Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

What a beautiful day it was today. Ghin and I woke late, took it easy and then we had breakfast at The National. We then drove to Portmore Lough and I spoke about Eddie and what I remember of him. Dearest Eddie, gone but never forgotten.  I had forgotten though how beautiful Aghalee was. In fact I never noticed it. The tweeness of the village and the houses. The many bridges. The flat land and the abundant cow parsley. The butterflies - everywhere. The reserve was bunged with what appeared to be birdwatchers. Mysteriously the Tarpan ponies could not be seen - perhaps they were on the other side of the reserve and it was clear that the grassland was no longer being managed for breeding birds. I guess it was now mostly passerines and birds overwinterings... the tern islands also appeared gone. The little giant bird table which Eddie had started was alright, but most of the energy had gone into making the walk around the GBT with lots of insect hotels and a pond. Which weirdly did not...

The Texas shooting has made headline news. The unnecessary cruelty which human beings inflict on each other. Already the conspiracy theorists are out trying to make sense of this senselessness. They say that it is part of the population reduction which the elites have in place. Like a slowly boiled frog, the people are now beginning to question everything and they are not wrong. The elites have no time for them. They view most people with contempt. I have been there before. It is ok if you just humbly accept their charity, but please, don't trying and be equal. They are done with equality. They believe their own immortality and infallibility. It is now awful to watch the corrosive effect of callousness on our culture. Perhaps our souls have been coarsened by violence. Perhaps they have been worn down by shooter games. Perhaps they have been eroded, our spiritual nature has shriveled up. Having been exploited cynically by priests and religious institutions which were the old elites,...

I think I have mistaken the dates for the play. It is too short notice. We will have to push it back. There is no way they will be able to do this... no way. Unless they come back into school for rehearsals. Or I might have to take Main Lesson as well. We'll see. I'm supposed to do a play with Class One as well. That can be done though. It will be fine. They will be ready. It is very wet a rainy. Yesterday a friend wrote me a long text about their family. We all have highs and lows victories and struggles. That is just part of life. What we want for ourselves is not what our children want for themselves. Destiny is indeed, as Uhtred says, all. Oisin texted me yesterday and told me that he had made £250 in trading for me this week. He is now obsessed with finding patterns in the trading market. I think it is more cycles than patterns. Does human behaviour really work like that? Are we mathematical models? Are we really that predictable and boring? Many years ago I decided that s...

Incredible afternoon. Incredible. We had a good day at school today. Worked hard, played hard. The usual you know. The children are reading passably well. We are now able to write as well. Apart from one, everyone knows letters and words. This afternoon Ghin and I went to Belfast and had impromptu Chinese food - followed by a shop at Asian market. Everything has gone up. Diesel is almost twice what it was from 143 to 177. It's kinda mad. I mean I don't have huge expenses but certainly if I did, if was living at the edge I would be driven to distraction. Ghin and I live within our means. And it is only the two of us. Ghin now buys his own shoes and clothes from the money he earns. I have saved enough for him to have his own account and be comfortable in university.  That's us then. All my life I have lived within my means. I am comfortable. I can afford some luxury. I can afford some comfort. And right now I think I have done and seen enough to last several lifetimes. The fe...

Yesterday was busy and beautiful. Main Lesson followed by Maths, then German, then making paper boats, then making beeswax flowers, then playing in the sunshine, then playing in the rain in Forest School. Then Belfast at the Jeggy Nettle, then home with Ghin, and then sleep. I sleep in two hour bursts. After that I get up and potter about, look on the internet and then fall asleep again. I have spent a most full day - the happy tiredness of a day at the beach is remembered in my limbs. We are recalled to the places which we once were again. Yesterday after the thunderstorm and the downpour, as I sat at the Nettle, I was reminded of Singapore. It has been so long since going. Normally at this time of the year there was this sense of looking forward to it - and now... now... I daren't allow myself to feel the anticipation just in case... in case it dos not happen. So many people are going through it now. Ma who has made it though the last two years - three years really has fallen twi...

I cleaned the house, did the laundry and the accounts and caught up on everything. It has been very satisfying the past two months workwise. A few blips here and there, but apart from that all is well. Class One has been actually a wonderful reward for the years and years of slog I had put into being a teacher and all the wee chickees have come home to roost. Oisin is doing very well. He is amazing actually. I love the both of them so much. He has been setting up this social enterprise linking artists in Asian subcontinent to art galleries in East Anglia. Just sent him a link to Prema. It is time for giving back I guess. The skies in Ireland are permanently filled with that light which has been captured by water. It is liquid. Liquor. I sometimes wonder about writing now. I know that thirty years ago I had this idea to write two stories in tandem with each other - one on top of the other like music - the way music is played so that one was the base and the other the melody. Melody and ...

I am trying to think about what needs to be done next... But my brain is all clogged up with the million things that I need to do. So I am going to the piano room to try and think and plan about what needs to be done next. Just the list is currently endless and I have no energy whenever I come home.  ---- Cleaned the house, did one load of laundry... I wonder why cleaning equipment is never advertised for me? I talk about house cleaning ALL THE TIME. I also tried to do some planning. I am always happy when I plan. Then I cleaned the house. I didn't hoover it. I can do that next week. My hair isn't shedding as much - the shedding season is over. I also decided that I would have a bath every day instead of every other day. Just something I will do for self care and while I can still have that luxury before the apocalypse. And we won't have hot running water anymore. You do have to wonder say if it ever came to that here what would the people then do? Emma keeps asking how com...

I am now back in with the work I did with shamanism 20 years ago. It started in 1998 - so more than 20 years ago. I woke up one morning and decided that I would learn more about shamanism and so began my own journey with the practise which would end very suddenly after ten years. It was as if it had gone to sleep inside me. But I always used it for when I needed it. I used it especially when I was called to help someone over to the other side. I used ti when I was about ti give birth with Ghin. I used it when I needed some comfort. And recently I was called back to it with the work I did with Class 7. I was working with the Forest School and the class when I was called to work with the consciousness of the trees. It came very suddenly and vividly. Tree journey... work with the classes. Today in my tree journey I was once more transported to the little harbour town - with the magnificent tree. This time though the idea of riches was vital. The idea that we were three together making a c...

It is always difficult trying to determine what causes a person to behave in such a confronting and crazy manner. I'm thinking of myself when I was 17. When I was 17 I had a Form Teacher, or a Class Teacher, who was very odd. He told strange stories about swimming and how the fabric of his trunks caressed his legs sensually. There was something odd as well about the way he gave lessons, and most of his lessons were tangential. In that he went off tangent and after a while as a class we decided that we would just hide in the library instead of attend class.  Of course the whole idea of school and exams are a load of crock anyway, but given the circumstances this was our teenage rebellion. One afternoon he chased us down and found us in the library - we ran from him... it was a game of cat and mouse. I mean we were STUDYING in the library. Once he hauled me into the staff room and bollocked me there and I then answered him back. I cannot remember what it was but it was cutting and qu...

I had a wonderful day yesterday. Class 1 made baked potatoes, we spent our time making books for literacy and Class 8 did so well in their comprehension. It was so wonderful to see that the school has taken care of these children so well. They made this wonderful Spanish food and had a great time doing so. I managed to clean the kitchen while they did that. It is sad I won't be teaching them anymore. But I think I'd like to give them something before I leave them... We'll see. Ah well. That's life. But the implied racism accusation that is dangerous. And I am not compromising my professional integrity. 

Yesterday was a REALLY good day. I had a wonderful time with the kids and then a wonderful time with Forest School. Then after that I had a great time with Emma walking about Belfast in the Queens quarter just enjoying the sunshine and friendship.  It has been a day of strangeness... I have come to the conclusion that some of the children in the school should not be doing any academic work until they have sorted out their heads. It makes me so sad to see this. But apart from that - I think... I think that things are getting better. I feel that. I feel very settled, very sorted. So yesterday... Taught Class One Did combined class with 1 and 2 Helped Nadine with German Did cooking and cleaning with Class 8 Forest School Hung out with Emma in Botanic while helping drive them to Drama Cooked dinner when I got home The days are SIMPLY filled. One day I will look back on my life and remember all and only the good bits. So I must make sure there are plenty of good bits.

I slept amazingly last night. Perhaps I have been so scarred by the stresses inflicted by my life over the past 30 years I no longer have the capacity to feel. I have really suffered, really. By no mean stretch of the imagination. I minimise the amount of crap I have been through but yesterday's sand play made me so aware of it all. I know that no one has the perfect life. No one. But it is still a lot. I have had some amazing times as well. Despite everything. Despite the things I was constantly told about myself so much so that I think that the next twenty years will be spent undoing it. But slowly - choosing the people I am with - slowly - it will become, it will develop, I have faith. That is all I can have. Leadership is overrated. Look at the state the world is in now. Leadership is obsolete. It is now about co-operation and enabling. In a good way, not in a bad way. Not in a way which makes other people suffer. The way the electorate here have been cowered into fearing and t...

What was this weekend like? Busy but in a really lovely way. Forest School was on Saturday - working with the Fostering Network. Then what did I do after that? I think I came home and flopped. Sleep was strange and disturbed. I learnt at 3.30 am Ma had fallen down again in the carpark at Serangoon Gardens. That was very sad. I felt nothing and decided that I am clearly a psychopath. But when I met Jemma and Siuban this afternoon and did the sand play, i discovered that actually I had pushed everything so deep down inside me that it was all there - just very very squished. Oh yes, the car passed the MOT. That was great. Then I came home and yes, I also started this morning finishing the Faustus script. I completed that a few minutes ago... and now I'm starting to clear the house. The clearing is going to take an hour or so. But I will be done by 11 pm. Yes, that was the day. Some friends, some Faust... and of course Ma. I do feel sad. I do. I also don't feel anything. Because it...

It is a definitely a that time of the year feeling. It is funny - i shop in the discount section of Tescos which I LOVE doing then I go next door and blow it on good cheese and meat. I can't help it. But things have gotten so much more expensive and I don't know how people are going to take much more of this. I have not a lot of expenses really but seriously - I cannot understand what people are supposed to do if they have no money. That's interesting. I mentioned Shireen and Israel - and it was deleted... well the state needs to be made to answer for its actions. The problem is that journalists are mostly hated by most governments so no one will address it in the UN and then of course the Western media are so racist and prejudiced there isn't a lot else that can be done. I wonder if this post will we deleted now. The Internet is no longer the bastion of free speech. It only took one generation for it to be co-opted and monetised. I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg knows the s...

Hovering between 15 and 17 everyday. Never catching a break to catch up. The read through went well yesterday. It was great seeing the kids all excited about the play and Marlowe's script being able to deliver the same excitement it did for Elizabethean audiences in the 1500s. They was ths buzz about playing the various characters and Cash did an absolutely amazing job. The part was written for him.  Others were reading a little hesitantly but Cash should definitely be an actor. He really needs to be in the performing arts. With his voice and musicality it is amazing. Always the few characters who take the lead and run with it. The Alchemist also delivered - I junked the stupid exercises and idiotic readings which the English curriculum had given me and decided to go with a text which would mean something to them. Like the Alchemist - it is strange that I am doing two things here which have some supernatural element in them. Perhaps not so strange.

I have a photo from yesterday's forest school. It was an important lesson about weather and children. Once we got them out and under the trees they were absolutely fine. We couldn't get them to leave. They loved playing in the rain. It was like they were back where they came from.  I think there will be three Fausts. One person can't do all the Fausts. It is impossible. Especially since the Faust gets so much stage time. We can have three Fausts as well - one at the start, one in the middle and one right at the end. How old was Faust when he was dragged off. Say he was in his late 20s... ok 30 since he was a genius. He would have been 54. My age. Well just a little older. I can't quite believe I'm in my 50s though. Right Faust.

The weather yesterday was windy, rainy and a little cold. It was 9 deg cel. But the kids had a great time. It has been the first time we have ever had poor weather on a Monday afternoon and we did alright. We made a huge fire and cooked continuously. Sausages, bannock and honey. They left very well fed indeed. I was exhausted after it all. But being outdoors made me feel better I can't explain it. I did have an Aspal and it was too much for me. I am now a lightweight. It's ok. I am so lightweight that I shouldn't even bother. I only put this here as a place marker for today.

It would seem that there isn't much to write about anymore. I mean everything in life seems to be a little bit on repeat. I remember the first time I saw a tern how excited I was - actually I am still quite excited when I see one... I was at the RSPB's Belfast Harbour reserve yesterday. The windows were clean for once and we could see out of them without having to slightly throw up in the mouth due to the layers of dead insects and built up matter on the shelves but there weren't a lot of terns on the tern islands. From what I could see they were almost exclusively taken over by black headed gulls. I think I DID see terns on the far shore, but it was difficult to say. The reserve itself needed to be reflooded - the water levels were very low due to the dry weather and the reason the water levels are kept the way they are is because they form a protective barrier which predators like foxes and cats will not cross... I don't know if foxes can swim but they do hate having ...

Days like these - Ghin hums the tune and absentmindedly sings the words as we head down to the Bay Tree. It is just ridiculously beautiful. Holywood is at its loveliest. The elections have not appeared on my radar at all despite the hoopla about Sinn Fein winning the First Ministership for the first time in history. A banned organisation which now is the largest in Northern Ireland. I feel weirdly nothing. Twenty years ago I would have felt ... delighted is not the right word. Not even satisfied. But I would have felt something. Now - nothing. The parties have proven that they are singularly unable to find a way forward. Politics is not just broken - it is smashed to pieces and nothing short of catastrophic meltdown will sort things out. Nothing short of it. Meanwhile there is Ghin - and myself - and the prospect of seeing terns.  We walk along the foreshore of Holywood, with hundreds of others... we are heading out towards the Harbou...

It has been a strange three weeks... or rather a strange two weeks. Yesterday Ghin and I put up the toilet for Forest School today. I have been thinking a lot about how much calmer I am. Also how I am not willing to put up with bollocks but also that I am able to avoid getting into conflict over bollocks.  The past year has been quite satisfying for me as a teacher. It has been a vindication of me being in this profession - my calling as it were. No, I do not think me conceited. But I can see how unsupported I was and had been at the crises points and how I really didn't have very much ability to correct or spot it at that stage. But for one child, all the children are learning and have learnt more than I could have ever imagined. For that I am grateful. Whew... thought I had missed place value but no. Place value is next year and we can wait till nest next to do that. I have been more lenient but also stricter in some respects. I make sure they learn a poem a week or even two week...

Placemakrers for the days. These are the things I do. I come home and I am exhausted. I make some lunch and I lie down. Then I get up and do something... anything. I should do more but I cannot.  His presence nearby is a constant source of tension for Ghin. The gloaming and demands fracture Ghin's time and his claims on his time make Ghin exhausted. Instead of understanding there is a rhythm which is needed it is all about his needs that come first. Always. I have never met anyone more demanding nor selfish. And has the capacity to then make you fee awful. I love this picture on my desk. I love the light in our eyes. Here we have two people at the peak of their happiness. If I had experienced it even for a single second I would have been satisfied. I have experienced it many many times. For months, years.  I love the solitude. The not being responsible for someone else. The sense of freedom. I don't feel lonely. I never have. I miss specific people. But I am happy to live with...

Dance and Skip by Ed Reynolds I love my job but I am utterly exhausted when I get home. The past year has been terrible but it was brought home to me just how tired I was when I had to decide to not run the summer school. It was waaaay too much. I've done my filing. I got home today, made a salad and then did the filing. It is always less bad than I think it is going to be. I found all my car documentation, of course I did - I never throw anything away and it was EXACTLY where I thought it was going to be - i.e. my folder for the car. And so the world turns... another day appears. Yesterday I was stopped in the street by someone to say to me what a great job I had done with the Maypole. It was most sweet.

The weekend has vanished. I started off feeling very upset with the entire debacle and the uselessness of the police force here in N Ireland. The cover up of the murder of a child and how they have handled a certain case which I know of. I thought that children were supposed to be protected. They were supposed to come forward and say what took place and justice was supposed to happen. But nothing has happened. The person who has been accused has not been investigated. Now really, it is terrible for the children and for the person accused. The police really are beyond useless. They really are. It is hard to believe that it has only been a week since we restarted school. I was wondering what play I could put on with Class 7 now. Suitable plays for children.  Class 7 is... Voyages and Science. It is The Age of Discovery. Prometheus. 

Back to double digits. In my defense it has been an absolutely crazy week. Gabriel told me yesterday that many people had said they had serious brain fog - something to do with covid, something to do with the lockdown. I did not have the lockdown bad compared with some other people, but certainly it has been difficult finding my feet again. So yes, brain fog. What can you do about that apart from go running everyday? Not a lot. I now have my cordless mouse... what DO people do really - really what do they do - when they have nowhere to turn? Nowhere to turn for problems which did not previously exist.