Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

There is a poem which is probably standard issue now. It is Pied Beauty by Gerald Manley Hopkins. It goes like this: Pied Beauty  Launch Audio in a New Window BY  GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS Glory be to God for dappled things –     For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;        For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;  Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;     Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;        And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.  All things counter, original, spare, strange;     Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)        With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;  He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:              ...

If there is a bird which is cuter than the long-tailed tit, I have not encountered it yet. They are of course ummistakeable. I mean you could EASILY mix the great tit and the blue tit up. I know, it is impossible some of us want to say, but look, both yellowish and sort of with a cap on the head. The coal tit too can sometimes be mistaken for a blue tit but the long tailed tit... never. To encounter one for the very first time is akin to be struck on the back of your head, the same way Cellini's dad hit him on the head when he saw a salamander in the fire. You will never ever forget your first encounter. And indeed because they are remarkable and adorable, it is highly likely that you will forever remember every instance you have ever since a long-tailed tit in the wild. If you don't believe me, sit down and think about it... that's if you have seen them, of course. My first time was in the Clandyboyne estate. It was a family of ten or twelve, of course, flitting abo...

So, about two weeks ago I actually googled this. How long does it take for the results of running every day to show? Of course, I did not get the answer. There were all kinds of other answers, but to this there was none. But now, I can tell you, it is about a month and a half. For about three weeks nothing happens, and then it happens slowly and then it happens fast. If you are running everyday for about 30 minutes and doing sit ups after that and leading a reasonably healthy life - even though I do have a bottle of wine a week, which isn't much, from Friday to Saturday, you can expect the results to show in a month and a half. You wake up one day and the belly you have been staring at is suddenly halved. Your arms feel stronger. You are more engaged with life. You start doing things like playing the piano which you haven't touched in months, painting watercolours, writing, all within the space of a day. Doing your chores and everything else. You life suddenly begins to get f...

Today, after the run, I had a showed and headed to General Merchants, as usual. During the run an idea came to me... while I was thinking about the house by the sea. Stories of mermaids and women who have longed for the sea, or were the sea. That yearning which you have while you are by the sea to enter it, to be consumed by it, but also to be repulsed by it as the same time. To know that you will never be the sea even as much as you may long for it. For the first time in months I honestly had a free afternoon. I mean I had loads to do, but I also had nothing immediate. There was no urgency. So I watched Blade Runner 2049. It was ok. I mean it was very beautiful, but really quite meaningless and very boyish. Women as cyphers. Madonnas, whores, bitches... mothers... they were all there. All pastiches of women and I thought it would be great to write scifi from a women's perspective. Then, for the first time in MONTHS, I played the piano. I played the Beethoven piece three time...

It has been a busy weekend - well week. Oisin prepared for his UWC interview and spent much of his time learning what he wanted to convey. Peter came back from his week away, cutting it short to help Oisin. We went along to the short introduction by UWC about the place. The Queens Student Union was more of a dive than possible. It was quite filthy which several layers of grime and dried beer lining the lift floor. I am sure that it is near impossible to get cleaners to clean the place. In fact, I saw staff cleaning the place. The look of resignation on the face of the receptionist as she mopped whatever spill it was behind the counter at 10.30 am. Maybe someone had tipped beer all over it after a gig. They were always having gigs. After the interview, which I think went well, we had a bit to eat and then came home. Seeing Oisin dressed smartly always does something to me. He usually is scruffy, sporting clothes with several holes in them - trousers which have been torn due to his par...

We celebrated Chinese New Year yesterday. After holding a few inadequate CNY celebrations over the years, inadequate because I invited too many people around too small steamboats, in finally cracked it. First, i invested in a proper steamboat. We bought a £30 steamboat which comfortably feed six people. I did manage to get the smaller steamboat to be vegetarian, which was great. Then I invited FEWER people. Just one family. Emma's family. And we had a smaller spread of food. This was also a good idea. This meant that the food was finished and that there wasn't too much leftover. It all ended at 9.30 pm, and people went home happy. I cleaned up this morning and then had a few leftovers. I feel gratified that I finally sorted it. The other big thing that happened yesterday was I cleaned the house. Hoovered it and cleaned the toilet. It was great. I have one more load of laundry now to do and that will be me. I think that today I will do all the housework and then go for...

When I was 27 i did my MA in English Studies which looked at the concept of post-identity. Essentially that identity is a construct and that our need to hold onto identity is a self-defeating, delusional one. This is true. I still hold onto this today. That this idea of who we are which is based on a set of cultural norms - well, it exists, but it is also illusory. It is only by an accident of birth that we are born into a certain class, a certain country, that we speak a certain language, that we have a skin colour. That we stand by these cultural and societal norms and then draw who we are - our sense of self from this - is tenuous at best. It is probably nonsensical mostly. Well, it is and it isn't. This is because of the presence of the ego. I subscribe to the anthroposophical understanding of the ego. I don't know enough about the psychoanalytic definition to say anything about it. But the anthroposophical ego says that we are all born with this spark which is uniquely u...

The first day of the holidays has been wick, as they say in Derry. The rain and the wind, that's something else. And last night I had this soul crisis where I had this super bad head cold. This disappeared mysteriously in the morning. Which is just as well, cos, around 11 pm, I began cleaning the house. And essentially I haven't stopped till now. I have managed to tidy the upstairs, start the laundry, clean the fridge out, organise the pantry, do the freezer, sweep the floor, fold clothes, tidy the bathroom... all in the space of what... if i am honest, the ACTUAL cleaning probably took less than two hours. Whenever this happens, I ask myself two questions. First, when just a bit untidy tip over into squalor? And secondly, how come I didn't do this earlier? To the second question, I know that the reason it didn't happen earlier is because I was so fucking tired. People think teaching is a doddle. You show up in class and mutter a few words, do some childcare... I dunn...

Blue hair day Well, the running continued. I got out today for a run in Belvoir Park and it snowed. Huge fluffy flakes of snow. It was just magical running in all that falling whiteness. I don't know what it is about snow which makes everything slow down and become softer. I remember in Norway after a while you did kind of get used to it, but we don't have enough snow to make us used to anything. When I got home, I got ready to go birdwatching. But before that we had breakfast, Ghin and I, at the General Merchants cafe. It is now my Sunday thing. I have a double espresso. I love the taste of coffee, but i think it make me very jumped up. Especially if it is a double espresso. However, I can't drink anything else now - not even Americanos. Maybe a single espresso will be enough in the future. Yes, this is my life, wondering if I should drink double or single espressos. We saw some gorgeous Brent geese, just a few. And loads of waders. We also saw a flock of goldfi...

For the longest time i resisted the teachings of Buddhism. Perhaps that is not right. Let me rephrase. I resisted the Western interpretation of Buddhism. You will not believe the reams and reams which are written on Buddhism. The number of trees which have died for it. When everything which the Buddha suggested can be reduced to one word. Meditate. Just meditate. Sit and meditate. Not even how and with the point. Do not hope for anything. Do not wish for anything. Do not try to escape, but just sit. Sit with your happiness and your sorrows. Sit with the self you hate and the self you love. Sit. Just sit. Anything else is pointless. So when I see people pouring through books and sitting through lectures and trying to do this and that... i am baffled. The other really annoying Western interpretation of Buddha's 'Sit', is Mindfulness. I do not understand what people are trying to achieve through Mindfulness. Why the heck do they make such a huge deal of it? It is really ea...

Over the past year, yes the tiny bit which has just passed, but rather quickly I must say like i can't believe it is HALF TERM soon, I have really made an effort to take hold of my fitness. Running over the past five weeks has seen my original time of 35 minutes drop to twenty for the same distance. I mean that is INCREDIBLE. That is what? A 40% improvement in my timing which I admit was very very slow and still is, but bloody 'eck! And I began with 20 sit ups and I am now at 35... again, a 60% improvement in five weeks. I mean it isn't 100, but increasing by 60% is pretty fantastic. I did think about running today, but really it was not a thinking thing. I was just tired. However, once I hit the road, it was clear, running was what I needed. I came home, drove Oisin to get a kebab and then went to get dinner and snacks for tomorrow. I fell asleep having not cleaned the house at all, despite meaning to have done so and then I got up at 10.... to watch Derry Girls, which m...

A better me!!!! Today was an amazing day. I finally tried on my jeans and after only SOME huffing and puffing i got them on!!!! Yay! What this means is that I am on track to being fitter and slimmer. I will never be thin, that isn't who I am but with this running every day, apart from Monday, it has seen me right to no end.

You looking at me? Being a feminist, for almost thirty years, I became a feminist when I was in Year Two in university - after having read Andrea Dworkin and de Beauvoir, yes the traditional route - has made my life a lot better. It is one of those skills that women should have. I say women, because it is probably too much to ask for men to try and wrap their heads around it. Men may suddenly discover feminism when they have daughters and then realise that they have been shits all their lives towards women. Even then, I was told by my dad that women shouldn't ever be engineers because engineering made you unattractive to men. I remember this conversation so clearly because at the age of 14 we were forced to choose between doing the arts and science. Thank god my children do not have to make this barbaric choice anymore. Anyhow, being a feminist means that you have this superpower - the superpower of seeing through bullshit and speaking up for yourself. This does not guarant...

The faces of a new world - Singaporean Irish Norn Irish  - and god knows how many races in there.... my sons give me so much hope Yesterday was my 20th wedding anniversary. In typical style Peter got a card and then said no more about it. It was sort of depressing, but expected. However, the highlight of the day was Oisin finishing off his UWC application. He has grown into an articulate, wonderful young man, Responsible, dependable, reliable, kind, confident, full of laughter and positivity despite having been subject to years and years of craziness from his father and myself. He also has great insight. You can always rely on Oisin to see the nub of the matter and pursue it. But he is also diplomatic and wise. Where did he get it from? Oisin was born this way. Even when he was very small he exuded this sense of equimanity which i completely envied. He was always able to ride on the wind horse without repressing it. Because of this Oisin is able to talk and be with many dif...