home.  

 

This woman waits in a dress the colour of robins eggs, her hair a strawberry blonde, with long curls cascading across porcelain skin. Delicate shoulders support her gown and the weight of the world as she frets over the unknown arrival time of her forest wanderer. 

Her eyes, the blue of tropical seas remain slightly red at their rims. She has no more tears to shed and will confront him on sight, after he dotes on her sufficiently.

He pictures her and the comforts of home in his mind's eye. He cannot tarry long in the woodland depths for fear of a misstep, a fall. Fraught with tension and weak with exhaustion, he must arrive whole in body if not yet so in spirit. He will tell her she is the hero of his story and he the fool. The blood from a recent wound stains the colour of his singlet to a deep crimson and he presses on with the determination of a warrior. The heart of the lover pushes him forward.

-Gillian Cornwall, c. 2013.

Open

 

Chinese Cemetery

Photo by Gillian Cornwall

Victoria, BC  c. March 2013

Sometimes our greatest strength

rises from the ashes

of our vulnerability.

Today, I have two examples of vulnerability. The first is vulnerability without choice and anyone who lives in Victoria, BC is likely to experience this if they walk down Cook Street in the late spring or early summer. I hope you find it entertaining:

Dear Crow God,

I humbly request that you ask your disciples to stop flying at my head. My hair is not nesting material and what the hell would I want with a crow baby? Rest assured, very few humans, as twisted and cruel as we can be, have use for a crow baby!

My understanding is that your kind are not even good eating. The only time you may have heard us speak of this is purely idiomatically:

          1. Eating Crow: Humiliation by admitting wrongness or having been proven wrong after taking a strong position 

I would imagine that actually consuming one of your kind would be, well, foul. (Yes, I really did make that pun.)

To return to my original request, please inform your ilk that, while I am renowned for my good nature and sense of humour, there is nothing sporting nor dignified about running down the street willy-nilly, gesticulating in panicked madness, terrified at the prospect of having my eyes plucked from their sockets by your kin.

Certainly, I wish you the very best with all of your other crow endeavours, not the least of which is your attraction to, and collection of, bright and shiny objects (let it be known here that I am not a bright and shiny object), your affinity for playing 'chicken' in traffic and your tasteful black outfits. 

Most sincerely,

Gillian Cornwall

Homosapien

What is Underneath?

G. Cornwall c. 2010.

My second example of vulnerability comes in a poem from 2010. I post it again today in dedication to all of the women I know around the world and right here at home, who put themselves out there everyday, working, raising their children (often on their own), taking care of their significant others and their parents, persisting no matter the weather, the day, the exhaustion. I see you and I love you. Together we are stronger. 

This is Not a Poem, It is a Series of Waves

I come to you with my self in my own hands

like a clam shell.

I say, "Look. This is what I am."

and I open.

This is my language.

This is my culture. 

This is my truth

in this moment.

This is my ability to speak with you

from my heart.

My fears,

my scars,

they are here too.

Touch them;

know this part of my terrain.

Read me like Braille

in your hands.

Read the shapes I take. 

Read my amorphous shapes.

Keep reading.

I am here.

I am changing.

I am able to be touched by you

and read again.

I am the story;

shifting like dunes on the wind.

-Gillian Cornwall, c. 2010.

Gillian Cornwall

c. 2013

This World is Our Mother

I love to travel through the Saanich Peninsula, to see the beautiful dark soil amid the green and forested landscape, to know that I can select most of my food from the island on which I live, with gratitude. This land provides for us so well and I want to take the opportunity to share this through these words, which act as a mantra for me, an instrument of thought. I originally wrote this in 2009. I return to it regularly to ground me, associate me with the earth that sustains us. Wishing each of you love, peace, kindness and sustenance. 

Saanich Farmland

G. Cornwall, c. 2012

Let Us Not Forget the Land

For every house we build as home

For every school we raise for education

For all the buildings in which we work

Let us not forget the land on which they stand

For it is the land that is our true home

The land that teaches us all we need to learn

The land that is our provider.

Let us not forget the land.

-Gillian Cornwall, revised c. June 2013.

Above All Else, Love

Spring in Victoria

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2007

Above All Else, Love

I have expanded with love

Burst forth from the cement of the city sidewalk

the rogue flower

I learn and I shift

my perception

I engage in the moment that is

and leave the moment that will be

to its own devices

I have no animosity in my heart

no blame

I have expanded with love

I learn

I do my best

I share the gift of love

worship the living temple of my self

Love is a story of the world

in which 

we all belong

Gillian Cornwall, c. December 2011

Life will go to where there is room for it to be.

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2011

Spring Tulip

Gillian Cornwall c. 2011

*Dedicated to Romina, in her time of mourning and to Erika, as a new life grows inside her.*

Sakura Snow - A Poem for People Who Pass This Way

 Cherry Blossoms, Victoria BC

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2011

Sakura Snow

I passed a pom-pom poodle

rolling in sakura snow

pink licks on white

Do poodles bite?

His name "Fondant"

or "Cupcake"

or the like.

A child had chalked

upon a desk

an abandoned

roadside desk

in white on black

"Narwhal - Unicorn of the Sea"

My town

sensual circus

chalked flowers

coat the sidewalk

outside the IDA.

Elderly apparitions

of times gone by

tap my back

and winking, whisper,

"Carpe Diem - Seize the Day!

and don't forget

this was our town too

long, long before you.

This poodle,

this parade,

First People, 

I am belayed 

to wooden sidewalks

opium dens

gold and railway men

before this town was yours and mine

this town, this town

pink petals crossing time.

-Gillian Cornwall,  May 5, 2013.

With imagination, all is possible.

Gillian Cornwall, May 2013.

Victoria Day Parade, Victoria BC

c. Gillian Cornwall

Fan Tan Alley, Victoria, BC

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2011.

 Mount Baker, Victoria BC

Gillian Cornwall, c. April 2013.

Chinese Cemetery, Victoria BC

Gillian Cornwall, c. April 2013. 

Beautiful Old Buildings, Victoria, BC

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2011.

   

Going Social

Flying High in the #YYJ

View through Fairfield to the Olympic Range, WA

G. Cornwall, c. 2011

Going Social

During the past week, I attended Social Media Camp in beautiful Victoria, BC. It was two and a half days of intense learning and interaction with friends and colleagues on the topic of social media.

This was my second year in attendance and a significantly different experience than that of my first year in which I only knew 2 or 3 people at the camp and I was very new to Twitter. As a result, during my first year, I spent a good portion of the conference on my own, with mild anxiety and shades of elementary school isolation as I sat outside, eating my bag lunch alone in a crowd, hoping the cool kids would talk to me. 

Over the past year, I made efforts to increase meaningful conversations with my local (and distant) Twitter community. I set up and went to coffee 'tweet-ups' with folks I hadn't yet met in person, helped with some fundraising efforts and and community events, attended local chamber of commerce and public relations mixers and reached out where and when I could, sharing content from my blog and interacting with others based on their online content. 

This year at Social Media Camp, while I was there as a representative of my workplace, I also had the opportunity to meet many people IRL (in real life) with whom I've had a long Twitter association. Additionally, it was an opportunity to introduce myself to new people with whom I can now continue to interact online. 

Before attending this year, I made a promise to myself to find 3 people at camp on the first day who were standing alone and looking lost, engage in conversation, welcome them and introduce them to others. Two of the folks were new to camp and one turned out to be a session speaker! I was happy to help the new folks have a more engaged experience and share with others. I don't like to think of anyone having lunch alone unless that is what they want!

I met many incredible people with great big hearts and minds this year and I am grateful for the opportunity to share experiences with all of you! The most common threads in sessions and conversations throughout the event resounded with human interaction:

• meaningful conversations
• shifting mindset between the one and the all
• kindness as a starting place for all acts
• attention economics - the consideration of others and room for them in your content
• self-awareness and acceptance
• gratitude

This year's camp has helped me to understand my social media 'maturity' level and to learn from my social media elders. It has taught me to listen and to ask. For the friendships and the lessons, I am eternally grateful to each person I meet along my path, each person who shares potential, choices and ideas, all who hold up mirrors when I lose sight of myself, all who hold up lamps to light the way and those who quietly allow me to make my mistakes and learn, holding out a helping hand when I slip and fall.

Thank you. I hope you will grace me with the gift of helping you in kind. Social Media Camp organizers, volunteers, speakers, participants, award nominees and winners, supporters and sponsors - congratulations on an epic success!

See you in the Twitterverse. 

-Gillian Cornwall, c. May 12, 2013.

"Pono"

G. Cornwall, c. December 2012.

Talk To Me

Coconut Palm - Lana'i, Hawaii

G.Cornwall, c. December 2012

Yep. I'm gonna do it. I'm quoting The Spice Girls song, Wannabe.

"Tell me what you want,

What you really, really want."

At times, I want to tattoo this on my forehead so everyone I encounter can see it, but the print would have to be kind of small to make it fit and people would need to stand really close to read it and that would just be awkward all around but you get the idea, right?

Call me simple, for I hope that is what I am. I am not going to be able to guess what you are thinking, dreaming or wanting with any kind of regular accuracy. If I'm very lucky, I may get it right 10% of the time; however, if you tell me what you want, yes, what you really, really want, what's going to happen then? 

Well, now we are getting to the heart of the matter and, guess what folks, the star of the show, more often than not, is our old nemesis, fear. So, if we don't express our truth kindly and clearly because of fear, what do you get as a result: frustration, confusion, dissatisfaction? One thing I'm fairly certain we don't get, is that which we truly desire

BUT

we also don't get: rejected, turned down, laughed at, anger or misunderstanding, right? 

 ...or do we? Because if we aren't clear, most people will guess, make assumptions about us, take our fear of clear expression as a personal affront to them:

"Well, she obviously doesn't care about us or she would have said something!"

So, our fears become our self-fulfilling prophesies and we lose out on opportunities that we were afraid of losing out on because we are afraid to speak our truth ...and so the cycle goes.

Does speaking your truth always result in the magical fulfillment of your wishes and desires? Well, no, of course not. 

Is there a chance you won't get the result you want by expressing yourself clearly and kindly? Absolutely.

The thing is, if you know you're not going to get what you want, where you want, how you want, when you want and why you want by remaining silent, then why not speak your piece? At the end of the day, you have nothing to lose but fear.

One of my main frames of reference when considering fear is this book: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. There are parts of the book that don't resonate with me, but the four points have helped me gain greater understanding of my self and those around me. I have erased "old tapes" and created a framework for moving through life with ownership of my actions and reactions. 

Briefly, The Four Agreements state:

• Be impeccable with your word
• Don't take anything personally
• Don't make assumptions
• Always do your best

Keeping these in mind helps me to understands my fears, to sit with them, poke at them and, often, resolve them.

As an aside, I believe that it is fine to not know what you want for a time. It is helpful to articulate that and to tell someone you are currently trying to figure it out. 

I wish each of you peace, joy and clarity on your personal voyages through this glorious life. 

-Gillian Cornwall, April 26 2013.

Hulopo'e - Lana'i, Hawaii

G. Cornwall, c. December 2012