Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

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...