Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Oisin and Jago at McGeown's in Glenavy. I write almost everyday. Like today i had to write two articles. One for the Newsletter and the other one for the Irish News. Most of the time i write press releases, but every now and then i do write something that i do like. And i liked the article i wrote for the Newsletter. Because it is totally bad form to post something which hasn't appeared in print yet, i can't post it. But i promise i will post it when it's ready to be posted. Yesterday i brought Jago and Oisin to a local wildlife rescue centre. It's name will remain unknown because it was a place which i thought needed to be shut down. Having the deepest respect for birds and other furry things, yes, even foxes, i was appalled at the state the place was in. Firstly - oh where do i begin - firstly, there are animals there which should have been dead a long time ago. Buzzards with one wing. Cormorants with gammy legs. Pigeons who have suffered botulism. Kestrals which ...

It is not the season for chandeliers. It is spring. But when we went to Ikea today, oh yes, to get Oisin a lamp shade for his bedroom, something which we have been putting off now for at least three months, we came away with two chandelarias - or chandeliers. It began as a joke. I pointing to unlikely options, and Oisin going, no MOM! Then i pointed to this square cut affair and he went, Oh yeah! C'mon, Oisin, i said back. You're joking. No mom, i'd love one for my room. It's so beautiful. Oisin, you can't have a chandelier in your bedroom. Why not mom? For one it's too expensive. Then i looked at the price tag. It was £8. Bless Ikea's cut glass heart. So it wasn't too expensive. Mom, please. Oisin, Daddy won't like it. But mom, it's my room. He's going to just get used to it. Mom. Please. We didn't just get one chandelier, but two. One for the dining and one for his room. They aren't really chandeliers. I don't know, can you call...

The house in Donegal. For Peter's benefit... Velux windows in Landing Office on ground floor Other side of office Kitchen and living room I have one week off work to reacquaint myself with the art of homemaking again. I can't wait. I've already done the kitchen and i have about an hour's worth of clothes folding to do. Yes, i kid you not. Our laundry hamper is Ghin's cot and it is filled to the brim. The clothes are slowly making their own way to the cupboards themselves. I'm planning to push the detox boat out for lent as well, so i'm hoping that i get the main bit of the spring clean done this week. In the last week of lent, i have promised to treat ourselves to windows being cleaned inside and out. This is because when the sun start shining in that way the sun can only shine in March the water stains of the past year make the windows look at bleary and miserable. So i thought, no, we'll get the windows cleaned to celebrate easter. The hyacinths are al...

Yesterday i got two books for myself. The Year of the Hare and this American Novel. I read on the bus on the way home. It was dark by the time i got onto the bus. In the darkness, buses and trains, public transport vehicles become little capsule of light that are a world of their own. Florescent lit and filled with silent, tired commuters, it is a melancholic place to be. I strain to make the world beyond the murky water stained windows. The shapes of buildings mere sketches and outlines in the night and signs go past like in Spirited Away. There is a desolation to this place beyond these bright electric rooms but somehow being in the brightness brings no comfort. It is still cold, still lost, still a place in between the place you left and home. It is still part of the journey i am making on my own. I read the book. It gives me a little bit of hope. I enter another world. As each word follows the other, the ryhthms draw me into a different dimension. It feels strange, i have not read ...

It has been such a crap week. I'm now with a sorethroat again. I now take painkillers for my sorethroats because i can't be fecked having to live with the pain. The sorethroat i don't know where it comes from. Ghin coughed most of this week. Peter had the flu again and Oisin was off school for a day because of a dodgy tummy. I have never been so frequently slightly ill. The upshot of this has been that i've been unable to turn up to the blog. Ghin was crying and crying for most of night over the past three nights. Everytime i tried leaving, he would cry. Last night Peter put a jumper on him and that seems to have done the trick. He didn't have a big coughing spells and we both slept like babies. I must say that it is taking such a long time to settle down. This year seems to be all over the place. On a wider level, the economic recession seems to increase daily. Dire warnings and talks of it being bigger than the 1930s recession are being muttered about. On the one ...

It has been so cold here over the past week. It began snowing on Wednesday and it's been snowing now on and off. Yesterday as i lay in bed wishing that i could float away somewhere and return when i felt better it snowed too. The flakes came down as if someone had sliced open a feather duvet and it just came falling and falling. So silently and softly. Snow is magical. But today it is cold. Today it's left a layer of hard ice on everything. Frozen snow tastes like the ice in the fridge. The rime that collects on freezers that can't self defrost. Which makes me think, ice has a taste. Frozen water has a taste. It's been bad, being unable to turn up to the blog. I've been awful these past two weeks. And it shows in the daily routines. It feels unsatisfactory missing this bit of creativity. Maybe that's why i overate last week. Project Lovely Sacred Spaces has ground to a slight halt. Although today it did resume a bit when i got some sweet pink cloth to cover the ...

Here's the red squirrel outside our office window. Finally gota shot of him. Ghin this morning... Me before the vomiting bug struck... Ghin on the phone to Mama Still on the phone. All cuddled up on the sofa... The whole family has been smitted by the winter vomiting bug. It's this thing which makes you feel as if you have indigestion, but you're pretty sure that you've not eaten anything untoward. It is extremely annoying and inconvinient. The plus side though is that i've eaten practically nothing at all in the last 48 hours, which is a stark contrast to me one week ago who was eating everything in sight. But i am also really tired and because things have been so chaotic lately, and disrrupted on account of the snow and Ghin and Oisin and everything else, i just can't take time off work. I'm also missing appointments, something which i never used to do. I would be late, sure, but forget them completely, never. I also am totally and utterly fed up with wint...

I've just allowed myself to drift over the last week. So tired and fed up and with the period arriving today i'm just feeling a bit crazy. I also feel a bit stuck. Like everything's just flatlining. It's crazy i know. Nothing is different this week. Nothing. Nothing, except... I need a holiday. I need sometime off. I need to take it easy. Sometimes i don't notice when things are getting on top of me. And sometimes i do take it out on the kids. And Peter. And sometimes i just get a little nuts around this time of the month. It hasn't been easy, but we have been trying. And it is hard when i see the hope fading sometimes. I wish i had Ma to go to. To just take the kids and go for a drive down to the folks' house. Where i can just let it all hang out. Where the kids will be looked after. Where i can relax and chill and maybe go for a walk on my own. I just wish that sometimes i'm told this. You take the night off, i'll do the kids. It ain't easy bei...

It's St Brigid's and it's only right that she is revered with some poetry. Here is a song which Hildegard von Bigen wrote in the 12th century. It is about the holy spirit, ostensibly, but really it is about inspiration. It's about the human being at its beautifullest in ecstacy. O Holy Fire which soothes the spirit /alt (para clete?) O fire of the spirit which I have tried life force of all creation holiness you are in living form You are a holy ointment for perilous injuries You are holy in cleansing the fetid wound. O breath of holiness o fire of loving o sweet taste in the breast you fill the heart with the good aroma of virtues. O fountain of purity in/with whom it is considered that God collected the lost / That God made the strangers one with us and the sinners/damned saved. O robe of life and hope for the companions our brothers all of the church and the belt of honesty save the blessed. Caring for all those who are held down by enemies and dissolve/br...