Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Balinese shells I'm waiting for Peter to take the boys swimming. Then my mom and i will go out to jus wander the town a bit before i go for class tonight. I an sooo exhausted, and i'm lazing. I have tonnes to do, especially for the course. But i can't bring myself to do it. Sigh. It has been great now teaching with the boys. I have the same holidays as they do, which money cannot buy really. When the course is over i will be able to finally spend all the holidays with them, technically at least. Whether i end up doing so is anyone's guess. Who could have told me that life would wash me up here. We made these lovely windchimes in the forest school session about the wind elementals. They were made from beautiful claypots from the 50s and 60s found in a garden, raku fired pebbles made by the GSCE pupils, i found these adorable clay birds which looked gullesque in these delicious colours in the second hand shop in the school and shells which i had collected over t...

The piece we did yesterday during staff development I call it Summer Sunset over the Drumlins (very Co Down) I had the choice of going blacksmithing which i dearly love, but i decided i would do felting instead because it was more relevent and also i had never done it before. The result was this wonderful piece that took shape beneath my fingers. Whenever i do art which just happens i think, it isn't me doing this, something else is doing this. I'm just providing the fingers and the hands. There has been an increased interest in William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. I'm hoping that is will only be a matter of time before it infects the education system. People then stop fetishising just academic performance and realise that the heart and soul are more important as they are foundations upon which thinking, thought, analysis and intellect is built upon. Sometime back i was in Killbegs with a friend and he asked me why are you obsessed with Morris? And i s...

The boys enjoy churros and a giant hot dog braswurst outside City Hall in the sunshine How beautiful are they/ Everything in the large size please That's right, SANDALS!!! Near and far away... Me posing with my turtle T-shirt before the Forest School Talk about honeymoons...As i write here Ghin plays behind me quietly with his lego and it is one of those simple silent Sunday mornings with nothing to do, well with things to do, but we are taking it easy. What has happened in the last week? I wrote this thoroughly obnoxious entry - yes, even more obnoxious than most of my other entires - about how happy i was with my job. I deleted it, because i knew that was just asking for it. But i must say that it is a really good use of my time right now - and who knows what else i should do with my life, but for now this is good. I was looking at the school blog which oddly enough my dad had not discovered yet, and i was thinking what a great system of education Ste...

Hard to tell where he got his good looks from I was showing my mom the class blog and it suddenly struck me how incredible the Steiner curriculum is! I know this of course, but to look back on the year and to think of all the wonderful things we have done together has been just stupendous. From cooking to beeswax, from music to maths, literacy to forest school, we cannot say we had a dull time. Sometimes when you do the day to day stuff, you dont see how incredible what we are doing actually is and the blog enabled me to do that. It felt very like the way i look back on my own blog which is several years old now and marvel that the stuff which we get up to. I am incredibly excited about the new developments in my life, which have been sort of brewing now for a few years. It has been nerve wrecking of course, but then as i tell the kids anything which is worth doing is going to be difficult. It is tremendously fun watching the kids develop with their sewing and their craft work...

Its been yet another busy week. Tomorrow its the forest schoool again. I was at the gym to get my new training routine. I love the gym. The sweat and the machines and the serious people there. Its a different world from the sweet soft one which i inhabit otherwise. I need to get my head in order about dates and things. Many important movements on hte personal front side which has been both difficult and liberating. But all in all it has been great. I bought this most adorable birdbath from TKMexx. I call it my good luck birdbath. I should update my blog properly soon with all the stuff that has been going on. Here is a photo of me before i got my hair hennaed again. This was post gym. Cant say i dont look happy :-)  Recently there was a report released about the state of nature. I wonder how conservation charities look themselves in the eye and think they have done a good job. At least there was acknowledgement that business as usual cant go in the way it has. I think the key word ...

We went to Derry yesterday. It rained. In fact it rained all the time we were there and all the way back. It wasnt just your regular Irish mizzle. It was torrential. It was rain to wash away the sins of the world. Rain to induce god punishing floods. Rain to clear streets and sink hearts. Rain. My mom and i walked with our umbrellas from shop to shop. There was little sign of the city of culture in the deluge. The shops were quiet. We went to the craft village and had lunch there. We were invited to knit a row of the square of the city of culture quilt. We went to The Playhouse. After that we walked around the Diamond and we decided to go home. It was just too wet. Derry is a strange place. I said to my mom, people here are divided about being the UK's city of culture. When the office was set up it was bombed. It was actually part of the Bloody Sunday deal. But people were not happy. I was delighted to see roundabouts approaching the city getting done up and a really lovely park in...

Every Thursday i am lucky enough to watch the children do eurythmy. If you have never watched eurythmy, or even if you have, you may wonder what the heck it is all about. Simply put, it is the human being as an instrument. It would seem that our bodies make music as well, music that we cannot hear and that when we move, we create this music. So it is vital that we move in a beautiful, thoughtful way. Actually this is interesting when i think about it. I was about to digress, but i am not going to. But apart from telling me a lot about the children's motor skills and giving some clues about whereabout they are in their various bodies, it also has taught me the economy of movement. The word economy is interesting. Economy is actually very beautiful. Things which are economical and efficient are beautiful. The best economist in the world in nature. No question. the worst economist, human beings. We are simply rubbish at it. Musicians are vey good economists. I mean good musician...

It's been more than a month since i have woken up so early in the morning to just myself and my own thoughts. Mostly cos my mom is here and now i wake up to her and conversation. In the Lily and Snake, a strange fairytale by Goethe, the snake asks, what is the most beautiful thing in the world? Light, says the lily. And what is more beautiful than light? it asks again, conversation. So i've been enjoying soo deeply my conversations with my mother. It is such a joy and blessing to have her here. I know i am lucky to be able to have her here to be with me. And to of course be with the boys. But this morning i just wanted to have sometime on my own, to come downstairs and to do some thinking at this wonderful time of day when everything is as clear as the still sweet waters of a mountain lake. As i drink the coffee and sit here, i can hear the birds sing. The sky is clear, the light is brightening, it may be another warm day. It is a truly delicious feeling to be here, a...

This morning i felt shite, then i had a great day with the class in school. Did lots of admin. And now i feel wonderful. Happiness is being organised. I love my organised side sooo much. 

Mucha's Poetry It seems that stressed melancholics behave like sanguines. I have seen this actually. The running from pillar to post and behaving a bit nuts. The melancholics. Very inefficient when they are in this state. Sanguines take several things and synthesise them. Melancholics when they are like this are just randomly doing stuff. They also keep seeking highs. Escaping. Weird. Sanguines do not seek highs, constantly being high anyway. This is why i have never seen the need for drugs. Coke, speed, E...why would i need that? Hmmm....? Anyway, on a few days a month i get the opportunity to be melancholic. When i am in this state: Life becomes ordinary. Having life be ordinary is like being in a depression. We were told in the teaching course, sanguines need to have their bubble burst. When you tell the story you say things like: And they entered the chamber filled with riches and treasures and tapestries...and then you go to the next room and it is completely ordinar...

Took this on Monday... Ma samples Camphill Holywood's famous granola Summer, tis all about the bubbles Prepping for the next Maths Main Lesson Block Not too old to play bionicles eh? Post-bath. My favourite state. Well, another week has come and gone. Time, it would seem runs differently at 34 Croft Road, Holywood, Co Down. Sometimes it can be 2 pm before i realise i have not had a pee since i got up in the morning. I have also since discovered something amazing. The nine times tables is the reverse of the 1, the two is the reverse of eight, seven the reverse of three and six the reverse of four. You may think i am crazy when i say this is very exciting. But i find this very exciting. Somehow that i was forced to learn the tables like this 1 X 9 = 9 2 X 9 = 18 3 X 9 = 27 4 x 9 = 36 etc, etc seems like a complete criminal offence now. How could i have been taught the times tables like this????!!!!! At least the nine times tabl...

Alchemical symbols I am on the brink of being totally and utterly organised with the admin here. I spent about an hour, which seemd like fifty two, sorting things out. I am almost certain that by the end of this week i will be completely sorted. I was thinking yesterday at the club, after the workout and before the class prep, how i will almost certainly never feel so crap ever again. That i could feel worse, but i will never feel as crap. Why the hell was i put through what i was put through i do not know, but with the help of my parents and children, and my wonderful colleagues at the school, i seem to have come through on this side and - i know i will never EVER allow someone, anyone, any person, institution, organisation to ever make me feel so miserable again. It was like that moment in the reading room of the National Library, how amazing is life and how amazing is my life? Not for a single moment can anyone take that from me, ever again. This is because i am somehow...i ...

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Us sanguines have a bad rep. People say we are superficial. We are not superficial. I have to argue that we feel things very very deeply. Just...not for very long. We will sit at a play and cry and cry and cry and then we will come out and go - yeah - what's for dinner? We are nature's ridiculous optimists. The ones who will try anything once - at least. The ones which will go, yeah 'll do it, without the heroic histronics, but rather cos - life is about trying things, innit? And if it doesn't work out, well, we can try it this way instead... You couldn't even say we are detatched as in Bhuddist detatched, cos we are just moving on, like water in a fast running stream. We are the ones which will do the lovely pieces of art cos we aren't afraid of it turning out shit. There is no such thing as a risk for a sanguine because they enter everything wholeheartedly and completely, but also with humour. The ones which will go - ah yep, that was shit, sure i'll...

We made clay heads yesterday - i was sooo exhausted when it was done....here is Katia's. Modelled after the temperaments. Chrissie working hard Judith's choleric and sanguine heads My attempt at samguine which turned out to be Oisin...  We also did sand modelling... my effort at Ireland   This was incredibly fun. I was able to think of all the places i knew here. Inishowen, Galway Bay, Clew Bay, Wicklow Mountains, Strangford, Cork....it was excellent really. I had the best time. Here is Oisin enjoying the spring I asked him why are you out here? He replied, to enjoy the fresh air. Have i told you how much i think my elder son is just so wonderful? :-) After the course i felt sooooo tired and for the first time in weeks wanted a glass of wine. But i thought, nah. Im just gonna go running instead. And i felt amazingly better. Why is it i feel sooo good after having done some exercise i asked my mom? Reading the Study of Man is fasc...

Yesterday, just before going to sleep i thought how lucky i was to have my mother here with me. That mothers do not have to say anything, their being there is simply medicine enough. I was amazed at how fragile and vulnerable i was a month ago and now, i feet so much stronger, so much better. The return of the light, my parents, everything....i felt so much recovered, and much had to do with the unconditional love that was given. This morning i had a very odd dream. It has been ages since i dreamt like that. I dreamt someone i knew met me at an airport, unexpectedly and he was covered in lacerations and bruises. He looked as if he had been beaten up, dragged backwards through the bushes. He was trying to tell me he was sorry for everything that had happened, but his injuries were so bad that i felt so sorry for him. I woke up concerned. Where was he now? My mom and i watched GoodVibrations last night. I was worried that it would not live up to the hype, but it did. The production v...

As i get older, the opportunity to contemplate death becomes more frequently available. What is death then? If everything is a gift, even suffering then, could death be a gift as well? Doing the course has also made me think of death differently. Being born into the world of spirit, is a far better way of thinking about it. That we literally slough this mortal coil and we enter, as beings of light, once again, reunited with our higher selves. Taking all we have learn on earth into our spirit lives, just as we take lessons in our spirit lives to earth when we are born here. So, just as birth is a gift, then death is a gift too? It is of course too simple. It precludes the suffering we feel when those se love dearly leave. Or those who are taken in an untimely way, or have passed away unhappily, or perhaps had such troubled lives that death was the only solution. Life and death viewed together then, perhaps. Fulfilled, meaningful lives here... Surely too tall an order for so many of ...

Ghin in self portriat

My mom planted my overgrown onions in the flower bed which Oisin has become upset. My mom now has this cobbled tog kitchen outfit...which consists of my apron and cardigan and pink gloves. Here the two of them are arguing over the flower bed/veg patch.

The boys are starting a wood louse farm. It's sorta a biennial event every summer. They start caring for the wee critters, sometimes it becomes a fad in school and every home as a woodlousery. It seems that the woodlice dont like us, according to ghin, which is why they pretend to be dead. The nicest thing about being a teacher is observing the certainty of the child's baffling logic as it attempts to make its way in the world. They have reasons for things...and if they dont have one, they will make it up, which is an anecdote against filling children's heads with facts. The weirder the better i think. The best thing is to observe them observing things. They really are the best scientists. Today i kept Class Two entertained telling them a Russian folk tale called Altyn Saka, the Golden Knuckle Bone. It featured a good ol Russian witch, magical beasts and useless parents. They really are the best bridge between the Grimms fairytales and the fables for next year. They sto...

My two boys having a rest before bedtime :-) the simplest most ordinary things make up life's tenderly woven tapestries.