Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Making rum cake for halloween celebrations The veils between the two world thins today. One year gives way to the next, the ancient spirits of the past are remembered. They return to see us today. We ask their their blessings, we ask for their help. We ask them for a good year ahead. I was telling Ghin yesterday why we dressed up at Halloween. I said, during this time of the year the spirits of those who passed have returned and we dress up so that they can move around us and not stand out. It was actually a little bit scary to think of that. We were driving down the Bangor Road through the Craigantlet Hills, it was pitch black. I said, there is nothing to fear from the spirits of our ancestors. They love us and want us to be well, that is why they return to visit us. It is so important to regain these traditions. Ghin dressed us in an outfit which i had made for Oisin when he was Ghin's age. Some tattered clothes to be a zombie. It was very simple and cost me nothing. Ghin hel...

I love buying food in the expired date counter. I think i am doing two good deeds - saving myself money and saving food waste. Today i am breakfasting on a quiche made from maple bacon and gruyere. It is really really nice. Well made and very reasonable - £2.10. It is now past it's sellby date by two days, but still good to eat. Being Singaporean, i have a cast iron stomach and a very no nonsense approach to food - at least that was what Singaporeans used to be like. ALL our best food was found in hawker centres - no hotel i ever went to got the gu bak kau teow right or even the chicken rice (sorry Mandarin!). And of course they cots the fraction of whatever was going in hotels. We shared the dining spaces with cockroaches and rats and open sewers. And no one ever died of anything. In fact one of the teachers who is a pathologist by training said that you would never get C Deficil in a developing country because people's immune systems have been strengthened by the exposure to ...

I did this watercolour in class last Wednesday. It really as of an African American woman. But somehow it morphed into a South East Asian woman - in fact Oisin said to me, she looks like you - well not the skin colour, but she has your eyes. And so it is true. I suppose she looks South East Asian. Probably a dark woman. What i do like is the look of confidence and the strength of her body - she looks like she could be a woman who would pick up a sword and fight. Or would be happy swimming in a lake. It actually looks better in real life. Hilary Clinton is dreadful - i cannot think of what is happening in America. She is awful. And Donald Trump. They are awful. Dear god, watching Question Time and listening to Conrad Black this archetypal angry white man. I don't know why the angry white men are so angry. After all they are responsible for the state the world is in now. They were the ones who created the financial system, they are the ones which have created the ed...

My mouse is no longer working. It is very annoying. My car is also not really working. That is also annoying. However, it is nothing compared to having your home blown away by the Russians or the Syrians or the American financed terrorists. Sometimes i wonder when people get away with playing fast and loose because someone can't be bothered to challenge them, what happens then?  My hair is very long now. I think it may be beyond the point of cutting. It is no longer the annoying long. It is now proper long. What has the last week brought? In quiet little life of going to school, coming home, cleaning the house, planning the next holiday, looking after the boys. Of course what i do in the school is radical. We teach the children about fermentation. We teach them about fungi. We teach them about ecology. We teach them how to be independent, to demystify processes. We teach self reliance. And literacy and numeracy are just one of the arrows in their sheath. The next Main Less...

Yesterday i was told that i was intimidating - my FB posts were intimidating and after i related an incident when i lost the plot, i was also told this was good to see that there was a chink in my armour. That i wasn't an intimidating perfect person. Read this blog, i said. You'll see how not perfect i am. My problem is this - that when i lose the plot, normally it is so fecking far gone that it is hard for me to come back because, in general, the other person has just completely made such a mess of things that i would more or less deem the situation unresolveable. I think the truth is that it is unresolvable on my own. I don't think that any problem, if you really want to sort it, is impossible. I mean if i really wanted to solve the problem with world debt, then i could join a group of people or start a group and try and sort it. Eventually everything changes with time anyway. But mostly, i just want to look after the children now and teach. That's all. I am...

Oh my god, what an October! There has never been an October like it since i've been here. Every year October gets warmer and warmer, but this year it has taken the biscuit. Despite the lengthening nights, there has been no real let up on the bright, clear days which are also quite warm. The temperature is still in the teens, sometimes, i am pespiring in class despite the lack of heat. There are very few coats on and i can sit in the warmth of the afternoon sun. And the sunrises and sunsets!!!! It reminds me of the sunrises and sunsets in Singapore and Malaysia and Indonesia. Vivid, intense, memorable. You just want to hold it to your heart, hold it close forever and ever and ever - and then, it is gone. Today we were in Cairn Woods and after the wet wet night the mushrooms were out in full force. Sulphur tufts, fly agarics, pennybun, lypocodium pyriforme, russela emetic, russela nigeria, porcelain caps, orange peel fungus - yes i am now quite the expert. It has been so beauti...

As i blog, the epok-epok is in the oven, cooking. On Monday i made some and i then saved a few extra. So it is now my weekend treat. I woke late - around quarter past 9 and so now i am just hanging out and blogging. I must clean the house now after this. This week has gone round ridiculously fast. Something momentous happened to me during the week. I realised that my attitude to work was not healthy. I was being attached to an outcome, rather than enjoying the work which i adored and loved. I am never happy unless i am giving 100%. Well, that is the way i work, and if i don't give 100% i become very unhappy. But something was not right, which was i was giving it all my welly, but i was waking up with panic attacks and i was beginning to wonder what was the point of it all? So i had to examine my life. My life was pretty good. All the fundamentals where there and more. Plus, also i was doing what i loved and believed in. So why was i feeling terrible? Then i realised, i was at...

Indra is the Hindu interpretation of the Christian and Jewish Michael He leads the warriors of heaven to to battle with the forces to negativity and arrogance Recently i was feeling very tired. I think that people who work in order to try and create something new or change the prevailing system will have this at some point in their careers as activists. It is this fatigue which feels like nothing i have ever done will ever make a difference. And i was feeling about this about the school. I wish there were more children in it, but i know it is very different and people are afraid of difference. Also it costs a lot of money and in these trying times money is something which people want to hold onto, especially if a free alternative is provided. It doesn't matter that they may disagree with the free alternative, but there you have it, it is an alternative. There is no judgement here. Also some people find our school too weird. That we acknowledge that human beings have a spir...

Wolf, watercolour and pastel A REALLY beautiful October morning. Followed by a stunning October afternoon. Oisin and Ghin are out and i did SOME housework. I will later on go for a run and then continue with the housework. Tomorrow i head back to school to do prep and then more housework. I think maybe i need to go out for a film or something. I did a very naughty thing this afternoon. At Home Bargins i got something for Christmas for someone. Actually, it wasn't for Christmas, it was more for just fun. But i thought it would be nice if it arrived for Christmas. So i think i will send it in a few weeks time, like end October, rather than Christmas itself. Cos it is just that kind of present which you send, when you are thinking of someone. I feel much much better. I think i have thought long and hard enough to be convinced of the narrowness of the materialist interpretation of life, otherwise known as the 'scientific' explanation of why we are here. I find it re...