Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

It has been an odd March. Cold and dry and hazy. Yesterday i felt so tired. I had been having very vivid dreams lately. Like last night i dreamt i went to the moon. The night before a friend phoned up sobbing because he had killed someone in a car accident. I think it might be the book i was reading. So....one of the reasons why i don't read fiction is the same reason why crack addicts should stay away from crack. Once i get started i can't stop. You'd think this would get better with age, but it does not. If a book is really good i will forsake everything to lie in bed turning from one side to another in order to avoid bedsores and the book will be completed come hell or highwater. Non-fiction is much better - i can regulate myself. But fiction. Dear god. For this reason i have promised myself i would not read trashy novels because life is too short. I just completed Kate Mosse's Labyrinth . This story about Cathars and the Holy Grail. Persecution. Carzy Cathol...

Blog confusion is an invented 21st century problem. But here is what happened. Yesterday, another 21st century problem, my iPad was almost running out. Like 3% left. So i had no digital camera, cos it's not reading the memory card, another 21st century problem, i had taken all my pixes on the iPad and wanted to update the class blog. So i uploaded the photos to the blog, but to the WRONG blog. Hence, all the school photos from yesterday are now on this blog. But then i thought, that ain't such a bad thing. Well anyway, here they are. It's nice for my family to also see the school photos. In fact at this stage they are more interesting cos they get to Skype with me everyday. So my mug ain't as interesting any longer and i do not have any excuses to post selfies of myself any longer on this blog.   This is a half finished board drawing of St Catherine which i will be doing next week St Catherine is a warning to women who are too smart... I was actually a bit infur...

Patrick hearing voices in his head… here is Victor, the angel, who tells him to leave for Ireland Today we went to Downpatrick. The Class and myself. It is always funny to listen to the kids as they natter away in the car when we go anywhere. I tell you teachers also need to take the vow of silence sometimes. They stuff they come up with. Anyway, i had been asking them to think about questions to ask the man in Downpatrick about Patrick. When did Patrick die? Did he like chicken nuggets? Did he like lasagna? Did he go on dates? Did the boy who succeeded him become a saint as well? Did he really turn into a deer? And so on and so forth. The man in the centre could not answer most of these questions. Later we went to the cathedral and they did not want to leave. They were full of questions about this and that again. What is that? they asked pointing to the organ. How do you get up there? They wanted to walk around the altar. They sat in the choir, asking questions about t...

Who knows where the journey begins, where it will lead to and when it will end? Who knows what we will encounter along the journey? The only thing we can be sure of is HOW we undertake the journey and for me i have learnt the following: the best way to journey is with humility, kindness, generosity, grace and gratitude. There are no guaruntees of happiness, there are only guaruntees of gifts. The journey is love - which is not exactly what i want to say, but if there is a point to all this, then love is probably the point. To learn to love, no matter what. Other skills are listening, observation and right action. Courage, rhythm and beauty. There are red herrings. Happiness. Novelty. Desire. The journey is the journey to Freedom. So this morning i came up with a LIST. First, my birdfeeding station Qualities to cultivate Humility Kindness Grace Generosity Gratitude Beauty How ...with Courage Love Listening Observation Right Action Responsibility Clear and warm...

Film 180 South... excellent travel film about surfing, climbing and taking it as it comes Yesterday, after yet another week of ridiculous loveliness at the school and with all sorts of people and stuff, we ended up at a film held by one of the sanghas which seem to have sprouted all over Belfast. It was a film about this bloke who travels to Patagonia via Rapa Nui and the things he learns on the way. The film was super, the company for the evening even better... when i went home, i thought, yeah, i love this simple, perfectly ordinary life. I have had a long hard think about the Holy Grail and Parsifal and all of that. I have done a lot of reading around the Holy Grail now and a lot of silliness is said about it. I mean it is all very interesting, but most of it is very silly. I really had to tussle with it. And i mean draw diagrams and make notes and see how things met and joined up... it was very amusing. However i have come to an understanding of what all this is for me r...

Saints. They need reclaiming. First, there was Patrick, who has been wrongly accused of trashing Druid culture in Ireland. Patrick and Brigid were contemporaries and Patrick's brand of Christianity was Celtic Christianity, which was not Roman. From what i have read about Patrick he was frightened young man who was a slave, who through sheer good luck, intuition and derringdo, escaped and then RETURNED to where he was made a slave to work with the people of the land which had enslaved him. Of course he was not perfect. But that is the point. He would not be a saint if he was perfect.  Then there is Francis. Perhaps Francis has never needed reclaiming. Probably not. Which is why the current Pope is named after him. Ecowarrior. Conscientious objector. Downshifter. He is probably one of the most charismatic saints of our time. He decided to forsake everything he had and live in an abandoned church all by himself. Then he had no idea, but ended up founding one of the m...

Thomas Hall, what a place…. Last night Ireland won the rugby thingy. I don't really watch sport and i have no ability to do nationalism, however it would seem that many many people were EXTREMELY happy last night. Plus with Paddy's Day coming up, it would seem perfect presents for all. However, since i don't do sport or nationalism, it just passes over my head. But i did think, everyone should be this happy at least once in their life. Especially Brian O Driscoll. Yesterday i had a kinda weird day where nothing really worked out the way it was supposed to. In fact i was on the verge of cancelling the appointments i had made when i thought no, i should do them because i need to do them. So i went ahead and had a lovely time. Sometimes it reminds me how much we all need people in our lives. I mean of course that goes without saying, but you know, sometimes when you are tired and think you have food poisoning that can seem a bit pointless. I picked up a book, an old ...

I think this attitude to reincarnation all almost certainly make you get reincarnated. Do i believe in reincarnation? No idea. Actually it doesn't matter if we come back or not i figure. I don't really want to be a man, nor do i want to be stinking rich or poor. Superbeautiful or exceedingly ugly. Genius or dunce. It would seem i was born into the goldilocks zone in this life, where everything is JUST NICE. Or i could just be sanguine and phlegmatic. The point is, there is nothing i really want to do apart from live the life i have. I don't even want the perfect relationship cos, guess what, it don't exist. So, nope - reincarnation is a moot point. Then there's a part of me that just finds the whole tiresome business of learning everything from scratch such a pain. I mean learning to walk and eat and sit up. My god. It's tough work. I suppose that would be my phlegmatic side speaking. HOWEVER this i do believe, which goes something like this: if you do n...

I wake up around 5.30 am daily, cos i sleep really early. I never sleep through the night either. I often wake for a couple of hours to read, to do housework, or more often than not to just think about stuff. It's ok. It has been really good the past few weeks. Having stopped drinking i have found that i am a lot happier. A lot happier. Proper happy. But it isn't a silly happy. It is a happy which is on a level. It's kinda weird. Also the sadnesses are not to be escaped or deep any longer. They what they are. And i know this: this too shall pass - happiness and sadness passes. And it feels good. I wrote i to a friend, it would seem that having ordered a boring life i am now turning into a boring person. I like that i said to her. At least its a conscious choice. Last weekend we did the four temperaments. Can i say that being a Steiner teacher is almost certainly such an undertaking that i cannot begin to describe what a path it is. For a start Steiner has said you ab...

I am bathed and warm and floppy after a full on day at school. This is what a typical day looks like.... 5.30 - 6.00 am: Get up, breakfast, journal, revise what i am planning for the day. COFFEEEEEE!!!!! 6.00 - 7.00 am: Piano, more journalling, more coffeeeeee - call Singapore. 7.00 - 8.00 am: Get ready for school - get kids outta bed, into car... drive 8.00 - 8.15 am: Get to school. Say morning verse, the day begins. School Today school consisted of Maths Main Lesson which means games and getting children to get excited about counting in 10s and 5s. I mean EXCITED. Then there was doing emails while they were doing German. After German, there was nettle harvesting and then making dough for nettle bread. Lunch and playtime Making nettle bread Playing the recorder Cleaning the kitchen with the kids Making popcorn Playtime Getting bread ready Hometime. 3.00 pm Between 8.15 am and 3 pm i think i sat down about 15 minutes IN TOTAL. After school, go home, bathe, have...

1. If i am feeling shite i must get up and make a cuppa coffee in a Muppet Show mug.... 2. I will instantly feel better... 3. I then think of all my friends... 4. And i feel even betterer.... 5. Then i have more coffee.... 6. And some breakfast.... 7. Play the piano, badly, but play it anyway... And then i feel great.... There is no such thing as too much ccffeeeee....says animal

The Lorica, or Deer's Cry I have spent a long time preparing to tell the story of Patrick. I know a little bit more about him than i did six months ago. I read his Confession. I have asked people about his connection to Celtic Christianity. I have begun my discovery of the imposition of Roman Catholicism on the rest of the world. It has been such a journey, such a journey. I have now decided to tell the Patrick story as i would tell a story about a young boy and his travels. But of course he is a saint, so his story will be accompanied by these wee quirks which saints always have. Their births, for instance are always amazing. It's like the birth of any child i suppose. Their childhoods are filled with miracles. And then there is Patrick's boyhood which is destroyed by his kidnapping. It then follows his mission followed by being a priest and then bishop. I have really come to love Patrick because he seems to have won the people over by demonstrating to them how muc...

Last night i watched one Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I was traumatised because i recognised EVERYONE in the film. No, not just Jack and Danny and Chris, but really the characters they portrayed and while there was probably something horrible and sinister about it happening in a mental institution, what i found TRULY horrible now was that actually that idea of a monitored and repressed society that feared and punished freedom was not just in the mental asylums, but in all of society now. Freedom is something which not just Nurse Rachett could not abide but now our governments with their CCTVs and our coporations cannot tolerate. A free person is a frightening person. How many painful parts were there in the film? When the doctors say, is he insane? No he is not insane, but he is dangerous. When he discovers that people are there because they have chosen to be there. How no one stands up to the authorities when collectively they are more powerful. When they accept being bu...