Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Vittorio Zecchin (1878-1947), Illustration for One Thousand and One Nights, 1914. Everyday we incarnate the self. Every day we struggle and the struggle is real. I understand this now. Everyday we fall and we ask ourselves to pick ourselves up. Someday the breaks come, some days, we just get on with it. We sleep, we get up, we get on. Somehow, it manages to happen. Somehow... it is supposed to be a nice day today. Maybe i'll head to the coast and do some photography by myself. Do some walking and thinking, so trying to get perspective as the last day of the month unwinds. Ask myself what is it that I want. Reframe things, understand how they roll out. It is so hard though, so hard, all the time having to be on the side of the people who take stands, who have thought about things and who refuse to get sucked into other people's crappy dramas. I have discovered that I have been battling with one hand tied behind my back with narcissists on a massive level. It was shocking...

Remember the time you thought you weren't beautiful? Well, you were. And still are... Yesterday a colleague told me that they had resigned. It was such a punch to the gut. I really had hoped that it wouldn't have happened, but there isn't a lot I could have done. Just sooooo frustrating when good people leave. When they are allowed to leave. Sigh. But anyway, it doesn't matter. What matters is that people find what they need in their next incarnation, their next job, the next phase of their lives. It has been a super weird week. As things return to their original - but new - outlines after Mercury Retrograde, I have become a bit unstuck. I think that I need to take a weekend away to go for a long, long walk. Some perspective to refocus. Ghin has started to write and he has a gift. It is just shocking to see this come out of nowhere. Suddenly, he starts writing and at the age of 12 you are supposed to get a glimpse of what your future will be and I think possi...

Sharing the wild wood Artwork by Astrid Sheckels, “Moonlight Feast”, more of her work and lovely things to purchase here:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/ AstridSheckelsArt?section_i d=13750243 I'm not running today. I've realised I've run every day since last week... apart from Sunday. Also I am really tired. I think having a really nice but last night on Saturday has taken its toll on me. Possibly that's why Monday seemed so long. Meanwhile the election rolls on. It is getting sillier and sillier as the Tories attempt to sling Corbyn with as much anti-semitism as they can muster. This year has gone back so quickly. This will only be a short entry because I am going to be doing my class prep after this. I share so many lovely photographs on my facebook feed... this is one of them. For the first time this winter I actually understand the seasons. I say I understood them, but I don't think I ever did. For the first time I am setting out across the hills and fal...

Our new logo/masthead/brand We now have a logo! I spent yesterday afternoon working on it. After all the ideas of gnomes and things, I did a logo, really simple, with rowan berries and leaves. It was eye catching, local and pretty. It was everything I wanted the logo to be. It said Forest and Garden School and suddenly, it was real. Here is stuff about the Rowan and how it - a local tree - was one of the 12 royal trees of Ireland. And its many different uses. ====================================== The rowan’s mythic roots go back to classical times. Greek mythology tells of how Hebe the goddess of youth, dispensed rejuvenating ambrosia to the gods from her magical chalice. When, through carelessness, she lost this cup to demons, the gods sent an eagle to recover the cup. The feathers and drops of blood which the eagle shed in the ensuing fight with the demons fell to earth, where each of them turned into a rowan tree. Hence the rowan derived the shape of its leaves from the ...

Yesterday some kids in the school told me nice things... for a start one of them said, when are you going to teach us gardening again? I really liked it when you did that. Then yesterday three of them said to me you look really nice. I like everything you are wearing. Then a new boy asked me, are you my sister's teacher? I said, yes. She said you are a great teacher. Well, what more do you need in terms of verification right? I felt so touched by it. We are never told we are doing a good job. Not really. We feel like we are swimming against the tides all the time. And then when the kids tell you this... you know you are in the right place and doing the right thing. But yesterday I had a terrible argument with Oisin. He is becoming someone I don't recognise. I think he is frustrated with life and he just wants things over and done with. I wish things could be different for him. But as a result he is just taking it out on mostly, me. And Ghin. Poor the two of us, in the ...

What a card, right? Coming just after the incarnation of the ego. We rise on the last day, entire within ourselves, able to Judge. After that journey, we are ready to be reborn again. And this rebirth takes place every single day. It takes place every minute, every second. We are told to wake up. We are told to come to awareness of ourselves. We escape the prison of our own tombs of the self and are also united in the one divine call, the one divine voice. The cross of St George, the reminder of the dragons we vanquish daily, and the angel, Michael, asking us to rally on the side of God. On the side of the divine. The centre. With his red wings and flaming hair, he is the embodiment of the Spirit, the ego. We answer to it, to be our best selves and to escape from the tombs which we have imprisoned ourselves in. The limitations we have given ourselves.  There is the male, female and the child - and they are mirrored. They are shown to each other in beauty and glory - every...

Irish Farmland birds What a wonderfully chilled weekend. If I had more of these, then, yes please. It began with a quarrel with Oisin over politics... I am now arguing with my son about politics, a proper argument with voices raised and feelings hurt... then I saw Gabriel who reassured me I wasn't going mad and not only telling me to hang in there, but I felt positively nourished and loved. After that, I did some Mailchimp, fell asleep - the saw Akhnaten. You know how somehow you don't realise why you were led somewhere to do something... and then when you are at it, you aren't quite sure what happened, and after that you are dazed and exhilarated all at the same time? That was me with Akhnaten. I couldn't tell you what about Akhnaten, or about Philip Glass... Oh yes, I also began my Curlew painting... after that we tried to go to the Anarchist Social and it was not great. So we headed to the American Bar - which is undoubtedly the best bar in Belfast. It has a...

Yesterday I went to see the Phillip Glass opera at Dundonald - it as stunning and mesmeric and it was fascinating... and also I almost fell asleep twice twoards the end... the music was Glass at his most intellectual. Just Single note, following single note layered on top of each other, danging around, like a mote of light being spun by spiders at double speed. I think this is what makes Glass so intriguing. There is something insectlike about the construction of his music. Yet at the same time it a Baroque, it is Bach, it is postmodern, it is entirely Classical... it is broken, it is the music of the pieces trying to blindly find a vividly remembered whole, and in their rearrangement and questing, they create this gorgeous texture and music. It appeals to the emotion through thought and it builds up and falls apaprt again. Over and over again... The music of waves at play, the music of the clouds scdding across a sky at dusk, the music of a sleeping foret floor, the music of the...

Odysseus and his faithful dog Please don't ever think that I never doubt. I do, in spades. I doubt plenty, especially about what the future holds for everyone. I doubt about my own future. I doubt about the decisions I make, I doubt all the time. Often I begin the day's blog in doubt, and usually, by the first five minutes, these doubts have been erased and I feel much better. Having gotten them out, I see how stupid they are, and then I erase the writing and rewrite the more positive entry. This blog helps me then to right my ship. It helps to remind me of all the good things in life which have come before, and then which will come later. It helps to remind me that there are peaks and troughs and you know, these things are ok. I will weather the storms. Like Odysseus. We have almost come to the end of Odysseus. He is now back in his home - Ithaca and the manner of his entry is very different. It sounds like Ithaca is the life between death and this life... Odysseus ...

My new cover photo Yesterday I went to see Anthony and Mairead. It is always fun talking to Anthony cos you never know what crazy thing he's gonna come up with. He's always doing something. Like helping to plan a bird survey for the Orkneys. Or showing OAPs around Victoria Park. You know, anything... the reason I went to see him is because Ghin has asked for him to be his godparent. We went through a super long list of people and Anthony's was the only name that was for him for our selection of blokes. Then for a godmother - Ruth, his piano teacher. So off I went to just check things out. I see Anthony about six times a year, just to catch up on things and shoot the breeze. The next drop in will be for Christmas when I bring chocolate. Last year he went to Vietnam... this year... we were talking about how the air quality in Hanoi is horrible. So his daughter then moved to the coast. I said, Asia's fucked. I mean it really really is. It must have been worse than E...

Peewit - peewit tick-a-tick-a-tick. Still loads to do. I have decided that these drawings take at least three days to do Drawing keeps me sane... Slowly understanding how to do feathers, the work is, as yet unfinished... while lapwings like short sward and nesting in open places because they can see predators coming it makes for super bring backgrounds... so I haven't figured out what to do with the background as yet...  only hard boiled birders would understand that this lack of aesthetics is the truth, whereas most people would look at it and say - meh... maybe I could add some explaination along with it... Yeah, maybe I will. This will be going towards the school's raffle... I know that I say this all the time and I need to remind myself about it, because it is not conventional and it is not typical and it can seem and it is an unhill task... but it is some fecking life...

Only too late I realise the Tarot cards are the journey of the birth of the ego. The self. I have also learned that the birth of the self is relentless. Every minute of every day, we are fighting to do this - to give birth to this ego. The task is near impossible, but if we are to succeed, we are to strive, constantly, like the heavy clubs that we carry. We are just on a path which is inescapable and we have no choice. Not really, if we want to make the most of our time here. Everyday, we read the Calendar of the Soul. Note it is the Soul, not the Spirit, because the Soul is what we have to help bring our spirit here... and everyday, we have a new reading which once again has us work on the Self - the Ego. Think about it.  So, this card... ugh it is almost as if I have to go all the way back and redo my cards again - the card's central symbol, well there are two - the child, naked child, riding the horse and the Sun. The Sun is the symbol of the Spirit. As well as the ...

My first gif ever!!! I didn't realise I could do this How fitting, the transit of Mercury! Back on the horse again yesterday and I did loads of admin in the afternoon. Just making sure that everything is in place. Booking things, etc. I have also started speaking in a softer voice. I really like it. The strident loudness which characterised my speaking is now gone. Perhaps I HAD to loose my voice to find it.  We had pizza last night, as usual - the boys had that in front of the fire, and I was very sad when I had to leave Ma's house. One day, one day, I reminded myself. It is Wednesday... I'm going running later on. Back to running, which is such a relief. It has been tough not running, but it had to be done. I couldn't jeopardise it. The British media. The everything media. When Armageddon hits they are going to be so surprised. Everyone talks about how Andrew was in a bubble. They are ALL in a bubble. They are ALL there. Obsessed narcissists, al...

Our shame and greed When history comes to be written about the late 20th and early 21st century they will talk about our idiocy. How we believed we could consume the planet forever, like some kind of a delusion. They will talk about how we worshiped celebrity and titles and money, the same way in which the Pharaohs and Caesars were worshiped. They will talk about the return to slavery and the moral depravity with which human being conducted themselves. They will talk about our vanity. Our emptiness. Our vacuousness. They will realise that having an education - so-called - does not improve our intelligence and certainly does nothing for our souls. They will talk about this static, rigid idea of what science was - a dead thing concerned with dead things. How limited we were. They will talk about our achievements and say how futile they were as we continued to destroy the planet and cut the legs from beneath ourselves. How for one shining moment we had the chance to make things diffe...

I know I am loved Yesterday's Nice Things: Being with the boys. Cooking. Being taken care of at the Christian Community. Knowing I am loved. Feeling gratitude. Yesterday began with some writing, some blogging. I did some laundry - finally caught up! - and then made breakfast for Oisin. Sent him to karate then went to get Ghin at Cash's. At the Christian Community, I served and received lots of TLC from Ava and Ben - they gave me a homeopathic remedy, sage tea and some Helen's Bay honest - truly amazing stuff. I also go a Master Tonic from Ruth which I had been sipping. My voice which had been slowly returning suddenly started to come back at speed. But more importantly, the phlegm and throat which had been seized up was getting looser and I found the pain in the throat had disappeared. It had all gone by the evening as i continued to drink the tea, have the honey and remedy myself with the Pyrites 3x. All the time while sipping Master Tonic and the Vit C. I have no...

You lookin at me? Well, today I spent it taxing. Let's see. FIRST I sent Oisin to Lagan, then I went to Holywood to clean the classroom. Then I sent Ghin to circus school - not before we had lunch at Yardbird (I miss Nick's Warehouse) - then I fell asleep in the car... was summoned back to Barnett's Road by Oisin to collect him and drop him off to circus school, then we got dinner - sorta, around 3.30 at KFC, sent Oisin back to circus school, sent Ghin home to get the Xbox, went to Bangor, went BACK to circus school for Oisin and then finally landed home. Yes, that was LITERALLY my Saturday. It was an unusual one, but you know, I have said to myself, if I don't taxi them now, when am I going to taxi them in the future. Also I am feeling SO MUCH BETTER as we emerge from Mercury in retrograde.... Ghin is the son I spent the most time eating with all over Northern Ireland We went to Yardbird because we knew it was going to be fast... honestly, it was the SAME ...

I love my classroom - like actually LOVE it. SOMEONE took my class yesterday and did a genius thing with it Look at those shrooms - pure etheric energy From the papyrus of Ani Our art table... also research table It makes me so happy to be able to give the students in the class this taste of reality... and beauty... Reality never used to be about what we see before us, but it has become not only what we see before us, but also, what we have to see before us. Our school is about the gorgeousness of life. And why? Why be gorgeous, because then, you fall in love right?  Today, as I was cleaning the classroom, I was thinking about ... btw... why clean the classroom on your own because, this: When we move, when anything moved, we create unseen ripples, unseen movements. Look I don't have the time to explain it to you - just look it up, ok. Our movements and emotions, everything that moves, has a consequence. If you move with love, you beget love....