Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

The first day of the holidays. I am dreadfully sorry now i missed the Spring play yesterday. Oisin was primrose and was supposed to have had a special role in it. I was waiting for the new cupboards. You see the next time i allow anything as prosaic to get in the way of my children's beauty, please shake me very hard by the shoulders. We spent today, first thing in the morning, in this place called Kids' Club. How anyone could have come up with anything so crass and ugly...it's this massive warehouse which has two large inflatables and a play frame in it. Children go wild for this sort of thing, the same way they go wild for Coke and Refresher bars. However, i was left to sit at the plastic tacky canteen with Ghin, listening to the Streets and other such like wholly inappropriate music blaring into my 9 am eardrums. Don't get me wrong. I love my Tennent's music festivals as much as the next person, but at 9 am in the morning at Kids' Club... After that we were d...

It is so easy to take the miraculous for granted. Ghin has grown so quickly. Each new day brings a discovery of some unknown continent. For him it must be a constant barrage of the incredible and magnificent and his wide eyed stare, the tiny furrowed brows all bear testament to that. What does he do now? He coos - and laughs - and what an adorable laugh he has. Pure and true, like a bell in a temple. And his smiles lift burdens off the shoulders of earth bearers. He blows bubbles, tiny ones and large ones. After he feeds he goes into a deep satisfied sleep with the smile of a drunkard on his lips - just for a few minutes, before he wakes again. He complains - he has done so from the very first days, but now it's clearer what he's giving off about. He holds his head steadily and bears weight on his legs. He longs to lunge out of his seat or off the bed and attempts this from time to time so that must always keep an eye on him. I think back, to just a few short weeks before and h...

What a day! Sun so blue and sky weightless - i carried Ghin in his carseat, like some baker delivering his freshly baked trays to the shop into Glencraig, our Camphill community. They welcomed us with their hearts and again, i saw a corner of utopia materialise. A village, complete with cows, by the sea, dotted with the only anthroposophic houses in Northern Ireland. Glasshouses, playgrounds, trellises, ancient trees, pigs - and sunshine. Oisin spent the day learning to climb trees, squirting Moca and Nathan with the garden hose and we rounded it off with the richest, most sinful bread and butter pudding in the world. All three returned home, utterly exhausted - the fresh air having taken all we had for the day, and we sank into bed like three tired puppies at 8.30, without a second to spare. What should the vision for our world be? Being in Camphill somehow has been a corrective for the rush, the inanity that passes beyond its doors. I had always wondered about the place, but today i ...

Ghin seems to have settled down over the last three days. There was a crying fit on Sunday, but since i succumbed to the dummy - yes i did! - i have discerned that the crying fits were due to colic. He squirms after calming down and it's usually due to gas. But nothing i can't handle after a few attempts to wind him - and he's settled down now so well, that i'm hoping that this will mark the start of a time of great peace. Whatever it is i have accepted that he is my poet - while Oisin is my warrior. Ghin is sensitive and introspective while Oisin is utterly engaged with the world. Too engaged sometimes. We spent the day lying in the grass in Stormont - Lara, myself and Ghin - while the boys tired themselves out on Mo Mowlam Park. We consumed chocolate cake and talked continuously for over three hours. Lara's off to Canada to get married to this man and she was all excited about it. Up the road the DUP and Sinn Fein were meeting - and it seemed surreal, but fitting ...

Today, history was made when Ian and Gerry sat beside each other and said, we'll be in government. It was such a simple thing that it's hard to wonder why it didn't take place sooner rather than later. So much of healing had to occur over the last ten years though - in many ways it was the people who led the leaders, rather than the other way round. The people of NI will not be told what to do. Here are the latest pictures of life here... That's Oisin with his class. I am soooo tired. Just from running around and trying to do too much really. The Easter festival at Steiner went well. There was so much that went on and the school really did come together. It looked so beautiful and i felt so proud being a parent there. Pictures from the school are here...

Still going through the shamanic book by Telford and today read about the Byurat shaman who has the ability to like a fortune teller say the truth of a person's present and future. I believe i was drawn to shamanism, not because of this service, but because it was yet another way to experience the divine - but do so with nature as teacher and equal. I have decided that my shamanic work is not about healing in the way which people literally heal illnesses, but to be united with the cosmos in the way in which so many before me have united themselves, and not necessarily through shamanism. They have mostly been mystics, poets - and i believe that shamanism was about establishing that direct line to that universal consciousness which i had found impossible, except through a person - i.e. undergoing the intensity of falling in love over and over again. Shamanism allows me to tap into the sacred ecstatic at a personal, as well as a group level - when i get together with others who practi...

Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire, Come even though you have broken your vows a hundred time, Come, and come yet again, Ours is not a caravan of despair… - Rumi How is it possible to never imagine that the return of the light does not also enkindle the soul? It is the equinox today when the earth and sum hold each other in balance. In a wondrous embrace, both give birth to new beginnings - and i once again recall who i am. The woman who laughs. The woman who hopes. In ecstacy we live, to go without to find within. The fearlessness of the truth. To plunder the aching personal so deeply that you speak the universal. To discover in poetry and music, to sculpt there the nakedness of experience and by so doing to connect to the furthest reaches of the soul. It would be a lie to say i have never been there. Never been naked like that. Never given of myself fully, the way they write of how they have. Each one if us has. It would be lie to say that i have nev...

Miracles of miracles. I've been away from my bed for more than half and hour and Ghin has not noticed. I am sitting on the floor beside it though and just typing, with a stack of paperwork which has felled a fair few trees though so if there are any signs of protests i'm ready to dive in and be mommy again. We spent the afternoon - a playdate as Katrin, Zora's mom, would call it - at Zora's house. It's a gorgeous old Victorian place which they've just moved into and it overlooks the seafront in Bangor. Lovely. It's strange how places grow on you. When i first visited Bangor i thought it a dull, rather unremarkable place which had little to recommend to itself. Now, like Holywood, as i have gotten to know it, and the people in it, it has become a sweet medium sized seaside resort, with a lovely marina. I wouldn't wish it's fate on Moville now, but as it stands, it is charming. Perhaps the loveliest thing about it is the display of starlings at sunset....

It has been magic going through the blog. Although it's only been 10 weeks, i reread the previous posts and see that my first month was spent in a state of almost total euphoria. Those intimate nights with Ghin, getting to know him entirely, the sensual joy of breastfeeding when every second was infused with wonder. Being in love doesn't come close. Now, emerging from that hormonal fog, life is beginning to refocus and have edges again. I mean it literally feels as if i'm seeing the trees, birds, cars, streets as entities with boundaries and in relation to the rest of my own reality. I also feel incredibly previleged having been supported through the first two months. It has enabled me to entirely immerse myself in the world of my child and not worry about anything else. Peter had John Barry have issued a press statement saying that the Greens have turned down Bush's invitation to the White House for St Paddy's Day saying that he's a war criminal. Good on them. ...

Here are three pixes of Ghin and myself. The obilgatory naked baby shot and of me with him cos we're so cute. And unmodest. Will update more later on today. I have Oisin and Jago with me now. Must stop them from trying to deconstruct house.

Must apologise for not updating this site properly. The weekend was a bit weird cos we were supposed to go to Derry, but didn't cos Peter was so tired. So no peace vigil. Instead Mike and Barbara visited us on Sunday night to drink a toast to Brian. It turns out the Farm is quite well know. So we had peace activist celebs without me knowing it. Then yesterday...what did we do? After school i took Finn and Oisin to the park. It was freezing and i was badly organised. I was more an imposition than help to Liz. I felt awful after that. Today was busy - like everyday, but pleasantly so. It begins at 6 with Ghin demanding a feed and then me demanding a feed. After that Oisin joins us and we all feed. I get them bathed, changed and then its off to school. Ghin has become very very attached to me. He only has to suspect that i'm not in bed with him before he goes off into a high pitched whine. I don't really mind it if i can bring him along. But if i have to deconstruct a chicken ...

It's been almost a week since i attempted to update. A combination of Ma and Pa's absence and the election has meant that there was little time to faff about the computer. So first, the elections. I wasn't elected, but i did double the vote - to 868. However, Brian Wilson got elected which means that now we have our first green MLA. I watched Peter and the party go through the headache of wondering if fielding so many candidates was a good idea or not. It has exhausted everyone, but what it has shown is that the Green have great support, certainly East of the Bann - and it has encouraged us to go forward into council seats. I will certainly stand for council elections - despite everything, it was so fun. I spent polling day down on John McCormick's farm with the children. It was one of the first days of spring and the buzz from the sun, the pond that was laden with a treasure of a frog spawn, the winter crop being tilled in...there really was no better place. When i fed...

Hey all, listening to Sting's When We Dance - i agree, it is a terribly soppy song with the most attached sentiments - but it is resuced - redeemed - by the minor incidences he uses - which makes the melody and truth of the music bittersweet, not cloyingly annoying. Of course 99.9% of men will disagree. However, i do have a glass of champagne in me and as acknowledge, champagne does have strange alchemy. Pictures...so many and here they are... Most of them have been taken in St George's market. It was a really beautiful day - the sun clear and sharp - and it was fressing. We sat and drank John's cofee - which he blended and roasted himself. I got some beet from Lara's stall - and here's a picture of Oisin and Jago, Lara's boy, inspecting the fairy cakes at Wee Buns - the Saturday ritual. The other pices were from the airport - Pa crying and Ma bravely smiling - and Oisin posing with the froth of cappucino on his nose. Ghin is 8 weeks old now. Ma and Pa left tod...

It's 2 am and Peter has reminded me - too late - that i have not filled in my polling papers - this means that no one will be there at my count. To be honest, i didn't forget - i've been so busy - and i haven't managed to rally anyone to be at my count for me. No matter...those are really excuses - the sad fact of the matter is that I am still terrible when it comes to interfacing with bureaucracy. It would seem that even after after surmounting the problem of reincarnation, i shall still have the sins of unfilled forms and irate bank clerks to deal with. I'm reading Matthieau Ricard's Happiness - it's a Western writing of Bhuddism and it intersperses the poetry of Bhuddism which poses nothing but paradoxes for the Western mind with explainations of how it works with Western understandings of the emotions. It's a great read and reinforces what de Mello has done in Awareness . This is coupled with the Woman in the Shaman's Body forments inside. I feel...

Just been interviewed about being one of the two ethnic minority candidates running for the elections. It was strange talking about it - simply because i don't see myself as someone who uses her ethnicity to define myself publically. The other candidate Anna Lo has a panic alarm, received hatemail, has had pornographic images of her placed on the web - and i have had nothing but encouragement and support. Why - i don't know why. Maybe people don't know that i'm running!!! I said that i placed my email in the newspaper and no one has sent me anything apart from saying good luck and i'm voting for you. There has been one poster which has been ripped down with BNP - the white supremiscist party in UK - written over it, but that has been only one incident. And i said that if i allowed that one person or a small minority to get me down, it would be silly. Prejudice exists everywhere and it is usually confined to a small minority. I have been welcomed here in Northern Ire...

Everything but the Girl plays on the laptop. I've just dealt with the mail that is cascading through the slot asking me to consider everything from hunting with dogs to pharmeceuticals telling me all the good work they're doing. Wrong person honey. It's a cold day and i've decided to stay indoors because i spent yesterday dragging Ghin about and it isn't fair to him. First we were at the manifesto launch at the offices of Harland and Wolff - beneath those iconic cranes - and after that we picked up Oisin for circus school. Having dropped him we were then off to the launch of the Women's Manifesto. It's late afternoon by this stage and he's really fed up with me at this stage and communicates this with great volubility. The highlight of the evening has to be Jim and Rose dropping by and exchanging three months news at a go. Their trip to Bethleham during Christmas, our home birth, elections, March 17th - sending the American warsnakes out of Ireland - wat...