Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

The Twisted Willow we rescued all those years ago... it was a twig that was dying The veg garden I cleared the entire pond area - it was covered in mimosa and comfrey... and it was several wheelbarrow loads More of the veg garden Bench Kevin made with my class Gary asking for food Me yesterday The biggest thing I did yesterday was keep my end of the bargain and clear up the pond area in the garden. It took me almost two hours and it was done. I could tell it wasn't cleared for at least three years and had gone completely out of control. Anyway, lots of stretching and squatting and sawing - I was utterly sweating by the time it was over. Even in just my T-shirt. No one can tell me that gardening is not about fitness and cardio. I think that if I hadn't been in the best shape of my life for a while, I would certainly not have had the stamina to have completed the entire area.  I went home and then...

Yesterday and today I experienced the healing journey of time travel. For years and years I had carried a wound which was so painful that I didn't even know it was there and yesterday it was released. What is that? I think when the unknown is resolved, the thing which was leaking all through the years is put in context and then - it no longer holds the power to exert its hold over you. I must think about it a bit more.  Everything is over now. It is over. It is over and it is also forever. 

Scrabo Tower Jet lag is now defeated. For the fifth time this year. As I said yesterday it has been exhausting. But it is also so nice meeting up with people and seeing how much of a life which has been covered over these years. Yesterday was Janet and Liz. I walked with Janet around Cairn Woods and then we had lunch at McKees. Both places so much a part of my life on the Ards Peninsula. Cairn Woods I did Forest School and McKees so many lunches and shopping. Steaks, vegetables, lemon meringue, tartlets, etc. It has been magical. Yes, the place is fraught with so much history, but which place isn't?  Janet - I had known since 2002 - when Oisin was 6 months old - meant that we had lots to catch up about. Our own life journeys, people we knew and what had happened to them. I said that Kevin and I had met up and jokingly we said that we were the greatest generation in the RSPB here. She agreed and said we were all committed in doing things that we loved. I said...

Went for my shore run yesterday. Everything is easier in this weather. Running in Singapore, especially outdoors is hell. Im pretty sure i've just put on water again because i'm not perspiring any more. I then went to school, did the presentation, met Jemma, tidied the house and then met Heidi for dinner.  It was so nice - just everything. It was so nice to have a good chat with Heidi. It had literally been months. We talked about everything. The boys, Pa's passing, her own experience of her father's death, Holywood - we talked about everything. And we laughed about everything. You know what's the best thing though with good friends... you know who is in your corner. They have watched everything you have been through and they have borne witness. The one thing which people always remark on is how wonderful the boys are - and they are wonderful and I know they are wonderful because of me - because there is an experiment being set up...

Lord it has taken forever, but I'm finally over jetlag. The only difference is that it wasn't accompanied by the manic industry at strange hours of the morning. I just was totally flopped over. I finally did the presentation for today and dyed my hair. And applied a facemask. But yes, it has been a week, but the frenetic productivity which usually accompanies was absent. I think maybe I've done these trips too much this year. I certainly had it when I came back the last time. This time - nada. And also nada when I got back the last time. I have also eaten too much and not kept up with my running. I have put on a pound since my arrival, I can't feel it. However, on the bright said, I sad Jonathan yesterday. It was a sweet evening at The American Bar. the perfect evening to leave it for the last time. It was the urban equivalent of sitting at the pub in Moville and listening to Wild Horses  by the Stones alongside the water. I must get to the sea if at all pos...

In many cultures, before the advent of colonialism, the idea of tapu was a very important part of the rites and rituals of everyday life. A common one which still exists today is that Muslims and Jewish people do not eat pork and Hindus do not eat beef. But there were other tapus. Certain places were sacred. Places where our ancestors would inhabit. Where the faery lived and protected. In Ireland, till today, farmers will not cut down fairy trees and holy wells are still revered and recognised with rags, often tied on faery trees. I will never forget the subprime collapse of the Irish economy taking place after the government went ahead and built a highway through the ancient land of Tara. It took Ireland seven years to recover from it. It is still recovering from it today. Tapus exist for a reason. That reason may be lost in the mists of time and then rebranded by those who think they know better as 'superstition'. But we should think of tapus as boundaries - sacred boundaries...

So lucky to have worked here I went running yesterday at Belvoir Park forest. As I drove there a strong sense of sorrow overcame me as i thought of all the years i spent driving up and down that motorway which in essence hasn't changed at all. It is still the same. Protected from the madness of having too much money, Belfast is looking better - but - well let's just say it has aged as it should and not looks like some jumped up aging asshole with hair plugs and botox. That is what Singapore is effectively.  Anyway, I went running along the tow path. The sun shone and the water glimmered. Everywhere the celebration of Lunasa was rejoicing. I ran and remembered so much. So much. I did my stretches beneath the copper beeches. I thought of the many lunches I had out in the sun when it did shine. I thought of the walks I had taken and the hands which were held. The boys and the birds and the scent of Himalayan balsam at this time of th...

There is a reason I left Singapore. It is a police state. It is a police state high on its own Kool Aid. It believes that it is the tippy toppy toppiest part of the pyramid and that it is so clever. The people who run it have been told they are so clever all their lives. To make things very bad, it also suffers from the Asian deferential disease. So people who think they are clever can have great ideas and no one will tell them it is stupid. Also many people do not have the best interests of the people of Singapore in mind. They mind the GDP and the economy and the pockets of the people who stand to make lots of money in destruction and construction, but that is it. They are not interested in off ramping the place, creating a real culture, cultivating a voice which is unique and our own. Everything is churned out crap. It's so embarrassing.  Anyhow, their latest madness is the developing the Southern Islands so that they become the Western Island. I don't understand how the geo...

I have another 15 minutes here. So I'll just do some washing up in the kitchen... Then I'll head out... Listening to a talk on youtube about how Christ as blood sacrifice was all made up by Saul of Tarsus. Actually today, while I was at the service I wondered what would it have been like if we rewrote Jesus as a woman instead of a man? Would it be different? I have no more sense of time. None whatsoever. So weird and strange and still. It is only 6 pm. It is as if everything has become detached. I have read with some frustration that Singapore is going to destroy even more of its nature. I HATE the Singaporean Government. They are crass and shallow and pathetic. There is no depth in the way they think. They do not value the intrinsic beauty of life. Actual humanity. There is actually nothing which tells me that they understand what the future is bringing. I don't know what to do really.  Right.  I have 17 days here. In those 17 days I will need to make sure that I am lookin...

Virgo Returned on Thursday evening and spent the last two days recovering. It has been tough being away from the boys and MA but such a relief to no longer be in Singapore which is properly awful now. I mean it's really awful. Give me the silence and the coolness and relief of Ireland any day. Not to mention the history and literature and beauty and the lovely people.  I'm going to serve at mass today. I've been up since 1 am. I am still bounding between wakefullness and sleep. I am really not doing well. But I should get my finger out and start doing stuff today. I have one week to prep for the start of term, which is next Tuesday. I've jumpstarted the machine after two and a half days of languishing about. I miss the pool, that's about the only thing which i miss about Singapore. What is Singapore like? It is imcredibly materialistic and people are so hard. I have noticed that Chinese Singaporeans are really difficult people. They seem to be so discontented with l...

You never know how long it is going to take you and when you are in the middle of it, that middle seems like it is forever. But with unconditional love and warmth, and the passing of time, shoots regrow and new life begins. Once more the sun rises - it also rises - and we live to enter a new day. For the longest time it is just the one foot before the other. Just the sheet determination and will of doing that. Then, one day, you wake up and the world has rearranged itself into a different shape. A different place. One day, you see you are still alive and the person who you thought was gone, will always be there with you. Just in another way. In a way whereby they will always be there when you need to ask for help. They are now your own personal angel. And then you realise that they have always been your own personal angel and you know, with hindsight, how lucky you were. How lucky you have been.  I cannot think of my life as any other thing than ...

Photos from first day of the seventh month when we went to visit Lianne in Chinatown I did my run and swim today - I also went to get Ma's pillow from AMK Hub. After the swim, while resting against the pool, I thought to myself, this brings us to the end of this phase. It seems like we had made it out of such a difficult time. I also thought, everyone played their part. We all came together as a family and we held each other. Ma of course is trying her very best, but she was the one who needed most support. Being here I gave her that space to heal, and the boys being here supported me. Jac was right alongside me - juggling work and family, and this truly difficult time. But we made it together. Crying and laughing and holding hands to bring ourselves through to the other side. A side which must live without Pa now and trying to create a new chapter in our lives.  That is the new side. The new us.  Broken and put together again. P...

At this of the year, when the Persiads fall, we head back to Ireland. I am heading back to Ireland, but this time I am also coming back again after 3 weeks. It will be very sad these three weeks. Already not having Pa there yesterday made me so sad - we all know Pa so well that we would have known every reaction he would have had. Pa was mostly deaf and he was becoming demented. He was also getting very weak. How long he had that cancer we do not know, but for certain, he succumbed to its effects so quickly. Ten days - that's how long it took. Ma was in good form yesterday, she was laughing and recounting stories. Jac and I brought her to Orchard Road and then wheeled her around Orchard Road. We met fellow wheelchairs goers. That familiar feeling of walking past buildings which exuded the cool air from their open sliding glass doors took me back to childhood. Many buildings of my childhood were gone. The only ones left standing in a recognisable form are Tangs and Lucky Plaza - two...

Ma turns 80 today. It was Pa's fifth month anniversary yesterday, but in all honestly, I did not even remember it for two reasons. One, because him not being here is something which we have accepted and two, that he always here now. Pa is always with us, all the time. I can really feel it. He is still here looking after us and protecting us.  I truly do feel it. Pa.  I was thinking about the idea of what is beautiful and Ruskin's idea of "Do not have anything in your home which you do not believe to be beautiful or useful". Which is very good advice. And it is also great advice for anyone deciding what you should do about something, should you get rid of it or should you keep it? Of course beauty and use are subjective, but sufficient is not. If you have something which is surplus to requirements, it is always going to be problematic. So being able to have enough, to have a good bit of fat, to make sure that you have developed a sense of balance - those are all things...

Well, today I reached 16 weeks of running. I didn't run the last two days - and I might not run today, but no matter. It is 16 weeks and I have lost loads of weight. Not everything I hoped I would, but still, it has been great. I'll probably go laters. So Jason Arday is dead. Looks like he killed himself. But who killed him, really? The people who enabled him and then the people who went on a pile on. He was squished between two boulders. Weirdly, the people who enabled him did not appear to have his back when the enabling eventually meant that he was now overexposed to the well known racism of the British media. It was obscene. Also sad - he gave these people what they wanted. The hounded him and he leapt. He didn't have to leap, but he clearly didn't have enough people behind him. People who would say to him, hey this will blow over. No one from Cambridge sat him down with the PR team and said, you know what you have to do now... you had to admit that you told some ta...

Well, Ghin got his A level results and he got straight As. After all that. He did well enough for his political paper to pull up the C he had to an A. We were expected AAB or ABB, but in the end he sat down and grinded and he got the A. He wasn't here but we did celebrate over the phone. And now my duty has been discharged and he is now on his way to university. That's him. All done. I did my run and swim yesterday and the swim was weird because it looked like I had done the lap in just over a minute which can't be right. But that's what the clock said. I did go for my run and it was easy as well. I'm just gonna keep doing this and I no longer look at myself in the mirror. I know that I have lost all this weight and that I'm recovering my fitness and that's the most important thing. I now will work in series of months. I will see out the rest of August and then start counting the days then - I think. I don't know. But everything has improved. My joints, ...

The boys left for Malaysia yesterday. The house is so quiet. Never mind. I was thinking of going to Woodleigh Mall today with Ma - get some fruit. A simple outing. It's been weeks since we last went. When we first went, things were so different. Pa had just passed. Ma wasn't at all use about going out. We had to start very very slowly. There are times when I think my heart will go on breaking, but we do what we must. Every step we take is another victory for our ancestors, for the people who bore us. A victory for the love that saw us here and saw us on. I dreamt of Ahab last night. He looked exactly the same. I'm sure he does not look the same now. I don't want to see him again. I just want to keep what I remember. We went to the Jewel yesterday and had pork noodles. A festival of pork it was. How many pigs are taken every day in Singapore? For an airport the Jewel is pretty amazing. For a shopping centre its alright. It is essentially a shopping centre tacked onto on ...

Haji Lane Heuvos Churro Ice Cream Sandwich... and Oisin The pool yesterday We had a great day yesterday. It started off with having breakfast at Toast Box. Then we went to the pool - well I went for a run and a swim. The boys met me there. After that we went to Arab Street to have tacos.  Then we wandered around. It was just the three of us spending a bit of time together before we will be separated for the next year. So we are doing as much as we can before we are forced apart. At least I'll be with one of them - and Ma - during this time.  I am so tired all the time though. So tired. I'm always so exhausted I don't understand why.  I have loads to do before I go and I'll send off the Positive Conduct Policy this evening to the school. The long and short of it is that there are three things we can do. One, have a sort of joint what we have now and a special policy for the ND kids. The second one is...

I thought that I'd just record the 1 thing which I did during the last 4 months with any regularity, apart from look after Ma. Which was workout. I know why I worked out - it was my refuge. My place of safety and where I stayed in control. That's why I worked out. So is the recording of what took place after 4 months. Overall In hindsight, 4 months wasn't a long time - but while I was at the start of it, it was fucking brutal. I would look at the diary and think, shit and fuck. There are like 70 days to go... 55 days to go... but in hindsight... here I am at 5 and I kept running and swimming despite how far away it all felt. And how it seemed as if there was no progress. But I now promise myself I will do this for the rest of my life... certainly the rest of my time here - till next year. It has been such a good good thing. If anyone thinks that they are depressed, unhealthy, whatever, I can only suggest to start training. Set a goal and start training. Successes There are ...