Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Many years ago I used to work in the RSPB. During that time I managed to learn about a great many things - not just birds. I also went for courses on fungi on my own and attended walks, etc with people who knew about fungi. As a result I do have some knowledge about fungi. Not expert, but more than the average Joe. As the years passed, my interest in fungi waxed and waned. Recently, possibly in the last ten years of so, there has been an explosive interest in fungi. Mostly because of Merlin Sheldrake's book. It is true that fungi are uncanny. They live in a nether space between the worlds. They are found everywhere. They can even exist in space. The most inhospitable conditions are something which seems of little to no challenge to fungi. It is very weird. They are fighters. And specialists. They are actually magical. So this week we are doing fungi and the Mahabharata. I can't wait, literally can't wait. I'll head to school later to ...

The aminata muscaria in our school front lawn. Yesterday was a total washout. I even felt disgusted with myself. I did. I felt like I had achieved nothing in my life and I was literally doom scrolling on my phone. Each idiotic video and each idiotic opinion is not meant to increase the flow of goodwill through this planet. In fact, it does the opposite. So I went to bed last night feeling like crap. I had watched Andor , Wednesday and Wayward . Wayward I had binge watched. It has been a nightmare. The way adolescence is treated today is horrific. I really don't know what to make of it.  People are hucksters, charlatans. They claim to know the answer, but they do not have the answer. No one has the answer. Or any answers. The only thing I do know is that it is not found on the smart phone. Or online. It is only found through human connection. The golden light of autumn. It was an awful day yesterday for sure. It was awful. Rain and more ...

On Friday the boys and I went to Meat and Mo After we collected Oisin, we explored West Belfast- Springfield. Oisin had found a ghost kitchen where they sold Texas BBQ. Well it was 14 hour smoked brisket and corn bread. The menu was limited but excellent. We ate off the boot of the car in a 19th century industrial red brick site. The boys were very amused I said that the brickwork was excellent. The food was excellent itself. I was so tired when I got home. But the laughing and the chatting and the hanging, that was good. I've actually spent so much time with Oisin this week. We have explored Belfast and parts of Belfast which I wouldn't go in honour of the tailoring interest. Honestly this week has been yet another wash out. I am so tired everytime I get home that all I'm fit for is just lying on the sofa in a stupour. No running again this week. It's so depressing. I must start running again or I ...

We completed the Ancient India ML. I think I did a better job this time round. I focussed on the creation myth and Vishnu's avatars. I did the Ramayana, which is arguably the more important story and it stands the test of time, in that when I came to the end, the children all clapped. It took us two weeks of fifteen minutes of storytelling a day. Week 1 was The Trimuti and Tridevi, with Vishnu's avatars What WAS Week 2? Maybe it was Vishnu's avatars Week 3 and 4 were the Ramayana I did tell them side stories like the origins of Hanuman and Kumbakarna. Those were imporant. Right I should go now - I'll go at 10 am. I'll finish stuff here then go. At least tidy up and hoover the downstairs.

Outside the courts I didn't go to school yesterday. I woke up with the headache and I was so tired.  I modified the lesson plan and then went straight back to bed.  It has been a beautiful two weeks weather wise.  I made my way down to the courts. People used to prize justice, but that doesn't mean very much these days. Still though, the edifice of justice is very impressive. Made of stone and marble and gilt and glowing honey coloured woods. It has high ceilings and a learned hush. Whenever I step into these places which are designed to intimidate the people who are unfamiliar with them, I remind myself how much I despised this life. That this meant nothing to me, because it was not just inaccessible, but it was inaccessible by design, which makes it maya. The best reaction you can have to these places is one of indifference. Anyway, I signed this and Kelly said she couldn't believe that it was May 2023 when the decree nisi was issued. All of last...

Oisin has taken up tailoring. He is putting his hands and brains to work and trying to make his own trousers. I mean, yes sure, start small, why not? On Tuesday - it's now Thursday - after work we went to Paragon - which by the way sold so many wonderful William Morris cloths I have to go back there and just buy a whole rake of them. They also did tapestries! Apparently heritage core is now back. Did it ever go away? All this dead eyed shit is just so awful to me. I have always been an Arts and Crafts girl. But I got news yesterday that I was to sign the papers to finalise the money Peter now will have to give me from the pension. Why did it take so long btw - May! It had to take so long because the court date was coming up in October. Every single thing which I have had to force Peter to do has had to have been done through the courts. I got him to leave the house through the courts. I got him to do the financial arrangements through the c...

Maa Brahmacharini , Yesterday was weird. It was what I found out to be the Navatari - the first of the ten days which honours Durga. In the classroom, exactly where the picture of Durga was, came the most wonderful scent, like incense. I know there is probably a really good explanation for it, but honestly, I much prefer the magical explanation - which was the goddess honoured us with her presence.  There hasn't been a lot of play in my teaching, but yesterday we played. We had a silly session doing the Jabberwocky. It was good fun. Really good fun.  Right. I've done my class planning. I will just head to bed now and go for my run at 6.30 am. It feels all weird... But I think I will observe the Navtari. Do some fasting.  What does religion beget us? I look at the state of America and the elites... they are to blame for this. It is on their watch this has occurred. I did not think that the Handmaid's Tale was the way it was going to go. But when people look round and think...

No photos today. But the boys had two burgers yesterday - the local burger in Holywood and the Wagyu burger from Burger King. There was a lot of laughing and giggling as usual. I will always treasure the moments with the boys. How much time we spent together and that we have had a great time. Recently I have been reading that the statement, I did my best, is toxic. No. It is not toxic. It is me reminding myself that I could not have done any better than I was doing. Especially since everything was up to me. The vast majority, the lion's share of the boys' lives were cared for by me. I did not manage to go running yesterday, bad habits still prevail. I really must pull my finger out of my butt. And today is the day it will occur. The work part is up and running. My excuse. I have no excuse, except that my life is absolutely full and insane. That's what it is. Full and insane.  But this year I am cutting back a little. I have started to let go. Right. Life must go on now. I d...

  My relationship to the divine has completely changed in the past year or so. Instead of seeing the mystery, I now see the surface. I see how it overlays everything and that nothing is deep really. There are no hidden meanings. There is nothing beyond that which we can see, because that is the manifestation of divinity. This poster was created as part of the Holy Nights series when I was In Singapore. I started working on the poster because I was basically on house arrest. This was almost exactly nine months ago. When I did this poster I thought of how Libra followed Virgo - that the goddess also the goddess of harvest and equality, and that we balanced the divine and the profane world, everyday, as humans. That is what we had to do. We always walk this balance. And if we allow ourselves to be pulled one way or the other, we are lost. This week also saw the murder of Charlie Kirk. Whether Kirk was a racist or misogynist, I do not know, because he seemed to have been friends with p...

The week has flown once more. I did very much have compassion fatigue. And I have realised that I can no longer be the lovely Stephanie with my class. They are very cheeky - but not overly so.  Zero running apart from last Sunday. Zero anything else apart from school. ALTHOUGH on Thursday news arrived that Peter had agreed to the payout. Yes. Fuck yeah. I'm so fucking glad we hung in there. It's not as much as I thought I'd get, but that's alright. Something is better than nothing AND he is probably so pissed off that he has to do this now.  So I did celebrate on Thursday night with two bottles of Prosecco. It was great. I did pay for it on Friday though. So today, I did do the kitchen and I'll do laundry after this. I don't know if we need to hoover. Maybe I'll hoover downstairs.  I'll hoover downstairs and then I MUST do everything with Forest School today.  The term has settled really well. The kids are well settled. I may go in this weeke...

Who knows what madness awaits us even today, tomorrow? All of what we are seeing right now is the system knowing that it has failed. Decades, not, centuries, of colonialism, is coming to an end. They pushed it as far as it would go and when people said, actually no further, they said, no further, well how do you like this? People are free. We are literally free. But it is ironic to me that people who shout loudest about freedom choose the most restrictive and judgmental ideologies. They choose the control and the fear. They say FREEDOM and then they say choose fear. And if you do not choose fear then we will make you choose fear. It's crazy. I will never choose fear. I refuse to choose fear. I choose freedom, real freedom and I will do what I want with that freedom. This was always going to happen. I had been wondering about it for decades. When will the other side blink. There are at least 2 sides - at least. And the side which is in control, instead of slowly changing, have decid...

I spent yesterday cleaning the house and doing laundry. It took an hour and a half. It was great. Then I watched stuff on TV and doom scrolled. I spoke to no one that was good cos I seem to have developed a cough and sore throat. It's always very annoying when this starts up. Apart from that I didn't do much else. I'm wondering if I should do the Rama chalk board drawing today now. At Ghin's award ceremony, I was utterly stunned about how the Christian Union was given so much prominence. I think that I wouldn't mind it so much if it was a thoughtful version of Christianity, but it is a very basic, run of the mill idea of what Christianity can be. The usual handfuls of charity work and this idea that Jesus saves everyone. Then the prayers which came forward... I am exhausted by these prayers and their tone and their fake humility. Fake because the paradox is always, oh we are so humble and loving, but really also our religion is the best religion in the...

It has been such a trip doing Ancient India once again. In many ways, I have dealt so much with the goddess but also through Angus, the god. I have loved doing this. The big understanding for me this week is that there is a light and dark, which is not shadow. Shadow is the fallen aspect of ourselves, the thing which the darkness is also there to help us with. When we are in shadow, sometimes it is the dark which will help us out of it, not the light because the light is so far far away. They aren't EVIL. Evil is something which takes us away from ourselves. Which results in us being lesser than.  The kids love the stories. It makes sense to them. The beauty of story.  Right, what else am I doing now? I need to get started with either cleaning or running. And then just quietly getting the day done. I give my heart to the goddess and her beauty and her power. I bring myself to bear through her. We are all part of the divine plan. Whether that is true or...

Celebrating at Little Wing Ghin getting ready to get his Award Board at the start of this week Inside the board - Kali and Durga Discussing the idea of karma and what it means Started by the question why does Kali have a skirt of arms? Dashavarta The spellings for this week So much has taken place this week. It has been so busy and things have occurred which sort of makes me think about life in general. The main thing though is I am getting tapped out with mythology. Can there BE such as thing as too much mythology? That's mad right? So mad. But the more I read about mythology, the more I think that so much mythology is like an add on. Fanfiction some might say. Some of the cool things though were talking to the students about understanding things which seem frightening. On Friday we looked at Parvati and Kali - the light and the dark side of the goddess. There is no such thi...

Blackboard yesterday Well we have had quite a week already. It's freezing after the lunar eclipse. I still have a dodgy tummy. The good news though is that I now know WHY I am so sore after sitting down. Especially after awhile. It's the CHAIR. This is very good news. I thought I was falling apart in some way. Heidi told me that she had to learn how to sit after being in the shop and on her feet for so long. I said, my goodness it is the same with me now. I never sit all day and when I sit I am so sore. Especially after I've been in the car. And then I said BUT it's not the same when I am sitting on the floor. She said, yes, it's the nature of chairs - and most of them are badly made. So that's good. But I was so tired after all the driving yesterday that I just ended up going to bed. Also I went for the bible study group and I had so many questions. But the big thing I did take away from it was that we must never do things which make us comfortable....

Yesterday was great to get back to Forest School. It was so beautiful, the perfect autumn day. This year it has been all about Vishnu, the god of preservation.  I need to get some pictures of the chldren's books. They are so good. Children who had been struggling struggle no more. There's still lots of work to be done, but they are doing really really good. The puzzle has been cracked. Sense of number, Four Operations, Place Value and Time Tables in Classes 1- 3. Then Fractions, a little at a time. Then after that, Quality of Numbers, and they will be set to go. In between lots of puzzles and riddles. but I need to lesson prep and I am going to see if I can get a run today.

Did my blackboard drawing yesterday I felt really miserable yesterday. But I must get over it. Well I don't must anything. The horrors in Gaza continue. I have never ever seen such a callous disregard for human life. What this tells me about Jewish people is that they are no different than anyone else. It does not matter that they have endured the most publicised persecution on the planet, they are no different. They are not at all God's Chosen peoples. If anything at all, they are the just mundane, pedestrian, if we have a chance we will take it genocidal maniacs. Like all other genocidal maniacs which came before them. They are also Europeans with no moral compass. They are no different. There is no point expecting differently from human beings. If the lack of imagination and psychopathy lies within you, then you will do what needs to be done. Are human beings just born good or bad? Unclear. But what is also clear is that there ar...

It was a good day yesterday, although it was exhausting. As usual the curriculum is going well, and the amount of time I spend with the children is so little that ML may have to give way to more maths. Which is very this part of the world anyways. I can do different kinds of Maths. They have such strong foundations though... and anyway it's only week one. It will be ok.

Watched Hothouse Flowers over the weekend. It was great. Then spent most of Sunday lying on the sofa watching the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina  which had great themes like moral relativism and the corruption at the heart of American society. I wonder if the peoples of the Old World kicked out the people who migrated because they were assholes, essentially exporting their asshole nature to the Americas. But I think that probably not because colonialism was already in full swing. They probably encouraged them to go. Who knows?  I loved dancing and it was wonderful. 

I have serious thoughts about how we teach about other cultures in this part of the world. I can't say how they do it down south, but certainly here, the way in which for instance, the Ancient Indian ML is taught they teach the caste system. Why do they teach the caste system? If they are going to teach the caste system they should also teach the CLASS system. Which is another caste system as it were. It infuriates me. This time round for the 'Voyages of Discovery', I am NOT teaching the voyages of discovery. I am going to double down on what I did the last time, which is teach the cultures of the world. The Great Wide World. The way I taught it the last time. About Mansa Musa. About the Benin Bronzes. About China and how it had trade links with other countries. I am not teaching about colonisation and the slave trade. I refuse to. The slave trade they can learn from someone else.  There was slavery all the time - throughout human history we have cre...