Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Despite the sun being back I have just been indoors. But I'm going to start being outdoors now. I couldn't write yesterday because I had just felt so fed up with everything. Then I met the girls for the moon and felt instantly better.  So I'm feeling good now. It has now week two of Lent and after the period, I'm feeling sooo much better. Also not drinking has has been beneficial. I now know that I can do this. It is going to be very easy. So I'm going to add no sugar and fasting during the day to this. I will drink water and have the slippery elm mix for lunch as well and have fruits, but nothing else. In fact that is EXACTLY what my body is telling me I need. This week I'm going to run too - everyday. I'll start today after putting this entry into the blog site. And I will return to blogging and writing everyday. It is so beautiful. I've forgotten how beautiful the world is. Everything comes to life again. Watched American Gods and am inspired to keep ...

It has been a month of crazy. I cannot even begin to describe it. From despair, elation, insight, apathy, annoyance, anger, frustration, peace, surrender, embracement, wonder, disgust... I went through it all. And I am now back to normal again. I have decided that the formula I am going to have to take, probably for the rest of the year is, morning a mix of carageen, slippery elm, linseed and chia, and honey. That's for first thing. I also will have to take magnesium, linseed oil, Spatone with Vit C and the Vogel supplements for menopause. From taking nothing at all to taking this all the time. It is old age and it is worth it. It keeps the crazy and the exhaustion from the door. It makes me feel halfway normal. I don't know what it is, but it just works. And I'm happy enough with it. I have also not had a drink for almost two weeks and it feels like I never want another glass of anything. The boys are keeping me right - we are all keeping each other right. Looking out for ...

So im lying on the sofa writing because i cant sit up. I have never in all my days felt so incapacitated. It feels like i have the flu without having the flu. Honestly it is the worst thing ever. I think i have some memory of it being this bad but maybe age and all means god it is worse.  I literally cannot think. Ithink im going to do some active downtime.

Yesterday was beautiful. It really was. It felt like spring was finally here and that reunification I felt in the morning continued through the day. I sat by Belfast Lough and it felt like I was doing it for the first time. The air felt like it had texture, it moved against my skin, the light swam on it, the birds, oystercatchers and gulls tugged and sailed in its shine, and I sat by the glancing waves and everything was born once more. What was it? The calling and calling of the Earth to reawaken. I would never tire of this, not for another million lifetimes. This was why I returned after each death - I was in love with this place. I would always be. It was busy for a Sunday morning, but then, it was the first nice day in almost a week.  I got home and the boys were still sleeping. I completed the parcel to Natasa and then began cooking lunch. Knocking about the kitchen, tracing the steps to make a roast chicken. I am getting good at this, after twenty years of making a roast. It ...

Yesterday I felt myself return again for the first time. I had spent the day cleaning the house, doing the laundry, writing and drawing and then the boys came home. I made dinner and went to bed early. In between the doing I was so tired, but for the first time, clear headed in a way I would have believe possible. I wrote in the journal and saw not the self I was struggling towards, but my old self returning. Old, but new - the recognised parts of myself returning. I never felt happier.  This is the common scoter. I drew this for a friend - i'm sending a parcel today. This series of drawings is a series which I have been experimenting with pencil and pastel - complete different from water colour and the colour pencil I've been doing with the monthly posters. I will get started on the Golden Fleece/Aries today. I have the central motif in mind - the Golden Ram. The Age of the Ram is an ancient one - the first Age, possibly, as remembered by the Greeks/ Babylonian...

It was good today - did laundry and hoovered house and changed the bathroom mats and cleaned the bathroom. Finally. Then went to take Gabriel for a shop and after that had some lunch. Then I felt really really tired and had an hour nap. Honestly I cannot believe how rotten the weather is. I feel like building a fire in the actual house. It is that cold and wet and windy. Just awful. Dunno where the boys are. No idea, but it's ok I'll see them soon I'm sure. Must get the final bit of laundry done but god that gale they predicted for tomorrow is 24 hours late. Right. I have Nats and Bart to write to. But also want to get started with the Golden Fleece April AND also start writing. So much to do. Yesterday I was incapacitated on the sofa. Today I'm back doing stuff. It feels like a relief to be honest.  I am walking towards a future which waits for me and what is that future about. The future I see is the future I create.  Some journaling time. 

The cult of healthy everything  has now become a thing here. I am so sick and tired of it. I am all for looking after yourself and taking responsibility for yourself, but it has to be done under normal circumstances. Right now the whole mental health thing is being showed down our throats the same way a wife used to be told just grin and bear it. Thus is what it means to be a woman. It doesn't matter how badly your are treated, you are going to enjoy it. So it is the same now - we are being asked to suffer for the mother and father land. Just put up with it - days without number, days without end. So no - you can keep your healthy lifestyle and your five a day nonsensical crap. Just keep them. It is someone who has contrived the circumstances for you to be in prison and then tells you when you are questioning it you are wrong and then says you need to do these five things a day. It is completely patronising and irrational. And no amount of patronising uselessness is going to make m...

What is it like to be a member of the human race? Certainly for a woman it is more or less not knowing what your body is planning to do. This is perhaps why women are so obsessed with their bodies, it is one was of controlling it. For instance, I now no longer want to eat. I used to get up, a do what I did and then had breakfast - now i don't want to eat. The thought of eating makes me feel ill. I don't want to cook. I just had some light snacks yesterday. Pate, biscuits, cucumber. I did eat and entire packet of smoked salmon, it is true, but i thought if I cooked i would feel slightly ill. This morning I got up and the idea of eating made me feel sick. This is very different from the glee with which I would look forward to eggs for breakfast with some buttered toast.  I had high hopes for these holidays too. I was planning to do loads. Instead I mostly sat on the sofa and did nowt. Especially yesterday. Yesterday I just did nothing. Self care and Kindness. It is what's nee...

Wow. The breaking of that tide has been such a relief. It was the WORST - just the sense of being bloated and miserable and feeling as if everything I had chosen in my life was rubbish. It was a pall which had settled in the last two weeks and then got worse and worse - finally letting up on Wednesday - or maybe Tuesday. Whatever it was it was lethal.  I have not had any alcohol now for a week. The last time was at Emma's last Thursday when I had half a glass of Oisin's mead. It is great to not be drinking. Between the period and the no drinking this Lent has got off to a good start. I have substituted not drinking with binge watching and watched all of Taken - the alien abduction TV series - in one day. That is a lot of TV. It is almost as much as a flight to Singapore. Possibly longer. It was ok. The thing about these binge sessions is that after a while it gets very samey and boring. Like when I was watching the Can't Get You Out of My Head. It is too easy to parody it. ...

After more than a year I have my period. I am imagining this is just a one off but it has all the hallmarks of the period. Exhaustion. Blahness. The desire of consume chocolate cake. Bloatedness. It's just the same old ridiculous lethargy. At least I'm off the booze, so that's something.  Birds are attacking the feeders with relosh. They don't seem to like the sunflower seeds which is weird. Imagine whole fields of sunflowers being grown for birds. It seems mad when the entire world is mostly starving. It seems wrong.  I was listening to some minimalism yesterday on Radio 3 - there was some ludicrious nonsense on Radio 4 - I can't remember what it was - but I thought I can't listen to this nonsense, so I turned over to hear beautiful Glass music from Akhenaten. I love minimalism. I don't know why. It is the inheritor of Bach I think, that's why. Also the coldness. I love that. It is pure structure.  Strange an unapologetic. And it is everywhere now. Not ...

I was watching a Russel Brand podcast. The only podcast I think worth watching - it brings together questions of spirituality and politics, trying to find a meaningful and truthful way about living life which makes everything better for everyone. It was nice to see him having a good debate with Adam Curtis which Russel and Curtis argue with each other but in a good natured way - a way in which the argument is taking place so that things improve, not so that people score points which is ok for a debate in school but not ok for a debate when you are trying to improve the life of people around you.  This pointless argument is the most reductive and brain numbing element in Western democracy. That instead of arguing towards a greater purpose the chambers have become a place where people take sides and will forever oppose each other - it is more sectarian and browbeating in its nature than improving. Why debate? You debate because you get to refine your ideas, you get to improve yoursel...

Our skies covered by a constant mist means that we cannot see the stars. To do this we must venture far out, beyond the lands of grass and mountains, to the places of seas of sand. There the heat makes it impossible for anyone to stay above the ground during the day but night reports come back of the banks of light which make it seem like there are a multitude of inhabitants in the skies.  Who knows what lives there? The vimanas only fly to a certain height, the level just below the clouds. We must be able to see the landmarks which our pilots are familiar with so they can plot their courses. There are people who navigate using the stars but again, they are not from Atlantis. They are from these lands - and they do not have vimanas. They have Sand Skimmers that take them over the vast tracts of featureless terrain.  It is to these people we turn to discover more about the skies and the certainty that it is inhabited. How could they not be? How could we be alone? There is even ...

What is Atlantis like? It is physically located in the Atlantic Ocean. It is the land between North America and Europe. For me, Ireland as Steiner says, is part of it. A remnant. It is into this mythical Ireland which I will disappear. I no longer want this Ireland which I now currently live in. It has betrayed what was possible - and that is entirely its prerogative of course. Good for it. But it is not unique. Many places have done precisely this for whatever reasons. I have my own theories, but this fragment, remnant of Atlantis is what will remain ever after. And I like to think of it this way because it connects me to hope. It connects me to the future by connecting me with the past. I have given up ever in my lifetime making the difference here - on this planet actually, but I will not give up, I will not allow the world around me to make me give up on this dimension of Ireland. I shapeshift and sidestep into it. I slightly squeeze my eyes, narrow them, to see the space between t...

There are a million ways to die. The worst one is to never have lived. In The Deer Hunter yesterday,  Meryl Streep ask de Niro, did you think life was going to turn out this way, and he replies, immediately, no. It may be one of the poignant moments in a film full of poignant moments.  I'm sure no one ever thought this would happen either. And I am under no obligation to make the best go of the times as it were. But I am under some kind of obligation to do it for myself. So I was awake at 5 am today. I didn't feel like eating, although I did eat quite a lot yesterday and on Saturday. And on Friday. I refuse to be joyless. Yesterday we talked about the threshold experience. I have to say that since I have had the experience of understanding what life is about, which honestly I cannot remember, I feel like many of these discussions are sort of pointless. I have mostly taken to just forgetting about the reasons and the mysteries and meanings. These things don't really exist an...

The cacophony on the waves is deafening. People now are able to just say anything they can with access to instant media. Anything, just plain sound is now broadcast as if it is opinion. It is perhaps technically opinion, in actual fact it is about as cogent and sensible as two cymbals clanging against each other. It has come to past, as Corinthians the most famous passage in it about Love, we are now surrounded by emptiness filled with noise.  Yesterday was all about the snow. Today it is about the wind once again. February is brutal. It always has been. March is more of the same with more light, but February is just pure 100% proof the staring into the abyss - and the abyss stares back. There is now no more success - we all teeter at the edge of the abyss. The really awful thing is that most people don't understand this either. Most people think that it is a little bit bad. It is not a little bit bad. It is the last legs before everything gives out from beneath us. I don't see...

It is absolutely freezing. God love the people who have no heating and no food. Is it my job to provide for them? No, it is not. Is it the government's job? Yes it is. It is also the government's job to make sure that people are thriving and happy. And it is not my job to sort things out for people. If they want to sort things out they can demand for it - by demonstrating, by refusing to normalise this crap, by not going along with it. I personally will no longer be co-operating by pretending this is the new normal for everyone's benefit. There are so many stupid holes in the Covid argument, nothing lines up, that I am just now gonna do my own thing. Enjoy myself. So to this end, I am setting goals for this week and getting to work on them. This entire coming week. I have to say that drinking mead makes me sad. There is a real melancholia to it which is strange. It doesn't really agree with me. It makes everything fuzzy, like a bee. To this end i'm going to start lo...

There is no doubt that life is full of amazing things. Yesterday for instance, I felt sad and Oisin can round to telling me that he would help me by doing a project - building a d birdtable in this case. Hung out with Emma for a bit yesterday. I will clean the car today. That will be my cleaning task for the day. I said to Emma yesterday how I was utterly embarrassed to be a member of the human race. It was now officially a stupid mistake to have been born a human being - to have chosen this form. I must have been so hopeful when I decided to take this path - maybe I didn't have a choice. But right now, in this place and time, we cannot say we did not know. Why was the Internet invented? To bring information to people and bring us together so that we could work together and build a better place. That was the intention of the Internet and it was the same for TV. Instead what do we have, moronic quiz shows and hate groups. People have become utterly distracted and sidetracked by thei...

  The Age of the Bull, immortalised in the Year of the Bull and in the month of Taurus, took place thousands of years ago. It was a time in human civilisation when the bull was the sacred animal. Hindus still revere the cow and the vehicle of the god Shiva, the god of creative destruction, is Nandi the beautiful and life giving cow. In Ireland, the bull was the centre of one of the most tragic epics ever written - The Tain, where the desire for the Black and White Bulls brought terrible war and the death of the defender of Ulster, Cuchulainn. The two bulls eventually end up going mad and killing each other. In Greek mythology, the bull figures in several myths, including that of Europa and the Bull, where Zeus turns himself into a bull and abducts the nymph. We may think that in our urban lives bulls are something which we have nothing to do with and yet they live on in our subconscious. On Wall Street, a bull run sees stocks storming upwards. A bull in a china shop, refers to some...

Yesterday Ghin needed help with a cardboard project - the theme was fears and phobias. So I suggested we did something in a cupboard and came up with the Babadook.  I helped him think it through and we researched creating a wood texture using paint on a cardboard box. I was honestly completely surprised at the results. The entire thing looked like wood. It was stunning.  I feel better having done this. And the light is increasing. The only thing that I'm actually upset about is my lack of exercise and that can be easily remedied. Once again I am at a threshold which I cannot breach and it is the same threshold. I think I must go for the run today. I really really must.  Last night I went to bed at 10 and woke at 1.30. It was gnawing at me the state of the house, so I cleaned and tidied it. I tidied the tables in the kitchen and dining room and then I sorted out my entire book and art shelf. I don't kn...

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 to the ever-new dawn! There is no point saying what I will do. I know what I need to do and why I need to do it, so I will just get on with it. Run at 7 am. Write now. Draw at some stage.  I don't have to do Aries because I hate everything connected to Peter. So there is no need for me to do it if I don't want to. But having just said that now, I'm ok with it. I'm ok with it. That I was given a choice makes all the difference. It hasn't been a complete waste of time the past month and a half. I have done some nice things. Like the ...

They think they can break us, but they will not break us. The final desperate attempt to make it look like they are doing something useful and helpful, but it will not work. It will not. I will use this time constructively to do the things I have always wanted to do in the house and that is final for me. There is no point getting angry and frustrated and annoyed. What history teaches me is that we live in a pretty good time. There are no wars, there is a minimal amount of sexism and racism, which has always been there, I mean we could be better than this, but apparently apart from Scandinavia, the rest of the world is going to never do this because for some reason the Vikings are the most sensible race of people.  Since everything is geography, I put it down to geography. And the geography is that they have terrible winters. These terrible winters means that they have to confront the reality that if they do not have some kind of base, some kind of floor, then every year tens of tho...

Herod the Great was a nutcase. Reading and listening to the lives of so called great people in history makes me just wish that there was no sense of history at all.  There is no time. There is no progress. It is all an illusion. It is all a joke. Take any point in history and people are going to be universally pissed off with the way things are. The other day Oisin asked me what do you think, if it existed, would heaven be like? I said well heaven was kind of invented by people whose lives were pretty shite. I was just thinking the other day that we have electricity, we have cars, washing machines, we have facetime, we have running water, we have hot water at the flick of a switch. Our lives are pretty cushy. We live till about 75 with no bother. I'd say we are already in heaven. So I am going with that. We are in heaven and life is good. I have enough money to do what I need to do and enough friends which I should be more grateful for. I have a job which is meaningful. I mean I ca...

Been experimenting with a new style - using just pencils for the birds and pastels for the background. Being in lockdown has allowed me to colour using pencils and some watercolour. But it has ben ages since I used pastels and I have never drawn birds using pencils. There is something quite satisfying about drawing these adorable birds in black and white since they ARE black and white. But because they are in pencil I can draw them faster too - which means I can draw MORE. I have also been terrified of drawing more than one bird but this has helped me break this terror. I love this style of drawing. I think I will continue it for a while. Especially withe geese. And the contrast between the pastels and the pencil is also good.

I've been trying to find the source of my exhaustion. Resting does not seem to help. So I'm down to a few things: 1. I did lots of housework 2. Screen time 3. Constant social media - being able to be contacted by people on WhatsApp, etc 4. Being 50 5. Not being able to understand what's going on 6. Not exercising regularly So I then looked at these things. The housework thing - well ok, but also I don't do an awful lo of housework. I do it like in fits and starts. Like yesterday I did all of it in one day. So... you know. Yes, but it still does not account for the constant exhaustion.  3. It is strue I find it very streeful being on these social media apps. I hate them. I really hate them. 4. Being 50 - well I can't do much about that. It is what it is. 6. Exercising regularly - yes, but also when I do exercise I still feel tired. So it is 2 and 5. Screen time is a must - work demands it. and 5. I'm just gonna have to let it go. So literally there is nothing I c...

I have decided to try this new style out. Pencil against pastel. I think it works. Slightly naive and childlike, still though capturing the most important details. I really like the middle goose. It is so cute. It is part of a letter, so away it will go on Monday. I am completely exhausted. After the boys arrived we walked down to Holywood. My feet were so sore by the time I came back on account of wearing heels to do this. I am going to take a painkiller. The good news is the toe is more or less ok. In a week's time I think the nail will come off. Shades of black. Actually the Brent goose is dark chocolate brown. So brown it is almost black. But not black. Oisin tried his mead today - i think it is ok. Who knows? I'm supposed to go and see Lisa - it is her birthday but I can't bring myself to do it. I so whacked. So exhausted. So... i am going to try and do another drawing, this time for another friend. I have two drawings to do actually. It is the first time I...

I am pleased to say that an hour and a half later I have aired the entire house, hoovered, cleaned the toilets and unclogged the shower. It has been so therapeutic. The house will continue to be aired till fifteen minutes before the boys arrive.  I have to defrost the freezer as well. But it feels good. It feels great.  After this, I have a shower when we have hot water again.  I have sprinkled the entire house with lavender. It feels great. Just fresh and lovely and clean. I may have overdone it though. The lavender, i mean, not the cleaning. The cleaning is just what is needed. So, I have done cleaning. Now I must do running. Ugh. I love running once I have done it though. That's the thing. I will run when the boys arrive. Promise.  And it isn't raining anymore either. Starlings have found the birdfeeders and are pigging out on it. Well something is better than nothing. I think I will need to get oil this week for next week. We are getting low on it. Why does it al...

Oddly enough the cleaning of the house took my an hour - this includes putting the laundry on. I washed the dishes, etc... now I have to do the hoovering and clean the toilets. I know I am procrastinating big time now. I PROMISE i will do this AFTER this. When I finish this entry.  For some reason the interweb is erratic. Not that it really matters. So hoover the house and clean the shower. It will take me just under an hour i know because I hoovered the house last week and that always cuts down the hoovering time. Last week... seems ages ago. A whole lifetime ago. I vaccilate between being happy and being miserable. It s most disturbing. But this morning after those entries I went to bed and slept very deeply. It felt amazing. It felt liberating. I then I woke up and did all the things I promised myself I would do. I even cleaned the microwave. I filled the birdfeeders. The birds are there now. The robin pecking on the birdballs.  So today I said I would clean and run and do ...

I am home. I am safe. I am doing things. I am not going to care about the world beyond my door no sphere of influence. I am going to disconnect. I am going to be happy. I am not going to challenge people nor be the first over the top. Nope. I am staying in my den and doing the beautiful things. I am going to enjoy what I have and I haven plenty. I am not going to spend one more iota agonising about the things which I cannot change.  I am going to look after myself for a change. I owe it to myself. February will indeed be the month of self care and nourishment. Not flagellation and questioning. I do not have to be the person who asks. I don't. I am alive, I am free, I am delighted. I am who I am. I am alive, I am human, I am beautiful. I am. I will run at 8. So between now and 8, there is 2 and a half hours.  I have decided, after several hundred hours of watching TV and youtube over the past year, film and TV and anything on a screen is pointless. Unless it can be of use to me...

One room at a time For each space, the process, the picking The collecting, the thinking. For each moment The deliberation and the plan. When I write everything gains focus once more. When I write, things make sense. The small things don't trouble me anymore. I find the distractions people use on themselves mirthless. I see right through it, the deception, the delusion. People pretending. I am fed up with people pretending. So I take refuge in the small things. The things which matter. The things we take for granted. The things which make the real difference. Like electricity. Running water. Food in the middle of winter. A roof over my head. Central heating. Things which are invisible but will be very present when they are gone. Washing machines. Showers. Simple things. Flushing loos. These are the things which I pull around myself for comfort. Everything else is just window dressing. Is us kidding ourselves. Is us trying to pretend these things matter. In the end, nothing maters, ...

Can't believe it has been a week since I was back at the blog. It has been an awful week. I'm not going to lie. The hysteria over Covid continues. People don't see it as hysteria because they are used to it, but it is hysterical. I have more or less just shut myself in so I don't have to deal with the fear and fear mongering that is taking place. The children are really suffering - especially those who have no family support. They are not learning anything new. They are now stuck, in stasis. Ghin says he's ok because he has myself and Oisin to help him, but the truth is that I don't see his teachers giving him any material that challenges him. How can they? The risk is that the children grow further and further apart even as the time passes. Far more important I am beginning to understand is their well-being. It seems strange to talk about well-being even as they are inside in their own homes. The children in our school are lucky though. I wonder how well others...