Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Megan Boyd's flies Sometimes i wonder about my hormones. Like today, I woke up today feeling very odd. I felt odd because for the very first time in my life, i felt, what was the point? Like PROPERLY what was the point? On a SUNDAY!!! When the sky was blue and the sun was shining!! I had PLANS for today. I was going to clean the house. I was going to go for my run. I was going to go to school. I was going for a run. Instead, what did i do? I FBed and then i began to slide very slowly to the bottom of this mental hill where existential angst lives and i could only think, First World Problems. But i couldn't think FURTHER than First World Problems. Ostensibly nothing had changed from last night to this morning. I had spent a lovely evening with a friend watching this weird film about fly tying. Then we went home and i slept really well - dreaming as usual, nice dreams, happy dreams... and then i wake up and THIS. So the boys came in, one after another and asked me if i wa...

The one that got away I know nothing about looking after dogs - i put my hands up to that. Which is why when the boys told me they wanted to get two husky puppies, i said, ok, but as long as you do your research first. They then promised me they had done their research which told them they could easily raise these puppies and so, last Saturday, we set off to a town in the North West to have a look at some six week old pups which were for sale. The pups were gorgeous. Small and cute and adorable and everything puppies should be. I was sold. We will get husky puppies!!! The breeder kept his dogs in a small backyard - five adult dogs and they lived in really terrible conditions. I was actually quite shocked when i saw this. They were in concrete kennels made of breeze blocks which had one window and let in very little light. The kennels were surrounded by a cage and there were three females and one male. We were told well, they get one hour of a walk a day and that should be f...

Some VERY long hair!!! Told ya it was long! Went running today, again. I got into my cargo trousers and seriously they were less tight than they were two days ago. I can only assume that the diet and the exercise is working. I have returned to having a slice of toast in the morning with the eggs. Thin asked me if i was planning to eat the same breakfast for the rest of my life. I said, of course. My hair is now really white - the bits in the front are very white and all the undersides in front are also white. I don't really mind. It has passed the awkward phase of whiteness. It is now so white that is looks ok. I am aware that if i did colour my hair i would instantly look fifteen years younger, but really, do i want to look 30 when i am 45? Do i even care any more? Not really. No. Looking younger than you are is highly overrated. ALL MY LIFE i have looked about 12 and then around my mid twenties. It is quite nice to finally grow up. I am feeling rather nostalgic - i...

I knida look like Ghin when i do this So yesterday i had my mid-Feb slump. This happens every year, at about this time, when i ask myself melodramatically what is the point of going on? Being sanguine i forget everything there ever was that was good in life and then descendus Alvernus. Seriously. I ask myself, why should i bother to be happy if i am going to be sad at some point anyway. I ask myself, why should i do the right thing when everyone else is quite happy messing up the planet, the economy, their nearest and dearest... why should i care when really it is every woman for herself? THANKFULLY, before i went to bed last night i had made myself a promise. I would go running first thing tomorrow morning. I would go for a run for 20 minutes, even if it killed me. Even if i felt completely awful. Even if i could not be bothered. Even if it was snowing. And so i woke up, wrote in my journal about three pages on why there is no point trying to do anything, put on my running tog...

MRT construction - it is impossible to do this sort of work underground and not affect the surrounding rainforest. Any idiot can tell you that. There are two interesting things happening in Singapore - seemingly unrelated to each other. The first, is the probable destruction of the Central Catchment Area aka MacRithchie Reservoir by the building of yet another MRT line through it. The weasel words are something shocking as promises to mitigate the construction by having it all underground are totally obvious even to a very blind person - most Singaporeans have lived with MRT construction over the last 30 years and you cannot tell them that it will not fuck up the entire space for miles around, even if you are going to build it underground. It just will not wash. As Singaporeans start to very plaintively embrace the little nature they have left, the Land Transport Authority (LTA), who also brought us Bukit Brown, tell them to get fucked. You and your pangolins and your monitor l...

My oh so very long hair!!! Not sure what i am going to do with it :-) So yesterday i did my run and i did my gardening. I went to the school and i hung out with pals. It is always great to be in the company of friends whom you know you can say just about anything to and they would be cool with it. One of them produced his bus pass, which surprised us all. He is 60 in two days. The other one will be 60 in a few weeks time. Being the baby of the trio, only 45, i was pretty astounded that they were 60. How could these men possibly be 60? They were in peak physical shape, probably putting most 25 year olds to shame and they were so active. It just goes to show, 60 is an age. And really they looked so well. I mean, really - it probably is the best advertisement to show how good living and regular exercise will go a long long way to helping you at whatever age you are. Age is NO excuse not to exercise and to keep active. We chatted and the the Carrick one had to leave cos his train w...

I keep thinking that i have forgotten something very important. I have now decided that i will go for a run at 11 and then head for school with the boys. Ah yes - when people say teacher have so many holidays. I will say, yes they do. BUT i will also say that of all the jobs i have done, this one has been the MOST exhausting thus far. Unless you have a classroom of docile children, and let us face it, which of us do, then, as a teacher you have to be at the top of your game for about 7 hours at a go - not only trying to keep everyone interested, but also working to the individual's abilities, trying to show children that everyone is equally able at something, and then trying to get something across. In a way which engages the children. Then there is not taking anything personally. By the time 3 pm arrives, i am a shell of a human being and i need to recover. I also need to prep for tomorrow and then it starts all over again. At least in our school we have a wide variety of things...

Bittercress is an edible 'weed'. It tastes very nice and is a great addition in the winter to the diet. If you are weeding and come across these babies save them to put into your sandwich OR salad. Make sure you have not used weedkiller or pesticides in your garden first though. Well, yesterday i finally got out to garden and began clearing things up. It was fantastic! There was LOTS to be done, of course, but there was such pleasure in seeing the things which had seeded. The violas for a start. And then i learned that bittercress was edible. It was like having my entire garden seeded by fairies!!! I had left the beechleaves on my strawberries, so the plants have survived the winter and more runners have appeared. The peonies and echinacea survived the winter, BUT unfortunately, the coriander and the tarragon did not. The lemon verbena was crazy - oh the sage i pruned back too hard too late also died!!! (Boo hoo hoo). I looked at my compost heap and in eight short months,...

The Nine Realms So the holidays have finally begun for me. Yesterday i spent most of the day recovering from the journey to Clare by watching and reading things i Googled about Atlantis and the ancient civilisation. Graham Hancock, who actually is very interesting, although completely discredited by the mainstream, has this to say - that there was a comet which struck the Earth around 12,000 years ago, called the Younger Dryad, which is a fascinating name to give an age, because it looks like Yggsdrassil, the world tree, and also it means tree spirit, and this catastrophe brought about the destruction of this high civilisation. This then meant that they became refugees and settled in many parts of the world, resulting in very similar constructions in very far away places - such as parts of South America, Indonesia and the Middle East. He also said that Thor Hydal, whom i have A LOT of time for, said that he did believe that there must have been a high civilisation which connected...

Lost continents I have more or less convinced myself that Ireland is indeed on the edge of Atlantis. I mean literally. There was a civilisation, called Atlantis, it disappeared in a catastrophe, and Ireland was not quite part of it, but it also survived the disaster. This has been after doing a lot of reading and a lot of feeling. Having looked at several ancient civilisations, i have come to the conclusion that there is definitely some sort of lost technology. If anyone says to me, how can knowledge be lost, i would say to them, do you know how to knit? Did your grandmother know how to knit? Is the answer to the first one no and the answer to the second one yes? In which case, the technology has been lost. It is very simple. All it needs is for one person who had that know how to be unable to pass it on, and it will die. Languages have died. No one knows how the Bridge of Sighs was built and that was less than 400 years ago. So, yes, we can have lost tech. It is clear that thi...

Holy Island, Lough Derg, Clare I spent the weekend by the shores of Lough Derg in Clare. It was a short drive from where Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland was born. The more i know about Ireland, the more i realise the many many layers of time and history it has washed upon it. One invisible veneer after another, and really, it wears it so unselfconsciously. They never make a big deal out of anything, the Irish. Never. Their interpretation about Brian Boru was very scanty. There were very few signs of his existence in the area. There is a church associated to him, but at the base of the remnants of this 10th century tower is built the handball club. There are holy wells, and simple islands, and Celtic crosses. Places of power and places of history - but it is all a hodge podge - if you ever want to know the meaning of ephemeral, i would suggest you take a drive around the Ireland. Leaving no trace is the fate of the Irish person. Everything is worn lightly, as always. Famine...

Today i looked at my very greying hair in the mirror by a table lamp and i thought, hey it looks like nacre - slightly pearly. I am fully aware that if i hennaed my hair again, it would take ten years off me. You look like an old woman, Ghin told me. I think what he means is i look older. And i am VERY grey for my age. Many women my age have very little grey hair - i on the other hand have my whole front bit very white. That's ok though, i think. I mean, it is like stretch marks and scars and wrinkles - they are evidence that i have lived. I have been reading the Gita. It is so wonderful. There is a quality of stripping away at the ineffable. It is as if the universe has taken off all its finery and revealed itself in its nakedness to you and it looks even better naked. In fact this does happen literally in one chapter (?) - Arjuna asks Krishna to reveal himself in his completely majesty and he does this and Arjuna can barely withstand it as he realises that Krishna is everyt...

Today has been a day of down time mixed with busy time mixed with sick time. I can feel a cold coming on - i need only hold on till the end of the week. It is sort of tickling at my nose and my bones are also sore. It will be alright. I told myself that i won't get sick until the end of the week. The winds have not stopped since Storm Desmond and that back in December. It has been constant - the branches shivering on the trees, the clouds racing at a heart breaking speed. The skies low and menacing. Everything is now cold and wet. Tonight i am planning to clean up the study room. It has bits and pieces in it since last summer that need sorted. There is a bag with all sort of things in it. I want to be a study again, where i can nudge myself into when i am wide awake at 3 am and then i can go in there and do things. I also told myself that today was going to be the day that i got my shit together, properly. My running and my diet and my fitness and my thinking. It has been ...

Photo of MacRitchie from 2011 When i was growing up i had the great privilege of running in the most beautiful running trail in the world. I did not know it then, of course. I was 16 and every week i would head for MacRitchie where i would train with the Cross Country Team and we would do stretches by the Bandstand and Leslie Goh would tell me how short i was and Joanne would show us how to rotate our ankles and wrists. We would do the oyster, pointing our 16 year old toes towards each other as we sat on the ground, forcing our knees flat. And then after that we would train, running alongside the water's edge, the macques swinging around us, the monitor lizards thrashing in the undergrowth and the snakes running from us... well, crawling from us. In those days MacRitchie was super low tech. There were no showers. We washed our feet and our entire selves by the stand pipes near the toilets which could cope with two women at a time, and i remember once, after a run i left my Do...