The world gone and got itself in a hurry.

Why do we not do what is good for us?

That yoga practice ,  less food , less TV ,  more sleep ,  less toxicity generally..  What makes us so lazy  , avoidant ,  desirous.

I know that we go on about the ego,   sub-conscious sabotage but really.    Is it that deep?

I think life is just too easy.  Too on tap.   Too much choice.   Our minds and lives are so flooded with stuff ,  people , commitments , lures ,   that we are just incapable of being still.    We have lost our way.  Our brains are wired for constant attention.   Sometimes I long for eras long past.  Where there was no television,   or entertainment of an instant type.   Where you had to seek experiences ,   read books ,  write .   Where you met and spent time with family and friends playing games and dancing to guitars and pianos and ukuleles .   It just feels like there is no going back on this world.  It’s changed irrevocably and charged with a menace that isn’t going to leave.    They say the age of awakening is coming.   I hope so.

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Winter skies

Today was the first proper day of British Winter time.  The first working day anyway.

The gorgeous red winter sky proclaimed its glory over our office as it always does in Winter time.   There  was a cloud curtain;   heavy ,  prevailing,   and the most awesome colours.     People  moan about winter,   moan about the cold , moan about darkness.

I love the winter,  yes ,  I miss the light evenings,   but there is something majestic about the earth in winter.   The glorious winter trees ,  holding their spring promises,   the vibrant cold air rushing past your face on the cycle home , pinking your cheeks.     Today , I was transported back to my old school days ,  when we used to finish sports matches in the cold dark evenings   ,  just the smell of english winter,   the ride home in the mini bus ,   with the kaleidoscope of sunsets .   Delightfully secretive .   Sunsets are my favourite thing  ,    and winter allows me more access to them.   You can’t get away from them when they hit the skies at 4:30pm!

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Sermons and rainbows

Sunday.  This morning I went to church.   Although I no longer believe in the fundamental belief system of christianity ,   part of me still finds comfort in sitting for an hour ,   the conformity ,  the worship singing ,   the solace in expected silence from the crowd.    What I once found intensely captivating and astounding ,  I now find mildly irritating.    But I cannot stop going.   To stop would be a big deal.   My life has centred around my church for a good decade.   I look at the friendships that I have made and literally only a couple would survive if I left.  Now,   that is a reason to go as well as to stay,   but there is a safety in belonging to a community that I am not prepared to relinquish just now.

Today ,  the skies were heavy and two rainbows splashed the sky with colour.    God promised Noah  he would never flood the world again ,   and to seal this promise   he gave us rainbows  to remind us.     A lovely childish tale .   Now I see the rainbow and I see a profound promise of hope and light .    It represents new being ,  new awakenings ,  it is for me what I need to to be.  A whisper to get out of the house,   to seek some earthly peace in the woods with my dog.   So ,  that’s what I will do ….

God bless 🙂

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The Moon.

I have decided to worship the moon;  the Creator of the moon,    which I know is also the Creator of all things has drawn me towards her incredible Night song.     The moon has a power of its own..   Last night ,  at its fullest,   it sang songs of peace ,  eternity and transcendent beauty.

Tonight ,  also at it’s fullest I am going to pledge my allegiance.

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Dementia kidnapped my parents.

My mother has dementia .  She hasn’t  as  yet been officially diagnosed , but I am pretty certain that she has.   My father who died nearly 10 years ago now ,    also had dementia. So this disease has kidnapped both my parents.

My father never got to the stage where he didn’t recognise me.    He had other health complications which were impacted by the dementia.   But he did get that vacant look ,  where you could tell he had been far away and the seconds that passed brought him back to the now.   My mother however is a different kettle of fish.    She has recognised that she is deteriorating for a long time now.   She prattles on about all old people having everyday memory loss but she’s not a fool   and  she gets comfort out of keeping the inevitability of acceptance at bay for now.   She awaits her brain scan results.   So she makes great attempts to hide her issues.   This I think causes her to be intensely anxious, resentful , afraid and a bit of a mess to be honest.    She has always been a relentlessly independent woman ,  always on the go but she’s a lot more fragile these days.  If we didn’t live together I would have a lot more compassion ,   but I just find it damn difficult.  That transition that most children will have to take ,     where you become the parent to your parent.    But when your  new ‘ child ‘  is almost as obnoxious and tiresome as your rude 16 year old,   albeit a bit more helpful  around the house ,   it can get you down.

Now ,  it may seem to some that I am callous.     Perhaps I am .  When she goes , I will no doubt mourn my inability to be consistently patient and kind – I will mourn how I resented her decline  ;    that alongside 2 tricky teenagers,   I gained another being who depends on me at a time when I am feeling seriously caged in.

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Failure & Loneliness .

 

The Power of Now.   The observer looking in and not judging or thinking.

Failure and loneliness .  That’s what I came up with when I stopped to meditate and listen to my ego / pain body / self  .    Those moments when you really stop and listen .   Really give yourself time and a kind word.

So , currently ,  I am spouting unconscious judgement and derision on myself for putting on a bit of weight and for seemingly being unable to halt it,   to take myself to task. I can almost hear the whispers (and I am listening very intently)   ‘ you’re useless , you’re greedy , you never actually thought you’d be naturally slim ? ‘  .    They continue,   ‘ you’ve been deluded for a while,  you’ll never get back to what you want , you’re going to fail ‘  .   And to cope with these almost imperceptible thoughts ,  I have the desire for food,  for sweetness,  for a mouth filled with delights;   to help sooth the ache in my soul.

Eckhart Tolle says:

” But ,  look closely and you will find that your thinking and behaviour are designed to keep the pain going,   for yourself and others.  If you were truly conscious of it , the pattern would dissolve ,  for to want more pain is insanity  and nobody is consciously insane . ”  

Problem is , I have reached this point before,   I know that I am soothing myself with the very thing that I don’t want .  The question is how do I continue to balance myself so that I remain with this body that I am happy with.    Why do I forget the awfulness of being fat and in pain ;  so much so that I begin to eat again?

What is that powerful force beneath the layers that catapults me into a space in time where food is the controller.

The failure feeling  also comes from my sense of being a parent.   I have one child who is very overweight and refuses to go to school and another child (man-child)  who can’t control his illicit drug – taking enough to do his school work and function in a normal way .

I do well at showing the world that I am together.  That I do not blame myself.   That I am in fact an extraordinary mother ,  in my ability to accept and love my children for who they are. That I am a free spirit who will allow my children to be and become who they need to be and in their own time.    But underneath ,    I am viciously attacking myself.    It’s almost a cloak room whisper.     A passing undercurrent of nastiness that you don’t quite hear,  but you know it’s about you.     ‘ What did you do?   How did you manage to get it so wrong?  Who do you think you are ?   Other people are  so much better than you’.      

And then comes the loneliness.   They say that when you become spiritually awake ,  you become lonely.  The futility of everyday conversation becomes almost unbearable. The incessant need for recognition,   the all encompassing obsessions with children’s futures ,  the absorption in career.  The disinterest I feel  in any conversation which is even mildly classed as ‘  small talk  ‘.     The boredom.    Then the fear that it is actually you  who is the fraud.    You are the issue,  you are shallow and needy.   You are bored with people , so you are in fact the problem.

I want to be free from the desire of food.   That is my desire,  which in itself causes suffering.   So I need to just ‘BE’  ,   but it doesn’t work .   I have a roll of fat on my stomach that wasn’t here last year.    It’s frustrating ,  it’s shameful,   it’s my fault.

So today isn’t a good day.    I do feel lonely ,  ashamed & heavy – hearted.    I am also consciously eating to sooth these feelings.   How do you destroy that bridge ?  I built the bridge.  It’s hard to knock it down.   To even stop using that road .

Turn left down the road less travelled.   And for fucks sake ,  do it now,   before you have another 50 lbs that you want to lose  all over again. ..

It’s the cycle isn’t’ it.    The maintenance feels good ,   it gets cosy ,  it doesn’t produce intensity.     RE-feeding ,   piling on the weight,   it gives intensity ,   the losing ,   the addictive nature of it all.      I want OUT.    I don’t want food to be who I am .

 

 

 

The Hoarder and The Minimalist

I crave space.

Something that is all mine, that others don’t get to share.   This is hard in a 3 bedroom terrace with 2 children ,  a husband and  my mother.

My husband has just built me a ‘  Creative Space ‘   (my words)   ,  which is really just a vamped up corner of our dining room with some shelving and a new high table for the computer and a new chair,    so as I write , I feel like a new woman,    someone who has an area for creating …    😉

I feel like I am at an Apple Shop.  Perched up here , feeling posh.

But this has made all the difference for me.   I feel like a corner of our home is mine.  Even though my daughter will intrude upon it from time to time to monopolise the computer with her latest fad.  At the moment,  it is mine.  My books ,  my pictures,  a clean , de-cluttered lovely little haven of peace.

My mother is a hoarder and I am not.     This is hard work ,    I often hear  ”   where is that book .. picture .. candle stick holder ”  that I brought 500 years ago and have had all my life..    Er..   I think I threw it out.   Now ,  don’t get me wrong ,  a big part of me feels incredibly guilty for forcibly making my mother clear out all of her shit.   It’s her whole life.  Her whole life is about fucking stuff.  Old photos,   old things people have given her ,  clothes she never wears,   boxes of photos that it is nice to look at every decade,  letters ,  old mortgage papers !   For the love of God.   Please.    Get rid of some of it.

But the ruthless,  selfish part of me ,   is relentlessly harsh.   To quote Solomon :

” what do people gain from all their labours

at which they toil under the sun ?

Generations come and generations go ,

but the earth remains forever.  ”

(Ecclesiastes 1 v 3-4)  The Bible.

 

Go seek the earth Mother.   Seek people –  ,  Your experiences now,   the weather now,   the night out that you’re enjoying now,  the TV now ,  not how it used to be .   Get over the past .  It’s sucking you of your life….

 

My daughter doesn’t ‘ do ‘ school …

My 12 year old (soon to be teenage) daughter hasn’t been to school for nearly a month.

After a horrendous first year of Senior school she has now outright refused to attend school.

This makes me feel : powerless,   frustrated , anxious ,   admiring , concerned & relieved .

What do you do when a child decides that she won’t allow society to tell her what to do.  When she makes the autonomous decision that school is not good for her mental health and that she can no longer handle it.

My daughter has anxiety and depression,  so says the letter.

So I am left with questions.    Will this be a phase?  Will she be provided with anything decent?   Will I have to de-register her to avoid the repercussions of Big Brother society .

What can one do in this life without a formal education ?   Is it all just bollocks.   Who says school is the gateway to success.   For some maybe.  But my daughter is saying no.  And I have to listen,  because that’s the the only choice I have.