Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Vishnu as Matsya The flood myth is common in most ancient cultures throughout the world. In Chinese, Mayan, Indian, Egyptian, etc... In this one a fish rescues Manu and the Rishis who then become the progenitors of the rest of human kind. There was almost certainly a flood after the last Ice Age which resulted in the stories which have been handed down to us. In many ways, 10,000 years isn't very long ago, but at the same time, so much can be forgotten within a week. Blackboard and drawing Having repainted the blackboard really worked out for me. Previously the chalk just fell off the board last year. Now it is actually holding on to it. It seems so strange to have to do Ancient India in a week. I'm planning to make chapatti on Friday for a bit of fun in the afternoon, just before break time.  I suppose being slightly obsessed with mermaids it only makes sense that I'd end up drawing Matsya, the mergod who rescues all of humanity from the flood. So st...

August 2019 Just wanted to do a selfie. The boys laugh at me all the time but I love doing selfies - I don't know what it is. This is my face. No make up. No plastic surgery. No enhancements. It is like a revolutionary act doing something so simple. I am also colouring my hair today to green and blue. Or maybe red. Maybe one last time blue. I also need to book myself for a hair cut in November. I cut the hair like three times a year I've decided. OK, time for the rest of the day. I've discovered something about the day. There is LOADS of time. LOADS of time. Time to do everything which I need done. Time to do everything which I need to do. I just need to do it.

The Hermit is the simplest card in the deck. An old man, like father time or death, stands in a barren wintry landscape. He has a grey cloak which covers his entire body, including his head. His shoes are grey. He appears to be standing on a precipice, or a rock. In his left hand he holds a yellow or golden staff, in the right hand, a lantern with a star, the star that WAS on the head of the Charioteer. His head is bowed, his eyes are cast low. He appears either lost, or in deep contemplation. He is all within. There is nothing which he allows in or out. He is diametrically opposed to the Charioteer who are entirely external, glorious even. Fortitude has brought courage which now says, look inwards. Only a truly courageous person can bear to look within to see what is there in them. In fact that glancing down can be interpreted as a looking within. The wintry landscape also symbolises introspection. It is during winter that the ground is busiest, preparing for spring. During ...

The Marina, in sunnier times, but no less lovely Just saw an article on the HK protests there. It now seems so far away. Where they were something which made headlines and people talked about all the time incessantly in Singapore, no one cares here. Here the rain continues to fall, here the music still plays, here the lough reflects the skies, the gannets sail overhead, the seals pop their heads up through the waters, the deckled fish still jump with surprise. Here there is a timelessness. Here... just here... Yesterday we went for Folk on the Boat. The boat in question was almost an hour late and Irish style no one complained. We sat in the RAIN and drank - well I drank Sholer - and was really happy not to be getting drunk... I am going to be very VERY boring in my old age I tell you, at least I had a mad youth... I did laugh too much, and cry too much and I do too much. I did. There are no regrets. I left no stone unturned. After 45 minutes the boat showed up and everyone clim...

This is a beautiful card. It reminds me of the pictures of the princess leading the dragon. She has tamed the beast and it is no a docile pet. Here the woman, dressed in white, possibly a virgin (ie she is in charge of herself) wears a belt made of roses which go around the lion's neck. The lion in turn looks up at hear and while she holds its jaws, it has its tongue sticking out, as if to lick her like a puppy. It is looking up at her adoringly. Interestingly it is a lion, not a dragon nor a snake - lions have always been the symbol of courage and the heart themselves - so rather than subduing an external force, she is in harmony with something within her - love. Her face and expression are calm, and the wreath of plants around her head point to her serenity - her etheric which has been mastered. She has mastered her habit life. The lemniscate over her head is the symbol of eternity - she is eternal. The work of mastering the self is eternal. But because she has mastered ...

Of all the cards in the Tarot I have done so far, this has GOT to be the most dense, the most compressed in its imagery and meaning. It is a truly mysterious card and it is worthwhile taking a look at what the creators who worked very closely with the initiation process had attempted to put into the card. We see the Cherubim has now become a kinglike figure. He is crowned with stars and holds a sceptre. He has epulettes which are made of the waxing and waning moon with faces in them. His face is positively radiant. His gaze is direct - even looking at you. His breastplate is the breastplate of warriors and priests. To me he was Melchedezik - the priest king who prefigures Christ. His connection to ancient mysteries is seen in the Sphnixes which guard the chariot - which now looks less like a chariot and more like a throne from which he seems to rise from. He perhaps even seem to be embedded in the chariot. The two sphinxes are black and white, denoting the opposites he has to ...

Beauties Yesterday I completed the classroom - it is now time to get real. The countdown has properly started. Everything up to now was just consolidating. Now it begins, the whittling down, decision time. What's what. I will spend the day thinking about the children in the class. Looking at them and thinking about who they are and what I can best give them. Thinking about how they learn and what needs to be made available for them. Then I will start to look at next week and what I am going to be able to teach them. I was thinking I need to start with Atlantis - the story of Manu and the Rishis. So much about the mythic blocks is to show how much our stories are similar. I was just thinking this when I was watching Gaza yesterday. How we are all so like each other. Thespians all over the world are the same. Children all over the world are the same. Parents are the same in all their glory and tragedy. Young men are the same, young girls are the same. Ambitious people, people ...

The Lovers A lot of complete trash has been written about this card. There are a few cards in the Tarot which are well known and are completely misunderstood. The other cards which are not so interesting or which have things on them that people don't recognise don't get so much nonsense written about them - but two naked people with some vaguely Christian iconography - well, what's there not to like? Anyhow the Lovers comes after the Hierophant. They are CLEARLY the moment when Adam and Even have been banished from the Garden of Eden. The gesture of antipathy which was given by the Heirophant which said to 'risk all' as resulted in the agreement to be incarnated here, on Earth, or the consciousness to begin the journey. The number 6 is the number of balance - 2 threes. It is the moment when the cell divides, to grow we must separate and we have been cast out of Eden to take the journey to Earth. The naked couple are unmistakably Adam and Eve. The Tree ...

It was inspired by the Tarot: She knows how the journey ends - it ends at the beginning. She takes the first step out, knowing it will lead back here. Back here, to this moment, this threshold in time and place - the threshold of birth and death. It leads here, it has always lead here. Everything in every moment builds back up to here once more - the journey has already ended before it began and that is how it is going to feel. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that the journey has begun and all she can do now is put one foot before the other and remember - remember the future, a good trick if you can try to pull it off. Remember what you promised yourself you came here to do in the future - remember what you promised everyone else you would do and no matter what do it to the best of your ability. And what was it you promised? It is simple. Everyone promised it and each promised was the same - same, but different. Different but good. And therefore magical. What was that prom...

Getting there... in fact I WAS there when I left today As a Steiner teacher you are encouraged to say how terrified you feel about the start of a new school year. In fact, it is a good idea, says Steiner. If you are not a little bit afraid you are not really getting it. So Steiner teachers always say, eeeek!!!! And it is eeeeklike - teaching children is a huge responsibility. The more you think about it the larger it becomes. So it is best not to think too much about it - just a little, not too much. In my time as a Steiner teacher I have learnt a few things. What you teach the kids is important, but it is not as important as showing them how much you love and care for them. Hopefully the two come together, but one should never be at the expense of the other. Steiner teachers spend a lot of time getting the classroom ready. I have ALWAYS hated the classrooms in 'state schools'. They are genuinely ugly. They debase the soul. I don't care, There I have said it. Our s...

Card 5 Of all the cards in the deck, this card leaves me coldest. This is probably why I stopped here. The Authority which the Hierophant commands, looks very much like a Pope or a Church Elder. He speaks of organised religion, unlike the High Priestess he s forbidding - he is pure antipathy. He is asking us to wake up. He is asking us to submit. In our submission we then gain the keys to the kingdom. And I honestly could not have done this interpretation until I went for that bible study class. The greyness of the background, lifeless, forbidding is not made more cheerful by the red of the robe - red signifies Will - blood and Will. It also signifies sacrifice. The Hierophant demands it. He is the ultimate authority. Two priests abase themselves at his feet. Literally, their heads are at the same level as his feet. Where the journey thus far has been about joy (the Fool), wonder (the Magus), mystery (the Priestess), beauty (the Empress) and divine law (the Emperor), the Hier...

van Rijn, Sacrifice of Issac Yesterday I managed to almost finish organising my class. Which was great. Today I'm off to school earlish - 10 to get ready for my parents arriving in to help. But what I want to record here is the fascinating discussion we had about Abraham and Issac. A long time ago, well what seemed like a very long time ago, I approached Ben when I was just about to do Class 3 to find out what the deal was with this crazy story. I said, I cannot tell this story UNLESS I know what was going on here. What was the reason Abraham did this to Issac, and the story was... FIRST this story is profoundly misunderstood. I think that anyone who hears this story for the first time, possibly when you were very young when you were a child or even when you were older looking at a painting, doesn't really understand the story. They think that Abraham was LITERALLY going to sacrifice Issac and it is this idea that you HAVE to do whatever God asks you to do and he will r...

Good times on Pulau Besar Yesterday evening I had a good old cry. I suppose it was coming anyway. It was a cry of catharsis, a cry of fear, a cry for the future, a cry for the past... a cry which said I was missing people, a cry which said nothing is promised... a cry which means I still feel, a cry which told me, you are here - you are still alive. I cried and then after that I laughed. Then I felt much better. My mother and my sister were there, 10,000 miles away, we talked and messaged and they held me. They said, we see you. You got this girl. You can do this. We are here for you. And that really matters. What is the point of being here on Earth if you cannot feel? If you say to yourself, I cannot tell one emotion from the next, until it is too too late? I have been sleeping loads - I think jet lag and the knowledge of what the year will bring. I have made my final year plan - the year plan helps me make all the tiny little plans that come after. It has kept me sane all the...

The 'ecolake' in Botanic Gardens 2019 It was very hot yesterday - the weather has been odd over the last three years in Ireland. Strange winters and summers, stranger springs. An unpredictable growing season. Then this year, everything went sideways suddenly - well not suddenly - it has been going sideways for a long time. For a very long time. Probably for as long as I have been writing this blog. Slowly watching everything slide, trying to say something, in my own way. Not really being heard. Not heard because it made people who had a lot give up a little. I watch the idiots who think that flying here, there and everywhere is some kind of social status. I watch them show off their things. I told Heidi the day before, well it was hard being in Singapore because everything that people think is great is just meaningless. And so here are, watching a celebration of meaninglessness. It is hard. And not only is it meaningless, it is also destructive. It is destructi...

Boathouse, Helen's Bay Yesterday there was warmth in the air. It was also cool. I had coffee with a friend and then went home to sleep. Ghin made dinner - pasta and garlic bread. He has become a little chef. The little cooking we have done together has seemed to stand him in good stead. I have almost finished my lesson planning for the year. It would seem that I do most of my lesson planning in my head. I have spend a lot of the time over the holidays thinking about it and now I have written it down. There are two more half terms to do, in different parts of the curriculum, but I think I have covered everything pretty well. It will be a different year, as usual. I am up for it. Someone told me that I looked so much younger. I said, well being on holiday would do that to you. I really felt like i had been on holiday too. It was so restful just moseying about, swimming, meeting friends... and the great triumph, no cheese and no alcohol, well, very little. It seems to...

The garden post summer... a total mess, as usual But my total mess I am never ever going to complain again about my life. Never. I unpacked this morning, went out for a run, came back in, hugged the cat, kissed the boys, had a hot shower, and now I'm making eggs for breakfast. And it is quiet and I am doing what I want to do. In a while I will start class prep then around 9.45 I'll head to see Emma. I was running along the Comber Greenway and it was so peaceful. The white delicate trumpets of the bindweeds were unfurling in the faint rosy light of dawn. They glowed like ghostly moths, still as the world could be heard breathing. The moon, waning, the classic reversed C in the sky once again, not lying on its side the way it lists in Singapore. The garden is a total and utter mess... and yet... yet... there is nowhere else i'd rather be - I really am home.

Yudishtrata and his dog speak to Indra I was wondering about Yudishtrata's father, Dhrama, and what Dharma meant. Of all the words which we hear about from Eastern culture, apart from Karma, it is probably the second most frequently used word. The Buddhists love it. Dharma this and dharma that. but I realised that I didn't understand what dharma was. The most noble character in the Mahabratha was Yudishtrata. He was the eldest of the Pandavas and was always trying to do the right thing. But he had a terrible affliction - gambling. Which is what the problem with dharma is I suppose. There is an element of chance, of luck. Anyways... when I looked up Dharma, as defined by the Hindus, it was what was required to maintain something - our relations with each other, and how everything has a reason for being here. The cosmic law. This is what is sorely missing in our lives. The warmth and the practise that we have indeed something which we owe to each other. Just as a flower ow...

Should people take responsibility for the lives they have been forced to live? I suppose I'm thinking of people who have lived lives which they appear to have compromised so much of themselves... if they even knew what these selves were, of course. I think that the way life rolls out these days people have no idea who they are. Or what the implications of what they are doing results in. I look at Singapore for instance and it is so hard not to tell people, well this was a lot of effort for a very stupid thing. Where do you think all of this is coming from and can it continue into the future? Worse still is that instead of stopping the machine, they work it even harder, in this sort of weird frenzy that it will all eventually work out in the long run. I suppose it doesn't have to work out in the long run - as my mom once said to me, what do you want to think so hard for? Why do you have to think so far into the future? It is kind of hard to imagine why no one else does t...

MacRitchie - the last day a walk to say goodbye Well, 24 hours and a bit later, and here we are, back in Ireland. It usually is like travelling back in time when we get to the UK, but this time, it was like travelling into the future - a dystopian future where with some very little tech, no one knew what they were doing. The incompetence and lack of caring was staggering. The poison of Brexit has definitely seeped into the attitudes of people. Who you are and what you do is now no longer anyone's concern. Apart from one person who did help, everyone else was utterly hopeless. The customer service was atrocious. There were no systems in place. In general it was a car crash in slow motion. I really dread to think what life is going to be like, or is like, for people who are incapable of helping themselves. But we are back in Belfast and Belfast is not the UK - it isn't. There is a softness and a chilledness despite the hairy position it finds itself in with Brexit. I think...

Ghin documented our everyday life... Pa and Oisin Myself and Ma, all those weeks ago Lol Contemplative Bakerzin at the bottom of our street Take 5 The end of our road Flowers... Heading home Arty shot The hall Photo stand Window Wider shot Wedding photo - Ghin loves taking blurred images Altar and bedrooms Shells in courtyard Table cloth