Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

It starts the same every year. The feeling is overwhelming. This insurmountable PILE of things we need to get through. And then fear of being unable to deliver it and then, finally, finally coming to the end of the year and getting there. Finally arriving at the finish line. Except that there WAS no finish line this year, right? Be thankful for the little things we are told. Yes, so I am thankful for what we have here... Pa is still in hospital. Ma accompanies him everyday. I feel so awful I can't be there. Well I am just going to stop calling because no one is ever able to pick up. So... if they need me they can call me. I feel like such an awful imposition when I call them.  People are severed from each other. In the United States where the gulf is the worst, the tipping over to violence is almost complete. Yesterday a man was shot in the street. The unrest against the government's instruction against the coronavirus grows. People are just more and more skeptical about the in...

It has been a strange week just past. With Pa in hospital, School starting up once again and then, the chaos, no doubt that Covid will bring. I have to say I was very uncomfortable meeting an ex-colleague recently when I said that the lockdown was terrible for abused women, to hear back, well the lockdown was bad for SOME people but for most it was alright. Just with that one statement my opinion on who this was changed. I was so so so so angry. But only later. Before that I was shocked. Appalled. That someone could just shrug their shoulder for a disease that actually made things worse for the least involved people - women and children - that was unacceptable. So, you know... but I am just going to be grown up and not treat someone the way I think they deserve. However, honestly... where does one draw the line you know? Not like Donald Trump evil but pretty appalling still. Oh yes, that's the other thing, to not be able to join the dots. Monsters do not arise from nowhere. Monster...

I always start off skeptical. Convince me, is my default position. Tell me something which will make me believe the thing which you are saying. If it doesn't work, then I remain skeptical. That is the worst thing that could happen. Otherwise, I am all in. And when I am all in, I am all in... I have to say that there are very few times in my life where I have every been all in. My sons. The arrival of my sons. The few times I fell in love. Moving to Ireland. Finally getting divorced. Being all in is not without its consequences, but once you are all in, you say to yourself, I will take those consequences. I'll take those chances. And then you stand there, in the blast furnace of choice and take what comes.  I promise you, it all eventually comes to an end. Even having sons. One day they WILL grow up and they will move on. It is one of the most bittersweet things in your life. I have had an incalculable number of people tell me, hey your sons are awesome. I think I ki...

Super shocking weather Anthony clearing the scrub Yu Go We have had such a blast over the past few weeks... but yesterday we had a massive fright with Pa again. He had been warded with what appeared to be a gallstone. After a few hours of solid worrying they did a procedure and apparently he is now feeling better. It seems to be the annual scare. Pa doesn't really care about his health. He thinks medication is health. He thinks that it is ok to eat whatever he wants and then medication will solve it. He kind of grew up in that Jetson generation, the Tomorrow World generation when everyone believed that life was without consequence because one day everything, all our problems will be solved. The body is not something you looked after but did things to. And if it experienced negative side effects then you would go on to find some 'cure'. This idea of the 'cure' is actually only supposed to help the body return to equilibrium, not keep it there. The keeping it there is...

Well, here we go. We start everything next week and I'm starting to do that. Yesterday I had my taste of working full days and it felt good. I did the laundry, visit Gabriel, cooked two lunches and did loads for the school and Forest School. It has been very very busy. I might have to buy a mask at the refill quarter this come some day.  I refuse to wear it the entire day because I find that I get panic attacks when they are on for too long. I have noticed this. When I had to do it recently... why was this? Yes the hairdressers, I found myself getting very anxious. Recently I have found that I am not such a bad person after all. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I do think I am someone who is terrible and no one really likes me. I have discovered that actually some people DO like me, and the people I had issues with, were people who were maybe not so nice after all. It is such a relief. To have everything vindicated in a very short space of time - like two days. I h...

Find your ikagi Prepare yourself for mornings Avoid distractions after you wake up Wake up consistently Go easy on yourself! Practice voluntary hardship Find an accountability partner Remind yourself of death Practise negative visualisation every morning Appreciate your life ==================================== I spent most of this morning cleaning the house - well doing the laundry. The one thing left is to hoover the place. I have resigned myself to having no real free time over the next two years. I reckon that makes up for the plenty boring life I led over the past eight ones. I mean relatively in that I didn't get involved in anything apart from the school and some may say that is more than enough. I've decided that routine now will be get up and write and before I go to bed write - but in my journal. As everything kicks in and comes to fruition, it will be what will be. I feel not vindicated nor fulfilled... but something in between which is warm pleasant and fuzzy. After...

Well it has been a week and a half and it still isn't over yet. See, even if it doesn't work, it won't matter because I tried. And that's all that matters now. We have nothing to lose. The fitness levels are definitely improving and while i have not lost 8 kg I definitely have lost SOMETHING. Whatever it is, it is heading in the right direction. So I'm pleased about that. And I have also started with the class registration and there is now more new stories afoot here.  I have always wanted to bring anthroposophy to a wider audiences - it's impulse at least and I am so happy I am starting to do that. Today I had recogition at Helen's Bay - someone asked me - are you from Elements Forest School? And I was so surprised I said, Yes! They told me, when do your sessions start? I said from Tuesday actually. Have a look on the website. We are only allowed 12 children so the places are limited. And she was I have to take a look at that at once. I think people are hap...

I have to write first thing to empty the head out. Each step I take to the finality of the separation is one which I am filled with grief with for now. But I must not pretend that I am anything but sad about it. Even if I know it must happen. It is, as I said to my mom, the untransformed potential. You just married the wrong man, my mom said. And also, you must have owed him something in a past life. Well I said, as far as I am concerned I'm quits. He owes me nothing and I do not want to encounter him again ever in this life or any more lives. Your journeys of fate are at an end. This is where it ends. So there's that. Then there's the Forest School. And then there is real School. And all those things which it brings in tow. And there is the garden and the everything else. And there is just my menopause which is taking on the shape of this weird new body which I am now moulding bit by bit. Ah the sun is out... Of course there are always he boys. Alwa...

Well what a week this is turning out to be. I have never been so nervous in my entire life. Not when I left for England, not when I left for Ireland. Never. NEVER NEVER NEVER. Between Oisin going to a place I have never been before embarking entirely on his own adventure and myself returning back to school - still an unknown quantity - and starting Forest School - signing of the lease takes place this week, I am all pins and needles. And just crazy mad. ================ It is the last few months of this life. This life in this house. As I cleaned it over the last few weeks, I made sure I did it with love and thanked it for looking after us. This beautiful house, so simple and kind and this place which gave us shelter. Let my sons grow up. The many tears and peals of laughter which took place. The hopes and dreams, the disappointments. The potential which was never fulfilled. The stillborn love which never grew between Peter and myself. I recalled all of this and I gave thanks for what ...

Yes it short and blue again So... we have now had the madness of the A levels. And soon we will have the same madness of the O levels. It seems hard to believe that in this day and age people who made those stupid decisions thought that could get away with it. I also cannot believe that they came up to blame the algorithm. As if the algorithm was some kind of god. Who programmed the bloody algorithm? It was you you idiot. So last week passed very swiftly. It has been such a roller coaster of things taking place. From the madness of the A levels to the news that schools are now all going to reopen at the same time once again. I don't care, I really don't care about the virus but the kind of virus it is and how deadly it is keeps changing. I cannot understand how people are so stupid. Honestly.  I am writing because... well, actually I am now four posts behind. It has been a strange week. I need to do loads and feeling the pressure of getting loads done once again. Right.  Last ...

It has been a very busy busy couple of weeks. The top line news is that Oisin is going to East Anglia to do his beloved Finance and Management. It is something which he has always wanted to do ever since he was small - he has always been interested in money - and who am I to stop him? He spent most of the lockdown trading on the Forex and stockmarkets and made a bit of money. I can't wait for him to start learning things which he has always wanted to. It was kinda like me and Eng Lit. So the debacle about the grades barely affects me because Oisin is going to be going to university to a course he really wanted to do to. It is all absolutely perfect.  The universe intervened for him to get into the course he wanted to go in. I am sooooo pleased for him. Honestly, it could not have worked out better. I told him look Oisin, you have many options and all of them a good - AND I said, you have a family that loves you and will support you 100% in whatever you do. We just can't wait Oi...

There is no doubt that we are now living through the age of stupid now. No doubt. It seems to be coming to some sort of culmination. Those who 'get it' are the ones who are tooling up for the collapse of society. They are equipping themselves with practical things and discovering that it is quite nice being empowered to do things. Then there are complete idiots. The ones who just drink the Kool Aid, as they say. The ones which have just swallowed the lie hook, line and sinker. It has nothing to do with intelligence but rather values. If you are raised with values which enable you to use your intelligence to get to the top of the pyramid and make the most of your time there, how the Earth and everyone else is doing around you matters little or nothing at all. The people in the first category tend to me more thoughtful, mostly driven by empathy. The people in the second group, on the whole, lack empathy. If you have no empathy then you can blind yourself to the suffering of the w...

It is a clammy August morning. The air is cool, like the coolness of Cameron Highlands when I was a child. Before they made it into a casino. Imagine. They destroyed a rainforest for a casino. We really are living, have lived in the end times. Those of us who make it out of this place alive, we will look back at the late 20th century and congratulate ourselves on how we saved the planet and survived this madness. That is the one choice. The other choice is that we end up, all end up like the Lebanon. A failed not just state, but country.  But I wanted to write a little bit about the sense of self. Which is what has happened with this madness, the pandemic. I don't know why I didn't understand this earlier. The reason why people are so awful to each other is because they no longer have the higher senses and this is because the lower senses have not been nurtured enough.  The different senses are all interrelated. The sense of touch has to do with the sense of ego, b...

  Last week was a momentous week. It started out with a visit to The Quarries. Being there for the very first time was just so strange. It was as if I had stepped into a different world - either backwards or forwards in time. It was what it used to be and where we should be heading. There was a gentleness tinged with wisdom and the elementals were off the scale. I think the last time I was in a place which was managed with that kind of care and understanding was in Glenstall Abbey. That moss covered beauty which had ripened over the course of time. Almost hidden from view, but delicately cared for. I was blown away. This, here, this is going to be where we could put down roots? I walked through a new forest of ash, alder and birch. There was a fruit forest. There was a scrape. There were little hides. There were bridged that went over ditches. Everything was singing to me. Even the birds. We must be here, this is where we are meant to be. Monday was followed swiftly by Tuesday and ...