Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

I am returning to the simple things. Returning to what I know. I am returning to the beginning. Of me standing at a bus stop, reading. Hot afternoon, the tarmac heating the soles of the feet, the thin rubber making no difference at all. The rain is heaviest and then it disappears, as if nothing was. I am standing there, waiting. Waiting for almost 45 minutes. Then three of them show up. I am at the beginning. I am book in hand and I am reading, Reading through it all. I am not caring. I have disappeared. I have gone somewhere else. Another place. Entered the drift of someone else's simoom and I have been given to the world. I am at the beginning. I am content. It is such a strange word, content. To be full. Contained. To be with something... with... what?  Content.  Once there was just enough of content. Once upon a time. The words on a page were magical. They were so magical that they were turned into religion. And now they are everywhere. They are a dime. They are too simple...

This Morning It is the simple things really. Yesterday, I began cleaning the house. I cleared up and dusted and hoovered... the night before I had begun with the bathroom. Cleaning that. Today I will clean another section of this room. Then this room will be done. Then the kitchen begins. Small things, always, all the time. Small things. Crystal will be cremated today. She will soon leave this Earth. It was part of this choosing, this life. How we live it and how we die. It is a time for inspiration. A time to celebrate. All the time to be perfectly conscious about the steps we take. That world, that world of selfishness and the me-ness... that is left behind... But, first the Manifesto Building the Heavenly City here, on Earth.  There has been so much learning, so much discovery over the past few months. I have properly hated it. Found it distasteful. I now really have no more time for the Left. They are cowards. And the Right - they are bullies. I stand alone now - wi...

With Love, from Amsterdam There are promises we must make to ourselves. For if we do not then, all is lost. They are the promises that keep us going. The promises which tell us that we will be ok. The promises which enable us to wake up and believe that it is going to be alright. Promises which lock us up tight, or keep the strings that help hold us together. The promises which we make that help us tether ourselves to life. It has been a year of starting over.  There is now this really weird phenomenon of people who were radical suddenly discovering they are not so radical and becoming curmudgeonly. Also there is a growing culture of control. The Karen Meme The Karen Meme is insidious. Where Bob is an idiot used to shame people in general, Karen is a very specific type. A woman who has power. Whether she obtained this power directly or indirectly, she is not afraid to use it. Like most people who use power, she doesn't do very well, but inflicts it on people who are weaker rather t...

This morning, something wonderful happened. As I lay in bed, I felt utterly, incredibly happy. Like happy like I had never felt before. Happy as if something I reached down into my heart and given it a squeeze of delight, Happy like I have for very long time not allowed myself to feel. For ages, I had been to saying to myself, I must now feel equanimity. I must feel zen. Balance the emotions so that they don't go one way or the other. I sort of did this more out of fear - like if I felt too happy I would end up feeling very sad. So, yes irrational shit. Then more lately, it has been trying to find my feet in everything. As things were thrown up in the air over the past four months (can't believe it has only been four months because now I just want the lockdown to continue forever since the world has clearly not learned its own lesson), and I watched where it landed, I was basically like a woman on the deck of a listing ship, steadying myself and the people around me. My sons, t...

I have been there - literally stood at the edge The days are beautiful. I mean really beautiful. They are sun-filled and flower-laden. They are saturated by light and the drowsiness, the sleepiness of the lulling summer... they are all there. I sit with the boys and we spend the days teasing each other. Oisin and Ghin play online with each other. I go for long walks with friends. The lockdown is coming to a raggedy end. Some people are terrified, most seem to have discarded their face masks. A few are wearing them, but it seems to be a sign of frailty, rather than normality. Yesterday I made some miso soup and gyoza. The boys enjoyed that... it was a busy day yesterday. Super busy. It began with the morning - the usual rush to get class sorted, then I spent the rest of the day editing, answering emails, marking, etc - cooking lunch, doing laundry, then sending Oisin coming back... nap, missing the post office (ugh), then coming back, starting to do tomorrow's lesson prep and then g...

Organising with relief Ma's home grown pineapple Strangford and the family - almost two years ago now! Ma's birthday two years ago It was a weird day yesterday and I had been a bit zombified. And then today I was completely confused. I had lost all bearings. Despite working quite hard. But I was, i think demotivated... and a bit down about the uncertainty. It was awful. However, I'm good now. I'm good. I spent the afternoon getting things sort and also doing lots of organisation. I put down the list of things which I needed to do and then worked through each of them. Now I know what I'm doing and I have my mojo back. I took a photo of my organisation tools - journal, diary, pen, paper, etc and saw some old photos which reminded me of family. I promised myself I would never EVER EVER complain about where I am now in my life - that I was so deeply lucky and privileged with my life. I have only ever done what I have wanted to and I cannot fault anyone about how my life...

Katie Scott Illustration Woke up today and saw the end of term coming. Usually there is a sense of celebration and delight when this happens. But instead there is worry and doubt. It needed to stop, the merry-go-round but it stopped for the wrong reasons. However, I want to contemplate the idea of old age. As I turn 50 this year, I want to say that I have never ever felt more in my power than ever and I am not going to feel sorry for getting old. I now know that menopause is a process of utter transformation. That the hormones were liquifying my astrality and creating room for the ego body to come in. My astrality has been broken down and in that forging of hormonal heat, it has become my new sword. As in Seigfried's sword Notung. There is no other image which comes to mind. All the pieces are broken and then over the course of perimenopause it is all melted down and then poured into a new shining mould.  The cleaning up that space within has now allowed my egoic body to come in, t...

Ground Zero Today I got up at 3 and couldn't go back to bed, so I did some writing and some reading. It is interesting the human being's need to find the source, the beginning. All our stories start with once upon a time. Possibly because we are so ego bound and we have beginnings and we have middles and ends. Anyway, the book I am reading is The Story of a Pebble and it looks at the origins of the universe found in the pebble. I think it is interesting, and fascinating, but when I do find that if I am reading something super 'scientific' at some point I find myself thinking about how much this is like mythology - I find myself thinking, yes... how can we know what happened 13 billion years ago you know? I mean I don't even know what happened two minutes ago. It is that sort of thing which makes me think, hm.... Also the entire Big Bang thing is suspect. I'm not saying it is suspect as in I don't trust science. It is suspect in that it sounds too much ...

Clamdigger by Edward Hopper We have only been in lockdown for three weeks. That's all. This is the start of Week 4.I'd say we'll be back in school in two weeks time. Everyone who would have died would have died and everyone would have realised this is madness and they are introducing contact tracing so people that can move around again. I am going to ENJOY the next two weeks. Every moment I spend in here will be pure pleasure. I am now going to start cleaning one room in the house everyday. I have actually run out of things to watch on Netflix. That is only good, of course. I have also stopped making plans because I now know what I am doing. I am cleaning the back of the oil tank today. That is my big cleaning task. Life is beautiful. Tomorrow I paint a bird. I think I'm doing to try a cute bird in Anthony's book. This week I get all the online presence for Elements sorted. This will probably be done by Wednesday. By the end of the week the work aro...

La Primavera - Botticelli It seems a weird thing to say, but my biiiig learning from the last two days are learning to sit with my sorrow and pain. Two things happened which were hurtful. And instead of trying to 'fix' them or justify it, I just did nothing. I know this is how the rest of the world does it, bit I am a slow learner, ok? So, one of these was what happened with Oisin and Ghin - and I can talk about this. The other one I can't talk about. But with Ghin and Oisin, it began as a tease ... we were just having a go at each other, sort of like a verbal roughing up and then it got serious. Ghin was hurt and then of course it was MY FAULT. I tried to make him feel better, but he wasn't having any of it. And now Oisin was annoyed with me because I had also landed him in it. All in all it was pretty shit. Usually what would have happened was I would lose it, because it was so unfair...we were just having a bit of fun and it got out of hand and people were b...

You cannot harm me I have seen the truth and know its language There is a great story behind this picture. Oisin was asking me if I was the third or fourth wave of feminism and I said, I'd be in between the third and fourth wave - there was a time when it was not the done thing to call yourself a feminist in the last 80s, early 90s. Think Spice Girls, yes. Anyways, he then began telling me what the third and fourth wave of feminism was to help me better place myself at which point I said, are you mansplaining feminism to me? But he did mention these books - Backlash and The Beauty Myth, which was pretty cool. So I dug them out to show him. I said, when I discovered feminism it was like a part of me which I had never been able to describe finally had a language. It was like learning a new language. I took a photograph to put on FB... along with On Pornography, these books shaped my life. Also de Beauviour's The Second Sex and Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. What a time to h...

Results at the print workshop Four native Irish trees and a blackbird Yew, Alder, Rowan and Crab Apple Why are we here? To drink it all in. To self actualise. To delight in everything life has to give us. To eat all the fruit of the garden. I remember now. To never fear, but even when we fear, to know that this is what we do. Mixing colours! Weee!!!! Examining my work Ah.... coffee... Yesterday's Nice Thing: I got everything back into shape. All because of running. After a one and a half of blobbing and feeling sorry for myself - astoundingly at the very same time that Mercury went into Retrograde - I managed to pull myself together by going for a run first, and then... 1. Cleaning the dining area 2. Planning everything 2. Organising my finances 3. Sorting out my emails 4. Doing Elements stuff I also did do some housework - but not a lot. But that was loads. And I also watched The Tale of Princess Kagunaya which was very very sad and beautiful. I just ende...

This week's blackboard drawing Today, after a spell of not running, I went out again. I had to drag myself because 'I didn't feel like it'. I know this cycle. I don't feel like it so I never go and I never go cos I don't feel like it. In the end, it was Oisin who kicked me up the butt yesterday. We were heading somewhere, driving and he said to me... no it was yesterday evening, I was telling him I was very tired and he said to me you need to go for a run. You will feel better. Stop sleeping. And he was right, of course. As soon as I landed back in the home, I was a totally different person. I stretched, I did my sit ups, I took a bath. And then it was like my brain had been power hosed. For the rest of the day, I cleared the classroom, swept it, sorted out the notice board, cooked a simple lunch, went to collect Ghin from the house, had a walk, came home, fell asleep for a short while, then woke up and cleaned the house. Got a load of laundry in, sorted out...

I am responsible for my own happiness. This Lent: I am giving up sugar, crisps and the iPad for TV streaming. I am also going to run for 25 minutes everyday and stretch for ten minutes even if it kills me. I am going to write fiction everyday. For the next 43 days. This is what brain fog is doing to me. Having warned myself about Mercury Retrograde now for weeks, I keep forgetting about it and I end up wondering why I am so tired, I want to hide, feel miserable for no reason. That is what Mercury Retrograde and brain fog have conspired to bring me this time. Knowledge and confusion. It has been a really lost week. I have become, more or less, unstuck in life. It has been so hard and it is Mercury Retrograde. There can't be anything else. Well, I now have two choices. I can go to ground - willingly, or I can kick it in the ass. It does feel like life has defeated me a bit really. So yes, I am going to have to kick it in the ass even if it kills me. I will die kicking Merc...

Print of oak - test print Today I had to stay home with Ghin. I did some gardening, a lot of my printing homework. I wrote nine small poems about nine native trees of Ireland. I also did nine cut outs. The 'book' is going to be called 'Seeing the Trees' - a take on the saying 'seeing the wood from the trees'. I was going to call it Seeing the Trees from the Wood, but it was too long. So here they are, the nine trees. They are arranged from order of what I call season. Willow begins it. All of them are female spirits - dryads, as it were. But Irish dryads. Willow Keeper of secrets Woodwoman of the loom Feline flowered salix Winter's finest moon Hazel Nine nuts nibbled Silvery sleek salmon Wisdom's wrought wound Hawthorne Greenest leafe Fairest crowne Reddest berrie Sharpest thorne Birch Within your wooden veins Rises spring's sweetest song Oak Matriarch of the Mantle Your sinewy arms encircle Our glade's compr...

Hrana Janto If there was one stage of life which I always felt happiest with, looked forward to the most, it was becoming a crone. To me she was always the healer, the sage. To me she was wisdom incarnate. The stars, the earth whispered things to her and she understood them. She knew what plants would bring comfort, she knew how to carry souls to the after life. She knew about babies. She loved and nursed and she cared. She was wild, untamed. Gummy. She was a bit mad. She was herself. She was utterly herself. What I was not prepared for was the hormones. In many ways, the hot flushes I could deal with. In hindsight they were the easy bit. The overture to what I am clearly undergoing now which is a full scale raging assault which is bringing to birth my new body. And I have no idea which way is up. I need to acknowledge now that if I am to remain sane, I need to do certain things. For a start, like a proper old person I take four supplements to start my day. Iron, magnesium, ...

Pavel Ignatyev, contemporary Russian painter "Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos" Recently, my sense of self came under attack. Well... our sense of self is always under attack, isn't it? But recently, it was there, like a buzzing in my head. The buzzing was not the who am I... it was the attack itself. And it took me a long time identify it. It manifested itself in my doubting myself without even knowing I was doing it. That is why these attacks are so insidious. You don't even realise that it is happening. Then, yesterday, through sheer will, I managed to get my shit together. The housework, which I realise is very important for me, almost as bad as the buzzing in my head, in fact it IS part of the buzzing if it isn't done... I got it together, and realised I was not a bad person at all. And my mom saying all those things you have - they are all gifts from people, are they not? And I realised I was being an idiot. And that is when it happened... This mornin...

Cuban Artist... forgot his name... Today a few things happened to me and it was good. I aced it. I aced the test. After years and years and years I now have this. People cannot upset me - I give them permission to upset me. I am in control of my reactions. They are entirely independent of someone else's opinions and behaviour towards me. i.e. I have gotten over myself. It has taken a long time coming, but I am finally here. This is not to say that I am insensitive and horrible and are terrible to people. Nope. What this has enabled me to do is to see past the pain and the criticism and to smile and to reach past all that and be a useful member of the human race. When I reach past my own pain, I am able to then help others. But it is not about helping others. Helping others is the other half of the equation. I help others when I am able to reach past my own pain.  This is where I have been making my mistake. Previously the god given grace of doing this drove...

Ghin's cartoon for the Magazine, Steiner Star I have noticed now that days of peace are my favourite type of days. Days when I am allowed to be with my own thoughts. Days I wake up and there is the feeling of chilled possibility in the air. The decisions I have made over the couple of days and the insights I have had have been life changing. Truths bombs have been dropped in my head about life. I finally get it. Negative emotions are not real if they are caused by other people. You have to ignore them.  Why I could not have learned this earlier, I don't know. People don't upset you. You let yourself be upset by them. And I did. Big time. And I was an idiot. But I am not an idiot anymore. Not in that way at least. I have also decided to stop complaining... so this is my last complaining entry. I actually stopped myself midstream when I spoke to my mom today. I went... ugh I said I wouldn't complain when I was talking about the piles of undried laundry which are n...