Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

It is another weekend...It is ridiculous how swiftly time passes. The boot is now off... well, the healing is getting better and faster daily. It cannot believe how miserable I felt this time last week, thinking it will never get better, and actually, magically, it has. There are some weeks where there are the wins. This week was one of them. We dealt with an absent member of staff as best we could and held those children. The kids are well. I am well. The boys are well. The weeks therefore pass... The Year of Living Beautifully Billed as...  Here is where I work hard, stretch every sinew as I love to do, but at the same time, know that I am doing well. I am holding out well. We are alright. Financially, emotionally, everything really - we are doing alright, more than alright. Life is a light touch now. If this is the extent of my world for the rest of my life, I will be content. But I know that change is coming. In Singapore for a start, that...

Is anxiety ever NOT justified? If someone feels anxious all the time, and is crucified by it, then, is it possible to overcome it? Our school is about education in a sensory, gently structured way - to get to know the world, to understand it, in a meaningful, relatable fashion. The joy which the children feel, which they have... we have the breathing in and out... it is important really to have all this...  The fact is, you need SOMEONE to be there for the person. That one person, that person's key adult.  The boys and I had a lovely dinner... we ate at Coast and chatted and laughed. There was a LOT of laughter. And chat, and conversation. It is always good fun. My foot seems to be on the mend. After worrying about it on Monday, it seems to be feel like it is healing up. It will take as long as it takes I guess. They are saying 90 days, so 90 days it is.

Each day is a gift. No, really it is. Yesterday's Forest School was incredible - as was the Forest School at the weekend. When you are in a good place, you know it is a good place. It feels... incredible. My foot still hurts, but it does not seem to be so acutely sore. That seemed to change overnight. But I will just put pictures from yesterday here... I can't believe this blog is now 17 years old!!!! There I am with my gimpy foot...

Well... four days later. It has been a busy weekend. Forest School, then collapse. Boys for dinner. Collapse.  Munch. Collapse. Club. Dinner. Collapse. The foot thing is not just that its broken. It's also that limping is very tiring. On Wednesday, I realised that I was putting undue pressure on my right side - 80% of the weight was redistributed there. So it started getting very painful there too. I realised I had to redistributed it back and bend my knees. I had been walking around like an unhinged thing, literally. So I returned the weight, mostly, and then...  The ENTIRE foot is no longer sore, which is good news. The part which is broken twinges. It didn't twinge so much this morning, but I may have overdone it with hardening yesterday. And forest school the day before. But I MUST continue wearing the boot. I tried going bootless on Saturday night and I was astonished how much weight the boot was taking. So back the boot went on again. What I have noticed is t...

May have post this... but now I have learnt to celebrate how beautiful I am So much has already happened this September. School began - I can barely believe it only being just under 3 weeks. The children have taken off like rockets, although I now have to watch one in particular. Their writing and reading is coming along by very slowly. Their maths though, faultless. I also need to redo the seating plan. I cannot have three rows, it is too far back in the class I think. Or I need to write larger. I feel much better as a teacher now.  What can I say? It feels good. Being good at the thing you have been doing for ten years. Magic. Then there's the health club. I've started so well. We began for two weeks, and then, in the last two weeks, it all ended. It felt though like we had been going there forever before I had to stop going. So during this hiatus - which in all probability will take me to the start of next year, hopefully, it will be January, it might be February, I will be ...

Some pictures from the blackboard this week. I am very good at the blackboard, if I do say so myself. I thought that I'd write this, before the rest of the evening disappears from me. It has been a truly fulfilling day. One of the children had a breakthrough with their Maths. There is so much really which I can say about teaching children Maths. After a sense of number, the properties of the four operations and then Place Value, plus the multiplication tables... there isn't much else. If you have laid those foundations, the rest of it just GOES. I cannot believe how quickly the children are starting to take off AND there is such a sense of job satisfaction. They are now able to understand these VERY complicated sums and work it out for themselves. There really isn't much else they need to do. I will keep it this complicated for the rest of the term - the only thing that needs to be introduc...

At Bannatyne, waiting for Oisin Yesterday... all the playing ... remembering the Joys...

We can tune ourselves to the voice, the presence of the unseen. The that which lives from beyond the senses we regularly use. We can open ourselves to the benediction of that which is Good. Which wants the best for us and believe it is for us.  We do not have to try too too hard. Storm Petral

Sometimes the healing finds you.   Sometimes you must be broken if you are to be healed. Sometimes, there is no other way. Often times, that is the only path. The cure then presents itself, without you even knowing you were ill - nor looking for it. In that way, healing is very much like love. It chooses you, when you least expect it. Yesterday, I went for the New Moon Goddess Journey. It is now almost a year since we started working consciously, actively, with the Goddess. Two years now, I suppose.  Last night, I went to sleep early and had the gentlest, most delicate of dreams. In them I was soothed. The drumming had brought a tenderness to my soul, my spirit, which I did not think was required, sought for, wanted. There it was, like a gift. A knot, this knot, which I was not aware of, the burden I had carried, was melted, lifted. There I was left, as if I was created a new. Like the first day of creation. We drummed in th...

Ghin being a meme.... I have been very confused since I've returned. My brain does not seem to be wired right. I cannot tell you why, but I can tell you that I have tried my very best to get to the bottom of it. It seems to be mostly made up of me being very distracted and unable to focus. I really don't know what to do. I have tried creating a schedule but ... well, let me describe it... on some days I wonder, did I brush my teeth? The good news is that yes! I have always brushed my teeth, but how come I doubt that. I have to double check everything now - especially like turning off the stove - when previously I would have done it without thinking twice. Sometimes... I forget what I have eaten earlier in the day... or I forget who the girl who sat naked on top a wrecking ball - er what was her name? I have looked at the symptoms of early onset dementia - and in fact I have none of them. In fact, I seem to have an excess of consciousness about my problems with what ...

In recovery There is something completely reprehensible about destroying people who speak out with their own weaknesses. It has happened to two people which I won't say I admire, but am grateful for for being such effective voices in speaking truth to power. In the past, it has been the Epsteins and the Prince Andrews of the world which have been kicked to the curb - and good that they are. They have gone down in flames while still rolling about in the mud. They were being exposed for the exploiters which they are. And yes, more needs to be done for the hypocrites of the world. For those who are doing the truth to power thing - there needs to be a more critical appraisal of the WHY it is being done. Is this a double standard from me? Yes and no. No cos Brand has not only said, this is what I did, I was on a bender and I did wrong. PLUS I no longer take advantage of the position I used to be in, instead I am now speaking up against assholes like Gates, like B...

Outside  Inside And six days have passed - just like that. It has been, as some know, a crappy week. It started of crappy - irrationally crappy, I might add. And on Sunday morning, I fell down the stairs, well missed two stairs and it would appear, sprain my foot terribly. BUT it turned out that I had actually broken my foot. After limping around for five days, on Thursday I noticed my toes had turned blue and was told by 4 friends, go to the doctor. So on Friday I hauled myself to the A&E of Dundonald, discovered they were now a Minor Injuries Unit and they were excellent. Instead of being the last to be seen as I did not have a life threatening illness or condition, I was admitted, triaged, x rayed, diagnosed and discharged inside of an hour and a half... and it was excellent. I did feel very stupid walking around the past few days with a broken foot though. At least I know I wasn't making a mountain out of a molehill. The break was quite substantia...

Just had a facetime with Ma. I told her I was feeling quite sad. For no reason. Really there is no reason. Everything is good. Nothing has changed. But me feeling sad for no good reason. She said, well could it be that you have so much to do? Well, no more than usual. I honestly could not tell you. I run, I eat well, I am drinking wayyyyyyy less than I have ever done, and teaching is going good. I am rid of millstone round my neck, things are working out on every front and yet - what is this source of malaise? Yesterday Ghin told me I was his best friend. Really couldn't you ask for more? Having joyfully, but with great difficulty - cos bringing up children is tough - brought these boys up and successfully managed to steer them through the rocks of doom, they are now almost free. Ghin has two more years, and Oisin is now making his way through the world. I have crazy expenses, I have money in my pockets, enough, the divorce saga is coming to an end... everything is good...

Ghin at the John Hewitt Yesterday was lovely but quite unproductive. I suppose resting is productive. Except I have a huge list of things to do and really... I have no energy nor inspiration to do it. School is fine, but anything other than school. It has been a very weird three weeks - and only three weeks since we returned. So I guess I should feel a bit mollified by how much WAS accomplished in the last few weeks.  Cleaning classroom, getting things ready  Organising, which is what I need to do now I don't know why I feel so confused about what needs to be done next. What is wrong with me? I think I need to eat something. But I'm circling back and I am going to take charge of my life now...

It has been a very long week. Well long and short. Having Oisin here has been so wonderful but at the same time it is hard when he leaves. He stays here with me and he has been such great company. We get on well. He has a gentle, pleasant manner about him and he is incredibly conscientious. I told him to enjoy this in between time. It may be the only time when, freed from responsibility, you have this space to do what you choose. I said how I had about 3 months between my A levels and the results coming out where I ran, swam, biked all over Singapore. It was one of the happiest times of my life.  I have had so many happy times, I really CANNOT complain. Being young, and fit and so full of potential. Even then I was tortured with the idea of what would my future hold for me. I would need to choose very consciously. I had always, always taken my part in being a human being seriously. I would never contribute unknowingly to a mess.  And yet everywhere it seems, the bad guys are w...

Day 3 Plantain Corn Dolly So things are progressing well in class. Today I asked a student how they felt when they had to do Maths - draw it. And they said I feel angry, confused and hungry. After drawing it, it felt like a burden had lifted. And they were then able to do a bit more Maths and said, why would I be confused about 4 + 2? I said well you told me you felt confused. Are you no longer confused? They said, no. It's easy. Well, only time will tell if that was a breakthrough. I have really enjoyed the past week. It has been a peaceful return to term. With painting and easy Maths and cooking. It has been very gentle... slowly a routine is building up as well. But I am so tired after school. I think we need to exercise immediately after school... although how I am supposed to then do admin I don't know. Ghin is exhausted. Right...  Time to head to the club. I don't know if Ghin is coming along...

I suppose this is the first day back to routine. Everything else has been a tee up. There are no real routines in my life though. Everything is always in flux, it is moving constantly. I am still very discombobulated. the boys coming home has been great though. We go to the gym everyday at around 6. It feels great to run for half an hour and then stay in the steam room for a bit. I notice my skin is so much better with this. I have decided to swim every other day rather than everyday because of the chlorine. The chlorine is bad of the hair and skin. And there is SO MUCH chlorine.  But the steam room is great and it will come into its own in the winter. Running is my happy place. I run for precisely 30 minutes. Right now it is almost 4 km in that time and I burn 285ish calories. It's not the calories though. It is the cleaning out of the brain. The muscle tone, the sweating, the focus. It is all that. I watch fragments of films. Yesterday's film was abo...

It makes me a bit worried that I no longer feel and are as good at things that I used to fell/ be good at. Apart from the deteriorating eyesight, I have decided to stop looking at the phone in bed at night, and the usual slow collapse of the physical body, like aches and pains when I get up, there are other things - like jumbling up m words, second guessing spellings I KNOW I used to be certain about, being unable to think as quickly - I do wonder if these are a result of Covid - and finally, this is the most worrying of the lot - getting as excited about things as I used to. Now I don't expect to me an absolute squealing teenager, in facy people my regard me as slightly insane if I was, but at the same time, I should lee dead inside - not that I do feel dead inside, but the percentage should be less. Is feeling not so dead inside - ah yes, I also my train of thought, like I have done now - is not feeling so dead inside a CHOICE? Do I have to choose not feeling so dead inside anymo...

Well... it is Sunday. And the first week of school. It has been a busy weekend, with a beautiful Saturday when Oisin and I headed out along the Eastern seaboard of N Ireland. We passed Cormorant Rock on our way to the Glens and stopped at Carnlough for late lunch. After we returned, Oisin went for a party and Ghin stayed with me and we watched two films - Triangle of Sadness and 3,000 Years of Longing. But were good but I fell asleep. This we the weekend I binge watched And Just Like That. I can't tell what was fascinating about it. Were these people certifiable? Oisin said no wonder people are dysfunctional - they watching TV shows like Sex and the City.  This morning we had breakfast at Munch and then we came back, I finished And Just Like That and then sorted out the classroom. I'll plan my lesson tomorrow and then head to the pool. Organisation of the personal and the week will happen this evening after the pool.  Oh yes, the...

It always takes awhile to readjust returning from Singapore. It is always strange. Living in two worlds, having two places in my head. I belong nowhere really. I like belonging nowhere. I don't know why. This idea of loyalty and fealty to place or space is strange to me. I think I have the allergy to being manipulated. I know it can and is used to make people do things which they otherwise will not do. During the pandemic I saw people lose their minds. I do not want to be there. Go there. Loyalties and prejudice got in the way of doing the right thing.  So, as usual I stand alone. I also stand with the other people who stand alone. We find each other somehow and this happens. So to all those people standing on their own and alone. But I also have tribes. Little tribes which are lovely. They feed me and they are enough. They are enough to keep me sane. And I find them every year, refind them. And the...