Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

Dear god, what a fucking Monday. Forest School restarted and it rained incessantly. Then, on the way home, my car hit a pothole and it got a flat tyre. Another parent hit the same pothole and had the same flat tyre.  Anyway, two hours after Forest School, I just got home. The wind was winding and the rain at least had stopped. It was kinda mad.  This is the third storm this winter. Schools all over Northern Ireland have cancelled. I don't know. Are people being overly dramatic? It had been really windy last night. I will spend the day doing home things. Lovely home things. And get my car sorted later today. Sigh. I need to get the under carriage checked as well to see if any more damage was done to the underside of the car and get that repaired if that is the case. Fuck. Just after passing the MOT too...

Brent geese in Belfast Harbour estate Islandmagee The Gobbins This magical faraway place - it reminded me of Myst. Complete with its own waterfall Oisín is spending much time now with me. As Síuban said, when the boys are in their 20s they will understand what has happened. We laugh about everything. At everything. Morning started off at General Merchants. Oisín had huavoes rotos and I had espresso. I had already eaten. Then I collected Ghin and dropped both off so that I could do the Forest School shop. It is gonna be a wet Forest School. Then I headed back to get Oisín. I said I wanted to do a long drive for the car to give its legs a stretch and we drove to Islandmagee.  I love Islandmagee. Its a mix of the North Coast and Donegal in miniature. We walked down to the shoreline and to the start of the 'walk'. This is one of the few ins...

Years and years ago - 2011 - in Harapan.  I live for the simple. The simple, the easy, the straightforward. I live for the peaceful and the no drama. That's what I committed myself to around 13 years ago and that's what I have upheld. Since then, life has never been simpler. It has been amazing. Yesterday, Oisin and I went to go to get food and then we mooched around TK Maxx and went to Pets At Home. After that we watched Fargo  and then headed to Newtownards to get his eyes checked. It was very busy in Ards. I said to Oisin that it was great how local Ards was. There is nothing gentrified about it. In fact, there is not a loot gentrified about any of the small towns in the Ards Peninsula. After that, Oisin stopped over at Jim's house and then returned later. I was supposed to go out with Emma, but she dialed it in. So I watched T he Perks of Being a Wallflower  which was weird because it was full of well known young actors who now have troubling histories, or have faded ...

Just rambling on the blog here... Just trying to get thoughts together. It has been difficult over the past few months - the Gaza genocide has been awful. I have deleted TikTok and I do miss it a bit. I kind of have no idea what is going on in the world. The biggest thing youtube seems to be interested in is the fate of the Beckham family and the mediocre stupidity of the people who are part of that show. BUT the good news is that I am just not on TikTok so much any more. Just the sheer drivel that is now on it is mind boggling. I think I am going to go and get some coffee to make coffee with. I need to sit and plan though - just so much to do and think about and run through. But at least the plumer has been paid, tickets to Singapore bought, car's MOT sorted and finances taken care of. So now to focus on elements and other things.

The class are doing brilliantly. All of them are up with their times tables and they are now working towards goals which they can achieve. Fridays are lovely days where we will be working hard to complete anything we need to complete. And yesterday that meant learning how to wash up after cleaning, their cross stitch, their passages on Zarathustra. It has been an amazing time really. I have really enjoyed the work we have done over the last few months. Next week start with decimals. It should be relatively straightforward. They all understand fractions and now they will understand decimals. And then we will learn how to convert and then be on our way to percentages. Then more geometry. Maths will be a singe now because they have their tables and understand fractions. The hardest part of maths has been cracked for most of them. So there it is. The car passed its MOT and I'll get it serviced by anothe...

The view from the top - my annual view of Scrabo Tower during the MOT - usually through driving rain and bitter cold... Well, yesterday, for the MOT, the car passed. I was SOOOOOO happy. It was lashing down and I had to dig everything out of the boot and put it into the trolley I had in the boot. Before that the usual washing of the car before the MOT. I thought it was going to fail on account of the passengers window not working, but it was not an essential. After that, all I needed was a wing and a prayer. And it passed. Another year. The car lives to be on the road another year. My 2011 S40 Volvo.  That makes it 15 years old. How many adventures we have had. My little car and I. Driving to England and then driving to all over Ireland. I think I'll celebrate with a little road trip down the Peninsula.  I have always said that I would never be without a car. Just like I didn't care about biodiversity and roaches and mosquitoes can go such a fat one. It is SUCH a relief. Such ...

You have to wonder about the state of the world when someone who is in the deep boomer territory is now making idiotic pronouncements on the world stage.  Like:- taking the territory off an ally, trying to create a coup in a major Middle Eastern country... I wonder sometimes if the Americans actually understand how large Iran is. Literally. How large and how massive is Iran. Kidnapping the President of Venezuela. Trying to say they are going to get Canada. It is clearly the raging of a mad man. But on the other hand, we have the exposure of the Israelis. The coming together of the rest of the world against the racist West. No one wants Iran to collapse in chaos except for Israel. They are so evil. I wish they would just implode - how does someone like Trump and Netanyahu live. How are they still alive?

I am loving Zoroastrianism and how it influenced these other religions which we think of as the Abramic religions - which makes sense because Abram was from Ur which means he was 100% aware of Zoroastrianism.  Maybe I'll do the religions which we have learnt over the last few years... maybe I'll do that on Friday. Then I'll do the empires... The Amesha Spenta are the Archangels. Love this. I'm having a time of my life. I have also discovered that there was a Zarathutrian renaissance in the West during the last 19th century - around the time that Steiner was writing his philosophies. He was so much a man of his time. 

Looks much better IRL We have been doing Zarathustra. I have loved this. We are going slow, but then we always go slow. I don't confuse the children. I think the most important thing about Zarathustra is that he began the new idea that there was only one god. And that we fought the battle between good and evil inside ourselves. Not outside. The battle is within. We have to stop blaming other things - externalising the behaviours which we have. Ghin came over yesterday - I made dinner and we chatted. I drop and collect Oisin from Bannatyne. We live quiet, unremarkable lives, which is great. I love this. Living unremarkably. It is a blessing to live unremarkably, especially after such stress and trauma. I don't know how I did all that. One foot before the other. Anyway, I am not doing more than other women have done over the years. I said to Ghin, as we chatted about toxic masculinity, that this has existed since time immemorial. My short story, Silence,  ...

I love this card - a reminder to just always be myself... I'm listening to a review of the Eat, Pray, Love  woman's latest book about her life with her lover. It is crazy really that anyone would write a book like this and just unveil the horror of someone who is preying on another person's pain. It's kind a mad. Totally mad. So... I need to know what to do next. I have this draft manuscript and I want to get it published. I am unsure what to do next... who will help me. I need to believe in the book and go forward. And still write... just keep writing.  It is interesting that even, back in the day, when I was with AWARE in my 20s, the idea of the well-meaning white woman - or the Karen - was something much reviled by the NGOs of the 'global South'. I remember people saying these woman, they come in a tell us how to live, not realising that we cannot do this. This is not what we are about. The women were just seeing themselves as being brave and h...

Witchy - taken in Halloween last year Yesterday I cooked my lasagne. For the boys. It was just as they remembered, or so they have said. I'm making some casserole beef in the slow cooker this morning. Hopefully it will be ready when I get home. I don't know what has happened to the heating but it is now on for times which I am not prepared for it to be on for. It is unsettling to wake up to a warm house. I must check it out before I leave.  I did my finances yesterday and from this afternoon on I am going to go for my run after school. I will run everyday. Stretch. I will be good to myself. The last big ticket item for the year is going to be spent within the next few weeks - getting the car sorted. After that, I will be home free. I also tried frying a beef casserole and it was great seared. Totally edible - nicer than steak. So that's my hack for this year. Casserole steak.  It was so good doing the finances and discovering that I had lots of runway still. Such a relief. ...

We have arrived at the start of Week 3 in January. Soon it will be Aquarius. And January will be over. It is swift. Yes. I hoovered and cleaned the house yesterday. Oisin was very upset that I didn't want to chip in with the tumble dryer. Sigh. I don't want a tumbled dryer. They are bad for clothes. And they are so energy intensive. I hate them. I literally hate them. Anyway. Apart from that - oh we had Little Wing for lunch yesterday as well - I didn't do much. I was supposed to go out with Liz but I bailed. I am tired. I didn't even go running. I did read though. I read this collection of short stories. They were cute. Local short stories retold by Raymond Carver's wife whose name I have forgotten.  Ghin has said he wants to go to Queens. We don't have to think too much about it - until he gets his results. Well maybe we do visit Lancaster to see what it looks like. Maybe we visit it in Easter. 

  This time round, the work we did around Ancient Persia used the Magi as the jumping off point. It was clearly the season of Epiphany, so it seemed nice to use what we were familiar with to introduce the children to the idea of what Zarathustra did for us. There is so much collective symbolism around the birth of Jesus in the Bible. Different books emphasise different things. For instance, the presence of the Sheep, Ox and the Donkey symbolises the passing of the age of the Ram and Bull to a new age - an age of love - the Donkey is the animal of service and humility. The arrival of the Magi symbolise the passing of the torch of the priesthood of Zarathustra to Jesus - the gifts given are gold, frankincense and myrrh - good thoughts, good words and good deeds. But Jesus is no priest - he is an everyman. And the liberation which Christ brings, is hardwired into the story of the birth. I used to be fascinated with the Wise Men. Who were these Wise Men and where did they come from? Th...

Memories from a long time ago... when we were young... Well... life... I just thought I'd plonk a few words down here...  This has been a bittersweet week. The sad things. The sad thing is this, as I said to anyone who has listened, that people do not understand that we are a not a mental health facility nor a special school. I understand that people here are a bit parochial, so they don't understand that alternative education is alternative education, not special education. People think that because we don't have tests and exams, we learn nothing. We don't have tests and exams because they are counter productive and an unnecessary evil. So we get people applying who think we can sort out anything. But we are not a mental health facility. We are not a special needs school. We enable children to develop into who they are meant to be. Unfortunately, people do find this idea terrifying. People send children to state schools even if they can afford our school because they a...

This week a few children in the class experienced a breakthrough. I was astonished. After all the work we have done, here we are - the children are alright after all. This is in stark contrast to the crazy which we are seeing in America. It didn't happen overnight of course. It was warned of and spoken about. Many people had recognised the signs. If this could be done in Gaza, this could also be done in the US. The boomerang effect with zionists now able to never leave America to create a state of fear at home. I wonder if they will start taking people's homes now.  And it all began with Palestine. This is why we stand up. This is why we have to say something. Meanwhile, I'll tell you the amazing things which have taken place over the course of the last few days. The capacity for the children to work is increased exponentially. Children who struggled with writing, don't struggle any more... Numeracy has drastically improved.  Every single child in the class has improved...

Well, on Monday evening, Oisin told me that he had received word from Singapore that there would be a good chance that he would be heading back to Singapore. I cannot tell you the amount of mixed feelings that coursed through my bones was overwhelming. I did not expect the news to come plus, I was heartbroken thinking of him leaving. However, if it meant he would be with my mum and dad, that made me very happy. But the sense I was not going to see him for a bit - there would be no Ghin as he would be off to uni - and then the day of reckoning - what will I do about my own life? Will I return to Singapore? It's hard to know. Hard to know. I don't want to go back to Singapore. Look, I am just going to have to sit down and think about what it really means. What will I do for the next few years... will I keep the house here OR will I sell if and move on? I love life in Ireland. I'm not ready to leave Ireland. I'm just not. Ireland is home to me. But the world is changing. I...

Depiction of Zoroaster in Clavis Artis [it], an alchemy manuscript published in Germany in the late 17th or early 18th century and pseudoepigraphically attributed to Zoroaster It was such a lovely weekend, although there was the stupid airline ticket disaster. Oisin was so sweet cos he treated me to lunch and cinema and an evening out to make me feel better. I saw what he was doing. He is such a great kid.  We watched Hamnet  and maybe I am autistic because I found it remarkably baffling. I kept thinking um, I cannot square this circle between everything I know about Shakespeare and the play and what's being portrayed on screen. His wife as a hedge witch, REALLY? Sure why not? But were women able to live so freely, like some kind of flower child? Shakespeare apparently never having lived in Stratford in the first place... the play being based on the Danish play called Amleth  and actually the entirety of the play as a revenge tragedy... and the inclusion of the 'To be or ...

Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action Simple, yes? No need for the rules and laws which end up getting us tangled in everything. Everything. Which dissemble and weasel word their way from the ground up, covering everything with those Vecna like vines.  But anyway, here we are. Here we are in this space, with the beauty of everything around us. So... I am going to do some promising and planning. To myself... but first...

The Faravahar - keeping the 'banana' language structure then... The class is now doing Ancient Persia and we are starting off with Zoroastrianism or Mazdayasna. Just exactly how close it was to the ancient religion where there were many gods, is reflected in the retention of the banana structure of the language. When I did this the first time round I was vaguely aware of the fire people of Iran and India. But what I did not realise was that this was the first time in history where people were taking the directional fo0rce of their lives from gods to themselves. They were saying we are responsible for our own behaviour. It was a massive break from saying we are in the hands of the gods. It is the gods which will our fate. We are not enslaved by a repetitious cycle of reincarnation, or caste, nor are we now imagining that it is the gods who are in charge of things. We are in charge of our own fate. And it is the impetus which then gave birth to the way we are now. And even now we...

American the home of the gun - America never stopped being a frontier colony. This is what happens when you take over someone's land. Deep inside your very flesh and genes - you know you do not belong to the land. The land was taken off someone else forcibly - and very forcibly at that. Perhaps this is why I am in Ireland. Because the Irish stood and fought. Ironically many of them also went to America. But this is the point, is it not? All of the world, all of life, has so much to celebrate and instead, here we are, at each other's throats, once again. The solution for the entire planet is clear - but the people who have to give up the most refuse to do it.  Yesterday I continued cleaning up in the classroom. Instead of hanging out in the breakroom. I was there for a short while, but cleaning up in the classroom was also great. I have begun to bin things, which is extremely cathartic. And give things away as well. So today... I am going to go running after school. After that I...

Errigal... there are still sane places in the world It was the first day back to school. We took it very easy. We made sure we had all our equipment, we got new places to sit, I gave the kids new books to read. We did health and safety checks. It was fine. I heard someone who clearly has no idea about geopolitics pronounce things that did not need pronounced. It was shite. But the cherry on the icing, literally, was the murder in broad daylight of woman who was trying to warn people of ICE agents in the neighbourhood. The internet, being what it is, captured the moment when the man fired three shots into the face of the woman who was sitting in her car. Men hate women, let us never forget that, or should i say, certain kinds of men hate women. He was clearly that kind of man.  Then this senator came out, she was typecast for the role, wearing a cowboy hat, saying that he was defending himself, when he clearly was not defending himself. Honestly, what the actual fuck is going on in ...

Today's Goddess card is Brigid. It's nice to look forward to spring. The Irish have a deep connection with the land. It is probably what sustained them against the English. The English - actually - if you look at all colonisation, it has failed one way or the other. America is a shattered country. But even before it was shattered the way it is now, its society was complete toxic. It was probably best exemplified by the disturbing stories of Stephen King and the now, the child sacrifices which take place in the degenerate circles of the Epstein class.  This post was not supposed to be about America. It was supposed to be able the indigenous peoples of the land and their connection to it. If you are a coloniser, or descended from colonisers, or the results of colonisation, as I am, the very least you could do is fucking not take the side of the colonisers - or to put it positively, stand in solidarity with the oppressed and help keep the stories alive. Brigid was, of course, one ...

Perhaps the most amazing thing about having my sons is how wonderful they are. I genuinely believe this is who they are as people. They are remarkably settled and just ambitious, but not in a bad way. They aren't brittle, they love being creative - Oisin does music and art, Ghin does music and film - and art - and they are most importantly, not toxic people. They are good human beings and it makes me happy to see that they will be fine in this big bad world. They are one of the good ones. This formatting is very annoying. What can you do though? Well, yesterday, after the completion of the short story and after the run - which was so beautiful - I went to school and got the classroom tidied. Most things will be just doing stuff, getting the classroom set up. I turned on the hot water. Then Oisin and I had lunch... here we are...  We had Little Wing. He paid for lunch. We had pizza and when I got home I made the roast pork which was excellent. It was only 9 quid. For 2.5 kg. I wat...

This year's resolution is I am going to take time to take time. I am not going to value rushing around and proving myself. I am not going to beat myself up over anything. I am going to listen more. I am going to be kinder to myself. I am going to take the advise of the Capricorn to plan and organise. To enjoy this process. I am also going to be kinder in general. Just back from the run and filled with gratitude. Gratitude that I can still run. Gratitude that I have good wonderful sons. Gratitude that I have enough. More than enough. Gratitude that everything is manageable.  I looked back on this break and so much had been accomplished by way of the reset. That I had completed the transcription of my stories and printed the manuscript. That I had written eight new stories on keyboard. That I had begun running again everyday - ten days to be exact. I served the mass at the Christian community. I began to feed birds again. And spent so much time with the boys. That has all...

This year... well last year... that was awful. Most awful that the suffering and injustice in Gaza continued. But it was a prefiguring. A prefiguring of the idiot children - the boomers. I honestly cannot WAIT to see the likes of the strange plastic people melting. They are so odd. Please let them all melt. They would have you believe that being a good person is a waste of time. Instead their idea of a good use of time is being a strong person - but their version of strong is total dominance. They are all psychopaths. I'm pretty sure they are all psychopaths. And their possession is total.  I don't want to only talk about this though. I also want to talk about the epiphany I had yesterday as I served mass. I was just overwhelmed during the transubstitution part of the mass. I always have my doubts about how much this monomania around the entire eschatology of these Abramic faiths. Instead of paying attention to life and how life should be lived, they are OBESSESED w...

The mystery of the seed - how spirit becomes matter The narrowness of the path we tread: choose the path to serve the self or serve humanity Nights of the White Lily The wideness of the path of the Earth: we are called to be on earth and everything is food to the soul The mirror of Uriel - confront who we are. Work on ourselves for the well-being of others. Transform negative thoughts into positive thoughts through the agency of Christ Nights of the Sword Develop  discernment  by reconciling the Son of God and the Son of Man Wisdom : Who rules our souls? Who is the Lord of our soul, the author of our actions?  Courage  and faithfulness to the purpose of the Lion Nights of the Crown Lower self surrenders and all that remains is the desire to serve and to give oneself The Voice within us that calls through the various incarnations: its clarity increases through sacrifice and decision. The focused and resolute forces of Sagittarius must be engaged so that they can recei...