Its a hard call and the birdsong

 I am still being the Hermit.
the day started as stated before, with awful pain.
its tiresome this, waking and trashing and feeling mad and getting madder.
Its tiresome this, tired and tireder and tireder and never ending.
but the day has to be started and so be it.
It was blustery outside, but that i expected.  We are in January and bloody lucky not to be knee deep in snow and ice and more of that.
I got the last of the cornflakes, some for myself and some for the birds.
i got the blankets, woollen.
Also the chair, hot water bottle, stool and camera.
I forgot the hearing aid. This i realized when i was settled looking the right eggit i felt.
wrapped up like a regular mummy, and no teeth in, i forgot them as well.
The cornflakes were put out for the birds on a nearby ledge and i sat and watched and ate and then i sat and held the camera and held it more and crooked the neck and also creaked it.
I cranked the wrist and bloody wrecked it.
So it was and so it is when you want the wonder of seeing a bird and a better wonder to snap it close.
I saw the bird, and i snapped.
I saw a treecreeper and took a credible image to at least ID the thing, but possibly not get in National Geographic.
A treecreeper no less!
These birds are secretive and shy and i have not seen one in decades.
Some have never seen em, and i even snapped a critter!
Two more hermits were here for the weekend.
The male of the species wondered by looking pensive and holy and young, so devout.
About three quarters of an hour later the female of the species walked hastily by.  She looked one way at the gate, "where the hell did he go?" i guess she asked herself and with that she chose right, and went right.
Two robins came for the cornflakes, both at the same time.
I have to ask about this for these birds are very aggressive and territorial and usually not seen so close together but maybe needs must in winter.
Cold and tearfulness got to me and i came in.
I took my morning load of the medicine and decided to pay a visit to the priest.
A motive in mind - "Father, would you be able to lend me a pair of binoculars for the period of my stay?"
He opened the door to me.
He looked a bit dishevelled and rather grubby and rough.
He seemed to have had some surgery to his face and he also seemed worn as in weary worn.
He wasn't impressed with me saying i had seen a treecreeper, he had seen them in these parts.
Possibly more times than he cared to remember.
He had the air of loneliness, it takes one to know the one.
I was saddened and it upset me so.
I felt it was bloody ridiculous to park a single man in a 'Wuthering Heights' type residence on the side of a mountain in all weathers, alone, lonely.
Men i feel, but i wouldn't really know, don't do 'alone' very well.  Women, i feel do, but then i wouldn't really know that either.

Off i scooted in the van towards the lakes of glendalough.  Suddenly deciding to drive on past the round tower, over the roads round the youth hostel and parked up there high in the ~Upper Lakes car park - for free.
Disabled, you see.
Anyway, out i got and tried to wrap in a better more aesthetic fashion than the day before.
This was not a success.  I was brave to launch forth, and it took a broad smile and "oh gud, you understand too, eh, its a mad day up here!"
i felt they did, actually, for we had that understanding.
All had that understanding but some were more polished in the effects than i was.
The wind would knock you down, the metal stick was a godsend. Three legs always better than two and three legs made of whatever even better.
One at least was made of steel.
Small mercies.
I followed two young men to the lake shore.
It baffled me why two young men should take a mechanical jeep for a walk in such wonderful scenery, surely these 'toys' for boys can be left at home to play with in the back yard, not in Glendalough.
Yes, in Glendalough!
-At the lake's lapping waters.
It was hell fun to make it head for the waves and try defeat them.  The little blighter didn't and became consumed and stuck.
Sorry, but i giggled and wondered what did that do to the mechanics?
They plucked the thing up and moved on.
One man though seemed bored and possibly was just dragged along for the ride. oops.
I also moved on.
I got a latvian to take a pic of myself by the shore in my wrap of clothing, this for my american friends.
he said he was Latvian and didn't understand, so i mimed.
He took the image but i wasn't in it.
He was be-fuzzled.
His lady friend took hold of the camera and managed to get me in shot and straight!
What that says, well, is anyone's guess.
I move on again finding it difficult to protect the camera from the sprays sent toward me by a hurtling wind which gusted so badly.
As i moved away, i chanced to look to the right and saw the Mountain Rescue Ambulance go up the side road and that worried me.
I moved away.
A few steps further along the shore i stopped again.  Leaning on a tree and taking a picture was not the best idea for even the trees were moving.
It didn't help much either to wrap a leg around the trunks to steady myself - no brainer.
A dustbin was the next support and that worked quite well.
I found another broken down church from the 11th century covered in lichen and moss and weeds and shit.
It also had a small graveyard attached with stone crosses at various degrees of the vertical too.
Even near a graveyard the wind, the burnt and brown colours of the mountains made me immeasurably happy.
Lost to the wind and the chaos of beauty, the drenching of breeze flying droplets from the lakes and the crows struggling badly on bent and flattened feathers, we all were game for this as we pretty much flapped along.
But one does have to stop, eventually.
One has to begin to feel again, eventually.
I feel and most do.
What is it that we have different types of feelings and yet one is the most pervasive, depending on the personality and life circumstances.
We all enjoy such beauty as Glendalough as was evident by the amount of people out on this gorgeous day.
There were a lot of people out, children running and fathers pushing the prams and buggies.
Dogs chasing and everyone at peace with laugher in the air over the wind and the blustery.
I sit down in a pub and i feel again.
Oh how dreadful.
I order the meal alone.  I sit and watch what i was to believe after decades, the 'normal' people.
The couples with a new baby.  The traveller people all preparing for a ballroom 21st birthday party (i remember mine, a trip to the fliks to see 'paint your wagon," with my older sister and her then boyfriend, wojous)
my body didn't behave as i tried to skoop the peas with a silly spoon, and the legs went into  contraction with the effort, the feet clamped one on top of the other to help the errant legs, to no avail.
Did or do they see the way my arms fly and the hands crunch uncontrollably?
They do!
Shit!
I pretend not to be there, every so breezy.
I don't succeed at that, for i am there and I FEEL it.
Also the aloneness and wondering after the feel of the pain wracking up the spine contorting the neck and the bloody bent knees on fire.
The feeling of, oh jaysus will i manage this last belt out of life in any decent shape or form and will i or can i afford it!
Getting up in my carefree way was equally unsuccessful.
A man directly opposite watched it all.
Putting on the coat and the knees clamp together and bend and bend further as the effort of the upper body increases so do the legs move further toward the floor, as the knees bend.
The whole body is supported by the bench i have just arose from. I go, with a stutter and shuffle of the feet first, before they become aware of their real job, to put one foot in front of the other.
The relief back in the van.
Off i go, back to the hermitage.
i collapse on the bed and immediately try to get the twin on the computer, type talking we did and i felt a lot better after that.
I then decided to try and work out how i could afford the last belt at life.
ON the way back i called to the secular holy rooms and picked up felt tip pens, (no, we are not doing this Kev's style at all, wonder what he would have thought of this).
I draw the new home, the dimensions correct after pulling the floor plan still on 'myhome.ie'
i biff out some walls and join rooms and extend the front a bit.
then back to the computer to ask the basics on some of the 'ask the basics' sites, that is stuff like 'rewiring queries, in ireland.\
Finally i scrape myself up.
its getting dark and i have no supper and no milk.
I dont do the milking the cow job here on the mountain so must go out in the van to collect it at the petrol pumps.
On the way i see all the lights on in the priest's vast house.
i peek in the nearest lit window.
The poor guy is asleep in an armchair.
Fast asleep and it was only 5.45pm.
I was deeply saddened.
This was the trend of the day, unfortunately.
A wonderfully hopeful presence at the lakes and a hopeful mind and spirit all free like every other.
Alas this free spirit was in goddam awful pain and worry and i guess this is the way i will have to blast the last belt of life.
whether this is the OLd age thing or complete disability stuff of Congenital Rubella Syndrome and other, i shall never know.  but I do Feel.
Very much feel.
I did not get the binoculars off the sleeping priest either.

stomping on graves and young lovers running amok!

Ah, the day started - bad...let me explain..no mountain top, good air, wonderful cotton sheets, fantastic black out curtains and insulation par excellance can make me wake in any other way...the pain...the jiggers, yep that all did it for me and there was nothing to do about it but rise up and face it.
Rising actually works the bones and let you pretend that, well are you in pain?
probably but concentration on other matters is pretty much needed to get one foot ahead of the other.
Two paracetamol, a peek from the curtains to see if the priest is up.
well, you do dont you, alone on the mountain waking in the darkness of a new day.
"Is the priest up", you ask yourself and peek around the creases of the curtains.  He wasnt.
Disappointment too to see Dawn hadnt arrived and even more so when said dawn was a complete non-event, well on this here mountain anyway, and then i decided i was facing the wrong way, so i am angled in the wrong side of the mountain, on this mountain anyway.
Twin, eat your heart out.
I am out.
Camera, set.
Ready.
I wait...for the Dawn, outside...the angle was wrong so i wander off, towards the priest house no less.
I happened to look over into his wee garden (you would, wouldn't you), well i did, and there i saw a nice tender sight.
A man, grey haired, what was left of it, slightly stooped and slightly podgy, and the latter was where the likeness ended...it didnt look like the priest in the straw hat of yesterday.
it didnt look like him, this guy was all tender like.
the guy yesterday, well not tender, not in that moment, but a staw hat and a four wheeled automobile might do the difference, i guess.
this morning, the man, possibly the priest, i shall ask or investigate, maybe a bit more peeking and peeping is required.
Sorry, this man was placing out new feeders for the wee birds, tenderly, like.
really slowly and deliberately, and watching and tending ever so tenderly, with his tontured skull and greyhair.
I left him.
i waited for my Dawn, which came and went, unspectacularly so back to the cell i went.
I was jaded...already.
the electricity shut down as i rose in pain, so no nice warm cup of tea but that didnt bother me (did you see the daily newspapers?), and so that was a toss in the cup of tea ocean in comparison, friend.
I legged out, after a peek (lots of peeking going on) down to the very holy place..Glendalough, the place where the original Kev hung out, big time.
I supped a frothy cappacino ate two slices of gluten free bread with jam on and made an utter disaster of talking to the natives.
Well, don't really know if they were natives, but i didn't do well.  then the woman of the partnershiop asked me did i know who owned the hotel.
Well, was it THAT important at that hour in the morning.  Anyway, i answered politely that i did not know. (less cared).  she went off to the toilet.
I was glad they paid their bill and left.
I got on with it.
up there to the graveyard and the famous round tower.
Oh jaz it was a windy howly day innit.
Oh gud the knees hurt, the wrist hurt and i was entangled in camera straps and woolly scarf and felt just as felt, a mess.
but that said, i was a blissfully happy mess.
woa.
wonderful up there.
I had a better go at it in talking to most defo a native emptying a wheelbarrow of gravel in all the bald places (i wondered why bother at this time of year).  Money for old rope.
he was pleasant.
the hat was hard to keep on and it was bitterly cold.  You know the type of coldness that has you laughing "oh jaz, its so COLD!" and you whistle and giggle and wonder do you come down off this graveyard or do you stick it out - for your sins, of which there apparently many.
I decide on the latter but rearranged the entanglement of garments.
the camera on a tussock, my stick on the horizontal, the knees clamped together in a determined manner i face against the wind so that i can retain the eyeballs for a while.
i make a rearrangement that isnt, I guess this, pretty nor attractive.
i felt what i felt, unattractive and olde.
but i was happy and unattractive and old, very.
so much so i giggled again and said "oh my God, i look such a disaster, hey, you..." and i beckon a man running amok on the grave stones, with a flaxen haired beauty running laughing behind, as they do.
"You, will you take a picture of me in this ridiculous outfit?"  ah, sure he would.
he was a nice young lover.
All the way from Holland he was for the weekend and he had the same camera as mine.
Back in Holland, he had forgotten to take it with him.
Right then thats my two and two, no dyscalculia needed for that one, and excuses were not needed.
we had a dirty weekend running amok on the gravestones.
but he was a nice young lover.
so was his beloved and loved.
they laughed.  "OH god, don't i look ridiculous."
and we agreed and he snapped.
we exchanged pleasantries after that, once i discovered he had run here for a dirty weekend, but he may not have, thats my dirty mind for you - at touching sixty you see.  It happens.
I told him i had run here away from humanity and mouthed the letters of this country, F..U..C..K..E..D.  and with that i told him i had run cos it was so frightening i preferred to be in the graveyard than hear a person or open a newspaper or fight with the local district nurse and near on be reported to Dr. O'Reilly for fighting with the home help, twin's home help, the home help that my young Ana bit...yes, it was never a happy relationship.
the lovers left and i decided the same was just about necessary for one image more was one image too much, the camera nearly became free borne, and after that i felt, "you have to leave."
off with me to the bowl of soup recommended by the nun, up there on the side of the mountain, like.
gud it was a grand soup and soda bread, utterly wonderful and i was grateful to the nun up there.
delicious wasnt in it.  i took a snap of an ad for a drink, that slapped on the wall.  that was for my american friends, and the waiter didnt seem too pleased.
I found a man's Visa card under my chair, but i dont think that was the nun's idea of a miracle happening so i gave it to a woman waitress.  i trusted her.  I hope.
then what did i do, ah back to the cell i went.
and who greeted me?  not the nun nor the priest, but the robin, yes, dancing amongst the wood litter by the picket gate, right in front of my cell.
oh that was wonderful, it tickled my heart.
i immediately got it some gluten free cornflakes and scattered them near by and sat down again in a balmy breeze, all poetic like and waited.
the bloody happy snapper got some wonderful shots of a perky little robin red breast.
then i went to talk to the nun.
she was a dapper woman all in red too, a wrap on this distinquished woman very non-nun like indeed and she looked good.
good listener too.
did i get solutions, well...my older sister rang...and i felt that was a bit of a miracle alright, for she was asking how i was...so that was really loverly and hopefully a turning of the tide towards a better understanding.
ummmh.
i chatted with the nun, well, i chatted and she listened.
up back to the cell, lit the fire and put on a wee nightlight.
drew over the blackout curtains and set to to computer housekeeping and feeling wonderfully inside, and bloody painful outside, the body is failing me rapidly.
but wonderfully so.
the nun said i sounded as if i had a zeist for life and was fun loving.
Yes, i said.  I wasnt too sure what came after it, so i was making the most of it, i tell her.
also tell her that i think there may be a god, but also think there may not so i am keeping my options open.
then yep i told her, that, if he wanted me he would have me, if he didnt well, so be it.
on a far lighter note which had her in stitches i recounted what i felt on the male species.
"Is that the sort of thing you put on your blog?" she asked after.
oh, no i havent put that on, so i am now.
Men, we were talking about men, the abusing kind, like clerical abusing kind and i had a solution to the men situation.
"Sister," i said with flourish, "I would bank their sperm and give em bow and arrows and ship the lot of them off to siberia to shoot mammoth and let us women get on with it.
she hooted and was animated.
we had a wonderful understanding.
i am now in front of the log and spitting fire.

glendalough and resting in St. Kevin's Cell

I packed the van with food, clothing and logs for the wood burner.
i set off saying good-bye to the twin i was out of it, away with the fairies, away from what we know as civilization.
for very good reason, i have bunked out twenty five miles and more, far away on the top of another mountain.

I am bunked out on this here mountain because the stresses of life and turgid struggle with our bloody recessionary ways, not mine, mind you, my Gov.  The Gov who decided that all who are disabled, sick and vulnerable should pay for the bankruptcy of Holy Ireland.
So, I have come to the holiest of holy places, and for my sins have decamped in St. Kevin's Cell.
Not, no, the original but the imitation.
I am in a cell, but it has all the mod cons.
Here is the electricity, warmth and cleanliness and 21st century appliances though basic.

But it would not have been basic in our Kev's time!
Kev tramped the land in leather thonged footware, to hack himself half way up the cliff face, to grovel inward a hole for himself to pray and stay.
Well, he was praying for the lost souls, of our nation - then.
I am in his imitation and have no intention of praying for the lost nation of whatsit called our holy ireland full of saints and scholars, as is our Kev revered like none other!
I am here to save my own soul but more importantly my sanity.
The by product may be a spiritual awakening and yes, i possibly had one not a few tramped feet upon the soil of this holy place called Glendalough.
It would be unusual not to be tainted by the beauty.
You are rightly fucked if you are not, i have to say.
You are brain dead and a hopeless case if you cannot drink of this cup of beauty in it bountifulness.
you would be classified, if you could not.
It was wonderful to be back.
Yes, i have run away 'oh human child, to the waters and the wild, for the world too full of weeping for you to understand.'  er, Yeats not quite verbatim, but Yeats agreed, this is a poxy life and i don't understand it, dear poor idle child that I am.
Not worldly by half.
i am into this nature thing in a big way.
I love it.
Now the spiritual bit hits blast full in the face once you step the Dunnes Stores best boots on the land underfoot.
It is heavenly.
The gorse is out full blaze.
The primroses are waning having reminded us that hope is within the land, and when one sees a primrose you can be sure that a turn is in the ways of the world  - yes, weather wise, and not much else, poor primrose, ever hopeful.
I bet it was shockingly mad that it didn't have to sleep much over winter, for the weather too is off kilter very much.
but none the less, it did strut its stuff and in a very hopeful way for all to see.
As in me...me..not the Gov and no praying for the Gov. i am saving my sanity and nothing more, nothing less.
Who in Holy God's name did i meet first?
Yep, you are right.  The Priest.
I met him before too, and no, i do not know what his name is and least care.
He wore a strange straw hat, way too small and looked well nourished, certainly not in imitation of the original Kev who clammered around the muck to find a hole to bury himself in and pray.
No, not like our Kev at all.
He, the priest that is, bounced on and out, in his car, well fed with the funny hat, ridiculous hat, actually.
i moved up to the cell, i have sliddered down a bit since last time, for i am given the lower cell, the higher cell nearer God, on the top, was too on the top so i had to lower my sights and expectations for the feet you see, are not as good as they were and they are pretty much not up to the job of cranking up the side of the mountain.  Not even if its least like what the original would have done.
Nothing like it.
The nun, yep you have guessed.  I don't know her name either.  She showed me the Cillin and yes, i had met her before.
she favours red, last time and this, and red lipstick, yes i kid you not, very red lipstick.
she helped me with the bag of wood, the nourishment in their plastic wrapping in the plastic storage box.
not the leather thonged backpack of our Kev.
I rest some...after being shown the basics of turning on the hot water system and i then let her go on her way and i settled down.
I look at the emails...omg monk fashion!
I then go to touch the nature and have a wee word with it.
Not pray.  Just feel the goodness that is there that is not in a human figure upon this mountain, (but the priest).  But he had gone out to do priestly stuff, not sit around praying for the state of the nation.
that would seem a bit tribal.
-It is gorgeous.
Not the priest oh no, the place.
you do sense the God in it.
You absolutely do, without a question.
What never fails to defeat me is, when we can stiff and collide with what God has created, how can we collide so very badly with each other?
How can we so badly get it wrong and cause such grief to the stompers on my land?
the stompers being the ones bailing out the banks and shoring up a sinking ship, this holy country of ours.
The evil country and the petty government who tells us we are bankrupt for god's sake, we cannot afford to help the sick, the elderly and the disabled.  We are bankrupt, so say's our minister for Health Dr. whatsit no less.
Yes, we are down and out Doctor, but we didn't do it.
We didn't.
So would you kindly leave me and others alone and go fight the bigger fish in this oil infested water of ours, not to mention the radioactive infested waters of ours too.
Certainly not St. Kev's style that either.
Maybe the Minister for Health should shack up with the Priest not a hundred yards from me and start praying for the nation like they never did before.
and pray for themselves, the deluded.
Next election you are out on your arse.
forgotten, detris.  Like the delude Ms. Harney no less.
Lets hope that the next generation will get it right.
Can the recession turn the younger brigade into the kinder brigade?
Well, since my experience and that of commentators of the younger brigade is not looking hopeful maybe we should skip a decade and depend on the next.
By that time i am offa the mountain here and with the maker above, if there is one.
I half suspect there might be, but half too, suspect there isn't.
I guess if i keep it like that i cannot lose.
So i captured this mountain today, and supped tea and captured it again.
I loved it.
I love it here.
No human within sniffing distance, (apart from the priest).
No bloody politics, no men, no pious men telling the sick and elderly and disabled 'For God's sake we are bankrupt...you fecking eggits, stop protesting."
Its like poppins land this.
they are coming to get ya!  War has been declared, run the mountain my friends and find a better way and a better place.
i have, for five measly days and then i am back with the rats, race.

it is not good to be complacent

whether i have spelt the complicated word right, doesnt matter...it is not good enough...not good enough...to accept what is wrong.
very wrong.
Irish people, all of you...each and everyone is responsible for another human being.
we are bankrupt, we are at the mercy of the international and european monetary funds and funding.
we are small, insignificant and surrounded by a watery grave - yard.
so, we as a small country with a tiny population.
May i say again we are TINY, so tiny some bigger countries, BIG countries do not know of our existence - and less care.
but what do the people who dance on our land?
what do the people who cry on our land?
laugh on our land and also do a lot of awful things to many on our land.
its called NEGLECT.
It is also not good enough to stand idle and see and feel that same neglect.
Nor watch idly by when big people on a small land decimate the crops of wonderful fruitful harvests of people, especially the elderly, the sick and the infirm.
We do produce good crops.
People are people, and people are unique.
I see every day Neglect all around me.
I see complacency on a grand scale.
One government, the past one i think decided on a reasonable plan of 'community care.'
Now this is a good plan, folks, it means community first and co-operation in producing a rounded service for the least able.
thats called 'collective' thinking.
we will have the General Practitioner, the District Nurse, the Occupational Therapist, Physiotherapist and many other auxillary but front line staff collectively communicating with each other for the good of the sick, less able and unable.
what do we get?  first complacency and a sort of laid back attitude, not of 'I don't care' but more of 'well so-and-so should do that.'
Pass the buck, don't make a phone call, don't accept a phone call and be pissed off when a phone call comes in for ACTION to help the sick and disabled in the community.
I heard today that this practise of community and collective thinking is more of an ideal, unreal than a reality.
It doesnt exist.  What i heard was that the General Practitioner feels that the District Nurse feels that she is treading on her patch and the District Nurse feels she shouldnt interfer with the Home Help service and the Home help service feels its not their job to liaise with the District Nurse.
Cobblers, a lot of cobblers.
its called Primary Care Teams par excellance!
in theory.
now we have a recession and the tune goes 'ah well, now we cannot ask anything cos no one has any money to do anything so what's the point?
well, actually there is a point.
and also out there, those who are not pros, that is not pros as in medicine,
we are still community with intelligence, insight, and maturity.
what we do with all that is a collective responsibility.
NOT to NEGLECT the way we do, the most vunerable people who once danced on this land, laughed on this land and now weep on this land.
You do  not accept the status quo and say there is nothing you can do about it, we are bankrupt and there is no money and there is no money and there is no money.
Money is not GOD.
People are the stuff of small nations.
we get up, every one on a crutch, wheels, stick and feet, we march.
and we march today and the next and the next.
we then (after marching) check on the next door neighbour.
paint the room bright if it needs it.
cut the grass.
take them out for a trip, (cannibas plus the bus), already you can tell i never sniffed that stuff by the look of the mis-spelt!
there are people sitting on the top of the mountain being told they are lucky if they can get off the top of the mountain for three hours a week.
that person is not a pensioner but a person who has assets and gifts to give and share, but how can she sitting on the top of the mountain - for God's sake.
there is another person sitting near the top of the mountain, sort of sliding down the mountain who has assets, that is a visual person who can create and loves to create but so clapped out with exhaustion that creativity is last on her mind.
basics such as getting the celiac diet up and running, the lift on her left special shoe (oh, she has to get the shoe first)!
thats the sort of utter nonsense that is my grubby little country.
what am i going to do about it?
well, if pigs could fly i would be outside the Dail Eireann and demanding that this is not good enough.
what i really am doing about it, is collapse on the top of another mountain where there is a sort of hermitage, one Cell as in Kells style and there i shall sit with a flagstone floor beneath my feet, a wood burner against one wall, a single bed against another (with a crucifix over it) and a small table and one chair on the other wall, on the final wall is the door, that has two bolts, one on top and one on the bottom.
i have my matches, my wood and my hands.
i shall bolt the door, both top and bottom, light the wood in the wood burner, sit on the one chair and stair at all four walls.
i am in hermit style contemplating the state of the nation and the wojus situation that is presented for me, others and many others who happen to be crippled and cripples in a wojus little grubby country where once people danced and laughed and harvested great and good corn and wheat, once we got rid of them who caused my country to starve.
when they go, we harvest good, and when we harvest good we do the same to our people and leave us all the plebs, starving for breath, for basic services, for our souls and for the spirit as whatsit in the irish once.
we are now in the grips of another country.
we are wojus bankrupt.
so - what are we gonna do about it?
when i come back offa the mountain i would like to have some input in the dramatic situation that is happening in a very dramatic way - in a small grubby little wojus country.
once wonderful.
wojus.

Pitching in to keep you on your toes!

yep, pretty much so!  one must keep one's audience - rating - whether you have something to say or no, but whatever.
I don't have a lot to say!
my friends are connecting in the most wonderful ways, in the most worthwhile things and it surprises me how the world can be so torrid when i have such gentle and genuine friends, who are tender at heart.
all want to listen to what is good.
say, the birdsong - which is strong right now, as we enter the springtime.  The time of year which proffers hope for all alive beasts and beings.
All are watching the earth, that dusty or musty, sodden or dry earth, the crevices in rocks, the san dunes and where one can or even cannot place the foot.
what shall we find, the lizard basking or the little snowdrops peeping up.
remember what many times the snowdrops have to endure, they are not to know that snow and ice may consume them, but they raise the little nodding head no matter.
sunrises and sunsets are captured and so in awe are the cameramen and women, to stay and capture to make a snap of time, in all its ways, the sun rising for the earth only and setting so that men can rest their heads after toil or pain.
Many of my friends are known because they are in pain.
I also wonder how they manage to keep going against the odds, so what is it do you think?
Nature can be just what it is.
cruel and devastating.
trees can be stripped the thrunks cut down, broken and warped, set alight.
peopel can be broken and never mend again, in mind body and spirit.
there are to many such people.
the shock of devastation, the torture wrack of pain too.
So when a being, a man, in pain and struggling can grab that camera and take the sunrise or sunset at one part of the globe, indeed the other side of the world to me, and i know what that is about because standing on a blot in the ocean thousands of miles away, i rush to grab the camera to take the shot as Jamie left it to turn to sleep and i was awakening to my dawns and we have a cycle all again. in wonder.
so where do the human species get it so wrong?
This is something that as we get older my twin and i realise that division and separation can happen quickly, much more so than for the younger people on the earth.
not only does it happen in such a cruel way it is lasting without end.
pain will never go away for  most.
but hope will never either.
So why we wake for a new dawn?
Do you think our good lord knew it as such and gave us possibly the best of nature as the sleepy eyes once stuck closed will struggle to grasp a new day but wll do so with the shock of wonder, wonderous delight.
Does Jamie stand in ridiculous shorts outside his house in America, in the heat of his time zone and i rush to the grass for all the workers of the world to see here, dressed in a madness of textures and colours, softness and sharpness.
"who is that mad woman!" maybe they say, for they have not seen this before, but if they have not maybe they will look up to see what i am gawking at and see!
dressed in purples and oranges, mitts and woolies but i get it!
as does Jamie, in possibly cotten, with no shoes on!
We are human.
but saying that, lonliness isnt far away, both in America, amongst some sick friends and also not sick friends.
Loneliness is on this blot of land so far away too.
and division is great, and ridiculously so.
when nature can dance to the rhythm and tunes they know best why cannot man do the same?
shed that isolation which is not part of what being human is.
Humans are the most social animals on the earth.
You would never know that.
Nor that they are the only ones that kill for no reason.
Why, again we shall never know.
but gentle and kind folk are everywhere but within the cradle of illness and disabilities and amongst those who want to communicate ven if its vast distances thanks to technology.
we need to catch the moment, that ribbon of red and orange and bottle it, pickle it, for in doing so we wil bottle the essance of a person, that persion so taken by god's beauty they will rush for a way to put it save, away, in their hearts, forever.
so sad the rushing for the goodness is not seen in the human species.
where is the rushing to see the gentle heart?
The tender soul? The broken or the shattered spirits, to build up again to be a part of all that is good?
So for Jamie, Denis, Linda and myself, whom i know snap the earth and skies, well done and glad to have and cherish you as friends, also Mary, but is she that for i have had a lunatic moment and see the person and not the name, but by the time i press that key to enter "enter" i probably will remember again.
so there is a person who knows themselves, to be a worker in the world of beauty and trauma.

Life is a shadow, Life is a persistent dream, life may be wonderful, but is it?

Today i am thinking especially of John McCarthy who died this week.
In a tribute John Saunders asks us to question stigma and mental illness, he did this because John McCarthy as well asked the same and so do I.
tell me, if the statistics are so high regarding mental distress how can it be other, that mental distress is part of the human condition?
Not all these people can be ill?
Also, you cannot medicate all these people, and you cannot and shouldn't stigmatize this amount of people!
so who gets the stigma?
Of, course, those who enter into the psychiatry realm and those who self injure, take overdoses and cry out, in mental torment and pain.
How many then are left on the sidelines, doing all of this in secret?
Also what are the manifestations of those who do not cry out?
If one does not blatantly cry out, what do they do?
Are these questions idiotic?
No, because pain manifests in many ways.
Some pain gets passed off as 'normal' and some gets critized as 'abnormal'
We also have real physical pain once considered mental distress now considered by the world health organization as genuine, documented, provable physical illness, for instance, Fibromyalgia was once considered 'faking' and 'neurotic!' and Parkinsons Disease a result of masturbation!
How wrong can we get it!
Tell me please who is deciding all this?
I have the best guess ever, that it is medical professionals.
They are the people who are at the top of the pyramid in health systems, who are there at the coal face of distress.
As the new God of the human being, as saviour of the human being, they command great respect.
such respect means that anything they say will be taken as the human gospel of human anatomical and neurological and psychological truth.
we take the above incidences where they got it wrong.
Now i ask, why bother to try categorize illness, feelings and such?  Why not let people just 'be' for Life, my friends is no 'piece of cake.'
-then you die.
Right, you bet.
I am sad tonight...no...i am depressed.
I am so because a relationship is not working out well and both are causing distress to the other.
Can this depression and this distress be considered now a mental illness?
I have been very frightened for almost three years without one day's break.
i am on high alert now and unused to not feeling  the anxiety and the fears of bringing hammers to bed with me for protection.
Is the result a kind of PTSD or is it just 'a fact of life' and circumstances?
I am advised to take an anti-depressant to try calm the brain down after the horror i have gone through.
why?
can i not try to calm down the brain now, i am away from threat...can i teach myself to start a new start and learn to calm down through meditation and mindfulness?
Yes, i can, and yes i will but certainly No, i will not take a pill for life events that cause distress.
the only instance where my brain and body should be very contained is when and if i am about to jump over a cliff, but even then a person's distress should have been discovered long before the leap into the unknown.
Once discovered a person should be 'loved back' into wellbeing and confidence to continue.
Life is now what we think we believe.
Science and religion do not give us many answers at all.
All we can do but be passing shadows in the daytimes and nights, and resolve to be a good person, caring and loving and be part of community.
If we do not do it well the first day, or week keep going but always keep going.
we never get it right!
We are all moving in curves and circles.
lets hope the curves and circles include everyone and that everyone learns that a pill is not magic, living and loving  is not either but living and loving is so good  why blast our brains out with dumbing down meds?
i have the answer, Sir!  Life is learning, i need to be sharp to stay on the road and not get ditched.

all the best in life and love.
and all the best to the person in my loving relationship that i am not loving very well at present.  BUT, tomorrow is another day to try ...again.

Mary Raftery and John McCarty, giants in a small nation. RIP

Today will be remembered for wonderful reasons but also too for shock and sadness.
How do you write a blog on such a day?
to divide into segments the great and the small, the real and the insignificant, the very large and the very humbled?
firstly after a long long protracted period i have secured my 'forever home.'
i do hope that this place shall be in a small way, large and significant and a Hubble of great proportions to which my friends and family are all very welcomed.
the day was good to me...signing for the property, having the banter with two young men as we stalked my new home trying to work out how to make good small and tiny places within the home and without.
all ideas were tossed to the wind.
we trampled the grass and observed.
the next door's extension was of a 'grand affair' nature.
the massive lumpy shed of mine as suggested to the men, would actually serve as a wonderful office pod, taking off the frontage and putting glass panel doors.
they liked that, and from a woman it was mighty!
ha, joke. sorry, no good, standing on the grass with my stick faced with two zany men who possibly, only possibly would have all the answers.
nah.
inside we had the same debate of shifting boundaries, and in the most cost effect way.
questions ensued about getting over the fact that all windows were effectively illegal from today's building regulations.  Now that will cost some to replace but i suggested a convenient lump hammer in case of fire.
its the cheaper option i felt.
sniggers and giggles all round!
one of the guys felt the back did get the sun close up to the windows, for the grass grew and not moss.
would you have thought of that?
nah.
and so the day progressed.
meeting my new Personal Assistant with a chihuahua maltese cross, all the way from belgium, and not rabid as was jabbed.
a little moony ball of fluff which my two chihuahuas took well to.  A great start.
then it was to the District Nurse to sort out Health issues and 'mess.'
a few tears shed here, but no matter.

then we have the divide in the mundane.
sadly.
shocking news yesterday of the death of Mary Raftery at the young age of 54.
my twin and i walked the beach, my twin, pale and pensive, tears dripping from the edges.
Mary Raftery was no small individual.
no small character could have changed a nation so much as this woman.
remember, here we have a Woman..making such a major difference to how we perceive abuse and also priests and clergy abusers.
No more the scuff of the Mamas of generations gone past.
no more the scuff of the Bishops and Archbishops gone past.
a small, larger than life woman with the tenacity of a politician and shaker, a mover in our society, changing society.  changing it forever.  No more will our small nation be dominated by a single church who practically gave this nation its constitutional values and creeds in entirety.
We now have shaken off the shackles of superior belief systems, to one of openness and reality.
Yes, christians sin and christians can cause harm.
Mary, may you rest in peace, gone too soon.
We all grieve at this great loss.

Toward the evening time, i learnt of another death.
This was almost unbearable as this person also moved the nation.
Facing the stigma always present in Ireland, of the pain of mental illness and distress a man marched forth and called 'enough is enough.'
We DO become psychologically and mentally challenged.
This is no different to any other bodily distress and trauma.
Our brain is on the top of our bodies, and it can kilter as much as the legs, middle and neck.
The neck does not end our body at one end.
The head does.
John started 'Mad Pride', to be proud of your person, your body and your mind.
whatever way it manifested itself.
we are after all, All precious.  Very much so.
This being another person standing up to what i want to see, unshackled reality and truth.
Our mind can waver but we are all so human and all should hold to the dignity and miracle of Life, In all its twists and turns.
I admire the people who have spoken thus.
What can i say to end a blog on such a day as this?
I can say, I have been abused by a roman catholic clergyman and i have had the experiences of being vulnerable psychologically and mentally.
but I am ok.  I am really ok, for just like all, i am human.
By the way on the final note, my legs are off kilter and sway and wobble and have to be shorn up. That apparently is Ok, being of so-called 'unsound mind' is not, let us hope that through such people as Mary Raftery and John McCarthy and their values we will see a country and a nation with wonderful ethos and practices.  We should already, be very proud to have had such people in our midst.
Thank you to both.
Mary and John, may you rest in peace.  Gone, but never forgotten.