Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Here is Ghin looking very serious as he bakes the gingerbread cookies... Look at how much he is enjoying himself... it reminds me of Peter's happy face. This is my favourite shot. This one has the feel of child labour. Covered in flour with stolen goods... I now spend most of my life at home in that nightgown... Delighted with staircases

That's Belvoir in the snow... it's thawed ever so slightly, but more or less this has been it for two weeks now. Amazing. I went running today and it was all snow.... That's the direction facing the office. Went filming on Belfast Lough yesterday and it was so bloomin' cold... went i got back and warmed up i looked like i had been drinking - the cheeks were totally flushed! Wee robin in the snow just outside the office. Ghin on the Santa train in W5 Oisin on the Santa train in W5 Oisin Ghin and Ben... Ghin looking all coy with Santa Oisin smiling... my boy!

I'm at the start of a marathon gingerbreadmaking session. Six houses in all, for the families of Oisin's friends who also happen to be my friends. It will be hard going, but fun. That's what i tell myself anyways.

If anyone speaks ill of you, Praise him always. If anyone injures you, Serve him nicely. If anyone persecutes you, Help him in all possible ways. You will attain immense strength. You will control anger and pride. You will enjoy peace, poise and serenity. You will become divine ..... Sometimes, i need reminding. I was looking at the old entries and came across this. And this was really the text i had resonated with most over the year before last. This was really the text that helped me over going back to work, where i did not get involved in the petty squabbles and the griping and bitching that took place at work. That allowed me to work with people who had hurt me so painfully and stay with friends who were going through hard time. I need to print this out, write it out and place it somewhere. There is a part of me that is dissatisfied, that thinks people get away with so much. That thinks people are so dishonest. But i suppose, i know myself, that the dishonest person knows that they...

Mystic The air is a mill of hooks - Questions without answer, Glittering and drunk as flies Whose kiss stings unbearably In the fetid wombs of black air under pines in summer. I remember The dead smell of sun on wood cabins, The stiffness of sails, the long salt winding sheets. Once one has seen God, what is the remedy? Once one has been seized up Without a part left over, Not a toe, not a finger, and used, Used utterly, in the sun’s conflagrations, the stains That lengthen from ancient cathedrals What is the remedy? The pill of the Communion tablet, The walking beside still water? Memory? Or picking up the bright pieces of Christ in the faces of rodents, The tame flower- nibblers, the ones Whose hopes are so low they are comfortable - The humpback in his small, washed cottage Under the spokes of the clematis. Is there no great love, only tenderness? Does the sea Remember the walker upon it? Meaning leaks from the molecules. The chimneys of the city breathe, the window sweats, The chil...

I was thinking about some people... and thinking how things will ever be right between us. Because i don't trust them. And also at some level i don't want it to be right - because there really is no need. I know that's not a good scene, but i'm at a point in my life where there is no point in trying to be friends with everyone. I have enough friends... and really, the truth is that i am also quite a private person. I have very strong boundaries, i've only just discovered this. The fact that i can go from one end of the week to another without really being in close contact with anyone is indicative of this. It's not by design, it has just happened. I suppose i get the need for that intimacy from the boys. Today for instance, Ghin and i made the gingerbread house bits and pieces. It was lovely just spending time with him. Just the two of us. Messing with flour and eggs and golden syrup. And it was sort of just being in this bubble. I often think that one day they ...

The round object is a pe tan, or a century egg. I gave it to a friend who kept it on her desk and has not opened it, obviously.

None of the kids, i'm afraid, but here are colleagues enjoying a birthday lunch, which wasn't really supposed to be a birthday lunch. But that's me having posted a photo from my life...

Last night i tried to make some gingerbread but forgot the instructions at the office. Ah well. I have decided, after reivewing the blog that i should try and post photographs from every blog. Even if it is just boring stuff. Because, when the mundane is seen through the prism of time, it becomes beautiful and exotic. Sometimes i cannot believe that i did not notice the boys growing up. Oisin always seems so grown up to me, since he is the elder, but when i looked at old photos he was like partially baked dough. Ghin always seems a baby because he is the younger... but then, when i see him in video footage, i am astounded how many of the traits that he retains now were already there, in embryonic form.

It is sooooo cold i don't remember it being this cold. Not in November. To think that we'll have to go through another three months of this. Alright if you're Norwegian, but we Irish are much much less committed to anything, and that includes the seasons. It's funny now, reading the editorial in The Village. This Private Eye cum The Economist publication here. There is a fair amount of breast beating and casting about for blame. In this anything and everyone is fair blame. Our colonial history, which we thought we had escaped, but no. The new colonisers, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, etc - we are still in thrall to them. Ourselves, yes, the Irish are a profligate, ephemeral, idiotic race, akin to the grasshopper who played the extravagant property fiddle instead of being sensible and investing in a sustainble, ethical economy. I was saying to a friend, its not too late. It is possible to have an economy without money. An economy which relies on networks and in kind. How come peo...

I went running yesterday! Hooray!!! I can't believe i managed it. I was just about to throw it when i thought, no waaaaay. I'm so doing this. And it was off into a white snowfilled land. Very very refreshing and last night i felt amazing. So that's why i was so miserable. The Steiner course is now talking about reincarnation. I don't really believe or think that literal reincarnation exists. What believe in is getting things right now. Here and now. Since i really have no control over the future, or indeed anything or anyone else, the only thing i can do is try and behave properly myself. Reincarnation for me is making the same mistake over and over again. And what is the point of reincarnation anyway? Why should we be forced to come back over and over again. I believe it is something that was made up to keep the caste system there. That sort of reincarnation. The idea of karma. Respecting what is here, appreciating it, that is what's important. It is now getting ea...

Dear people who may read this blog, i am going to start setting permissions, so please email me at stephanie_simdoran@hotmail.com if you want to be included. I'll leave the blog open to all for two weeks and then restrict it after that. I'm doing this because some very disturbing keywords popped up when i was looking at the Stats section and i think that its only fair to the family that i not expose them unnecessarily to perverts. Hope you understand, x Steph

It's 6.30 and i'm awake. Peter dropped in an animation of life in The Creggan during a firefight. A wee boy,probably around Oisin's age, kerlectin' taadpoles and the Brits kemin' enta the no-go eerea that was Creggan. It was a really good video, but like anything that celebrate the Troubles i am deeply uncomfortable with. Because i did not live through it, because i am an outsider. Because on some subconscious level, i do not believe that people should normalise what is an awful sitiation.... thats how they situation here. The sounds made the the ua are left out and the mouth never rounds. (In West Belfast and the Creggan they talk with drawn lips, afraid the ciggy might fall out, even if there is no ciggy. In East Belfast they whine. A Whine that my younger son has adopted.) Anyways, i know that like anything in life, if you have lived through it and survived, its great recalling it, looking back. So i know that there must have been good days, great days even. Sure...

Watching Ice Age on TV. Spent the afternoon tidying up, folding clothes and cooking. I made a version of Opor Ayam. It is very nice. So nice that Ghin ate a thigh, and two wings. However, i am really bored. Sort of pent up. I need to desperately go for a run and i feel the muscles twitching. The short and long ones and i haven't used them for two weeks now. The last time i ran it was the 5th of November. Which means that i have not run now for almost three weeks... if not four. It's desperate. Sorry for the lack of photos. I'm thinking that i am going to ask friends and family to register and get permission to have access to the blog. It's just out of security. Someone found this website by typing in the words japanese mothers sons fuck. And it's just awful. What kind of world do we live in out there. I'm also thinking of getting the school's blog with permission settings as well, although i must say that the search paths for that were all fine. Next week is...

We made a snowman and put him on the pillary thing in the front of the house. I should take a picture. It is very cute really. Oisin is now cooking his lunch. Instant noodles. I could i suppose make an effort but i'm too lazy. We are watching TV again after two snowball fights. The weather is so lovely that if i was a good mother i would take them to Stormont, but i know exactly what will happen half way through. Ghin will get cold and bored and we will have to come home and i'll be left sliding my way back all the way home with Ghin screaming that he is cold and unhappy. So i think not. There are sales all over the place. Debenhams had a 50% sale.

It is very strange. I saw my page views and i get a few hits from Russia and Poland. The referral pages are from this housing and property development site in Russian. Why would Russian people be looking at this site, on what seems to be a regular basis....? It sort of makes me feel uneasy. Perhaps they are looking at the photos of the kids, which makes me think, perhaps i should put a block on the blog, so that only people who ask permission to look at it can look at it. I have to think about this. I have been thinking of the show offs. Perhaps i need to stop labelling show offs. After all do we all not show off at some level? I need to go. They are now watching TV and i can't blog at the same time! Time to make pancakes. We had a great time yesterday by the way, feeding the ducks. If i didn't need to pee so much i would have definitely taken photographs. The film they are watching is how to tame a dragon, which is a great film, except for the Them and Us subcontext. In order ...

So i've identified the thing which really fecks me off about people who feck me off. You know, the ones that REALLY GET UNDER YOUR SKIN. The ones are drive me bats. They don't drive everyone bats, they are my specialised bugbear. And i try to trace this back. I can do this by recalling a few proverbs which my mother used to say to me when i was young. Like, ayam betelur seluruh kampung tau, which is counter pointed by the other bit of the pharse, a turtle lays a hundred eggs and no one hears about it. In essence, it meant do not show off. No one likes a show off. People cannot bear show offs, and don't i become one too. Since coming to Northern Ireland, this has become very interesting. Because Northern Ireland is roughly divided into two kinds of people. The quiet survivors and the noisy victims. On both sides. It is also divided into the self deprecating dry wits and the ones who cannot shut up. And the tendency to be a turtle or be a chicken is exacerbated here. And it i...

I have stopped dreaming now over the last two nights, although i do this strange, just before i fall asleep properly thing, where i know i am entering a dreamstate and i am in a strange place. Like last night, before i properly fell asleep, i dreamt that i was on these fishing docks, and it was an industrial version of Ballycastle. Everything seemed grey and bleak, and the weather was depressingly overcast. I recognised people i knew, but did not remember who they were. And everytime i said, i'm going to go into a lucid dream now and make contact with these people, i would wake up properly, come out of a dreaming state and be back in my bed. It was proper weird. But then i gave up and just went back to bed - forgot about trying to do lucid dreaming and fell asleep. I think that lucid dreaming goes against my principles of what sleep should be about. When we sleep, we sleep. We rest, we take time off, we take it easy. We repair and let the body do its repair work. why do we have to ...

Last night i thought about the karma question and wrote about it. And presently i can see no way around it, beyond going through it. So for now i'm just going to have to take a deep breath and go into the fight.... last night iread some of the Norse sagas to Oisin. The myths. The Lord of the Gallows, Odin on the World Tree, one of his talents and gifts of wisdom was this: ‘I know an eighth; all men would be well advised to learn it: if hatred takes root in men's minds, I can uproot it.' To uproot hatred... is that what must be done... how does one go about uprooting hatred? How would i do that? Can it be done by understanding it, or should it be done by just excising it.... the way you'd uproot a noxious weed, a poison?

Last night Wayne was talking about lucid dreaming. You do this by through the day asking yourself, is this a dream? Why would you do that, i asked him, because people don't realise that they are dreaming when they dream. How can you not do that, i asked. Surely you know that you are dreaming when you are dreaming. No, he said. Most people will think that it is real when they dream. Do you know that you are dreaming when you are dreaming. Of course, i replied. How can you not? This is seems is not usual. Anyway, i think that lucid dreaming is not for me. I think it's much easier to go on shamanic dream journeys - waking dreams. For a start you are awake, and therefore in control. Then you enter a space which you decide and determine, up to a point of course. I love dreaming properly because i usually go on incredible journeys. Since doing the Steiner course especially, it seems to have freed me up to get in touch with my spirit, my soul. It has also allowed me to travel backward...

Lately i have been contemplating karma. Because there is SOMEONE in my life now which is is preventing me from controlling myself in my dislike for them. Actually it is a lot stronger than dislike. It is all out raging HATRED, which is very very very bad because it is so bad for my karma. How so, one may ask? I have come to the conclusion that even if you have the littlest snag in your soul, you are a prime canditate for reincarnation. Reincarnation!!! Can you imagine a worse fate than that? Having to learn how to breathe and walk and feed yourself, and bathe and going through the whole plaver of relationships and having to give birth if you are a woman again??!!! It is like the worst possibl punishment you could think of. Don't get me wrong, now that i'm here i love life. Not like i have a choice. I love my family and friends and so on and so forth, but not enough to want to come back and do it all over again. Oh no!!! I am banking on if i am up for reincarnation i might have ...

... soap. The eternal struggle is getting the boys to bathe. It's like, oisin when was the last time you had a bath? Wednesday... (this beaing Sunday evening). Well take a shower now... let me smell your hair. I sniff it - it is so filthy that it makes me sneeze. Ghin fares little better. Ghin, you need to bathe. Do i have to wash my hair mummy? Yes. Never!!!! I don't want to!!!! Never!!!! Oh my god. I never remember my mom having these struggles with me. Is it the fact they have dangly genetalia? Is it the fact they are actually hydrophobic and i have failed to spot the signs? Is it because i am a bad mother and have somehow traumatised them around the rituals of abulutions? I am at a loss as to what the reason for such filth could possibly be. In fact Ghin is such a pain to bathe that he actually spots signs of skin disease in the form of eczema. Yes. I know that people with clean skin get this as well, but if he let me bathe and clothe him with no fuss, i'd be able to ap...

I can hardly believe it. The end of the year is nigh and it will soon be my 40th birthday. There is a ring of unreality about it. Could i REALLY be 40? And what does that mean? It seems so young - because i feel young - and at the same time logic dictates that 40 is old. I also love being the age i am because it is the first time i have felt the right age. The first time i have felt correct in my skin. The power and the self determination and the identity and the self control i have now is amazing. The practise of detatchment comes second nature now and for the first time i feel both grown up and full of possibility. I do not understand why people feel miserable that they are 40? I feel utterly, completely thrilled. I am uploading photos of the kids onto the blog and i see the last shreds of childhood still surround them. They seem to be emerging into another phase of development. They are doing this in fact. The older ones in his class now stand at a cusp and i just know that one day ...

Day three of the diet and exercise regime and it's killing me. After having not run now for almost a month - previously i could run 6 miles no bother at all - and i'm really suffering. It's like the body is going arrrgh!!! what you doing to me?!!! I'm also of course, eating what a normal healthy 40 year old should eat and that is also a shock. No more slicing the chorizo secretly, until i have worn it down it a two inch stub, no poking my face in the fridge and going back for that tiny extra bit of gruyere cheese, no more toasting a wee bit of bread here and there - and worst of all looking into the ancient mines of the RSPB fridge and discovering three year old bread and defrosting that because i'm 'a bit peckish'. Now when i am bored, i need to stop myself and go, no, i am not going to eat. And when it's that time of the month, i have to almost white knuckle it when i'm going to the garage and paying for the papers, virtually jabbing myself in the ...

Dylan Thomas called it the green fuse, yesterday i understood what Steiner calls the etheric was a powerful as a hydro eletric dam. It is a force to be reckoned with and if it is not channelled or regulated properly when the child is building it then it will disrrupt the way a person is when they are older. Particularly when it comes to their later life - just past middle age. The etheric is not some sweet likeable thing. No, it is a force of nature. It is best serve when regulated. Like the heartbeat or one's breathing. Rhythm and systems are its allies. It can be done at a later age, we can try and rectify it, but it will no longer be done in the subconscious fashion it needs to occur in order for someone to function at their best. So sleeping, eating and timetabled activities, seasons, the recognition of consistency in life, while very reassuring for anyone is particularly important for a child. Emotionally it helps them build a secure base, physically, their etheric. As a paren...

I'm doing a bit of data entry now. It's to find out how much kids know about wildlife. On the whole it's pretty good. Most of them can tell the difference between a badger and a butterfly. Which at the age of 9 is something you'd expect. So i feel like i can perhaps go a little harder and higher in terms of teaching them a bit about birds. I am really excited about applying somethings i'm learning from the Steiner course to my work with schools. Especially around art. After my first lesson, i feel i need to simplify it because i've bascially tried to cram too much into the lesson. So i think i'll just do two messages and hope for the best. I'm sort of vaccilating between despair and hope personally right now. On some days i think to myself, why bother, i am so frecking exhausted. On other days i go, no, life i fantabulous. I love it! It's currently a 50-50 i'm doing... it must feel very erratic being around me. I've kinda gone back to the die...

Well, after what seems like eternity, i'm back to the blog. We are living in truly strange and wonderful times. Since i last wrote, printer cateridges have become bombs, the dissident republicans have blown up bits of Derry twice, the RSPB offices have been vandalised so thoroughly that we are now living with broken windows at the start of what appears to be a very cold winter and of course, my sons have grown two months older. Those of you hoping for photos, well no such luck. Since the blog went into purdah, so did my camera. Although... ok, one concession... that's Oisin's class at the school. All of them, well, most of them and they are incredible. We celebrated Halloween at Ruth's and she does an amazing Halloween. Not a festival we celebrate in Singapore, it always feels slightly grafted on. The most grafted on bits the excess of chocolate and sugar of which we feel the effects horribly for weeks after that. Oisin dressed up like that strange blacked up guy in Th...

It's sort of 12.30 and i'm taking a break from work. I'm working through lunch too, so, it's a bit of a busman's holiday. I'm currently organising the Feed the Bird's Day events which i'll be travelling about Northern Ireland for. It's a good chance to get out and about, get the ear to the ground and just see what's happening. Sometimes the world of conservation can get quite self-referential, that's when it's time to stop, put everything down and take a wee break. I haven't eaten very much at all today. In fact, i don't think i ate anything. Yep, pretty sure about that. Resisted the Jammy Dodgers and rummaging about the freezer looking for something. I think that once i gain control in one part of my life - re coffee, the other parts follow... that's the theory at least. I spent most of the weekend in bed, writing - and then watching lots and lots and lots of TV. It is the first time i've done this in ages and it felt awf...

I spent a good part of the day yesterday organising. It feels good to know a little bit of what we have to do now, even if we never get round to doing it. But still it is good to know/have. So now i’m planning Feed the Bird’s Day. It’s this thing where we encourage people to feed the birds in their garden over the winter. It started out as something quite trivial, but has suddenly become quite important. It appears that birds actually do rely on the food that we put out and during a terrible winter, like the one we had a year ago, it is the difference between life and death. Which brings me to last year. How could one year pass so quickly? And how can life bring me to 40? It is a scary age really. It’s the age where you realise that you are no longer young – well technically young. Things i like about being 40 though are: I know who i am – and i love the fact that i’m no longer worried about stupid things. I couldn’t list them all really. But wimmin who are 40 know what i’m talking abo...

Today i just did it. I just got myself organised. With the new computers too it has been great. I have managed to co-ordinate all the diaries, write out workplans, categorise meetings and even factor the school in. When things are organised, they don't seem to huge and overwhelming. In fact they seem kinda fun and possible. I also updated the school's website, which was deeply satisfying. I don't know why i leave these things off for so long. I made contact with all sort of people again, apologising for the chaos and just getting on with it, once again. St Michael, of course, is the saint of the season. There is something very grounding about having seasons and a year that spins. A year that has a nodes along it, a year with meaning. Meaning beyond the comsummerist reasons we are constantly being given to live. Sometimes i wonder about the other Stephanie, the one that lives in the parallel universe, possibly, locked in by Stephen Hawking's theories, who has behaved h...

I need to organise myself. There's just so much to be done now. There is work, then there's home and then there's school. Under home, that can be divided into at least five main subheadings and then school has at least four. I'm also going on the Steiner course, to add to my woes... and i'm a bit worried because i might not be the right person for this course. Steiner does say some really weird and kooky things. They sound delusional at times. Like we are all evolving towards the planet Vulcan, or that human beings were once thinner than air. And then sometimes he says really sensible things, like the spiritual must be in everything that we do - anthroposohy is about seeking the spiritual in the man and helping it to find the spiritual in the universe. You see that resonates with me. I think there is very little point in doing anything if we are not including that dimension of the spirit. Steiner, it seems, was clairvoyant - or at least had psychic powers. He could ...

Here are extra photos from the holiday. Pa sent them to me. This is the start of the climb to the top. Already Ghin is bright red and Oisin is looking uncertain. Some of the amazing carvings on the wall. I don't know what kind of material they used still! The interpertation on the place is really bad. It does beggar belief that the Indonesian government with all its wealth cannot find a competent translator into English. Here are the University of Jogja students who are extracting salt deposits from the stonework. They were using toiletpaper soaked in some blue solution. I did wonder if the cure was worse than the disease. But sure, what do i know about conservation of ancientstone work. The walls around the lower parts of the monument are supposed to give the feeling of being hemmed in, dictated by kamma, or desire. Even though these are supposed higher levels of being, in this existence, we are still motivated by desire. The paradox is that no one can 'free' oneself. To r...

Here are the potatoes we harvested. It is only a bucket, but that should last us a few weeks. To be honest i'm glad it's only a bucket, too many pototoes, otherwise!!! Ghin tries on both Transformer outfits that he was sent from Singapore. I'm wearing TWO mom!! Ta-da!!! Just can't get enough! Here he is watching TV and wearing his trousers. Dressing himself is his thing now. That's Oisin with his new buff. My beautiful boy! As usual the weekend was full of doing things. Oisin, i must say, is wonderful. He's incredibly patient and sweet to Ghin, except when he isn't - which can be quite often. I've noticed how he can slyly annoy Ghin, which is quite easy to annoy. Ghin has certain likes and dislikes. He's a bit eccentric in that way. And while Oisin takes transgression with laughter, Ghin responds to it with annoyance. You cannot tease him, and you cannot laugh at him. For instance, we were at the Zen centre when Paul asked Ghin to take a grape and of...