Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Aged 6, Ghin is already a selfie expert Well yesterday was a good use of time. I gave myself a talking to and then got organised. So now i am organised. I managed to even get an electrician to take a look at our boiler cable which i have to take a photo of because it has to be seen to be believed. Some bloke came to our house in the summer and refitted the boiler cable through the kitchen window resulting in us having to leave the window open. When person responsible in our house was asked why he was allowed to do this as the electrician was baffled at this, i was told, because it would cost too much money to have him drill through the wall. Anyway, thanks to a friend i now have an electrician coming to fix the cable. Hopefully it will be sorted. I have learnt that sometimes these things have a habit of just going on and on. Also the garden is getting professionaly tidied. Was delighted when i saw the front bit all cleaned out yesterday. Will get it all done by today i should t...

People laugh when i tell them i am phlegmatic. YOU phlegmatic! YOU!!!! HAHAHAHAHA! It is true, i am phlegmatic. My mother will tell you of the time she put a basket of lychees in front of me and i ate them all. One by one. I was around 12. How could you eat all those lychees, she said, i ate all those lychees? i dreamily replied. I am happiest when i am just sitting on the sofa all day just doing the nuthin'. Actually i am not happy at all. OK a little bit. I feel guilty but happy guilty. I am sure that word porn has a word for it. Happy guilt. I have sat on the sofa all day channel surfing for like eight hours. Not recently - in my RSPB days i have. This phelgma has been responsible for me keeping at things for copious lengths of time when everyone else has given up. All my favourite sports are long distance sports. Running, cycling and swimming. I can do these things forever and ever - but very slowly. I detest competition. My approach to things is generaly quite unbrilli...

I managed to do my Monday prep on Friday so i have a free Sunday. Sometimes it feels like i am standing in the sun blinking in a daze after spending a long time pedalling away at something. I feel....at a loss when i have free time. I do not think that is a good sign. I do not consider recovering from the strains of the day as free time. That is R&R. Most of the time i am flopped out in a semi comatose. I am practically non-communicable - but not in a Pegu Road kinda way. I just sit and wait for myself to return. Ghin is stretched out beside me. He is drawing. Ghin's drawings are amazing. Very detailed and highly involved. When i look at his drawings i think, this is an earthly child. Very switched on. Loves to eat. The ends of his words are clear and crisp. His ts and ds are precise, exact. He is drawing...men in bubbles. The entire page will be filled with stick men in bubbles. Bulbuos heads, long stringy limbs. They will have huge eyes and fixed grins. They will be rep...

Dinner last night at new Holywood Chinese restaurant Saturdays have sort of become blog days. When we were doing our course, i was told that working with the spirit exhausts the physical - making you very hungry for instance if you study - and working with the physical exhausts the spirit - making you completely hollow when you are done - so many people who work with the land tend to be extremely uncommunicative. As a teacher you work with both. For instance, last week i did gardening three times with Class Three, Five and Two. I baked. Of course teaching itself is a very physically demanding experience as you are drawing, writing on the board, prancing up and down the classroom making sure that everyone is working. Then spiritually you are connected to each child. This does not mean i am saying prayers over them - no this means that our souls and spirits are workin together with our bodies to produce some kind of learning for the both of us. We recite poetry, we write, we ma...

I You need only to die - once Once - to be crucified Only once to be -   quartered and drawn   nailed   sliced, diced, chopped - tortured - unbearably -   to slowly stay alive   as your suffering body delivers   your suffering soul. Only once will you need to   stand by yourself - to -   watch yourself go - limp - Observe, with fascination,   your resignation - to Begin your festering on the meathook Bury it - if you must - and only   just the once. II It was a clean death,   despite the mess. The tears, the blood,   the metaphorical gore. It was a clean death -   beautifully executed, With purity and dignity -   even, symmetry. It was an inevitable death,   despite the protestations,   despite the begging and pleading,   the horrible bargaining. Looking back, it had to happen, Looking back, there was No - Other - Way. III But Resurrection -   It is a ...

Oisin's bento characters.... mushroom, panda and catterpillar Who would have thought that having felt sooo utterly crap six months ago i'd be feeling really quite good. I don't want to say completely amazing in case there are cheeky elementals around going - well, she thinks she is having a good time huh, we shall see about this! It has been ridiculously busy at school. There are now two days we stay back in the afternoon till three pm and the class teacher more or less does everything - apart from German and Music - although i do do lots of music with the children. BUT the latest addition to our timetable is gardening and man the children LOVE the gardening. I forget what it is like being a child and it comes out most when we garden. Stephanie Stephanie, they exclaim, look some pieces of pottery, how did it get there Stephanie. Do you think it is from treasure? Look at this brain Stephanie that we found (the shoot of gunnera), it looks so ugly Stephanie. Stephane ...

When i was a parent in the school i saw the celebration of festivals as something which was very sweet and necessary, but now as a teacher i see it as so much more. Festivals in the school, as in all Steiner schools, follow the solar calendar. Sometimes we do the lunar calendar, like the Easter festival, but it is mostly the solar calendar. This means that we follow the vegetation cycle, that follows the length of day and night, light and darkness, and we observe the world around us scrupulously. Entwined with that is poetry and imagination - and this changes every year. This year the poetry and imagination are provided by the saints. Already we have done George, Jerome and Miao Shan. We are now doing Martin. The characteristics which the saints embody are found in the time of the year. The compassion for the poor and unfortunate at this time of the year in St Martin, the carrying of the lanterns into the dark of the night, invite the children to think about themselves as well ...

This week's blackboard drawing Why is St Martin the patron saint of soldiers? Should be not be the patron saint of conscientious objectors? Ed Snowdon should be venerating him daily. Dear St Martin, please show these people that i am not interested in their gold. I carry no sword, just some highly embarrassing documents that reveal the hypocrisy of my government. And other governments. When i used to work in the civil service we used to make fun of the ISA. By and large, as far as we could see, the top secret and over the top secret classifications were dependent on how much the secret would embarrass the government. If you have something marked secret, in government, as in daily life, you should question the validity or ethical nature of the information. I have, over the years, come to discover that if someone is telling you a secret, it is best forgotten quickly as most likely it is not going to do anyone any good. As a result, my head is generally a seive when it comes t...

As a mother you spend much time doing thing in in between places as you run children from one thing to another. As a mother who sends her sons to circus school much of that time is spent in the Cathederal Quarter where we have tried every cafe going. Our favourite place though has to be the MAC. We are just so at home there. It used to be Nick's until it closed down. And now it is the MAC. Ghin and i decided that we would do an unadulterated self indulgent photo session of each other... The Canteen at the Mac Chips and icecream.... Glastry icecream and Pont Neuf chips...all in the day's indulgence I keep thinking i need to do lots and lots of things now that i am almost 100 per cent again. Like attend plays and gigs and go walking and horse riding and all those wonderful things that make life worth living.

On Friday i was supposed to have worked. By work i mean prep for class, but really, it isn't work at all cos i am a Steiner nerd and i LOVE prepping for class. Anyway, it was too too beautiful to stay indoors so i said to my mom, we should take a drive...and we ended up at...Ballyquintin point... Greyabbey First though there was Greyabbey. On All Saints Day i ended up visiting a graveyard as the entrance to Greyabbey was closed. First i have to say that on any given day life is amazing and wonderful. I make new discoveries and insights. For instance, over the last few days we had monks staying with us - from Plum Village. I love them. They are the funniest, most down to earth, simplest people i know. They are painfully aware of their flaws and of their journey which makes them sooo interesting to talk to. We talked about everything from the Twin Towers conspiracy to desire and eggs. Oddly enough we did not talk about Bhuddism, although i would have loved to...we just did no...

So here is the Halloween download.... Oisin has always done original Halloween costumes. This year he is Slenderman. The ultimate melancholic disguise Here i am carving my turnip... We did dragons and trees and swirls. It took me about two hours but i was very happy with the results. Our Halloween feasst! Roast chicken turnip mash and potatoes  The lanterns lit...

This is part of the RSPB's rainforest retoration project, Harapan... More than 20 percent of the high secondary rainforest in it has already been lost to illegal logging. Now a 54-km road for a mining coal is currently being forced through by the Indonesian government. The rainforest conservationists are continuing to make a stand. The report saying NO to the road is below. Report from Burung about why it is not a good idea to build a 54-km coal mining road through the world's first rainforest restoration project. http://www.burung.org/attachments/article/837/Coal_road_Threath_of_Harapan.pdf When i came back from Harapan i realised what a soft beat we had here in Northern Ireland. As the bloke who ran the community programme in Harapan told me, the rich people they give money - we give our lives. It seemed very hard to take any of the so-called problems which people then brought to me with any seriousness. Honestly, this farmer won't apply for the Nature of ...

Then yesterday, Halloween, we took off to Colin Glen Forest Park. I did not know this but the park used to be a landfill site. Where people were often executed. Yes, well, it seemed slightly ironic that they were dressing it up for Halloween given the history of the place. But i booked us in for a stint on the climbing walls and the ropes - then we did the zipline... Ghin on the wall Oisin takes instruction for the ropes No bother to my cosmic son, who is part space cadet We have th BEST chips in Belfast on Mona's cafe They have a blue drink. It was awful. So that was our midterm break. I'm back to school today to plan the rest of the term. It has been very interesting the past couple of months. So much of learning about myself and others, so many changes taking place in the world. I can feel the old order passing and something is coming into being. I am filled with fear, but also hope. I know that whatever it is i am working for an altern...

On Monday i went to the Mournes. At first i was a bit afraid because it had been a long time since i had been in such a beautiful place and i thought i don't know if i heart can take it. But thankfully i had the best person to go along with. Marcella and i made a road trip to Mourne Grange to get stuff for the school. It was the best thing really. I realised how healing nature was and i was now determined to join a walking group. Hill walking and climbing group. Then on Tuesday i decided to stay home for the best part of the morning and clean the house. After that the boys and i had a feast. Well bacon and eggs and toast and coffee...yes it was a feast! Holidays. I have to say that not having to wreck my brains about how we do childcare for the holidays has been the BEST - now my holidays are with them and we now get to do amazing things. Oisin mopped the kitchen floor and Ghin swept the fire place and then after breakfast... we went to .... The cafe in Glenariff Fo...