Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Experienced a brief hiatus there with Atlantis and discipline, but I'm back on track. Yesterday I did the laundry and the dishes. Small things, but things nonetheless. Not having too much tech is not going well this week. I must remember the plan and stick to it. Almost anything is better than tech. Clean, run, garden , play piano. But I am so tired when I come home and I can't sleep. So I need to think about what I should do. I did Atlantis there. I finally drew it. So having given it a shape, I must now think about how large it is really. So here it goes...

It is now Thursday evening - just like that. Michaelmas and we have worked from the heart... Today two children drew us as the class - and I have very much gelled with the children - we are having a complete blast and I have a really good feeling about this. The class is settling well and we have a very straightforward relationship - where I tell them honestly this will be boring but it is much better that we are all bored and understand what we are doing than if we have loads of fun and miss the point. And way they aren't very bored. When someone understands something it is fun - it is only when they don't understand it that it becomes boring. And it is my job to HELP them understand it. It was weird today, while I was doing the HTU, something occurred to me that we could just pretend it was a house and the house was getting more and more crowded and everyone moved to the next house. This seemed to take with some of them and it was very satisfying. So all of next week we will ...

More progress made on the geography yesterday. A little goes a long way. Soon I will be making a mindmap - for the first time ever for my writing. I suppose that is the geography of the book. It will then be stitched together using words, beautiful words, words which weave and duck and disappear and reappear. So much has been written about Atlantis and yet really people have never been able to take it seriously - well society has never done that. What IS our serach for Atlantis? Atlantis, Lemuria and Shambala... three mythical Kingdoms in our imagination. Our names for the past and eternity. Hidden by the spaces of time... from our sight. The Land of Youth - that is definitely Atlantis. The Land of the Ever Young. Perhaps death was so prevalent we had to create a story which would give us comfort. Allow our brains to deal with the sorrow we felt. From our mortal prisons, we created the idea of forever. It is a simulacrum of love.

Well here I am. I did get up and I did make coffee and I did write in my journal. I watched a documentary last night about Infinity and came away thinking we only have this idea about infinity because we have this kind of maths. Now you can say that maths IS the natural world, and yes of course it is, but the idea of the infinite is not natural. In fact life is very finite. It is so finite that we had to invent the idea of the eternal - that things go on and we abhorred the idea of the end so much we had to invent an idea of a God which would bring us back to life - or that we would go on after death. Now I personally FEEL a connection, a sense that there is a life after death, but really, there is not a lot regarding concrete evidence apart from this connection which I feel with the unseen. We developed infinity to help us see or imagine the unknown, but in a way that came about the moment we understood that there was the idea of threshold and limits that can be surpassed conceptually...

Did my Lesson Prep - which reminds me I must print it out... Oh my goodness... Yes so I have had a day and a half, a quarter, whatever... But I always do... Gonna watch GBBO now and then head to bed after... 

Yesterday I was thinking about Atlantis' geography and decided on something like Lake Toba in the middle of it. Basalt mostly.  Right... time to think more about its geography.

Our grasp on reality is tenuous, as you know. What even IS reality? However as the entire world slides off the plate, slowly at first and now more quickly, as people no longer have a moral compass or hold themselves to ideals beyond the ones of self justification and survival, it is hard to imagine anything more or less insane than what we have right now. In the meantime, something very odd happened yesterday. I was wiped out after a crazy Monday as usual. I fell asleep on the sofa after lesson planning - by the way props on being able to lesson plan every evening Stephanie for the past two weeks... well, I fell asleep and I then I got up and thought, right I will go to bed - and I could not sleep. The next time this happens, I will be getting up to clean the dining room. So I decided to read the lecture series which Steiner did on Angelic Beings. I was reading the lecture on Human Beings and the Hierarchies. I had read it before but for the first time it really hit a chord. I usually ...

I'm here because of Atlantis. I want to be where I feel something isn't right when I don't do anything about it everyday. I want to feel distressed, like I have neglected it, just as if I have neglected a lover or a child. Something which needs me to tend to it. That's why I am here. I did over sleep but I must sleep as be in aslep by 9 or it doesn't work getting up at 4. I need all the hours. To sleep. Ghin was quite ill on Saturday so there was that. But now there is this. I haven't done my waking up journalling - I need ALL of it. I need all the writing I can get - there are no more shortcuts. The way it works is: 4 am - journalling, blog then Atlantis 6.30 am - Run 7 am - Call Ma 7.45 am - Go to school That's my morning routine. I do laundry once a week now. Once every two weeks now that Ghin stays at Peter's. All thos year of doing laundry now gone. The days when I had stopped doing Peter's laundry and i took it out and put into a black bin bag ...

So it is now Sunday evening. Despite my worries, I was able to do loads today - even watch a really good anime called Arcane which will go down in animation history as a classic. This is my blackboard drawing of the King of Ireland's Son. I am not entirely happy with it, but it will have to do. I think the horse's tail can be a little longer. It looks really quite alright. Ghin has made something of a recovery. He has spent all day sleeping on account of having spent most of last night throwing up. I slept beside him in the living room, drifting in and out of sleep when he went to the toilet and just standing there checking if he was ok. It has been a very long time since he has been so ill. So far my blackboard drawings this year have made me very happy. I feel really good - and the kids are doing really well. I have also written some good lesson plans and i'm delighted with them. Everyone is happy.  Tomorrow is forest school - that's been going well. And...

Spent a long night with Ghin feeling unwell. It looks like he had some viral thing around the stomach that lasts for 24 hours if what I know of its symptoms has been so far. Lots of throwing up - all though the night, impossible to keep anything down, including water. So I have been on Ghin watch since yesterday evening. This morning though for some reason I tarted to think about the Tyranny of Crowds. Having lived in Singapore till I was in my mid-20s I know something of this. As a child I was subjected to the relenless propaganda - really unashamed - which came out of the impulse and desire to build a new society. Nothing is new of course, so it was full scale transplanted from the Communists, who had echoes of the fascist totalitarian Rheifenstal about it, and of course the ultimate - the pomp and circumstance of the Catholic Church where the spiritual met the political and everything was an acceptable swoon. No thinking needed here. All spectacles are now based on this. It does not...

I think the thing about Atlantis I need to know it so well that I am there - I really believe that. Right now it is still through the glass darkly but I have always wanted to know it and the reason I am writing this if I write nothing else in my life is to know it and all its contours. It and Lemuria. So I will need to start giving it geography. It starts with time and then it goes with space. It is not a chicken nor egg question... it is clear - that is when it starts with in the beginning, not at this place. Atlantis is not the beginning, Lemuria is much older than that. The entire Earth as it is now is at least 4 billion years old. The Earth as it came into being in the cosmos is older than that. Atlantis is therefore young - the civilisation was young. The people of Atlantis and Lemuria were the original Earthlings who evolved with the Earth. They were not alien beings. Not like the Annunaki. They were created from the warmth of the Earth - they dreamt with the Earth, they suffered...

I have been getting out of the Mercury Retrograde morass. I spoke to Anthony yesterday and he told me that Antrim has indeed no forests. They were all cut down and never replanted. There are confiner plantations but not much else. It is hard to travel the land when there is nothing to be seen. A significant part of N Ireland is still under the control of the gentry. In Antrim it is Shane's Castle - a thousand acres of land. In Ards, it is the Montgomerys. And Dufferins. There are the Shaftebury's who own Lough Neagh. Imagine owning a whole Lough.... then there are the people who own Upper Lough Erne. When you see the land through the lens of who owns what you can get very angry. I guess I should just write now... I have lost enough time and I'm going to try and play the piano as well later on. It feels good to be getting back to normal - well what I feel as normal. I texted Siuban and Jemma yesterday about postponing the Triple Goddess workshop. It is hard to let people dow...

Well before I sleep - should wash my hair... I came home, made lunch and then did some work - and then more work. And then had dinner and watched TV - rewatching Everything Everywhere All At Once , which has got to me one of my favourite films of all time. I finally spoke to Anthony who told me there were indeed very few forests in Antrim - in fact they were non-existent. You really have to wonder don't you... You can have a place that looks lovely and green but really it is just trash. I'm going to head to bed now after I have a bath. It has been another good day. I am discovering that my not drinking has nothing to do with me being tired. Me being tired is irrespective of not drinking. So that's good to know. It was like that in Singapore too.  Next week it is the King of Ireland's Son. Can't wait. I love that book. How can anyone not enjoy it?

I have always been wedded to the sea. Wherever I have lived, I have never lived very far from the sea. Here, in Holywood, we can see Belfast Lough, we walk down to it in a matter of minutes. In Singapore, the sea surrounded us. In Oslo, we could saunter on the fjord. The river Exe took us to the south coast. And so yes, yes the sea has always been there. We live many lives - many lives - one way or the other. We all connected in time, in space. If we can return to a place, we can return to a time as well.  I have everyone here - all my characters and I have my shitty first draft to do - so...what am I waiting for? Here we go. =================================== Well I wrote another two pages despite having no idea where I am in the story anymore. Honestly I must write everyday. Once I start writing I can write. The terror of the blank page does not fill me with horror. It is the other way round - all the ideas are rushing to come out of me, screaming at me, trying to fit through a ...

I slept with breaks last night - I got up at 11 and then at 1 and then, finally at 4. But the sleep was good. I was not restless and it brought me refreshment. I write in my journal when I get up - the remnants of sleep still swirling about and thereafter, the settling of thoughts. Today I was contemplating the human condition - why we gravitate to messiness... why did I do it? Why did I just not ignore these mad people? I know now - I know now how to avoid the crazy - that means everything to me... That is the walking through the fire. It seems strange that there is no more fire in me - menopause has been good for me. It feels like I have managed to settle now into what it means to be 50 something. I have accepted what this is. I was thinking about the word anguish... from the Latin, narrow, tightness, straits - how is it that humans are unique in this condition. Do angels exist? Yes, I firmly believe that they do. Do they feel anguish - no, no they do not because they are content... ...

Well the day is almost over for me. Not drinking means that I did indeed manage to do things and do my lesson plan. I have been writing first thing in the morning and that is now precisely what I'm going to do from tomorrow morning onwards. Make coffee, do writing - Atlantis - and then go for a run. I have managed to finish off my lesson plan so that means the entire morning is clear and free. It is a vibe I am loving as Ghin would say. So I am to bed at 9 and up at 4 - which is 7 hours. It feels great. Tomorrow  4 am - Write 6 am - Run 7 am - Chores and School 3 pm - Forest School 5 pm - Dinner 6 pm - Admin 7 pm - Lesson prep 9 pm - Sleep

I have restarted the Writing Fiction book again. I reread the first chapter and have started my journal seriously this time. and this time it is different. This time I am writing no longer with the screaming of jets in my ears, but the murmuring of the woodlands. This time I am writing with gentle purpose. The words are also coming back to me. I am not to be taken for granted says the muse. Previously it was a gift, now we both are going to have to work at it. And I make that commitment to you. We will work at it. It is not a gift I am going to let go. It is the gift I cannot and must not let go for it is at the centre of myself. How did I know that he was a narcissist? Because not once was it ever about anyone else. I do not care what created that behaviour, but as far as I know it was there in all the things he did and didn't do. There, a vein of dark poison running through his neverending need, the voluptory of insistence, of gross desire. I see it now. I see it clearly now. The...

To be a creative - a person who is able to see possibilities and then work at realising them, in whatever field, is supposed to be liberating. To see something in your mind's eye, receive a message from the cosmos and then bring it to possibility, is one of the most satisfying things one can do. To have this ability, to be able to cross that threshold - to make matter into something that matters - is the fulfillment of the human condition. If we find ourselves fallen from this, then we are bereft, empty, ready to be possessed - by others. This is why creativity is so important. It is analogous to having a home which is occupied, warmed, heated. The hearth roars with a fire and there is food on the table. The lights are on and everyone is taken care of. It is the natural human condition - it is non partisan. It thrives in freedom. It is non discriminatory. You can be a creative scientist. A creative cook. You can be a creative gardener. It does not matter. What matters is that you w...

I don't know a lot about Irish history but some of the things that did happen in the last 70 years include civil rights protests for the vote, Bloody Sunday, Operation Motorman, the Hunger Strikes, the dirty protests for political prisoner status, state collusion, abuse of children in homes... it is only through sheer force of will of the people that we have had something of peace here for the last 20 years. Ordinary people who found their way in the dark.  Today I think I might recall and recollect the 3,000 people on both sides who died in the Troubles, the thousands more who were maimed and scarred both mentally and physically, and ask for the strength to continue walking the road of peace. Imperfect and full of detours, but hopefully we will get there in the end.

This week's blackboard drawing St George and the Dragon From a mural in Beirut It has been a long long slog to get here. Not even with much effort, but more like having to have things stew. The summer brought fierce worry - parents, children, the state of the world. I do notice these things, I do. I see too the way in which vested interests have managed to commandeer stories - stories which they have manage to tell and retell until the reality, the truth is buried. Distracted and confounded, the people look another way. Their need for story overtaken and force fed tales which nourish the hatred in them.  This is then further inflated, further encouraged, until there is nothing left but a tunnel of wind, screaming, demanding to be the only thing which is heard. What power does anyone have over the demons? What, if any? Only the small silent voices and each other, and our sanity. I was broken when I came back from Singapore, which seems crazy. I had no choice but to fix myself back t...

I have decided that this blog will now be about inspiration. It is a blog to motivate and bring me hope, especially at this time when all the world seems to be dissolving around me. In Singapore it was acute - the monstrous proportion of the scale of things in Singapore is terrifying. There is no reason there. But here, at least the illusion still stays. It is a busy day. This week we do Margaret of Antioch, Pisida. She is Turkish and she also fought a dragon. I loved the saints when I was younger. I loved how they had so much courage and dared to do what was right. It is lovely we are doing the saints... after St George, we will do Brendan then we will take a break and do the King of Ireland's Son, a book which I ALSO love. There are also the Aesop's Fables, also inspiring and wise - with other Fables too.  There is much to be done today and I will just do it slowly and simply, for that is all we can do. My inspiration today is the singing of the birds outside, the rising sun,...