Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

After a few years of wondering, it came to me on Sunday, exactly what the rest of my life was going to be about. I know that it is a pretty big announcement and usually when I make announcements like this, life likes to take a huge stick and stick it between the spokes, but I will just have to take my chances and nail my colours to the mast. It goes something like this: The back history. For a couple of years now, I have been wondering if I didn't have the chance to go on to be a Steiner teacher for the second time round, which I would do if I could do it, what would I do? Would I run a Forest School thing? Would I go back to conservation? Would I take up a teaching degree and while I haven't really rested on my laurels, i know this sounds very conceited, I have been taking little self improvement courses like Forest School and painting, etc I just had nowhere to go. What was my next path going to be? I was still reading a lot around mythology, of course, and mysticism,...

I was sooo tired yesterday. I had sat in traffic for the best part of an hour and by the time I got home I was wiped. I went to bed at 7 pm and didn't get up till six. I missed my 5 am call because I was so tired. And also my hip is a bit strained so I am not going to run today. I must listen to my body. If i force things now they will come back to make me regret. So, no running today. Three days in a row is probably as good as it gets. Also the reduced calorie intake is probably taking a while for my body to adjust. I also have a full day of school and doing stuff, so I need not be so hard on myself. Yesterday I was at TK Mexx and Poundstretcher while I was waiting for the car to be fixed. I love TK Mexx because of the bargins and I got a few things - not for myself. Some stuff for the teacher who covered my class and a couple of leather bound journals for two friends whom I haven't seen for a long time. I am now such a crap friend since I have started teaching. I...

Yesterday, as I was running, I was also thinking of the Divine Masculine. First, I have to say that there is nothing more beautiful than a real man. A real man is like a solid, generous tree. probably an oak. Or one of those huge ancient trees in a rainforest. Just like a tree, a real man is unafraid of who he really is, and because he is unafraid, he is able to be gentle, humble and kind. But he also has tremendous strength which he is also unafraid to use for the good, and he is able to have complete control over. A real man is not afraid to say I love you, or to stay with someone who is in pain. There are very few real men in the world. Sure, in the same way there are very few real women. There are probably more real women than men though. Stepping into your power - to own who you really are - oddly enough is probably easier for women. However, for men, the narrative is so overwhelmingly skewed that often men become contorted as they grow up. There are too many things which go...

The Divine Masculine I feel really lucid and light. It has been very busy over the past day. I slept very early last night - 7 pm and slept almost all the way to the morning. I have had practically no alcohol the entire week and I feel absolutely great. Just one glass of wine at the restaurant on Saturday night. Something quite odd happened yesterday when I had some rib  pure meat. I felt a bit ill. This was nowhere HEAR the amount of meat I can eat and so that was weird. Am I becoming also intolerant to meat? Becoming allergic to alcohol and intolerant to meat. I suppose worse things COULD happen. I will be running at 6 am today. I love running in the morning first thing. It really sets you up for the day. You feel like you can take on anything. The blood start pumping, the brain clears, the fresh air just enters you and does its thing. After that I will do laundry followed by making breakfast and getting the boys ready for school. I spent yesterday doing some driving a...

Breakfast today is slipper elm and carrageen with honey. After this entry I will go for a run. Then I will clean the house and then I will see what the rest of the day brings. It is wet today and it may clear up. It is Remembrance Sunday. The Red Poppy Day. It is a day which I have never observed, having always known it as sop to the people who died because of the idiotic inability of politicians to do the right thing. But you know, I am in a really strange position. Previously, I would have been the person to constantly tell people how everything is an illusion and we should know how bad things are. But now that things are really bad, I find myself in the position of telling people not to give up on hope. To not give up on having a positive attitude to life. I wonder what we do now that everything is hanging out. There is now no need to point out how sexist and misogynist the world is, it is clear now that it IS. No need to point out the futility of war everyone knows this. No need ...

I spent the night at Ma's house. It was nice because the boys were here too and we just hung out and had pizza for dinner. It is the simple things. I have come to adore the simple things.  This morning I got up and had petan chok and then made myself a cup of tea. I did some FB-ing and now I am blogging. It is interesting, I was reading about how some Silicon Valley social media pioneers have now become conscientious objectors to things like FB and Snapchat. They now limit wi-fi time in their houses and there are these articles all over the place about techcy parents sending their children to schools with no digital. So, why does the Steiner school say tech is not for younger children? Here is the reason why. We learned all about it in our teacher training. Here we go: As part of our teacher training, we did a weekend on vision and television. We looked at how sight is an illusion. This can be done with numerous experiments on colour, which we did. Looking at the colour ...

So the thing which has helped me has been rest. Lots of rest. And lots of pain killers. Just paracetamol and ibuprofen. But also slippery elm and seaweed and finally lots of garlic. No talking. Very little talking. I was lying in bed yesterday, after blogging and writing in my journal. Things which will never see the light of day go in there. It is me at my most honest and I am brutal. For some reason though I felt i REALLY needed to record that my hip pain was due to pulling a muscle and it wasn't a deteriorating condition. For a moment there, for about two days I was really worried it was the beginning of the end - the hip replacement, etc. But as I was putting my worries to rest, I realised what a whinge I was being. It was ridiculous. I am NOT old. I have a good twenty years before I need to start worrying about that shit. ALL OF THAT SHIT. And even if i did worry about that shit, there is no point. It will happen. My task is to look after my body, do the best for it, and to en...

Sooooo, I am getting better by the day. Actually to be honest I am not even THAT sick. I mean when you compare me on the scale of sickness, it is Lost Voice and dodgy hip. I was worried for a bit there that the hip thing was more serious, but I was right, I had probably pulled it while I was coughing. The enforced rest has made me realise how busy I am and how I find it so difficult to stand still and not to anything. When you have laid in bed for a certain number of hours not doing anything your body gets 'cooked' or masak, as Ma would say. But i can't do anything. I can't run, I can't go out, I can't work. This will change in two days time and for this one weird week, I am grateful. I shall always remember it, the time I lost my voice. I have learned that listening to my body and my soul'd need to be still is very important, or else my body will breakdown and rebel. So, important lessons. Now that Ma and Pa have been here for a few days, things have se...

The voice is on the mend. I should be back on Monday next week. My hip though feels a bit weird. I need to see what is wrong with it. I don't want it to get worse. The most terrible thing is a hip problem. I hope I have only sprained it. God I am becoming melancholic. Ma and Pa arrived yesterday. They are amazing. Honestly, would I fly half way across the world for the heck of it at their age. The answer will have to be no. To sit in a flight for over 13 hours and then the waiting lounge of any airport after that. Airports which are really hard going... I actually treid to be positive yesterday when I was cleaning the house. I found myself getting all a bit annoyed about the hard to reach corners, and when this happened, i caught myself on and said, I am grateful I have a beautiful house to clean which keeps me safe. This is really important I think. When I did this, the annoyance disappeared and I felt much better. The same with other things as well. I wonder why we think clea...

I sort of feel like I've hit rock bottom. I am a mess physically. I am really not in a good place and I don't know how I am going to get there, to return to it. I know that it is possible, it can be done, but I just seem to be a total heap of misery and I don't know why. It is probably the most unhealthy I have ever been in my entire life, which is really saying something. I don't seem to want to be healthy. It is a nightmare. I mean do I have the flu? Do I have the cold? Do I have what? And why is it taking such a long time? The problem has been, once again, not listening to my body when it says it is exhausted. I can't do this anymore. Not listening to my body when it says, look you need to take time off. And I had the opportunity this holiday and I didn't take it. Instead I ran myself ragged for about four days before just collapsing on Thursday, when I painted my blackboard. Yesterday, was the first day I actually carried out my forced rest. I can't ...