Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

I sorted out the problem with the photo thing - i had to buy more space. So now i have 20GB, new ones. I'm currently writing from the RSPB Shop. I volunteered to help out today and consequently am now in here while the nicest Sunday so far has been shining outside. The last two days have gone well so far in terms of the routine. I think i have finally have it licked. Oisin is now pulling his weight in helping out with chores, which makes things so much easier. I've also decided to get someone in to sort out the garden. Just idy the leaves and get the paving done as well. The insulation was supposed to have been fixed on Friday but no one came round, which was really annoying. I'm going to start deleting stuff in my camera now. Good day to do admin stuff on the computer at least.

It’s funny how concentration on things come in swings and roundabouts. This time last week I was falling and feeling really awful. Today I woke at 5.30, wrote a bit, possible short story taking form there influenced by Puteri Gunung Ledang, cleaned out the fire place, got bathed and everyone ready by 8 am. Including breakfast thrown in. I have been reading Pico Iyer’s The Lady and the Monk, and I’m very nearly at the end of the book. There is this passage which talks about the Spartan routine which the monks undertake in this temple in Kyoto, and a light went on in my head. I must get the household routine right. The kids and the family – if that isn’t right then nothing else will be. So I propped myself up and wrote out a routine for the morning and the evening. A simple one, which involved the cleaning of the fireplace out, bathing, writing, cooking, and reading the kids a bedtime story. Simple things which I’m hoping will help me hang the rest of the day in a more restful way on. It...

by Adrienne Rich The clouds and the stars didn't wage this war the brooks gave no information if the mountain spewed stones of fire into the river it was not taking sides the raindrop faintly swaying under the leaf had no political opinions and if here or there a house filled with backed-up raw sewage or poisoned those who lived there with slow fumes, over years the houses were not at war nor did the tinned-up buildings intend to refuse shelter to homeless old women and roaming children they had no policy to keep them roaming or dying, no, the cities were not the problem the bridges were non-partisan the freeways burned, but not with hatred Even the miles of barbed-wire stretched around crouching temporary huts designed to keep the unwanted at a safe distance, out of sight even the boards that had to absorb year upon year, so many human sounds so many depths of vomit, tears slow-soaking blood had not offered themselves for this The trees didn't volunteer to be cut into boards n...

It was properly winter today. Cold, wet and windy. When the trees move outside, against the sodium glow of the street lights, and the blur of rain trickles down the window pane, i feel the distance between here and what used to be home. I wrote three press releases and spoke to the BBC (twice), some local paper and had a meeting with the NIEA and Beyond Skin. I also had lunch with two lovely volunteers at Maxwell Brothers and had a pleasure of introducing these volunteers who have now become friends to this wonderful bistro restaurant. In between all that i also cooked dinner, did some superficial cleaning, washed the dishes with Oisin, taught him two new piano pieces and put Ghin to bed. Then i woke at 11.30 and channel surfed. (I remember the times in Singapore when i thought about channel surfing with abject horror, but somehow i can't seem to find the willpower to stop myself when i get into the mood.) I had to not go to the fundraiser for the Anarchists' Plot, despite havi...

Spirited light! on the edge of the Presence your yearning burns in the secret darkness, O angels, insatiably into God’s gaze. Perversity could not touch your beauty; you are essential joy. But your lost companion, angel of the crooked wings – he sought the summit, shot down the depths of God and plummeted past Adam – that a mud – bound spirit might soar. Hildegard von Bingen

I spent the day stitching press releases together. Try making taxanomic, wetland management, invertebrates and reedbed cutting sound exciting and sexy. It is really annoying because conservation is an exciting and even sexy thing, but i don't know why conservationists can't seem to understand this. Why do we as a human race feel the need to bury ourselves in jargon to validate our existence? If we have a big pseudo latin term to describe it, it means that it is more important. The figleaf to our insecurity about the work that we do. And then perversely i also have to write it in small tiny words which only three year olds can understand. OK 11 year olds. It is thought that the average age of literacy of a tabloid reader is 12. Isn't that something shockin'? So here i am trying to translate idiotic large words into idiotic small words. And in between the meaning of life gets terribly lost... OK, i'm complaining about my job... no i'm not really, just about having...