Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

I could not tell you why but this time round wet on wet painting is knocking it out of the park. For years I struggled with what it meant but now I know what it means. It is just stunning the work we have produced. Class 2 deserves to be up on the board now. Just so delighted with how beautiful these things are. I am so happy with them.

I missed yesterday because well... because it was a mad day. I do think I am becoming dotty. For instance this is the entry I put into my facebook update... Angels everywhere.  This morning i went to Tescos in Holywood to get breakfast. When i returned to the car the electric lock didnt work. I was dressed in flipflops and a flmsy summer skirt no socks no tights. No coat. Storm Malik was starting up. I tried several times with the electronic lock and nothing. I had coffee came back nothing. I stood in the doorway of the estate agents pressing the buttons nothing. Went for a v cold walk and bought german biscuits, came back nothing. I was just about to walk back up while crying into my hoodie when the butcher from Corries appeared and said  Are u locked out of your car?  I was Yes.  Let me see your key.  I said its one of thse plastic keys that... wait does it have a SECRET KEY.? He slid the casing off and in bloody deed it did. Ten years i have had t...

Today I saw this quote on Facebook. I have seen it many times before but it really hit home today. “Do not be dismayed by the brokenness in the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally., extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”  ~ L.R. Knost (art by Christian Schloe) I have never felt better about this - mostly due to the supplements, but also having avoided Elements for the past two months it feels amazing again to pick it up. I have never ever lost hope but I did lose it for a while back there in January.  This January. The thing about being lost is that you feel like it is forever. As if you can never emerge from this monstrous mess. The thing about being lost is that you are in the dark and there is no map. This feeling of lost is not the lost you feel when you go to a new city or a new place. There the feeling is excitem...

OK... I tried i tried but I ended up just having to do other things... that's life...  Right - it has been a busy end to the week. Almost end. I have sorted out the website. I kind of have the best life. I have found my footing again. Well possibly for the first time.  When getting the pages updated I managed to start thinking of money and how I organise data. possibly for the first time. After all these years I have managed to get things started and get things going and understand what is needed. I have been doing this for almost two years now. It began in October 2019 - but 2020 did not count so I have said I am starting again from September 2021.  I have made so many mistakes but it is getting better now. The shape of elements is slowly solidifying and it feel much better. I know what i'm doing now. It feels good. Taking supplements and running everyday is a must. I know that now. High heels are murder on my feet - especially my ankles. I was wondering why ...

I DID IT!!! Yesterday I sorted out my website. It was great. It was fantastic. It was awesome. Breathe a sigh of relief. I am finally getting a grip on this running a business malarkey. It has been dispiriting and elating and fun and also delightful. It has been all this and more. And that I got back onto the horse again is also great. I am now developing a course for doing spirit world journeys. It is connecting with the divine. I am really excited about it. I hope to one day offer it as part of my elements stable of activities. Maybe I will... Well, we will see.

Forest School starts again! It was so interesting yesterday. The Forest School play was excellent whereas the in classroom focus was dreadful. I was delighted with the rope and swings play. Learning how to work with ropes starts with learning how to play with them. Hopefully we will be able to do this soon. But for now they spent loads and loads of time just testing out what ropes could do. So that's us closed. We can't take anymore I think. 18 children. Yay. I have to do the lesson plans and then go for my run. My legs were so sore yesterday. And I was happy exhausted. It has been so good reconnecting after a month of horror and doubt. Spring is indeed springing and as I told Matthew yesterday we have come through the most difficult months for Forest School. And it just gets easier here on in. Must chat with Glencraig about Easter scheme. Hooray.

Today is not a good day. I didn't get much sleep yesterday because I drank so much coffee. I had gone to see Ruth and we talked about David's crossing. It was amazing to listen to someone who had just come back from that threshold talk about a good death. We spent almost three hours talking about it. Time just flew. There was a silence which held us. The fire flickered, the air was still. As if everything we listening and at the same time resting. There was such an air of peace about us. There was no sadness. There was and there wasn't.  There was grace and gratitude I think. The deep deep held sense that it was a good death and that was all you could have hoped for. It was better than good. It was as close to a perfect death as possible. I came home and could not do what I should have done over the past three weeks. I sat and ate and watched some TV. I tried to sleep but couldn't because of all the coffee I had drunk. I thought that coffee had ceased to have an effect ...

Finally did it! Went for my run!!!! Holy crap - it has been a few weeks and then come since I got into my runners and pounded the tarmac. Of course I instantly felt awesome although it was also quite gingerly I did so. I didn't want to overdo it and end up trashed or having a heartattack or a burst blood vessel. However the first trial was excellent and I will now run with confidence. I ran all the way too. Down to Ballymenoch and then back up again - this mean I know I will soon be running the full length of Craigantlent in a few weeks.

It has been a much better two days. I have to accept the fear or anxiety over the seriousness of Covid was there when I did catch it, but really, as I had thought it wasn't a huge deal for me. Much worse was the having to not see anyone at all and that was awful. To be left alone with your self doubt. This is what relationships do. They help you to see yourself, the best self. That was tough.  But yesterday as I was lying down, I did think, as I wrote previously, that life was about finding meaning and in so many ways I ran autopilot. This made things very difficult. I no longer want to do this now - run autopilot. Covid is now coming to an end. A chaotic experiment which has basically managed to get people to question everything. I refuse to say narrative anymore because it is an overused word. There is such a thing as an overused word. But yes, the upshot of all this is... I wonder if people have these fanatical tendencies in them anyway and it is about what triggers it. Vinay Pr...

It has been a long slow road to recovery. A road which has been filled with questions and frustrations. Self doubt and frustration. Both at the outer world and at myself. This has not been helped by the discombobulation. How can I describe it? It has been like... being unable to prioritise anything. What comes first? I cannot tell you. Yet there is so much to do and the feedback loop them goes into a downward spiral not helped by a lingering limping sickness.  However today after I heard this semi interesting and mostly annoying podcost by this person interviewing Zach Bush, I said to myself, what exactly am I doing with my life? Why is this happening to me? Then I realised that what I needed to do, in every instance I moved forward, but without knowing this, was because I moved towards things which gave my life meaning. As long as my life had meaning that was the thing which I worked with the best. If I understood why I was doing what I was doing I would be alright. This applied t...

Well it is crazy season now. Everyone I know is in a superbad mood with each other. Communications are up the left and people are honestly just having the worst time ever. I just want to crawl under a rock and hide. I hope this will pass. I never thought that I would consider going back to Singapore, but what I did not count on was the depth of feeling I would have with Ma and Pa getting older. It would not be immediately of course, but it is now the seed of thought, of possibility. I can see that Ma is struggling trying to navigate life's changes. It is so so hard. I wonder if it will pass or if it will just stay the same and gradually just get harder until it does not exist any longer. What I do not want to happen is to regret should the moment come when nothing - no gold nor all the tea in China would bring that moment back again. If life is to be lived, it should have as little regret as possible. Regret only ever takes place when courage is not engaged. If you fully pass up on...

I am so tired. So tired. I am tired of fighting and I am tired of having assholes surround me. I have had enough. Having Peter just up the hill - I CANNOT TELL YOU how awful it is. I am also feeling thin right now and it is tough.  It is like I can never catch a break. Stupid men and stupid ideas and being coerced into doing stupid things. I don't want to do this any more. I have to think about life and what it means to me. 

Never have I ever felt so unmotivated and low. Never have I ever felt so much the sense of what is the point? And it isn't as if I don't believe in what I do - I do 100%, 1000% - I love what I do and this is going to sound stupid, but I have a very bad feeling about this. The nightmare which is coming down the track which is the tsunami of Brexit plus poor governance. Where will it all end? I suppose the good news is that none of these powers were anything as strong as they used to be. The bad news is that for the time being there is no way out of this paperbag of endless mindless consumption.  I was watching - that is literally what I spent the entire day yesterday doing - sitting on the sofa and watching nonsense. Also the news which is worse than nonsense. I am GLAD the BBC's licence fee will be taken away. They deserve it. Between the blatant protection of Boris Johnson saying oh they can address the culture - what fucking culture? - and their virtue signalling shite, I...

Went to Castle Espie, saw Spiderman: No Way Home. It was ok. I also watched The Boys. It was an interesting study on the elite. What people get up to. Are people all trapped? Are they? A long time ago I decided to leave that life and watching something like The Boys reminds me why. I do wonder though are things so bad for the elite? Recently Russell Brand did a podcast about how the elite have a bad time of it. They have mental health issues too. No one gets out of this free says Brand. I saw that. I saw how miserable first hand people who had money were. I saw how miserable their children were. Money did not solve anything. It solved somethings but you need only some money. Still though it was mad. So the latest news for me is that England might cancel vaccine passports - and hopefully there is a push back over vaccinations from the health service. Anyway. There is much that causes me to be depressed. I recently saw a TV programme about computers in cars. So there is a car which could...

It is so lovely moving into middle age. I love the way in which it brings about freedom. It is weird women complain about 'being invisible'. What does that even mean? Like men are no longer oogling and harassing you? That's mad. Who'd want that. It reminds me of being a child again - this freedom to move and to go about just doing what I need to do instead of being aware constantly of the male gaze. This gaze is debilitating and annoying. There used to be a level of expectation which came with it. And not just about what you could give them but also how you should behave and when you did not behave in that way you were punished.  Now we trailblaze, my generation trailblazes into middle age the same way in which we did so for being teenagers, education, being mothers, being lovers, being autonomous. It is a truly delightful place. Why this? Because yesterday we were talking in Wagamama andthe boys were teasing me about 'looking good' for being 51... then Oisin sa...

I am tired and done. It will be a short entry today because I have to get going with lesson planning. I just feel so low and miserable for now. I think I need to go for a run. It is probably the only thing that is going to help now.  It has been a mad time really. Now we have doctors coming out saying they won't get the vaccine because of the side effects. In an interview on Unherd the doctor who challenged Sajid Javid has the EXACT SAME concerns which I had. Namely the time - he said Hep B jabs have 20 years of data behind them. This one has nothing. And he also said that there were people coming in or who had died because of the vaccination. The vaccines are Russian roulette. They have always been. It is best they just admit that and say, well, it is like you are playing Russian roulette with a 4,000 bullet chamber. One of it is loaded but you don't know which one. Everytime you pick up that gun you take a risk. But hey life is about risk and you can choose which risk you wan...

You do have to wonder about the stupidity of everything which has taken place over the last two years. I mean either the virus is very deadly to everyone or it is only dangerous, like all other viruses, to the elderly. It is beyond depressing. People who took this entire thing with the seriousness or had it imposed on them, are now furious with Boris Johnson who had a party in his garden. Imagine sending an email about this. How stupid can you get? But also what about setting and example? The entire system is just rotten to the core. It isn't acting from your best self but acting out of what you can get away with. I really hope they hang him up to dry - but they probably won't already the BBC is starting his rehabilitation. Oh the vaccine programme is so amazing innit? Oh he has the star power no one else has dont he? Oh he is our Boris and he was working very hard werent he? The BBC is like that frog which has been boiled alive - the creep towards the right and elitism has bee...

It has been a peaceful week - almost two weeks - having Oisín home. Apart from the first three days, it has been largely chilled and very lovely. I asked Oisín if he was looking forward to going back to East Anglia and he said, so-so. I really like it here... it is sweet of him really. There is a loveliness, a gentleness about Oisín which both Ghiu and I will miss. Ghin and I are quite similar in that we are very serious - but Oisín brings the silly with him and I WILL miss that. I made dinner yesterday - chicken olives which weirdly have no olives in them, and stuffing on the side with roast potatoes. Oisín requested this. I can still barely taste anythng, it is so frustrating. And I can smell even less. God. It is just very annoying especially since I love smelling things. I wonder if it will ever recover. Apparently having a reinfection can help you regain your smell. The Karens are now out with Cov...

I wondered what I would write about this year - what I will write about is apparently the collapse of our civilisation - an eyewitness account.  Yesterday I was thinking about government and was appalled that I could not think of a single successful one. They all ranged in varying degrees of failure. My measure of failure? No preparing your future - not one single government has managed to future proof their population despite over 60 years of warning. The warning I place is the publication of Rachael Carson's Silent Spring. It was the firing gun on the failure of the so called Green Revolution and the growing call by SCIENTISTS to wake up to the unsustainability of this growth and development trajectory. That was followed by Greenpeace and then other environmental groups. Movements like the CND and other anti-war protests. However, mesmerised by GDP, hypotised, I don't know made stupid even, government ignored this. Instead of doing the right thing they did the lazy thing. Six...

I cleaned the house yesterday. It took me almost four hours. It was nice to get it reset. The feeling was unbeatable. Hoovering, dusting, laundry - kitchen... and the best part of all - airing the house. Letting the fresh morning in. Also letting the birdsong in - I could hear the beginnings of spring. I cannot believe it is almost 8 am. I was listening to the conversation - a conversation - with Paul Kingsworth, Charles Eisenstein and this other bloke whose name I do not know about this thing they call The Machine and the pandemic and how the division between the people who have had a vaccine and the people who have one. It was nice to hear a middle point of view - which wasn't Left nor Right. But about ethics and how we treat each other. I have to say while I did agree with them I am also quite bored of hearing men talk. After all is said and done they have not really brought insight. The best they have done is either made me think nah or yeah.  I spent the rest of the day just l...

There is no great plan anymore. All my great plans were great to have, now they are daily plans. I understand what Steiner was saying now. But in fact I am now in a part of myself where I don't have to have great plans any longer. Having relinquished this. I have no freed myself up. Freed myself up to enjoy the rest of my life. In fact it is a kind of return to form.  This morning I will clean the house, dye my hair, do the budget for the rest of the month and get my running gear ready. It is good that my iPad, phone and Netflix are offline. Much better for everyone really. Here it goes - Epiphany. The end of the Holy Nights. 

Having poured my heart out on the Facebook here... Reading a book Orison to the Curlew and in it - it is a tough read because it is the story of wildlife decline in the past 60 years or so after the so called Green Revolution and neoliberalism.  The amount of environmental destruction which took place over this time is monu-mental. Or monomanical. It is mostly based in Greece and Easter Europe - as in far Eastern and it is about the hunt for the slender-billed curlew. However what is striking is how despite all the science, governments do not care. This was what I saw over and over again in my ten years in the RSPB you could have all the data and evidence and talk about it till you are blue in the face, but if you have a government wedded to 80s style development, you can kiss any kind of sustainable future goodbye.  One of the conservationists in the book says in exasperation after working in the field for 30 years, 'I used to think that if you have government the science, th...

It is sometimes hard to bear the loss of a friend's dearest and nearest even though the death does not come as a surprise. Death I suppose should never come as a surprise - it is the one thing we can be sure about. It is the loss, the missing person shaped hole which it leaves behind that is so devastating. What do you fill that hole with? Can you fill it at all? Over the years I have been always at arms length with death, but as the years grow closer, more and more people I know are affected by it and I draw closer to it too. I remember how we used to laugh about it when we were young. My mother said that my grandfather's friend said that meeting up in kopi tiams was like playing Ten Little Indians - fewer and fewer people showed up. Do you want to be the last person to go, rather than the first? The survivor of a bygone era? Someone for whom nothing makes sense in the world anymore? Already I am feeling that for myself. Caught between a world which I do not want to be part of...

The unbearable flatness of being. That's what this new year has been like. It has been filled with dread. A dread of the coming year and what it will bring. Instead of feeling up for it I feel like why bother? and it hasn't left me. I think I need to start running again. I know what it is - it is the cumulative effects of the bloody lockdowns. It is the frustrations we feel with each other. It is the screaming into a void and it is most of all the feeling that things which were getting better will never ever get better. People will forever be cajoled and bribed and bullied into passivity and it will not get better because of the AI and the virtual worlds which will suck us in. We will be powerless to resist the march of the automaton. Even those who did try to resist - friends of mine - they too gave in. And they were forever in the smallest, the slivers. Those who have had some success will eventually be co-opted or they will fade away. They will no longer be viable opposition...

Yesterday I was talking to Oisin and saying how I felt for the first time just fed up with the New Year. And Oisin said I think lots of people feel very flat. Like there is nothing special about it. This was good to know. I said, it is like there are two sides to myself which I always knew were there. There's is lazy side which is always about not bothering and then there is the enthusiastic side - the side which is ambitious and wants to do its best - and it I never realised that they were in antagonism. I was always either doing stuff or resting and in fact I often did not have the time to rest.  With the lockdowns it has been like - well why bother. You cant do anything anyway and it became an excuse to not to do anything. It has been very corrosive and now that things are happening again, I fear that I am now still in this 'why bother' phase. It's kinda awful really. I suppose it was good to admit that to everyone finally. But also to know that 20 year olds also fee...

The trope of the well behaved woman. It is interesting isn't it? The trope of the well behaved whatever. In this entire world, good behaviour, compliance is seen as desireable. The suck it up. The put up with it. The be polite. The 'civil'. If you are not then you are - take your pick - difficult, insane, uncivilised, unmanageable. Most of all, you are dangerous. You are dangerous because you are unpredictable. You are dangerous because you cannot be relied on to play the game.  I have never been much of a game player in a game in did not understand or which I thought was pointless or worse still dangerous. Sadly in this world, we can look to these kinds of games. Currently Squid Game is the game which we all play. The Zero Sum winner take all. It is interesting that given the choice people would rather play the Squid Game than take their chances in the world outside. The world outside where they are in hell. With no money and no prospects. Where they have done compromising...

Yesterday was an important milestone to myself because for the longest time i felt bad about being unable to be a 'good' ex-wife and to 'accept' the 'new situation'. Well I am now so glad that I've decided in my head what that means for me. And I'm going to say it again because it makes me feel so glad that I have come to this conclusion. I no longer need to suck it up because well I have firstly divorced him and secondly paid for the privilege to do so. I am grateful that I live in a time when this is possible for a woman and she does not have to endure the nightmare of a lifetime of horrors with a man for whatever reason. So I am grateful I am divorced. I have no road map for this. There is this thing now where you need to be 'amicable' with each other for the 'sake of the children'. Well for the 'sake of the children' maybe he could have not been such an asshole, now after he has dragged me through crap for 25 years, he wants t...