Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

So, let me get this straight. It has taken us three generations - the Boomers, Gen X and the Millennials - roughly between 1960 to now - to completely fuck up the planet... that's right isn't it? From about when Rachael Carson wrote Silent Spring  to now - when entire rainforests are on fire. Greenpeace was founded in 1972. The Earth Summit was first held in 1982. We have had give or take 60 years to get things right and... did we? Could we have turned back the clock at any stage and done something about it? Yes, yes we could have. If these fucking morons had listened to us, they would have said, actually this is stupid - we have to stop killing ourselves. Even as late as 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was signed, and then in 2020, we had the pandemic and the world shut down. We have had many many opportunities to stop, think and do something about the wrong path that we took, and we just said, these people are pesky little fear mongerers. They don't know what they are talking ab...

It will be a month since I arrived back here. It feels like no time at all has passed. More than that, I cannot seem to get a grip on the rhythm of the days. It's just impossible to sustain anything. I did manage to run and swim properly last week, but this week, it has gone out of the window. I only managed to get swimming and running again today after 5 days - and that is largely due to the insane smoke from the fires which blanket us from Indonesia. It's really really crazy. Luckily, we are on the ground and protected by the garden. I was in town yesterday and it was completely mad. Everything is falling to bits. First, environmental disaster everywhere. Second, genocide in Palestine. Third, economic meltdown and massive inequality. Fourth, the march of AI. I don't know how to make it clearer to people that they are being taken for a ride. How do we do this? I mean I do not take part in that part of the economy, I have long opted out. Everything I have done has been to r...

It has been almost seven months since I made my return to Singapore. As time has gone on, I have discovered what it means to be a square peg in a round hole. All the values which I hold, the reasons I left Singapore in the first place and actually chose Peter to be my husband, all those values are absent here. They are not just gone, but no space is left to even entertain them. There are no more wild spaces. Everything had been taken over by concrete and even worse, the entire rainforest in Indonesia and the rainforests in Malaysia are disappearing, up in smoke. Materialism has won the day. While there was a glimpse of it in Ireland, here it is screaming in your face. I hold no truck whatsoever with the materialists of this world and their insatiable need to always consume. I don't understand it. It's crazy. In Ireland, being able to be with my tribe was manna. It fed my soul. Here the tribe is thin. There are few who would be able to understand where I come from. The few which...

When there are no principles, when money is the only thing which matters, then the mess we are in is what we get. There is no other way to say it. Yesterday, we were treated to a meal at an allegedly high end outlet. OK, it was One Degree 15's cafe. The entire place is very exclusive. But kind of also trashy. I do find the entire boating thing unfathomable. Give me a traditional kolek anyday. These boats, costing hundreds of thousands at the very least, millions upon millions, are essentially white elephants. They are flexes for the owners. I think the only value they have is if the sea level rise occurs you can live on them, but boats by their very nature should try and minimise electrical moving parts. It is a floating contradiction in terms. Anyways, we went to the cafe. It is very nice. It is breakfast. I look at the buffet. It is meh. Very meh. So we order a la carte. We get a pulled pork open face sandwich, Jac gets two poached eggs and bacon, Ma gets wan ton mee.  The food t...

Well, it is clear that Singapore is just going to change beyond recognition. But the Malays will still be here, clearly. They can just wait it out. There's something to be said about native populations which manage to survive. Like the First Nations. And Irish. There is something to be said for land. I will always be a blow in, although you could say that my status as half Peranakan gives me something to be comforted about. Anyway, having looked at the hedge schools and then my life as it has been... in the last 30 years, it is clear how I managed to survive the crazy relationship. It was through community and friends. I had a life with meaning. My sons, my friends, my community - Ireland itself. I had that. I had a really beautiful life. A life which I made things with my hands and taught children things. That life. And then I came back here to be here for a short while and then I went back again. Singapore is fading. I know that everything changes, but Singapore itself is fading....

Hedge School The Hedge School. When the British banned the speaking of the Irish language and teaching, the Irish said fuck you and organised hedge schools. On the pain of death. Sometimes i think i did not appreciate the resilience, strength and sheer determination of the Irish and how they fought for their land... and after 800 years got it back. When i am forced to inhale the poisonous choking fumes from a rainforest which is burning forever i am ashamed at how we here just keeled over to the colonialists and surrendered to neoliberalism. I will forever be grateful to have lived in a land where the dignity of a human being is a reality... this is why stories and land and our connection to it is important. And here we live half lives. Devoid of any real meaning. We farm out the care of children and elderly, we are now slathered in concrete and eternal construction, hypnotised and chasing the GDP we have clear cut forests and justified the destruction of community and culture. Where w...