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...