Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

The full moon is working its way through Ghin and myself. After the crazy week which has just passed, literally around one week ago our lives were changed utterly, I feel like my body is battered and bruised. The emotional and mental, not to mention spiritual upheaval, has resulted in the feeling of aches and pains all over the body. I am bereft and exhausted and I can't think straight. But I have no choice. I realise that over the next four months or so I'm going to have to drag my entire four bodies through the motions to get things done. And I am quite bad at this.  But I have no choice. Like I said. Sorrows bring forth, as Blake said. I feel really odd now... a bit woozy. Like things are not real. But they are. They really are real. I have to continue till 3 pm today. I will have to let the school know. Things have very much settled here with Ghin. He has decided on a schedule and it gives me peace. We are just getting on with it. The BOTH of us are exhausted. The BOTH of u...

 am here to live my best life and it begins now. So here I put my heart on the line and I begin planning once again. So much has taken place over the past few months that I don't know if I'm coming or going. Bur what really, really need to do is just blast through everything. Blast through the things which I have decided to do. Tackle them. Bring them to the wonderful reality of my life.  So Health     P h ysical - diet, running and stretching     Creative - Writing, art and music Family and Friends The Boys     Oisin: Checking in     Ghin: Scheduling School     Class Planning     CCEA Forest School     Publicity     Planning and execution     Creating Forest School Office Divorce     Schedule House and Garden     Cleaning: Hoover and washing     Laundry     Shopping and cooking     Organising     Plan new Garden ====...

Today I cried at the service. I wasn't expecting to but Ben's sermon really got to me. It was about endings and beginnings. How even as the leaves fall from the trees and the plants fade, there is life, there is beauty. That even as the seedheads turn brown, the seeds fall to the ground to plant new life there. I was in bits. I thought of Oisin and Ghin and I thought of my own life. School, Forest School. The difficulties. How I am now moving forward and even though it feels tough, it is tough. I can walk through and make it through. It was learning. Ghin will now be with me from Monday through to Wednesday and then with Peter on Thursday and Friday then every alternate weekend. I have asked him to promise me that he will let me know if plans change in time and to let me know if ever he needed to help out. And that's it. The final piece. After surrender comes freedom. Liberation. After surrender comes acceptance and life. I am free. I think that was why I was crying. I was ...

I haven't combed my hair now for four days... literally... I do not feel sorry for myself. It is not something I do really. I have other ranges of emotions, except that one. It is an illogical emotion and self pity is not something which I have understood. In any case, it is a waste of time. But I WAS very tired and I didn't even know how tired I was until I actually came home, had dinner and then fell asleep. At 7, which is not unusual, but then I got up at 1 and discovered I had a million things to do. It is fine though. It will be fine. Everything will be fine. I got up and started clearing the dining table. It has been so nice really, cleaning everything up. I have decided that I'm going to have a Forest School workshop in the garage. There I will do all my weird and wonderful Forest School experiments. I sorted through a million things and then phoned Ma. It was good to talk to her. I said that if I hadn't had her support over the years I would have ended up either...

People ask me what the weather was like. It is the most common question I get. What was the weather like? Not what is their system of governance? The types of plants? Are the women beautiful? Do they have shopping centres. No. What was the weather like. So, let's talk about the weather. The weather is - soft. That is what the weather is like. But it is warm. Warm and soft. It is like being in a warm soup all the time. The sun would shine and the mist would filter the straight edges of shadows and cast them as gentle blurs on the ground. It was never too cold - at night perhaps, the little nip - making you wear a shawl or a light coat. It rained - regularly. Three or four times a week. But not enough that it would make you think, I wish there was less rain. The rivulets and streams ran silver after each shower, tinkling and gushing, conversations after exhaustion. Plenitude. It exuded from every crevice. The bounty of the land, a new land. The soil and the sun and the silky light. A...

Each morning when I get up, here is Panger Ban. My lovely companion. So elegant and delightful. So beautiful. Constant. Annoying. Persistent. The days are drawing in. It is now dark when I awake at 4 am, 5 am, 6 am. This week I am starting to try and write every morning again. Once again I am trying - always trying, never stopping, never giving up. Yesterday Ghin came home from East Anglia. He was crying, feeling the change in everything. Maybe I won't go to Lagan he told me. I rubbed his back to steady him. There has been so much change. I told him to go and have a wash and that we would talk about it later. Later he lay in bed with me and we talked about Oisin and his adventure in Norwich. Well, what is Norwich like, I asked. It is really really nice. It's peaceful and very busy. What about his accommodation? Oh it's really nice too. The outside is shabby but the inside is really posh and high quality. And all those English people? Oh that was the weirdest thi...

A selection of photos from across the years... I have literally done four loads of laundry - two clothes, one sheets, one cloths from school. And I have literally spent the last six hours sorting the house and my life out. The good news is that everything has indeed be sorted out. My brain is less a plate of scrambled eggs and more a gelatinous, but structured, albeit wobbling, custard. I organised Forest School stuff, took a look at finances, set up Oisin's £35 per week - which means £210 extra per month... hmmm... dunno how this is sustainable this added £210... must take a look at the wider finances this means, HOWEVER, it does mean I am spending a lot LESS here for food - which means I'd say it all balances out I'd say.  I'd say yeah. I would spend £35 on Oisin per week. Easy. Between food and such - but I've also given him over £3000 and he has another £3000 - so it's all good. I think he is also going to try and get a job. The work of children. So literall...

Look to this day: For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course Lie all the verities and realities of your existence. The bliss of growth, The glory of action, The splendour of achievement, Are but experiences of time. For yesterday is but a dream And tomorrow is only a vision; And today well-lived, makes Yesterday a dream of happiness  And every tomorrow a vision of hope.  Look well, therefore, to this day; Such is the salutation of the ever-new dawn! - Kalidasa, 4th century Indian writer

Which mother has not had the baleful experience of wishing the could do something after their child has gone to bed and instead found themselves sitting on the sofa flipping the TV, drifting from one pointless programme to another. Or perhaps falling asleep not only just before their child, but also before they have gone to bed? The number of times I have put Ghin down to bed and started reading to him, to only just drift off mid sentence... to the point that one day he said to me, it's ok Mom. You don't have to read to me. And Ghin, is a born writer. So go figure. It is strange being a woman and mother in this age. Previously as Betty Freidan wrote, there was the problem with no name - the dissatisfaction with a life lived for another. And in truth we may have a choice in this - however, I have to tell you, the choice when I weighed it all up, was for me to go, no, I can't do this work - I will have to look after my sons. And that was the choice. It was the same choice as ...

2015 I have been going over my blog posts for he past few years. They began as an Oh I wonder what I was doing in 2008 and ended up with a sense of tremendous achievement. I did this. I did THIS.  All too often I don't allow myself to feel the success. For many reasons. Well, for one,  In don't feel I have ever done much. But really, let me be clear about this. i have done LOADS. I did not do it either by stepping on the back of an underpaid woman. In fact quite often I was the underpaid woman. I took the underpaying because there were other rewards involved. Like being with my sons. Being a Steiner teacher. Having those holidays. Today I am going to celebrate my many many achievements. I am going to bask in that glory. The other thing as well is I fear that if I am too confident of the things which I have people get upset with them. People do not like people who are content with their lives. It is very strange. It is a lesson I have had to learn. But today - today I will cele...

How anyone is supposed to navigate this new GUI without known HTML is beyond me. It is almost as if they have decided to make this platform so shit that it will be shut down. It is a bit worrying.  The process is a slow one. It is collecting the oak gall. Collecting the rust. Mixing the ink, getting the eggs. Cutting the stick. To put it on paper. An onerous, tedious process which involves skill and knowledge every step of the way. It means human beings being part of the natural world to create something beautiful. Looking at what I did yesterday, I cannot but help feel a sense of fulfillment and achievement. I learned something new, I did something new. I made something I had never done before. I create beauty from the raw ingredients of the Earth. It was the human being being present.  It will always, ALWAYS - be nothing less than a miracle that we are here. I do not know how nor why nor if there is indeed a higher intelligence, but I will never stop being in lo...

Recomposing the former self. All too often, when women hav finished the onerous task of child rearing - which can take up to 20 years - they are then left with - not a lot. Many of us would have never had careers - never had jobs. Or if we did have jobs we would have prioritised our children. We would have willingly been there for the being we said we would take responsibility for and take the responsibility quite seriously.  For myself, that has been catalogued in over 50 journals and this blog. The daily routines, the holding that line, the decisions to perhaps not jump off the side of a cliff, to show some kind of courage in the face of a terrible breakdown in a marriage, the putting aside one's personal needs until the task has been complete. Men never face this. During this time, Peter has done the following things: spent the best part of this marriage traveling the planet in the explicit aim of saving it, attended meditation sessions three ...

We are just passing in and out of each other's lives. Ships drifting about. Phases of the moon. Arrivals and departures. No matter how fixed something may seem it is never to be taken for granted. Something which seemed to be an endless responsibility has now disappeared. And so it is with Oisin. Oisin, my son. My son who has now move beyond the borders of my land - catapulted beyond the sphere of our influence. Who has now gone on to be his own orbit, gone now, to discover the new things.  My Oisin. All the way into the other side of the world. My darling, wonderful Oisin who has always and always been my helper, assistant, my cheerful smile. My Oisin who has been my ballast. And I have the joy of knowing that for all of the time he was here, I spent all the time I possibly could. That I made sure that I served that time we had to the fullest and greatest of my ability - and now he has walked past that gate, past the door and now he is no longer mine.  Gone. Disap...

The boys So, Tuesday started off quite mental. I didn't sleep the entire night on account of feeling sad that Oisin was leaving. I facetimed my mom and had an old fashioned cry and just said how at least I knew I spent every possible moment with him that i could before he left. It was like I now cashed in my chips and had zero regrets about not having done that. Time is the one thing we cannot buy.  Then as i stumbled to the bathroom I asked Ghin, did you sleep well? And he said, no. Oh I said, and then later when I saw him down stairs, asked why didn't you sleep well. I had a fever and coughed all night. Usually this is a signal for just sleeping and being ok - but in the age of Covid all kinds of other things which would add to stress were added. LIKE booking for the test. And informing everyone. And then on top of that Peter telling us we should leave in order to stop him from catching whatever Ghin has... especially if it is Covid. He finally managed to get the test - the s...

2008 An attempt was made. An attempt made several times. The run up and the jump - almost, almost but not quite. The fear of failure which yanked back, like a chain around the neck of a dog, the sudden jerk, a noose sideways, to never quite strangle, but never quite let go - the binding of life. Attempts made over and over and over again, and never quite falling, but not taking off either. That was life. Life here. Sitting on the porch, watching the world go by. Watching the mother with the stroller and the old man, double bent, the boys passing in slouches, the dads on their phones, barely here, or even there. The frustration of never quite making it. The sensation that life was not meant to be like this, but then not knowing what it was meant to be like either. The feeling of never catching the wind in the sails, the sense of concrete filling your shoes. I feel sorry you know. I feel sorry for those people. The ones which thought that they had gotten away with it. Watching Netflix is...

Me telling the story of Fafnir and Sigurd Oisin is about to leave for England. For someone about to do that he seems very calm. I wonder if he has had his accommodation sorted yet. I am up here but it is mostly because I got up anyways. At 3 am. I know I will crash later today, but cannot. It was good having last year relatively easy. I know now that it saved my life, just having taken the half day and having the Forest School. It has really helped. What is so interesting is that our business model and plans after everything... it was just trashed. Effectively. We just went, fuck it, after looking long and hard at all the different options and then went for the option we had never prepared for. Having the Quarries helped of course, but we were supposed to be doing this in schools. It has worked out well though. I have calculated that if we keep this up - IF - I certainly will have paid the insurance, which isn't as bad as I thought it would be, by the end of this month. Word on the...

Ghin juggling chestnuts So we have held our second forest school session with 7 children. We have had an offer of a volunteer and we have now seen 9 children. It is a wonderful experience being in such beautiful place with all the gorgeous greens and golds of autumn slowly coming through.  My god I realise how tired I was last night... This morning I felt loads better. It was so strange being unable to articulate anything. Ma and Jac are feeling loads better and Pa seems fine as well. I need to do the accounts for the days...  And we have been selected by the Bangor Council for a visit on Tuesday. So that's going to be pretty cool.  It has taken all my willpower to not respond to stupidity in every form. And to remind myself that there are no stupid people. We are all the same as Muhammad once said. I can see the attraction of Islam really. What it was trying to aim for. Right it is TIME to sort things out now. The week in front of us... I also have the Main Lesson to thi...

It has been more than a bit mental this week. I have been flat out doing stuff and now I am completely, more or less exhausted. I will be heading to bed soon. I've had such an incredible week. One thing following the other. We have laughed and schemed and plotted and planned and sometimes things just come true. Working with Jonathan is the most straightforward thing ever. We have split tasks and shred the load. I need to go to bed. I literally can't string a sentence together.  It is now the end of Friday. What a week this has been. I have been so busy trying to get Elements started ... New beginnings...

We had such a great Forest School session yesterday. I felt so fulfilled after the afternoon. It was one of those days that say if nothing else happened it would still be good, right? If everyone else thought it was crap, I absolutely loved it. I've been thinking that maybe... just maybe we could have like a little diary which the kids could keep... a woodlands diary about what they got up to. I could order it on Hope or something or use recycled papers... it would be sooo sooo cool. I have a few hours to do a couple of things. But I think that the kids worked so so hard this week. It was really something else. I must go in tomorrow to sort things out in the classroom before anything else happened. I cannot concentrate at all. I have so much to do. This morning I was so tired and delighted after the session I could not believe how well it all went. Well I don't want to say anything anymore, except I need to do a few things for everyone... But here is an old photo from a long ti...

Shallow graves... these are the scrapes we have dug for ourselves. The places which are thinned out. Where we will be driven to practise our dark knowledge. The world has had enough of the witch craft, the bloody knowledge of women. We must now fit in. We must now acquiesce. We must now bow down our heads. We must now stay silent. Here we must live. My heart, if I had one, would break. They stripped the planet and felled the trees... and now... now they are coming for the last of us. Now they are coming for the most frightening thing they can see. They are coming for me. In the last seconds of the hour, this hour, I strive to put something down. Something which will make me feel better. Doubtlessly, make me feel better. I did not want it to end like this, but I have no say in the matter. They had a choice and this is what they chose. I now stand aside, in shame. In sorrow and in shame. I can't do this anymore. I will not be allowed to do this any longer. Each second that passes is ...

Here i am, even I have nothing today. But I have forgotten. Today... today will be the first paid Forest School day. Today, today I am here. I said I would give it two years and here we are... so it is three years actually. I said two years from the day I spent one penny on it - which is 1 September.  Along the way we collect things. I must write the lesson plan after this. Yesterday Oisin told me that he probably had £6,000 - the money he had earned, the money he was given and the money I had saved for him over the years. £6,000. That's for him now. That is his. That is a real investment he said. I could make some real money from that. So he will now nurse it and then ... do something with it. In any case, he has a cushion if he ever needs something. This is his to see him through a few rainy days. It will be there for him to break into. I am sending him off with some degree of reassurance. My dearest darling boy. I am holding you close to my heart as I send you off. I am holding ...

It has been a busy day... one things after the other. It is now 7 pm and no... it is 8.45 pm. Time has indeed flown. I will write my last entry for today... but I want to do it warm instead... and also after I have washed the bloody dishes. Which I have done now and.... breathe. It is almost time for bed. Tomorrow will be Forest School. It is all go. And all good. After the tripping set back from last week... you know the enormity of the entire year is not upon me. For some reason I don't feel this awful burden of the next nine months before me. I couldn't not tell you why? Perhaps you don't feel like that when it is all jungle before all... everything is slash and burn. Everything this just five cm from your face and nothing is what it seems. So trying to see that far... if you can't see that far you don't know what is before you. Today was good though. Today I wrote, went for my run, did housework, did school, came home and got the phone and the elements done... i...

It has been a strange old time. Very strange. Very old.  I feel the strange tug and pull of the mountains falling over me. I feel the strange happinesses break like a ripened pomegranate. The jewels that it holds, and the nothingness of the words with which to bring them alive. I am bereft and filled. Contentment is mine. I daren't go too near that inside part. The inside part is too soft. It cannot drawback for it is already on the inside and it cannot hide for it was hidden. I have never dared to go to the inside part, and so I will always fail.  I have never dared to imagine the sad and the wonderful and the truly pained. I have never dared that. It seemed too much. Too momentous. The truth of our life here is too much, too terrible. Hence, the inside part. The inside part which we can never go to. The inside part which breaks up and flies away. The inside part which brings me to the horrors of the never not knowing. It is a strange thing to be able to walk over a burning b...

I am returning to the simple things. Returning to what I know. I am returning to the beginning. Of me standing at a bus stop, reading. Hot afternoon, the tarmac heating the soles of the feet, the thin rubber making no difference at all. The rain is heaviest and then it disappears, as if nothing was. I am standing there, waiting. Waiting for almost 45 minutes. Then three of them show up. I am at the beginning. I am book in hand and I am reading, Reading through it all. I am not caring. I have disappeared. I have gone somewhere else. Another place. Entered the drift of someone else's simoom and I have been given to the world. I am at the beginning. I am content. It is such a strange word, content. To be full. Contained. To be with something... with... what?  Content.  Once there was just enough of content. Once upon a time. The words on a page were magical. They were so magical that they were turned into religion. And now they are everywhere. They are a dime. They are too simple...

So after I began it in abject misery and wondering what it was all about, I have now felt amazed at what I did achieve today. The four hour long marathon planning session, cooking lunch and dinner, the weekly shop, planning school, doing all the laundry and getting a short nap... also this is my fourth blog post... oh yes doing elements PR, etc, etc. Being with history is what gives me most comfort. It is where I draw my calm and tranquility. Because people are running around now talking shite all the time and when I am with history, I feel tremendously calm. It is like being clairvoyant because you know what happens and better than being clairvoyant because it is so far away it has nothing to do with me.  And then looking at the cosmos, the stars, etc makes me feel calm too because I see my place in things. It is sweating the small stuff. It is my religion, my faith. It gives me the same kind of comfort. It has been such a difficult time. At first because of the crazy week which ...