Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

I am enterprise vaulting my things. Email, that is. This is a new system which work forgot to tell me they had installed to compress people's mailboxes. I won't bore you with the details, but it has been going on since before Christmas and i will have to spend the best part of two hours sorting it out. That's two hours of just manually squishing these things electronically into smaller pieces of information. Like anything which has to do with sitting before a computer, it seems to stretch the dimensions of time. That is what is one second feels like ten. And so on. It is tedious, dull and the only refuge i have is the blog. So i could perhaps bring people up to date with goings on in my life. I do feel incredibly at sea.... as if i'm not quite sure where i'm going. The procrastination is going into over drive mode now and i need to stop thinking about it and doing it. I think the biggest stumbling block is the finances. Once i get that sorted out everything will jus...

Trying to think about what i need to do. Last night i had a revelation. What Steiner says is right, which is what Bhudda and all those other great religious spiritual leaders say. Stand close to the source, the light. Stand there and receive strength and act from its inspiration and from my highest good. Have equanimity in my sights. Plunge into the heat of battle and keep your heart at the lotus feet of the Lord. Be it the battle of pleasure, or in this case the battle fraught with pain. I will not diminish myself and my abilities. I will not tred water. I will swim and be strong, swimming toward my goal and fighting the good fight. I will not be less because something else wants me to be less. When i made up my mind to do this, everything was right again. For the first time in my life, i felt i had THINKED myself out of a predicament. I had held the reins of the horse that was galloping away wildly and i was back where i was. But better. I felt literally i was standing, bathed in a b...

I've run now for just over 38 days since 21 December. It feels really good. The reason why i haven't blogged is the usual one - disorganisation and a bit under the weather. The work situation is still not ideal, but perhaps this is the way the world is. Sometimes i think that because by and large people don't know how functional feels like, dysfunctional and functional is all the same to them. So they can't tell the difference between themselves having a good time and themselves having a bad time. Let alone the people whom they are supposed to have a duty of care for. My strategy is to just wait it out for the next six months. Change always happens. It will either get better, which is good, or worse, which will be also good, because then people will be forced to do something about it.

...but to be safely thus I was running the other day and pondering why the hell am i soooo annoyed with annoying people (or people i find annoying) and the thought struck me, just because i have 'received insight' into one situation, does not mean that i will forever float serenely over the world, like a cloud, and thus encounter every potential obstacle and hurdle with grace and magniminity. In fact, the best i can hope for now, is that at least i am aware that the situation and person is personally aggravating, and that i am to try and get over this. So at every moment we encounter the potential for annoyance or equanimity despite annoyance, what do we then do? And even as i write this, i see myself, sitting across thinking, I HATE THIS PERSON. I HATE THEM. THEY ARE HEDIOUS AND ALL I THAT IS APPARENT TO ME IS THEIR HEDIOUSNESS. AND I DON'T EVEN WANT TO SEE THEIR GOOD SIDE. What should i do then? Is their a phase, a mediation i could use to interrupt this and at the very l...

When i run now, i say, only 99 more days to go, depending on the days to go to 21st April, which is when i'm running everday till. Only extenuating circumstances will keep me from running now. I took some flu medicine and went today. I didn't care. I don't care, i said. I'm going to run even if it kills me. Even if i drop dead in the forest. I'm going to do it. Because i feel better after i run. I'm sure that the two readers of this blog will think this is kind crazy, but i think we all need to be a bit crazy in our lives. I'm going to be going to do some planning now. But what i really want to do is write what i really do feel. And despite the ranting earlier, i am still feeling a bit crappy. Wee bits of dross are still lodged in my soul and so much of it has to do with just not having enough rest and waking up so late today. But glass half full, now. So i need to get things started.

Ghin and his best friend Justin on his last day at Rascals Stacy and Emma! Chocolate everywhere... just the way we like it. Ice cream, why not, you're 4 only once! Look at that face! Second birthday party with Cash and Ami. And auntie Lara, of course. You see i am so lucky i have such wonderful friends! And a sweetheart for a son... most of the time. Oh butter wouldn't melt... Oisin, and Jago... It sounds like Suede playing on the radio. Nope it's Oasis. That sound, you know last 80s early 90s Britpop rock. I am feeling a whole lot better after all that emoting in the last blog. I am clearly a highly unstable person. After all that being so fed up with Peter, i'm not fed up any more. It is my period. I'm sure of it. Just the general rattiness. Yes, i'll go now for a run... and then i'll be able to plan the rest of my day and get some work done. Feeling SO much betterer now.

They say that the 17th of January is supposed to be the saddest day of the year. if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. A combination of cold, post Christmas feeling as well as debt etc, make people feel like they have had enough. Well, i don't want to know what the 17th looks like because i am feeling so depressed right now. It all seems so pointless and too much. And i feel like everything means nothing. Like there is nothing to look forward to. Logically this is crazy stuff of course. There is a lot to look forward to. And i must be grateful for everything i have. A beautiful family, a nice house to live in, wonderful friends and a job which is actually meaningful, if somewhat up the left because of poor management. I can say this now because only people with access to this blog can read this. And no one at work has access to it. I have had an incredibly exciting life, not as exciting as Sir Rannulph Finnes, granted, but certainly more eventful that St Teresa of Liseaux, and i ...

Took these photos because of the short hair...here they are dancing to The Communards. Peter's album, not mine. Look at the Mr Boss Man. Oisin looks like a Cool Cat, Ghin looks like he's about it beat someone up. Here they are posing outside the school, Ghin's first day. He seemed happy enough to go yesterday but today wa sa different story. It didn't help that we woke up late as well. Well it starts off with new hair cuts. On Saturday i threw them out of the house and cleaned it. They came back with no hair. It was very sad. They all looked so grown up. Ghin looking more bossy if that is possible and Oisin looking very sharp. I cannot believe i will soon have two grown up boys! This was driven home today even further by Ghin now starting to go to the Steiner school. We dropped him off at big school today and he was all delighted. As far as he was concerned he was now all grown up, although you can see that it still is very much play and more play. Ghin is very differen...

I managed to do most of the cleaning that i had planned to carry out, so i automatically feel better. I shall play the piano now.

I never made it to Singapore, as you know. Today went i running and realised that it has been almost a month since i started the journey that never was. There is a real sense of hopelessness and failure here in the West. People are feeling so miserable and the weather isn't helping. I find it interesting that while economic well-being is still somwhat patchy in the East e.g. slums of China, pollution in China, the general state of insanity that is South East Asia, threatened nuclear war in Korea, zen-like nothingness in Japan, in the West, save for Germany, the sensible people of Europe, both America and Europe are in the doldrums. The price of food and fuel is going through the roof, we are engaged in a few wars that are draining the economy, people are either too depressed or too clueless to do anything about themselves and those who have jobs just cling on to them for dear life. I suppose i have never been through a really TOUGH PATCH before, whereas in Ireland that's pretty...