Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Next week's blackboard drawing There are worse things than feeling things are 'flat'. They could feel horrible. So i give thanks to feeling flat, although i have to concede that feeling flat is not as nice as feeling elated and happy. Mostly i am feeling flat because i am feeling terrified at the amount of stuff i have to do. It Is so much and i have discovered that even with my parents around i am a serial procrastinator. So i actually cannot blame the lack of help for my serial procrastination. Mostly this procrastination has to do with my personal life. Life finally starting to run regularly. Or Cleaning the house on a regular basis. Or playing the piano every morning. I can't even blame early starts and busy days cos when i have the holidays i lie about like a beached whale and use it as an excuse to not to anything, even though i KNOW that if i started doing something, especially things i like such as running and playing the piano, or cleaning the house, i...

Painting of the Ark and a composition from the story It is hard to record every single thing which takes place in the school each day. Like today for instance, when i got there, there was a full scale snowball fight going on. Then after that there was a snowman in the field. Later on one of my children discovered the principle of the pendulum by hanging a stone by a string, tying it on a stick and swinging the stick between two handles. Just like that. They did eurythmy, which always makes me want to cry with joy watching them, and then because it was soooo cold, i did baking instead of gardening with Class Two and Three. We made a jam Victoria sponge sandwich - four layers, no less. If you have ever tried teaching a class of seven to nine year olds how to cook, you may appreciate how extraordinary it is to get children standing around the table, waiting for their turn to cream butter and then even more incredibly afterwards, clean up after themselves and do a great job. So, if y...

Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, the world's largest sundial - built in the 18th C Today my class more or less did their first science experiment. It had to do with time. We made our own clocks - using water and candles and while these were going on, i asked them to think about how they would make their own clocks. They more or less came up with the pendulum and the hour glass. It was so lovely to see them completely engaged with essentially inventing something. They worked in teams and discussed with each other what they would do. It was very sweet watching them actually. And then it was also great getting the the faults in the various ways of measuring time to show up as well - like someone forgot to keep an eye on the water clock so they didn't know what time the clock stopped dripping. When i asked, did you see what time it stopped, the person in question said, i have NO idea. So i said, this was the problem with the water clock. In Rome they had servants who used to look aft...

Erlang and Monkey locked in combat while the Heavenly Armies watch on Last night, as in the night of Monday, i only got to sleep at 4 am, after tending to a sick Ghin. It is very difficult when your baby is sick because it is so hard to watch them suffer. How can i take away this pain, you ask yourself? And then you try your best to do the right thing. Ghin had slapped cheek and his face was bright red. Also he had a strange fever where his head was not hot but his legs were and he was aching all over. He was not nauseous, thankfully, and was able to keep down food. He slept a bit and then would wake up saying to me, this bit of me hurts. At about three am he had nosebleed. Each child is different and Ghin just wants to be cuddled all the time. The cuddling is lovely but the not being able to do anything about how crap he feels is shite. We had breakfast and a midnight snack in bed although i insisted that he come down for lunch and dinner. I read four chapters of Journey to the We...

Oisin in 2011... making his own food memories... i can only hope that he grows up to be a food snob too Yesterday when i got home after a school meeting, i had a glass of wine, put on some music and began cooking. I made a pasta sausage and chicken casserole with spicy wedge chips. It was called using up all the shite you found in the freezer after having done a spring clean. I make all my Yorkshire puddings from scratch. I find the store bought ones too dry. However, there are now three packs - opened and half used - in the freezer (which i did not buy) and i am now thinking, how am i going to use them up? Does Yorkshire pudding go with anything else apart from roast beef? Perhaps i could pretend they are small casings from mini cottage pies? I also have, mysteriously packs and packs of fishballs. I never buy fishballs because they most certainly have no fish in them. In fact i do not know what they put in them. Melamine probably. I think those i will just dump. My da...

So, is this week really supposed to be the most miserable week of the year, cos i actually got my mojo back and i am delighted. In case anyone would like to hit me the face for being a show off, i have to ask you to read the posts from the last few years where i meditate and wallow on the nature of suffering. So i have earned my punch in the face cos i am so happy stripes. And i think if anyone has been truly miserable and come through it and are now very happy, i think FAIR PLAY TO YOU!!!! My hat off to them - as well as myself. I know i have once again returned to myself because i have resumed my post midnight potterings. These are about four hour sessions where i usually clean the house, catch up on work, journal, blog and read. They are the four precious hours i have to myself after i have slept and in between going back to sleep. They are the few hours when i get to dream, muse, sometimes chat with friends from Singapore... plan the next day, lesson plan! ... i get to look d...

It began with having to stay home as Oisin was sick today. Ghin wasn't THAT sick, in fact it turned out he wasn't sick at all, after all that complaining last night. But i am quite worried about Oisin. I think it is growing pains. He is not the kind of child to fall sick easily so when he is sick and sick so often as he has been this year, it is a bit worrying. When i say often, i mean like once every two months. That's quite a lot for Oisin. But he has grown one inch since November and i really think it is growing pains. His entire body is aching every now and then and he is now taller than i am. Anyway, he had to stay home, so being very anxious about his well-being i stayed home too. He recovered around three pm. It doesn't help i know to keep asking him how he is. But he did manage to eat a good dinner. He may actually ask me for more food later. I decided to then clean the kitchen since Chinese New Year was round the corner and i needed to get ready and my kitc...

Smile, cos its all good! Post ditching, lopping and ice playing.... warm and comfy When i don't smile, Ghin will ask me with a pout, why the posh face? So Ghin my darling, no more posh faces... The house is a complete mess. I really don't even know where to begin. I have started in the conservatory and i think i will continue there. It is not easy living with people who have no visual sense. I think that this is the root of messiness - messiness is what happens when someone does not know what clean looks like. I had the pleasure of telling my mom that in ANY equation i am not the messy person. I can be lazy, as in not wash up immediately after i use something, but i am not messy. My sons are quite messy, but that's children for you. Although to be fair, when i ask them to tidy up they can do a pretty good job. Sigh. I have to decide if i am going to school later on because both of them are not up to it. Oisin has come down with a mysterious virus again - and G...

It is freezing outside and i am wondering if it would be the right thing to take the boys on a butterfly conservation day in this weather. The drive to Enniskillen is long and the weather does not look promising. Also, we have the Children's Service this morning. Hmmmm.... So i will have to think about it. Winter, i think, is finally here. Yesterday i rearranged the living room in my mother's house. And the dining room as well. I also bought two glass platters to decorate the house with. One now serves as the dish you put your keys and coins etc in the hall and the other just makes the dining table pretty. I was also ruthless, clearing out snacks and sweets and the next step will be to sort out the snack pile. Most will probably end up in the compost pile since a lot of stuff has not been touched for a few months now. It is shocking how things pile up. I also bought a coir mat (£2.99) and a set of sturdy gardening hand tools. Wilkinson Swords no less, all for under ...

My Christmas present!! From Oisin. He got me set of four mugs from Connemara I look out from the kitchen window and i see... a sky full of snow. Black blue and heavy as curtains, about it slip and float down upon us from nothingness into nothingness. Snow fell yesterday, silent and mysterious. The children could hardly be contained in all that snow. Out you go i told them. The entire Lower School was out in the playground running about. I sit here in silence after a leisurely awakening at 8 am. Breakfast was as usual... egg and toast with salad and black coffee... stevia sweetened. I almost never post food, but for some reason i felt compelled to. As you can see it is not very spectacular food, but it is very delicious and after a good sleep and a leisurely awakening in a warm house while it freezes out side, it is something which i can be more than grateful for. Everything here has a story. The plate i bought from Oxfam from the money the children in my class ga...

The sacrifice of Issac It's been a tough week with the reactions to the killings in Paris. It now feels like it is the sane minded people against the loonies in general. Those who believe that violence is the solution - and i include everyone who advocates some kind of violence be it political, military, cultural or social - the governments who wage war without end and the people who have responded to this in kind. Like the response to the economic meltdowns of the last two decades, when there was an opportunity to say, this ain't working guv, we must do something different, something honest and kind and generous, it simply has been more of the same. And like with the economic meltdown, they have now started making things up to justify their neurotic behaviour. Such as the man - the 'terrorism' 'expert' interviewed on Fox - who said Birmingham was a no-go zone to non-Muslims. I have actually been really upset with all of this because this people have bee...

So today i am going to get my classroom ready and do all my lesson plans. My mom and dad have left and yesterday, i did some gardening. I hope to do more later on today. Having them here has been a balm. It felt very strange not having them here - i have really grown to love their company, or just the company of people in general. They have found it an interesting exercise being in each other's company 24-7. Today, when i woke up, i could smell my mother's perfume in my house. She is always here, i thought. Thank you mom. It is going to be another busy year for me personally. Already half of January has gone by without me really noticing. On a wider level, the violence which has been visited on the shores beyond citadel Europe was briefly brought into Paris. I wonder about politicians sometimes. This horror... so we are now in the state we are in because, here are the scenarios and possibilities of what goes through the government's head in creating this situation....

The instructions were that two of each of the animals which were unfit for sacrifice and seven of those which were given the all clear for sacrifice should be taken into the Ark The Ark is supposed to be a symbol - it was never supposed to be literal. Sometimes i wonder if the Bible was not translated into the vulgate to prevent precisely this sort of misunderstanding taking place. It does make telling the Old Testament easier i have to say. The sacrifice of Issac which we will becoming to for instance - that now makes sense if it is metaphorical. To be willing to give your most precious treasure. But God is not a concept or religion - so it calls into question what the nature of God is. There are long discussions about what God could possibly be - but what is clear when i think about it is the archetype and the quest. I loved doing this drawing. Whenever i draw i get a chance to think about the story and the class and what needs to be done. Blackboard drawings are a meditati...

No, this is not about a post about bird ID, but rather it is about me - of course it is - and the stuff i have learnt over the years. Sometimes i wake up with things in my head. Like the other night, how the giant's wife in Jack and the Beanstalk wanted him dead, really. This morning i woke up, in the middle of a dream, which was me walking on the shore and i saw a flock of birds landing by the water and my first thought was, are they knot or dunlin? Cos i can't tell them apart, but i do know that they must be either. I got up at this point and thought, how did bird ID enter my dreams? I then checked FB and mosied on down to the kitchen and made breakfast. An egg, a slice of toast and a slice of bacon. With some tea (i have run out of coffee). I cooked the egg and bacon with the least amount of oil i could. I toasted the bread. When the eggs and bacon were cooked i placed the toast on the plate, the bacon on the toast and the egg on the bacon. I squeezed some HP sauce on ...

Today i was driving in the rain back to my mother's place in Holywood and i realised how beautiful the rain was - and then i realised how much i loved the rain and then i realised how much it was easy to love anything. And then i realised i loved everything. Loving everything does not mean condoing shit. It simply means seeing things for what they are, instead of resisting them. Instead of thinking how i wish it was sunny - how much lovelier it would be if it was sunny. Loving everything means being completely at one with myself and therefore being able to help others - and it also means not having to prove every single fecking thing. I suppose getting to school helped. I have to say it was hard getting dressed and dragging myself there. But once i was there all the memories of what took place in the classroom flooded in. The blackboard had been cleaned by the children, the classroom was immaculate because we had tidied it before we left. Everything was spotless and to top ...

Just too too tooo....

Sun Wukong - which means, Aware of Emptiness If i spent last year looking at esoteric Christianity, this year so far, appears to be about discovering the classics. I was given, by my sister, the three volumes of Journey to the West's - translated to English, of course, cos i don't speaka or reada the Chinese. I vaguely remember buying these in China in 1988, but i don't remember what happened to my copies. Possibly she took them. The epic was written as a super huge novel, but it is much better read aloud. Which is what i am doing with Ghin. I have never gone further than the first half of the first book, which i have read about fifteen times, but this time i began with the third volume (cos it was lying around and he had a tummy ache and needed to read him something while i sat beside him, nursing him.) I was completely blown away by what a wonderful story it is. It has everything. Action, wit, humour, endeavour - it is uplifting without being twee. It has poetr...