shaking and buffeting - a blast from the past

I will walk no matter what the weather.  To be outside is to be alive.  Even buffeted by cold winds and rain, the air forcing its way into our lungs works its magic.  Cleansing out the rheum, blowing the mind free of box-like worries.  Allowing the eye to focus out there on the horizon not on empty walls and this fake life.

As you pace the steps that take you to freedom, your back straightens.  With each step you remember an ancient rhythm.  Finding a solace in the slap of earthy ground underfoot.  The beauty of nature pierces the fog of delusion.  You are struck by the redness of that berry, the crisp leaf somersaulting in happy abandonment. 

Slowly the dross is cleansed and polished from off your heart. You are reminded of what this life is for.   

Recollecting who you are, touching base with all the memories of life so far.  Being grateful for precious souls that have brought love to your heart.  Knowing they inspire you still.  Then all this shaking and buffeting throws the cobwebs of your vain imaginations and at last a tiny awareness of real life emerges. 

Cruel or kind - the animal is the test

Taught my lesson this week feeling truly ill.  Teaching in colleges is tough at the best of times and I dread that moment when you are under the weather.  It usually brings out the pack instinct in a class.  They sense your weakness and go in for the kill.  If you have ever watched a pack of animals turn on a weakened member you can guess the scenario.  Last year I became run down due to a family member’s illness.  Travelling across the London for heart treatment and back really drained me and the class I walked back into was quick to ascertain the lay of the land.  They became increasingly out of control and I hated it and them.  Strange how fragile the relationship you can have with a class can be.  Usually, I find you gradually grow to like classes.  They all have their oddities but then don’t we all?  But at that moment something died between me and that class and I never got it back.   The warmth that should exist between us was gone and I viewed them with active dislike.  However I tried to rationalise my feelings I just could not get past the memory of their abuse of my weakness.  You like to think one can be the bigger person, forgive and forget, but at times you have to name and shame the fact that you simply can’t.  All you can do is move forward with the experience and learning that may have been acquired along with the damage.

So this week heading into college feeling really unwell brought back bad memories.  However, the classes were great.  They sensed my vulnerability and they behaved better than normal.  I put it down to them being animal husbandry students and they have a higher empathy than the norm.  When working with animals you never have to check them for being rough they aren’t.  You don’t have to tell them to think about the animal’s well-being, they are already in that mode.  In fact when you watch how they hold a young goat or a rabbit you see their compassion in the very way they use restraint.  Gently and calmly, stroking the animal into restraint with the least force.  Perhaps, when we are with the very vulnerable our real side comes out.  We are free to be as we really are.  Cruel or kind, nurturing or a bully anything is suddenly possible.  So it was nice to see this week the classes responded almost better than I would have even hoped.  Their kindness to animals included teachers such as I.  But then the real links between animal abuse and child abuse have already been proven by statistics.  Now vets who find a suspected case of animal’s abuse are instructed to let social services know, as those who abuse their pets will often be the type to abuse their children.  (see – this link for other patterns http://www.peta.org/issues/companion-animals/animal-abuse-and-human-abuse-partners-in-crime.aspx) A horrible but effective poster in the US shows patterns of abuse linked to treatment of animals and has the saying “men who beat their children often start with their best friend” above the picture of a puppy.

A Tale of Daniel aged 8 on Rhodes

Life from a Greek Island

My youngest son, Daniel and his struggles with the Greek Language on Rhodes.

Daniel’s teacher has been off sick and the replacement is a young student teacher.  She doesn’t know that Daniel is Irish and has a very limited knowledge of Greek.  For some reason he’s anxious she does not discover this.  He finds it makes life so much more interesting to bluff his way.  Apparently, she asked him to write some sentence about how a rabbit moves. I.e. a rabbit hops.  Daniel didn’t know the Greek word for hop so he wrote instead that “He liked rabbits”.  He doesn’t mind her thinking he’s a stupid Greek, he just doesn’t want her to guess he’s not Greek like all the rest.  It’s become a kind of game for him and he’s really enjoying it! 

He says there is a Greek boy in his class called Paris who knows only one expression in English, “R U urt?”.  He cannot say anything else in English.  Whenever Daniel falls, or is pushed into something or someone in the playground, Paris will run the full length of the playground to get his line into use.  Daniel says he has begun to associate pain with Paris’ face looming over him pronouncing  with evident delight, “R U urt?”.

Daniel is definitely a bit of a character!  At School assembly my eldest son crosses himself with the rest of the children.  We told him he didn’t have to but he says he should respect to their religion.  Which I understand.  My middle son does not cross himself but stands in line and tries to be the best he can.  Finding the middle way. Daniel does not stand in line and does not cross himself.  Even worse, when the entire 150 children and dozen teachers all turn to face the Greek flag and sing their national anthem slapping their chests in loyalty, Daniel turns his back on the flag and faces the other way!  What have we reared? 

less than heroic today

Am feeling rather unwell and this is not the first day.  Am lying in bed feeling more than a little sorry for myself.  When the world contracts to four walls it somehow loses its value.  I can hear the others laughing and getting on with their lives and feel strangely disconcerted.  Not that I expect wailing and gnashing of teeth but it does serve to remind one that we are all not as important as we like to think.  Also, that idea that we are all the heroes of our own little movie is a complete illusion.  We hold it to ourselves in good and bad times and then are forced to see that we are just bit players with a few good lines and loads of crappy scenes.  Time alone allows you to remember all the bad bits and reflect on how things could/should have been done differently.  Ah well, am much better than yesterday and that is a plus.  Pretty soon I’ll be up and about and feeling heroic again.  Anyway, that is the plan.

inspiring story

Nice to see some one turn their life around in such an inspirational way. Enjoy!

Want you better

Want you better
want to trust you know what you're doing
want you happy
to know what helps and what doesn't
want you protected
from all the world's perverse
want you whole
everything you can be and do
want you alright
with God's love beaming from each pore
want you grateful
for every moment of life given
want you guided
by that voice that lies within
want you to find yourself
not led by others where they want
want you better
in mind and soul, body and spirit

Dynamic Shift

What is it about getting past fifty that heralds the break down of health after decades of well being?  So unexpected to be wandering down hospital corridors and waiting in rooms full of other worried fifty plus individuals.  A sweet couple past me today in Altnagevin hospital he in his seventies with a white stick, with his hand on his wife's shoulder leading him out while she with a walking frame wobbled alongside.  Strangely touched by all our vulnerability.

Dynamic Shift

A belief begins in me
Deep down under all the layers
That change has begun
Years passing blur like
life racing between my fingers
but something within stirs
finds itself and grows
begin and trust it seems to say
the time is now, not later
choose this moment to begin
A dynamic shift within
Makes me think I should dare,
To hope to act, to achieve
To dream big and begin
I watch hardly hoping
But a flicker blazes within.