Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Me at 37... :-) Womanism is to feminism, what purple is to lavender - Alice Walker. I had never heard of this term until today, while reading this book of essays on women and the environment. It's part of an essay on essentialist arguments and says that essentialism is a non-starter. How does a woman who is part of the patriarchal framework, whose living and identity is part of this framework - ie academia - propose to critique what she calls essentialism objectively? In fact is there such a thing as objective? I'm inclined to think that it's a ruse cooked up by mainstream or the culture of power to previlege one discourse over another. My own experience as i go through motherhood now points to this. I am and want to be an involved, thinking, concerned citizen and a person who is part of a community. I am also a woman of colour, a migrant, a woman - a mother - a wife, a worker, i have some education, a middle class background, a family that is supportive and very loving, i ...

Away in the manger - the Clonard Manastry has it's own Manger which was carved by a local priest. It's really very impressive. Oisin insisted that Ghin and i go up and take a picture with the Holy Family. I remember when i was a child one of the most exciting things about Christmas was seeing the manger. And the Holy family. There is no doubt about it that no matter how much you want to conceptualise religion, there is something so comforting about seeing the Holy Family lifesized and all in the church. As i knelt there i felt very silly. But as i review the pictures, i recall my childhood and how wonderful it was to see baby Jesus lying in his manger. The haywagon that Santa brought Oisin but Ghin enjoys more now. The chocolate coin maker which was a great success. He has spent many hours with it now stamping and melting his own gold choclate coins. Ghin's round bally things which Santa brought. And a video of Kill Bill. Doesn't Peter look excited about his Fair Trade ...

Ghin sings to Away in the Manger The nativity display in Oisin's class Waiting for the play to start Walking to St George's Market Pogoing in the market I didn't take anything after the 21st of December. Nothing for Christmas, etc. Partly because we managed to get the Skype going. Partly because i just couldn't be arsed. But here's stuff just before then. I'll be spending the next few days trying to think about 2008. Another year of motherhood. I've been reading this book called Beyond Mothering the Earth. It's written by female academics and it alienates me. i'm persisting though but academia just lacks the candour and the truth of the artist. The immediacy of expression. Anyhow, i must go. I need to clean up the house and then go to bed.

The end of the year. What a year it has been as well. I'm sitting here, post Christmas. It's been a beautiful quiet one. After the celebrations of the solstice, the kitchen took a break and we decamped to Donegal. Being in the house raise so many memories again for me. More than anything i want to be by the sea once again. A beach i've never been on, with a wind i've never felt blowing through my transparent soul. I want to see the gannets dive fierce into the waters and the cormorants hug the far away horizon. I want to watch the sand lift and blow over the sand, a thin veil, ghostlike in its movements. The seaweed wash up along the water's edge, combing the water through its fronds, displaying strange letters which only mermaids can read. Splayed out against the low grey skies, clouds as wild and wonton as my poetry could be. I want to feel my feet numb in the cold cold waters. Have a warm shawl tugged around me, comforting. know there is a fire burning somewhere ...

Have you ever heard of Lemuria? I had forgotten all about it until today when i was reading some Steiner stuff on the meaning of Christmas. Steiner says some really sound things about how a child should be educated, which you go, yeah, anyone can understand that. And then he says some pretty weird stuff. Like how we all retain a consciousness from Lemuria, which you go, eh wot? Lemuria is a continent which is supposed to be older than Atlantis and it was destroyed by....who knows what. A large metorite by the sounds of it. The above is a picture which people thought was its extent. Most place it in the Pacific. Now in case you think this is an essay rubbishing Steiner about Lemuria, please be prepared...it is not. Because...i have been to Lemuria. Eh wot? Yes, i have. Two years ago, a friend of mine, let's call her L- (oooh this is like Jane Austen, when she puts in letters for real names), were doing 'work' in Singapore. When i say 'work' i mean spirit work. When i...

I saved the truffles by putting in some double cream. I have now come to the conclusion there is no situation in the world that double clream cannot rectify. Awful soup. Put some double cream. Miserable boyfriend. Have some double cream and chocolate pudding. Middle East problems. Double cream. Anyway, i put in some double cream, whisking furiously all the time. This seemed to do the trick. I hope the ganache will be set enough to roll out tomorrow into the most DELICIOUS chocolate truffles of all time. I so do miss running. I can't wait when Peter gets back to be off again. Must go now. The house is a bombsite an account of me not cleaning up after Ghin for less than a morning. I am really tired of cleaning up. I have never been so tired of cleaning up in all my life. Today i also gave a talk about Singapore to the Steiner school. It got me thinking about my remarks on multiculturalism and how there were too many foreigners in Singapore. The fact is that there have always been too...

I am really really really annoyed. I have just ruined the best cooking chocolate and alpine butter in the world. OK, not the world, but they were pretty good. I hve now researched all the web truffle recipes, again not all the recipes, but you get the idea and no where at all do they say use caster sugar - which Darina Allen told me to, so i'm blaming her. Her and Ghin because he broke my scales - he smashed the plastic holder - and so i had to estimate the weight. Also nowhere does it say to use egg yolk or no cream. Which makes me sustpect that perhaps she hasn't done this before. So between him and Darina, they've both ruined aboout £10 worth of good truffle ingredients. But i blame Darina more though. Especially since she's the adult. No matter, i will simply convert it into chocolate spread and we'll be happy as pigs in - well truffles - for the next coming months. I'm now more than ever determined to make truffles....i shall get more ingredient tomorrow - ...

We took the Santa train today. The kids loved it. The mothers put up with it. Here are the pix. At the station. There were nine children, three mothers and one compartment. We should have received the Victoria Cross. I think in Soviet Russia, women used to receive medals for giving birth to children. I can understand that. One of the moms was saying that she thought it would be nice to have another child - her fourth - and then she thought, no, i don't think i can do it... i must say that while i love Ghin and feel highly inadequte with ONLY two children, the thought of having another one just fills me with impossibility. Also i'm too old. I will be 37 nest week - and it would be more selfish than anything at this tage if i even attempted this. Of course i can't attempt this on my own - a small technicality. Here we are - Ghin and me. Ghin in Santa suit. We went to M&S and bought up half of the supermarket for snacks. And a good thing too, seeing how we had th Foreign L...

This is a picture of the checkers game i had with Oisin. The black pieces are his. I lost. I lost a checkers game to a six year old. I was not trying to lose. It would seem that Oisin might have inherited PEter's love for strategy games. He has confessed to me that he has spent much of the day thinking about checkers. We play one day game a day over dinner. This is the fourth day we have done this. I lost. I was not trying to lose. It is crushingly embarrassing. I could blame it on the fact that i'm breastfeeding. I know it's not because i've stupid because i took an IQ test and i was above average intelligence. On the other hand, i could be stupid. Arty shot of Oisin...use it as wallpaper for your desktop. This is a doll made by a Steiner mother. Innit gorgeous? That's us up to date now. I am so tired. I think i might go and sleep. i'm also working on the Steiner website and it's been really interesting - except that the webpublisher makes me long for the d...

Christmas Fair at Belfast City Hall. After slagging it off, we go there and spend £30. £20 on the coat that Oisin is wearing made by Ecuadorans, £10 on sweets and a ginormous birdball. It is the most fancy pimp my birdfeeder thing you've ever seen. I'll take a shot of it tomorrow. Actually you can see it behind Oisin. Oisin gazes at OAPs passing the grimy roads of Dundonald. It seems that there have been people living in Dundonald for over 8,000 years. I'd never have guessed it. 'Art house' shots of church and security fence... Ditto Ditto, ditto... Never ever let it be said that East Belfast has no atmosphere at all. Today we took the bus to town and as we stood at the busstop, beside it was the USA Carwash. Behind that, the Dundonald Presbyterian Church. The sky was low and moody and for some reason the shot through the security fencing of the church just seemed to capture the bleakness, the ugliness of the urban landscape. But at the same time, it was remarkably ...

Blueberry all over my face... ..and my hands... ...and my tray... ...and my spoon... It's been a hectic last two days. Why, i have no idea. I think it might be because i decided to wash teh dishes which had been lying in the sink since Saturday. It's awful isn't it? A friend once said that she sometimes cleaned the house because of her partner. If he wasn't there, it might be a little less clean. I felt like that really. No Peter, house can be a wee bit messy. But we did clean it yesterday. I also got some shots of Ghin eating a blueberry sponge pudding, which came out of a plastic cup - lest people think i've completely lost my marbles and gone over to the homebaking side of the force. Friends now think i have become some kind of earth mother and ask me if i bake every thing that comes out of the kitchen. Did you make this? Errr, no that came out of a packet. Can't you taste that? Also Oisin is a bit scary. Yesterday we were making Xmas cards and i took out a b...

We have now not watched TV for almost a week. Actually it's been more than a week. Instead, after the initial 'i'm bored' phase which we have past - my reply to Oisin was, being bored is not the worse crime in the world - don't expect to be entertained from one corner to the next - he now comes up with great games. Some games, granted are a bit much - like the screaming and making annoying noises game - which at 7 am does my head in. However, he has begun to behave more like an old fashioned child who builds castles/spaceships out of discarded boxes and tonight, after i put Ghin to bed and we piled the logs by the fire (don't tell Belfast City Council), we played two games of draughts. It was really, really, really good fun. I lit the fire, turned the main lights off, scattered cushions on the floor, lit the advent candles, some insence and bob was our uncle. Oisin said as we settled down to hot chocolate and draughts, this is the life. Isn't it just sweethe...

So I've been brushing Ghin's six teeth now for a few months. Of course it was bound to happen. I left the toothbrush floating about the sink and he grabbed it and then began to 'brush' his own teeth. He loves brushing his teeth. And he has such a grown up expression on his face. Deeply concentrated and so serious, as if he was formulating some sort of vital address to an august body of bearded white haired men. Oisin, ever my clown, is demoing the sesame snaps we made with the leftover toasted sesame seeds from the hummus we made for the fair. I grovel and apologise about not having Advent pictures. It was too late by the time i realised i didn't have the camera and it was soooo annoying because the fair was so beautiful, as usual. Also, it was pissing down with rain, blowing a gale and it was freezing over. I have seldom seen such awful weather, simply because we are usually indoors when such weather occurs. I think i may have been out on a mountain once...however,...

As a full-time mother, it's really challenging finding things which are a. worthwhile for you to do with the kids and, b. that don't cost too much money c. which will tire them out d. but also give them a great time. So something like spending the whole afternoon at Dundonald Ice Bowl does NOT fit any of the above criteria - apart from c, perhaps. In order to try and hit as many of the above as possible, we headed into town - i mean city - today by train to bank the money which St Nicholas gave Oisin in Peter's shoe this morning - it was £10 only because i had no chocolate coins and it was all the money i had on me. (On an aside on St Nicholas, Oisin told me that he didn't think that the St Nicholas that appeared in the woods was the real McCoy because he had on eurythmy shoes and Black Peter wore women's shoes. It seems the class had a long discussion today about the authenticity about St Nicholas' appearance. Also Black Peter's bag was too small to put any...