Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

.... but only left it at work. I'm now reading An Outline to Esoteric Science, but Steiner. I decided that i should read it before going any further because he references it so much in his writing. The next one i'm going to tackle is the Philosophy of Freedom. So what is Esoteric Science? It is the hidden science. The cosmos that is invisible to our physical senses, the cosmos that we feel in our gut. The cosmos that gives us life (chi), that we derive our emotions and desires from, our sense of the 'I', the individual, the cosmos that we know we are 'divine' in. And when Steiner says divine, he means literally divine. We really are spiritual beings having a human experience. Modern science sorts of lumps everything under quantum physics now. Because of course quantum physics can be measured (to a degree) and because it is invisible. After all my life being all kinds of things, including an aetheist, a feminist, a nihilist (i'm still a feminist i must ...

The weekend was beautiful. The advent spiral so lovely and the movement workshop fascinating. We rolled and stood and observed. And i found things out about myself. Still so many questions do appear. So many questions about how do we make all this better for everyone. The task in life, what is that task? To this question so many answers now, vistas and vistas. I sat in the dark, just behind Ghin. The spiral glowed softly and the kids faces were lit by the single candle. Lyres played. Elders, grown ups, held the space. A girl from Oisin's class walked up, picked up the apple candle and begun her walk into the centre of the spiral. As she lit the first candle, something inside me was touched that i nearly cried. Here was a child on the cusp of becoming a young woman, lighting a candle in the centre of this coil of moss and crystal and pinecones and felt gnomes, and she would come back out to us, us who were waiting for her. Oisin was then next. And to see my beautiful son, his dark...

I'm wondering with 887 posts now, will i reach 900 posts by the end of the year? That's a pretty lot of posting. So many thoughts going through my mind now. So many thoughts .... It is wonderful not drinking. Really. I don't even know if i'll ever get pissed again. I just enjoy laughing and giggling and being utter sober when that happens. I was actually in a social drinking situation, and i wasn't drinking, but i really really still enjoyed myself. Admittedly they weren't utterly pissed, but really it was still so fun.... and i was just enjoying the clear headed taking part in everything. Went to a gig a couple of lights ago and Lara was amazing. I only wish i had my feckin camera which is still with Peter. A few other friends were there as well and it was just simply a delight to see everyone. I must say i was totally knackered after the gig. And i wasn't even singing. I went home after that, walking the dark wet streets of Belfast. Earlier in the day ...

So i leave another week behind... a little more befuddled, a little older... wiser, i do not know. It was a week of catching up with friends, learning new knit stitches, seeing friends blossom, preparing for Christmas. I have spent most of today, after some fairly productive thing doing in the morning plateauing out and having a mild panic attack. Yesterday was spent editing my video again. It was slightly frustrating because it is very clear that some things that i want to include in the video are going to have to be left on the cutting room floor because it goes on too long. Some of the best clips are of this indigenous Bathin who talks about his life... and what that was like in way back when. It is clear that he is bright and active and very quick, but really really poor. My favourite bit was when i asked him, how old do you think that tree is. He looks at me as if i'm insane and says, how am i supposed to know how old that tree is? Ask me how old my son is, but that tree... ...

It has been a long two weeks. And now it is over. Yesterday i did a roast chicken dinner. Peter even ate that. And there was very little chicken left over because people had eaten all the chicken up, of course. While this may be gratifying to the cook, it was a bit annoying because i had hoped that we would have some left over for school lunches. Nevermind. Tomorrow we are having fish and chips. I think the kids are looking forward to that. Although i do think that tomorrow Anita might be feeding them. Can't believe it's going to be the Advent Garden this weekend. I'm hoping the whole family can be there. I heard something very lovely yesterday. Fiona Shaw was discussing Shakespeare and she said, I learnt when i was very young, that tragedy is when circumstances overwhelm you and comedy is when you overcome ciscumstances. And i thought that is a really really good description of the two genres. Because that kind of answers the arguments about tragi-comedies. There is a ...

Been a busy morning already. Cleaned the toilet and then made breakfast, yelled at Oisin, did laundry, then bathed and now in bed trying to get work done. Then i was distracted by the suggestion i should listen to Song of a Siren by Mortal Coil. It is exquisite. So beautiful and sad. And i will have this played at my funeral. Something funny here... when Tim Buckley first wrote it, he said "I'm as puzzled as an oyster" and changed it to i'm as puzzled as a newborn child, which is much better, although i don't think newborn children are puzzled, but we understand what he's trying to say... the oyster thing though did make me laugh... it sort of made me think of Alice in Wonderland and the Walrus and the Carpenter asking the oysters to come for a walk. Right i think i should stop procrastinating... here is the song if anyone wants to listen to it... is it shudderingly beautiful and echoes all the regret and wonderment of the loves we have had and lost. And the...

What happened to November. Two hours it go it was the start of men growing tasches. Suddenly it's like, the 20th. Where the heck did it disappear to? I have been really busy, as usual. So there have been no updates. I have also however been doing a lot more writing in a real journal, as i am practising my long hand and writing in fountain pen. The slide and shimmer of a fountain pen on acid free paper is one of the greatest pleasures in the world. I am still transfixed by the way the ink creates squiggles on the paper and these squiggles, royal blue being my favourite, are writing. If anyone wants to watch spirit manifest itself, they could do worse than getting themselves a fountain pen and writing. I have also been transcribing all my Steiner notes. I am now at the cusp of year 2. Goethean Plant studies. I love Goethe's Faust, which is all i know of Goethe, and some of his light theory, but only very little. However, his Plant Studies, his observation of the natural world, ...

Tucked up in bed now with Ghin and i have enough self pity for the both of us. I have almost completed transcribing year one's notes, and am now doing the planetary soul types. Got as far as moon and then thought, i need to henna my hair. So i thought, i will wear a black T-shirt to do this... and half way through the process remembered that i wear no T-shirt or anything at all when doing hennaing because it is a messy goosey poopy looking business. It's times like these i think i'm definitely losing it. As i end my 40th year i can feel the resistance of the physical body against everything. My being ill has taken more of a toll, my not running has made me ever so slightly depressed, everything feels like i could lodge a complaint against it... and yes, i do think that time of the month is upon us. Ugh... see if i menopaused... that might not be such a bad thing. Ghin is playing with wax crayons pretending they are Plant V Zombies, the car game or Xbox... you see this.....

From A lecture on pedagogy by Steiner The present is the age of intellectualism. The intellect is that faculty of soul in the exercise of which man's inner being THE present is the age of intellectualism. The intellect is that faculty of soul in the exercise of which man's inner being participates least. One speaks with some justification of the cold intellectual nature; we need only reflect how the intellect acts upon artistic perception or practice. It dispels or impedes. And artists dread that their creations may be conceptually or symbolically explained by the intelligence. In the clarity of the intellect the warmth of soul which, in the act of creation, gave life to their works, is extinguished. The artist would like his work to be grasped by feeling, not by the understanding. For then the warmth with which he has experienced it is communicated to the beholder. But this warmth is repelled by an intellectual explanation. In social life intellectualism separates men fro...

The bed rest continue apace, as i'm recovering and just want to get it over and done with. Since transcribing notes is the next best thing to being useful and not having to really think, while doing som revision, the note transcription is going great guns, as they say. I am annoyed as i have not got many pieces of my art, including a kick ass black and white pastel drawing i made of the tree in the school. It was done by using this technique which prevented us from seeing the picture we were doing, and putting it in diagonal strokes only. The results were stunning. But i don't have it. Bollocks. Anyhow, today was the life chart and the planets. It have be a great opportunity to finally have a glimmer of understanding as to what Steiner was rabbiting on about the ages 21 - 63... Sentient Soul, Heart and Mind Soul (or Intellectual Soul), Consciousness Soul, Spirit Self, Life Spirit and Spirit Man... here it is in pictoiral format... we did this in conjunction with the planets a...

So today instead of going to work, because i was soooo ill, i made some soup and took to bed ... and sorted out my notes for the course because i couldn't do any thinking. The nice thing about the course is that it entails a lot of artwork... so i drew these to fill in my folder. Ammonite. I agree it looks like a bun. It is supposed to represent the mineral world, although you could say it once unsed to be animal. It is how we are all connected to the physical, mineral world. Crysamthemums The one on the right was funny. I was drawing this and then i went down to make soup and when i came back up i was ever so slightly confused as i was now drawing another flower, but i didn't realise this until i had complete the flower. That's why it looks so weird. As i was drawing this, i noticed that in the centre of the flower, it was the Fibonacci series, and i thought that maths is us trying to make sense of the world and language is us trying to make sense of ourselves ...

We made birds this weekend, shaped them from little rolls of clay. My bird is the one at the far end, with the eye. Strangely enough it was the only bird with an eye... :-)

We had the deep delight and privelege this week of being a seminar conducted by Cristal about the 12 senses. Yes, that's right, 12. Actually there are 15, the sense of imagination, inspiration and intuition being the last three which only are developed when the other 12 senses are firing on all 12 cylinders. So the other 12 senses are... let's see if i can remember them. Touch, Life, Movement, Balance, Sight, Taste, Smell, Warmth, Hearing, Word, Thought.... can't  remember what the sense between hearing and word is. Each sense has an organ and trying to guess is organ is like being on a episode of QI. What is the organ for the sense of hearing? Ear... nope, it is the nervous system, because you use bones and the nerves to hear... as in you can feel noise... They also have their own sounds and their own zodiac signs. And it all makes a very very pretty picture. However, i think what we all found most wonderful was the sense of warmth. Whose organ was the heart becaus...

Now that is what i call a week. We had the two monks stay with is, brother Man and brother Ben. They both also have Vietnamese names, but don't ask me what they were. I found the fact that one was from Yorkshire (South) and the other from Hawaii, more logical calling them by their native names. Peter was very impressive and got their Vietnamese names and used them all the time. Brother Man was a man mountain. He was really really tall and huge. At one stage i was doing all their laundry and folding their undies. And i said to Oisin, look at daddy's boxers, they are very huge now, aren't they. Forgetting that really they were Bro Man's boxers. I was slightly relieved to realise this as i was rather worried that Peter was putting on the weight. I brought them out to Strangford and we had an hours worth of bird watching. I was told that they actually liked that the best. Unfortunately they didn't have too much of the birdwatching as the rest of the week here was sp...