tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1922187869576891572024-03-22T01:47:23.837+00:00Notions.A mending and stitchery thing ~ the little stitches make the whole beautiful cloth.
"We need to tell the stories that create a deep longing for a future that looks very different to the present." Rob HopkinsCiara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-32061756382062588812020-03-28T13:27:00.002+00:002021-02-20T18:31:40.135+00:00Falling Into the Future.<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-6b1205a6-7fff-04d4-f1a1-eb75831bfcdc"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thoughts on The Great Unraveling, The Great Remaking.</span></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-4639064a-7fff-568d-79cb-31439af50e2d"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just over a couple of weeks ago, we were in school watching the unfolding of a surreal, unreal story, one that felt like we were falling headlong into a science fiction story or movie.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">As the story continues to unfold around us, and we are all caught inside this bizarre new reality, there are a few things that stand out for me as I know they have for many others but which I would really like to name here, to acknowledge.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqAP_RPQ3Yqm5zpI2O9Q9t1BfbtWGvoCqFxFU1uqFqEOsHruLeSiuEe8jY2e0Yi3OTxM81mWlkiL81M7LQRskNA4XS5WaH-3N62-AFQDTyvIjLxVCFZ3dFO2kKjsJYa6HEj7IjCqIwbsQJ/s1600/unnamed-3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqAP_RPQ3Yqm5zpI2O9Q9t1BfbtWGvoCqFxFU1uqFqEOsHruLeSiuEe8jY2e0Yi3OTxM81mWlkiL81M7LQRskNA4XS5WaH-3N62-AFQDTyvIjLxVCFZ3dFO2kKjsJYa6HEj7IjCqIwbsQJ/s640/unnamed-3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I am deeply moved by the profound recognition of just how connected we truly are. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-ccc73b72-7fff-3a5f-84e1-f80ef7c9ec7d"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the first time ever, in perfect reflection of the world we have created, we are all truly aware that we are together in the same boat. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">This Small Blue Dot we inhabit that hangs in space suddenly feels very intimate, more intimate than ever before. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">For not much more than a couple of decades now, we have been marveling at and loving ‘how connected’ we are. How technology has brought us together. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglnAHl-MSjGwUIN8NnCjwB84e3szMZp5Z2urk2UP502MOT8nCETCTXh1zbLTKmWT47S5OCIh7gIxxeh6mUtwWlEtss5F1kIh2hD7dld-po-lRCxhuHxv8SPeJIhyphenhyphendKEiEw3f0ZDERcLOY9/s1600/unnamed-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglnAHl-MSjGwUIN8NnCjwB84e3szMZp5Z2urk2UP502MOT8nCETCTXh1zbLTKmWT47S5OCIh7gIxxeh6mUtwWlEtss5F1kIh2hD7dld-po-lRCxhuHxv8SPeJIhyphenhyphendKEiEw3f0ZDERcLOY9/s640/unnamed-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-d1cb6a41-7fff-1519-9397-0edf3786093e"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But this new situation has really brought that home in a different, more sinister and more real way. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are more deeply connected than we ever truly comprehended, as this virus has shown us. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our connectedness is what allows it to spread, we can’t help ourselves. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">It takes our governments telling us to distance ourselves to force us to do so, and even then some people are finding it impossible. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">And so it travels around the world, infecting every country, and all people, without discrimination. </span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-cb78fe10-7fff-2f04-de59-2648d48bde29"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Could we ever have imagined being so as one, so truly together, so truly connected with every other citizen on this planet?</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGUZYaQJ5c3JOAjul-8_CK3qVhtho1IY776xEJtC405YVhJ3zmICwwvzjISqpj5lx6-_DpAKTAQ9ZExaY_3rRUjiGq5t3_SKdPZywP_N970tW2jV-JaD7GwicaLSzY0S7jpn-VQKMOBtv/s1600/unnamed-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGUZYaQJ5c3JOAjul-8_CK3qVhtho1IY776xEJtC405YVhJ3zmICwwvzjISqpj5lx6-_DpAKTAQ9ZExaY_3rRUjiGq5t3_SKdPZywP_N970tW2jV-JaD7GwicaLSzY0S7jpn-VQKMOBtv/s640/unnamed-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">But there is something more to this connectivity, something older and deeper, something we have forgotten that we are now being reminded of, painfully.</span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-d683b96b-7fff-fcb6-bb1a-9ebbc43c42d2"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have been immersed, in recent times, in the writings and thoughts of people like Robin Wall Kimmerer, Robert Macfarlane, Richard Powers, and Paul Hawkin,</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> among others, who speak to the deep, indigenous knowledge of how we are </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">actually</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> connected, how we have always been connected, but we have forgotten. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">It makes our recent technological connectivity seem embarrassingly one-dimensional, albeit useful in its own way.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDxW4ZDjQLen_X6AJcIIlOHZa1DFCmGMu6Tro1PGEx5gf8uYwWxhOOjzYq9nxmarKEfspH1V50AcOtZsZyIVFN-JFsuEiUgHsrP5B-AoTEcx5JSE1PGv42SCBNY4oPyYYCCmOq89IICoFW/s1600/unnamed-7.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDxW4ZDjQLen_X6AJcIIlOHZa1DFCmGMu6Tro1PGEx5gf8uYwWxhOOjzYq9nxmarKEfspH1V50AcOtZsZyIVFN-JFsuEiUgHsrP5B-AoTEcx5JSE1PGv42SCBNY4oPyYYCCmOq89IICoFW/s640/unnamed-7.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-9451fdb2-7fff-aea7-8f3c-6f04c1460b41"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Looking into these worlds they abide in gives me a strange sense of being a child, lying on my stomach and looking down into a deep, deep well, </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">as though trying to see something that is in the past, that I have lost, only to see the sky </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and realise I am, in fact, looking </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">up</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, looking forward into the future. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is no separation. There is no divide between humans and nature. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">The idea that there is a divide is such a bizarre one and so recent too, yet it is so pervasive that we are all completely ensnared by it.</span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-aee29ce5-7fff-a3b7-ac3c-c01d4ab5f5a0"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Looking into these worlds has given me so much clarity, so much understanding, and in turn, peace. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have been moved to tears by the deep recognition of what they are saying. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #0a0a0a; font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size: 17.3333px; white-space: pre-wrap;">What have been your silver linings, your Corona Gold?<br /></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-4af0c531-7fff-316e-3255-42e848341295"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stay safe, stay well, stay home.</span></span></div></div></div></div>Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-69931516738416831352020-03-24T21:22:00.000+00:002020-03-24T21:22:00.703+00:00This Is Us Now.<span id="docs-internal-guid-51101785-7fff-da44-aab9-7a5a85b4c7a7"></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-51101785-7fff-da44-aab9-7a5a85b4c7a7"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "im fell french canon" , serif; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those of you who were here with me in Blogland in the days that I was over at <a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.com/">Milkmoon</a> will remember a gaggle of small, wild children, a whispering meadow by the sea. There were bonfires in the garden, fairy houses under the trees, a marshland filled with chattering birds. We shared our dear patch of earth with lizards in the grass, jackdaws in the chimney, and dustly moths on the walls in the sunlit halls. Our days were filled with the deep wanderings and wonderings of a mother mothering, and of young humans figuring out the path that lay ahead of them, side by side, as life unfolded before them, grass breathing in their ears, salt on their tongues, all under a great, big beautiful sky.</span></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-51101785-7fff-da44-aab9-7a5a85b4c7a7"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "im fell french canon" , serif; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When we had to leave that beautiful </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "im fell french canon" , serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">croílár,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "im fell french canon" , serif; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> our heartland, seven years ago, life changed in so many ways, aside from the obvious environmental one, and it was kind of like stepping into what we thought was a boat on a river but turned out to be a rollercoaster. The first five years were tough - really, really tough. Three of those four wildlings went into freefall, their anchorage unmoored just as they hit those challenging adolescent years. And add into the mix the abrupt changes to our day to day life brought on by me having to go back to work for the first time in their lives, just when they really needed the stability of me being there. Yes, it was tough.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "im fell french canon" , serif; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-51101785-7fff-da44-aab9-7a5a85b4c7a7"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "im fell french canon" , serif; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-0cc770ed-7fff-46fc-3490-703883f5f037"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">But the first summer in our new, urban home was wonderful. It was a hot one, and the young teens relished the newfound freedom of public transport, of all the exciting things that living in a town for the first time in their lives brings. The only blemish was that Jay was working in Australia and ended up having to stay there for the full seven weeks of the summer holidays (this is unusual - he travels a lot for work but it’s usually two or three weeks at a time). My way of coping was to go to the beach, pretty much every day, and even though we missed him like crazy, it was a wonderful time together for myself and the kids. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-51101785-7fff-da44-aab9-7a5a85b4c7a7"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihR5DFVgjv_1Xt4JNoQe9mE9pKKHWtWi0jKjyrhJcOwBaeLCUmJ05sjxRa74jHmuHpI3wkjefJ-PMXkf8nD_AKMFwInkABQoXTqBC4ZZ8K1x66sHG65qRA-JzQf4yLSLhcVDRDqH56tA6G/s1600/_MG_1095.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihR5DFVgjv_1Xt4JNoQe9mE9pKKHWtWi0jKjyrhJcOwBaeLCUmJ05sjxRa74jHmuHpI3wkjefJ-PMXkf8nD_AKMFwInkABQoXTqBC4ZZ8K1x66sHG65qRA-JzQf4yLSLhcVDRDqH56tA6G/s640/_MG_1095.jpeg" width="426" /></a></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-51101785-7fff-da44-aab9-7a5a85b4c7a7"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "im fell french canon" , serif; font-size: 13pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-0cc770ed-7fff-46fc-3490-703883f5f037"><span style="font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-e5f679cd-7fff-8764-a87c-22303f6963a6"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">And even though the intervening seven years were our toughest yet, we have come out the other side, we are all still here together, well on the road to wellness. Our children are almost-grown, mostly independent, with loves and lives of their own. Most days I find it’s just me and the youngest home together, as Jay still travels with work, for now. And while I am completely in love with seeing their wings unfold, watching as they test them out and take to the sky, tentatively foraying into their own beautiful lives, there is also, of course, a sadness that comes with this. There is a strange pull on my heart even though I am happy to see them become more and more independent, I feel the loss of our time together.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjECAp3kt2A0Rw7xT5dK0nmM5vQsP_XaSbuPEo1lAp5ZpipoogjUxxZBoeu1qVYGvSPBcHfJsh13Aivr-nwG4T5jY-A8yhY_32u1iQQ190j-Pt04dU02yUUVXW5hB3-HsdGigMTdS_e-0DC/s1600/_MG_1157.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjECAp3kt2A0Rw7xT5dK0nmM5vQsP_XaSbuPEo1lAp5ZpipoogjUxxZBoeu1qVYGvSPBcHfJsh13Aivr-nwG4T5jY-A8yhY_32u1iQQ190j-Pt04dU02yUUVXW5hB3-HsdGigMTdS_e-0DC/s640/_MG_1157.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-065cf68d-7fff-9dfd-8855-2a0b1d6bc66c"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">And then, these dark times visit us all, and I find myself in a strange mirror-place, at home again with my four dearlings, and Jay in Australia again for as many weeks as the last time mentioned above - in all his years travelling, this is only the second time he has been away for that length of time. </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">It doesn’t escape my notice that we are coming to the end of a seven year cycle - literally to the day, bookended by Jay’s unusually long stints on the other side of the world. I cannot help but wonder what it means…</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">So, here we are, counting the days, hoping he gets home safely, and so very grateful for this time together again. I am savouring every moment, so aware that this should never have happened, not like this. But we are here together, playing, talking, working side by side, hanging out, sharing every meal together, and in the midst of all the heartbreaking stories we are hearing from around the world, in the midst of so much devastation, I humbly give thanks for this unexpected gift we have all been given. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">So, I will document these precious days of ours, slipping back, for what may only be a moment, into our Milkmoon dream, for in our bones we are longing for those open skies and whispering grass, and a time when the world seemed a far safer place to be. </span><br />
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Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-29365524458777978552019-06-17T17:08:00.000+01:002020-02-18T08:21:33.571+00:00A Taleswappers Tale. <div dir="ltr">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"</span><span style="color: #202124; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stories are recognizable patterns, and in those patterns we find meaning. </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #202124; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We use stories to make sense of our world and to share that understanding with others. They are the signal within the noise. So powerful is our impulse to detect story patterns that we see them even when they're not there."</span><span style="color: #4a4a4a; font-size: 14pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summer is reluctant this year. We wait, through rain and wind, for the sun to peek through, to tentatively reach towards us, shy and unsure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In truth, it feels familiar, like an Irish summer ‘should’ be, and really brings home just how our climate has changed in the last number of years, how we cannot claim Ireland to be guaranteed rain-doused and rainbow-bedecked any more. While last summer’s drought was unusual, our winters have been drier too. And this is not going to change any time soon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have been to some dark places over the last couple of years, down to the depths, into the darkness, at times paralysed by fear and grief - what will become of us? Of our children? How can we even begin to fix this? Overwhelmed by my grief. Hence the long gaps here - I simply couldn't write.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But somewhere there in the darkness, I found something. I found when I turned and looked into it, this darkness, when I swallowed my fear and opened my eyes and looked it face on, I saw it for what it is; a story. And I realise that I have always known this, in my bones. The bones of my knowing. We only ever have our stories. It’s what creates our reality. As I have written here before, whatever story we tell ourselves, or whatever story we listen to that others tell us, we believe it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So yes, this dark, devastating reality we now face is the result of the story we believed for decades, The Consumer Story (does anyone else think being called The Consumer sounds like a pretty hardcore Evil Being who will wreak havoc and destroy the Earth? Hmm…) This is what The Consumer has created.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The only way out now is to tell ourselves a new story. It’s the only way. We start with a new story, with changing people’s minds. But this is urgent and critically important because there is another Dark and Dangerous Story being told with increasing reach (it's tentacles are long and sinewy) - the story of Collapse. The doom story that has no hope. And we know that fear paralyses us, people need hope to be galvanised, they will leap into action when they believe there is something to save.</span><a href="https://www.albertbates.cool/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Albert Bates</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> calls it an emotional virus, which can be highly infectious, but one that can be resisted. A new, beautiful story is what we need, one that is not only hopeful, but that is based on real possibilities.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, in that dark place that I found myself in a couple of summers ago, I understood it was not somewhere we should stay, there is a danger of that, of getting stuck there. When faced with the 'undoing of life as we know it', of course it holds the possibility that we will fall into the darkness and never find a way out, and that is terrifying. Now that this topic is on the High St. and in political arenas, thanks to the likes of Greta Thunberg, and groups like Extinction Rebellion, there is really no getting away from it, and I understand people's reluctance. Because falling into Collapse does happen, it has to happen. How many people do we know who feel like there is no point? We are doomed. And so that story of Collapse takes hold and starts to become the new reality for those people, and then becomes a virus that infects others around them and... well, you know those TV shows about viruses that bring about the end of the world....? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the bit that is missing for many is that we are not meant to stay there. We need to see it for what it is and use that information to begin the new story. T</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hose of us who have been there, who have seen it, must come back from the darkness, even though we bring grief, we have to be the storytellers, the taleswappers of the new hopeful story, the bards.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It wasn't some big epiphany that allowed me to climb out of those depths, more like just getting up each day and carrying on, and reaching, every single day, for hope. And sure enough, it was there, once I learned how to look, how to listen out for it, that beautiful, new story. And the more I reached, the more I found, and the more I found, the more I reached until I was very much on a journey with a purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, back in April of this year, I found myself traveling into the wild mountains of Romania, into the heart of the Wild, and there I was able to ask questions of the Earth, of myself, as to what needs to happen next for me? Along with other seekers, we delved into our</span><a href="https://animas.org/books/wild-mind-a-field-guide-to-the-human-psyche/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wild Minds</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, searching for our Selves among the trees, rivers, mountains, wildlife, mist, and stars, and as we wandered, we were connecting with those elements or other-than-human-beings in a profound way. It was magical, challenging, scary, heart-filling, whole-making. It was facing into the raw and the beautiful, all acutely Present, right there with us every day from the moment we awoke. It was a balm and it was a Summoning.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I came home with pockets full of lichen, stones, moss, feathers, bark, seeds - seeds for planting and pollinating, seeds that are germinating under my tongue, my skin, waiting for the sun, or for the moments that are ripe to be spoken. And then they fly, little fluffy-tufts that people want to blow away, uncomfortable, sticky things. But I can't help it, there they fly, those difficult things that need to be named, that need to be taken by the hand and led into the clearing so we can all see what exactly we are dealing with, and therefore create a gameplan for ourselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was barely a week home when I headed over the sea to Scotland where I was lucky enough to attend the</span><a href="https://ccc19.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Climate Change and Consciousness</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> conference in Findhorn in Scotland, which had incredible speakers like</span><a href="http://www.navdanya.org/site/?" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vandana Shiva</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,</span><a href="https://charleseisenstein.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charles Eisenstein</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,</span><a href="https://ccc19.org/presenters/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">among others</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, all of whom had something vital and eye-opening and hopeful and inspiring to say. In the context of this post, I found what</span><a href="https://www.forumforthefuture.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jonathon Porritt</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> had to say of particular interest. He says that we already have everything we need for a sustainable future. It already exists. We don't need to wait for some new technology to be invented, it's all here already. And as Paul Hawken of</span><a href="https://www.drawdown.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Drawdown</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> says, </span><span style="color: #1c1e21; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider.” Drawdown offers 100 solutions to reverse global warming. This is real!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because there</span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">another story, another reality being created with a different vision, </span><span style="color: #1c1e21; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and it’s gathering momentum. I am speaking from first-hand experience. But</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2YgDua2gpk" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"It's not the waking, it's the rising"</span></a><span style="color: #1c1e21; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that counts. It needs numbers, it needs </span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">people</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, to reach tipping point, and that’s when change happens exponentially. It’s up to us to create the world we want to live in now. I believe that we will change nothing if we don’t change our consciousness. It’s pointless to even try. It means creating a new world, a new way of living, a new way of being in community, a new way of educating our children, a new way of communicating, a new way of resolving conflict, and </span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">most important of all</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a new way of connecting with, and relating to, the rest of the beings we share this beautiful planet with, including the planet herself. Because without those fundamentals of connection and meaning, we will get lost in our grief.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #4a4a4a; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We need to tell the stories that create a deep </span><span style="color: #4a4a4a; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">longing</span><span style="color: #4a4a4a; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for a future that looks very different to the present. A future of cleaner air, children playing in the street, cities with food growing everywhere, louder birdsong, thriving local economies, an age of connection, conversation and community, schools and hospitals fed by local food, a sense of collective purpose. A future of renewable energy, rewilded landscapes, imaginative and playful architecture. It’s going to be amazing.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4a4a4a; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rob Hopkins</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The leaves sway outside my window, nodding to me in reassurance - '<i>we</i> will be alright', they say, 'don’t worry. We are not sure about <i>you</i> though. So go on, get out there and tell the tale, the one where we finally, gratefully, gracefully join hands together.'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, I would like to leave you with an invitation. If you don't already know, go out and find who are the changemakers in your local area, find out what they are up to, find a way to get involved. I promise you will feel better. There's even science to back up the fact that</span><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a37nvk/volunteering-is-the-best-kept-secret-for-mental-health-stressweek2017?fbclid=IwAR2ioQk9WBOvLS32vCsry5qh4wtNpxE9N--F1vj-lPQvNs5fKWehLD4Ec7c" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">volunteering reduces stress and anxiety</span></a><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. We humans need to have a sense of purpose, we need to feel we are contributing. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>“The great thing about the dilemma we're in is that we get to re-imagine every single thing we do...There isn't a single thing that doesn't require a complete remake. There are two ways of looking at that. One is: Oh my gosh, what a big burden. The other way, which I prefer, is: What a great time to be born! What a great time to be alive! Because this generation gets to essentially completely change the world.” Paul Hawken.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">DARK PINES UNDER WATER</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This land like a mirror turns you inward</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And you become a forest in a furtive lake;</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The dark pines of your mind reach downward,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You dream in the green of your time,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your memory is a row of sinking pines.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Explorer, you tell yourself, this is not what you came for</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although it is good here, and green;</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You had meant to move with a kind of largeness,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You had planned a heavy grace, an anguished dream.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In an elementary world;</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is something down there and you want it told.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By Gwendolyn MacEwen (1941-1987)</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.robhopkins.net/2019/05/30/why-the-next-12-years-could-be-the-making-of-us/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read: Rob Hopkins on Why The Next Twelve Years Could Be The Making Of Us.</span></a></div>
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XijRcOpczhPgDqYQ85jnfDBaxqTXVf3KHr2Zu2fkDW8/edit?usp=sharing" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read: Albert Bates on Resilience</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-37103480461200260222019-05-30T15:02:00.000+01:002019-05-30T15:17:23.734+01:00Song For Remembering.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYMCltm64b1iP3nvzyk-bhJ3uIVeCmh_DBhAudxGnPByt5xVigy0FU0hzd1edHaf1kUUyOdfbAfF2WytcFs6Liu-6A7Jf0GyvLDUKKBgSR-_mMpkQd8IqaK25vVOcA4xOefs_GM0D_pyBP/s1600/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYMCltm64b1iP3nvzyk-bhJ3uIVeCmh_DBhAudxGnPByt5xVigy0FU0hzd1edHaf1kUUyOdfbAfF2WytcFs6Liu-6A7Jf0GyvLDUKKBgSR-_mMpkQd8IqaK25vVOcA4xOefs_GM0D_pyBP/s320/unnamed.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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What is this I now hold, this golden light?</div>
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It is fed by the rain and the moon and the stars,</div>
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it is Earth, moulded and shaped by my hands.<br />
Hold it up to the light, there, do you see?<br />
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The bones, shells, stones,<br />
flowers, feathers, leaves,<br />
the saltwater.<br />
The songs.<br />
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The songs it holds, the songs it remembers,<br />
that shimmer and shake,<br />
awakening, rumbling,<br />
that long to be heard again, that call your name in the night,<br />
that come on the breeze through the open window.<br />
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You say you don't remember the words,<br />
<span style="text-align: center;">but the words remember you.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;">They recall your grandmother's grandmother's names,</span><br />
their hands in the earth, their sweat and their tears,<br />
how they showed up again, and again, and again.<br />
And they remember you.<br />
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So, take to the woods,</div>
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walk the soft earth,<br />
find the place that you left that still holds your shape.<br />
Lie down in her arms, your ear to her heart,<br />
your fingers entwined in her leaves and her grasses.<br />
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Listen! Do you hear?<br />
The songs of the birds, the worm and the beetle,<br />
the bee and the spider, the snail in her shell.<br />
Let their songs fill your veins, liquid notes in your ears,<br />
for their voices are the ones that need to be heard.<br />
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Let their silken threads weave you back into remembering,<br />
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for it's in the darkness you will find <i>your </i>voice is among them.</div>
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And when you show up for them,</div>
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they will show up for you.</div>
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Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-73687190897097801152018-07-05T10:01:00.000+01:002018-07-05T18:18:56.124+01:00We Were Wildlife.<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "chronicle text" , "times" , "georgia" , serif;">"...the 50,000 generations that preceded us in the Pleistocene, which is the age of the Ice Ages, when we became what we are as part of the natural world — when we were wildlife, if you like;</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "chronicle text" , "times" , "georgia" , serif;"> we don’t think of ourselves as wildlife anymore, but we were wildlife then — that those generations are more important for our psyches, even now, than the 500 generations of civilization which have followed the invention of farming about 12,000 years ago. So that there is a legacy deep within us, a legacy of instinct, a legacy of inherited feelings, which may lie very deep in the tissues — it may lie underneath all the parts of civilization which we are so familiar with on a daily basis, but it has not gone; that we might have left the natural world, most of us, but the natural world has not left us."</span></i></div>
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<i style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Chronicle Text", Times, Georgia, serif;">~<a href="https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/nature-joy-and-human-becoming-may2018" target="_blank"> Michael McCarthy in conversation with Krista Tippett</a></i></div>
<i style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Chronicle Text", Times, Georgia, serif;"><br /></i>
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We walk this earth with tender feet,<br />
searching hands,<br />
breath held in silken clouds somewhere in our chest,<br />
eyes wide, unwilling to blink.<br />
<br />
Wander in wonder, hearts trembling and cracking open, remembering.<br />
<br />
Remembering what it felt like,<br />
waking,<br />
peeling ourselves out of the boggy ground,<br />
the imprint our bodies left behind us,<br />
the empty place we walked away from.<br />
<br />
In our ancient woodlands,<br />
dark and leafy,<br />
sun-dappled,<br />
we clambered over mossy boulders,<br />
through quiet pools and meandering rivers.<br />
<br />
And somewhere in our journeying,<br />
heads down,<br />
we left the forest,<br />
took to the fields,<br />
<br />
and for a while we did not look up,<br />
did not see the treetops dance and nod to us,<br />
beckon,<br />
alive with Life.<br />
<br />
Until we paused<br />
<div>
and looked back -<i> look</i><br />
the way back obscured and overgrown.<br />
<br />
We are lost.<br />
<br />
So, hands scratched,<br />
we search,<br />
cheeks whipped,<br />
hair entangled.<br />
We search.<br />
<br />
We search.<br />
<br />
Always.<br />
<br />
For the way back in.<br />
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Listen, Great Silence.<br />
Are you tired of me talking in your ear about this yet? Sorry.<br />
(Not sorry!)<br />
I have written about this so many times before, too many to mention here - heart sore and bewildered, or ecstatic and awestruck, each time reminded of this deep connection we all have to this tellurian mother we are part of, deep in our tissue, our ancestral memory. So many times I have questioned our disconnect, our willing abandonment of a more balanced, indisputably obviously more natural and commonsense way of living.<br />
Yes, I do have others I have met here on the edge of the forest, scratched and whipped and searching like me, but I am interested in <i>you</i>, the Great Silence, who do <i>not</i> want to talk about it.<br />
<br />
Come here to me.<br />
<br />
Surprise me now, and talk to me.<br />
Tell me, do you know what happened?<br />
Listen to that ancient, scratchy voice inside you that is longing to be heard - that's it right there, 'just in the threshold of hearing', close your eyes, take a moment to search it out, to find it. It longs for you to hear it and has much to say.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxKnyNzzRlxYpy3-8iOpfUWXS6-v4QIwHZS-eIxTmXS-Ddzt-UoAr12MjUVo3GceD9IN7RRnvyHHdo5O8LYCw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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We don't need to look very far.<br />
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Watch the children.<br />
Do as they do.<br />
For they are our teachers.<br />
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<i>"We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole. In my children's memories, the adventures we've had together in nature will always exist."</i></div>
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<i>~ Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
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Reach out your hand and you can touch it - the fabric of this place we belong to. It's under our feet, outside our window, it is present in those differently alive beings we share our homes and gardens with; 'our' cats and dogs, the birds in the treetops, the insect on the wall.</div>
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Stoop down and push your fingers into the soil, brush your hands through the waving grass, lie down and look at the sky above you. Take a moment to look at leaves. </div>
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We all need to take a moment to look at leaves. </div>
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Close your eyes.</div>
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Feel this Earth under your body. </div>
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And listen.</div>
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<br />
Everything we need is right here.<br />
We just need to reach out our hand to it,<br />
grasp hold of it, and never let it go.<br />
<br />
Let it help us find our way home.<br />
<br />
Bring ourselves back to [Wild] Life....<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW4SGhvXoQWiPwCI7ZgS60irDeyzHRke-Wey1M9fpv5JOVn1jsa7eULVzvEXJK1NSg_MH6JssoiTm0Bh7cV8sfc-VXZkDN7ZNN3ql2FWUzkxCucFQ4uxGAHQ9jpNIPcIRLg5JV-Jg2t62p/s1600/IMG_5287.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW4SGhvXoQWiPwCI7ZgS60irDeyzHRke-Wey1M9fpv5JOVn1jsa7eULVzvEXJK1NSg_MH6JssoiTm0Bh7cV8sfc-VXZkDN7ZNN3ql2FWUzkxCucFQ4uxGAHQ9jpNIPcIRLg5JV-Jg2t62p/s640/IMG_5287.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; text-align: center;">
The Lover of Earth Cannot Help Herself ~ by Mary Oliver</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In summer,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
through the fields</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
of wild mustard,</div>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">then goldenrod,</span></span></div>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I walk, brushing</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">the wicks</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">of their bodies</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and the bright hair</span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">of their heads –</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and in fact</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I lie down</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">that the little weightless pieces of gold</span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">may float over me,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">shining in the air,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">falling in my hair,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">touching my face –</span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">ah, sweet-smelling</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">glossy and</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">colorful world,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I say,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">even as I begin</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">to feel</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">my left eye then the right</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">begin to burn</span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and twitch</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and grow very large –</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">even as I begin,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">to weep,</span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">to sneeze</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">in this irrepressible</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">seizure</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">of </span>summerlove<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Watch: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=MHlnAH-vHzg" target="_blank">Charles Eisenstein on a New Story on Climate Change and our part in it.</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Watch: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZcFYf01ns8">Mary Reynolds on re-imagining gardens and sustainable farming for the times we live in.</a></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Listen: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/nature-joy-and-human-becoming-may2018">Michael McCarthy in conversation with Krista Tippett</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Read: <a href="http://sharonblackie.net/if-women-rose-rooted/">Sharon Blackie on '<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "open sans" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">A life-changing journey from the wasteland of modern society to a place of nourishment and connection.'</span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-80164366273262227002018-02-25T23:20:00.000+00:002018-02-28T12:30:39.667+00:00I Had A Dream...<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have you ever had a crazy dream that somehow </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">somehow </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">becomes a reality? There have been so many times over the last year or so when I have had to stop and pinch myself, hardly able to believe we have managed to do what we have managed to do. As many of you know, I and some fabulous people have spent the last few years creating something so ginormous and mad that it hardly seems possible that normal folk like us could actually do such a thing. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://wicklowsudburyschool.com/" target="_blank">We made a school</a>. Like, an actual, real school, with students. The hilarious part is that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">any </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">teacher that had me in their class would pale at the thought of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">me </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of all people being involved in setting up and running a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">school</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I did not like school and school did not like me. If I had a euro for every time I was told I was 'a square peg in a round hole'...</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, this is a school with a difference, and <a href="http://alternativestoschool.com/articles/democratic-schools/" target="_blank">while there are many the world over</a>, it’s the first of its kind in Ireland. The difference is there is no curriculum, no classes, no teachers per se, the students decide how they want to spend their time, and for any of you not familiar with this concept, right now I am sure there are a <a href="https://wicklowsudburyschool.com/faqs/" target="_blank">million questions firing off in your brain,</a> like can they still go to college? (Yes they can and do!) How do they learn? I could happily get up on my soapbox now and ‘talk for Ireland’ as they say, but you’d be much better informed if you read any of the articles linked below.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; text-align: center; white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">People ask what a typical day is like for our community, and there is no one answer to that. Every day is different, but you can guarantee there will definitely be cooking, games, conversation, exploring, reading, sharing, dreaming, cleaning, negotiating, building, making, drawing, wondering, creating, running, climbing, bouncing, questioning, honing, messing, contemplating, and a million other unquantifiable activities, all of which adds up to learning that is based on the individuals terms and needs, which in turn creates a vibrant, busy, active environment which is both exciting and fun, but also challenging in the best sense of the word. Phew!</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every day I am more and more convinced of what we are doing, all my apprehensions and wobbly moments of terror are a thing of the past, and I believe in this with no doubts whatsoever. Every day I am blown away b</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">y how these children and young adults, who having been given trust and freedom and responsibility, are striding forward, taking confident leaps towards their future, with such joy and determination (and challenges too, of course).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The thing is, we are self-funded, we do not receive a penny from the government, and now that we are a charity (</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CHY 22018)</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we can accept donations and we are beginning to look at fundraising. So, here is something I have never done before: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you are so inclined, we would be delighted if you wanted to donate to our cause, (or buy us a building! </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">We also have a growing waiting list and will need a new home sometime in the next couple of years</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">) or even just share this with family and friends and ask them to share it on too. Our Donate page is here <a href="https://www.idonate.ie/3731_wicklow-sudbury-school.html" target="_blank">https://www.idonate.ie/3731_wicklow-sudbury-school.html</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Every little helps! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For some further reading you can start here: </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sir Ken Robinson on parents obsession with sending their children to college - <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/parents-warned-of-obsession-with-sending-children-to-university-1.3402361?mode=amp" target="_blank">article</a>, and <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution#t-550995" target="_blank">TED Talk.</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dr. Peter Gray on the importance of play - <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201001/the-decline-play-and-rise-in-childrens-mental-disorders?platform=hootsuite" target="_blank">for mental health</a>, and<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/give-childhood-back-to-children-if-we-want-our-offspring-to-have-happy-productive-and-moral-lives-we-9054433.html" target="_blank"> happiness</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sudbury staff on education - <a href="http://www.openschooloc.com/wp/2018/02/19/patience-is-the-foundation-of-a-good-education/" target="_blank">patience and the long game</a>, and <a href="http://sudburyschool.com/content/sudbury-and-fear-falling-behind" target="_blank">the fear of falling behind</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">More on our website here - <a href="https://wicklowsudburyschool.com/" target="_blank">Wicklow Sudbury School</a>, and our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wicklowsudburyschool/" target="_blank">Facebook page.</a></span></span></div>
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Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-17223132340158452232018-02-18T21:24:00.000+00:002018-02-18T21:24:34.128+00:00Where My New Story Began.I want to tell you a story. Actually, I'm re-telling this story, because this post is four years old now, originally on my <a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/" target="_blank">Milkmoon blog</a>, and this project is celebrating five years, which is incredible to me. But I'm sharing again because I am so darn proud of what we have made, and how it has continued to grow and evolve and attract more and more people who want something more in their lives than neighbours they barely know to say hello to. This is genuine community, meeting our human need for social connectedness in a way most of us had forgotten.<br />
My dream is to see this grow, to become a community of communities that support one another, that also meets our human needs for food, shelter, energy, livelihoods. I hope to share here, over the next few months, a taste of the kind of things that we are up to here in our little stretch of Irish coast.<br />
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But for now, this is where it began:<br />
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<b>December 2013:</b><br />
Sometimes Life amazes me.<br />
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Picks me up by my tail and whirls me around a bit, then deposits me somewhere unexpected and never-seen-before, and so, a bit ruffled, and maybe even somewhat bedraggled, I pick myself up and dust myself off, check for injuries, and then Proceed With Caution. It doesn't happen very often in life that there is a significant change, I mean, a really, really big one. Usually it's the slow meander along the winding little pathways, with occasional wanderings off into dead ends and loop-the-loops which bring you right back to where you started. And there are lovely woodlands along the way, with leafy green and yellow light dancing up there above you, and sometimes there are banks of the sweetest flowers nodding their heads in the balmy breeze, and sometimes there are puddles of muddy water you have to wade through in your favourite shoes, or stones that trip you up or find their way into your shoe and hurt your feet. But sometimes it turns out that the little beaten track you are on suddenly opens up into Wonder, a great grassy plain with a smooth road and the sea sparkling in the distance, and suddenly everything feels Right, and Good, and you find yourself skipping along, kicking up your heels and skirts, and warmth blooms in your heart.<br />
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Sometimes Life amazes me.</div>
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And I find myself doing something I could never have dreamt of, only a few months ago. And the phrase, In My Element, suddenly has <i>meaning.</i> </div>
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A few months before we moved to this town we began meeting weekly with a bunch of rather splendid folks who had a rather splendid idea about what this town needs, and so, we have spent almost a year now, talking talking talking about just what that might be, and slowly something began to take shape, and then it began to grow, and to our collective amazement we are now in the midst of Something Splendid that is now fluttering out there, above our heads, stretching it's gossamer wings and testing the air. </div>
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We have no idea where it will take us, or what it will bring, but it is exciting and inspiring, and speaking in a voice that, it turns out, many people can, and want to, hear.</div>
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We are part of a growing community co-operative that is still finding that voice, but that is strong and clear and determined. We started out as a wholefood buying club, and then we put on an event, a vegetarian feast with music and dancing and singing, and we started to tell people about what we were doing, and all around us these little lights began to go on, in people's eyes and hearts, as they listened to what we were saying, and they began to add their voices too, and now we find ourselves here, with a gathering crowd of good intentioned, hopeful folks who know that this is the way forward. Sharing our resources, our skills, our experience, sharing those tender seedling ideas that we carry around in our hearts, sometimes for years, not knowing what to do to help it grow, because some things need more than one person to develop and grow into that wondrous something that has untold potential. But then, when we gather together, and begin to talk, magic happens, things do begin to <i>grow,</i> and faster than you could have imagined. And we all realise that it <i>is </i>possible to do things differently than we are told. It is possible to do business another way, that things don't always have to involve money, or multinational companies, or foreign businesses, that we have everything we need right here on our doorstep. We have <i>the community </i>we need, right here in our town. And you know what? So do you!<br />
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The most exciting thing we have discovered is that as soon as you begin to speak, to ask for what you need, you find it's right there, down the street from you, in your community, and it has been all along. There is a network of amazing people all around you who want the same things for themselves and their families that you do, and all you need is a place to come together to <i>talk</i>. A Common Ground to talk about the common ground you share, the back to basics, <i>real</i>, stuff, like how to feed your family, how to provide a real and rich experience for your children of what the world really is, and how people really do want to help one another, because it benefits us all, in the end. And in doing so, we discover how to pare away the unnecessary, stifling, consumer mentality we are all infected with, and to get real again, connect with people in a heartfelt way that brings untold riches of the kind we haven't felt since childhood. </div>
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Last Saturday evening we hosted another event, this time a pop-up restaurant, a seated, four course, vegetarian meal for 30 folks, in a studio in what was once a factory that made the rather famous Beverley Bags in the 50's and 60's, and I found myself In My Element. Seeing all these people, many of them strangers to one another, gathered together and talking talking talking, connecting, sharing food and drink and laughter, stories and ideas and intentions, well, I thought my heart would burst with happiness.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvhhIKUPEdnOoNuVJT-cXWTatJK5ayYy8lUYsniemqQW4hg9StyZcLAy6uL1sQlFjwuu0fdSXvTxyTgl9vExfwQSyUBeO7yKZmeuoIVDLGgdLiwAEWjZux7Zuv515hxmD7z4e9UMS3eg/s1600/commonground3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvhhIKUPEdnOoNuVJT-cXWTatJK5ayYy8lUYsniemqQW4hg9StyZcLAy6uL1sQlFjwuu0fdSXvTxyTgl9vExfwQSyUBeO7yKZmeuoIVDLGgdLiwAEWjZux7Zuv515hxmD7z4e9UMS3eg/s640/commonground3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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It's all true, you know, what we know in our hearts; that we all want the same thing in the end. A safe place, with love and support, a community that lifts us all up, collectively nurturing and sustaining us, and that carries us forward into a hopeful future where we are doing things the way <i>we</i> want to.</div>
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Together.</div>
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–*–</div>
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<i>Local friends, and anyone interested, you can find us,</i></div>
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<i><a href="https://www.facebook.com/commongroundbray">Common Ground, Bray, on Facebook, here. </a></i></div>
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And online on <a href="http://commongroundbray.com/">our website here.</a> </div>
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Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-3841485242488194052018-02-01T11:51:00.000+00:002018-02-01T11:51:10.618+00:00Awakening Thoughts on Imbolc ~ Lá Fhéile Bríde.Things have been quiet around here ~ we bedded down, hibernating, dozing, dreaming in our winter snuggery. We watched as storm after storm whirled around us, (Brian, Caroline, Dylan, Eleanor, Fionn ~ some we were more intimate with than others) wind and snow and rain, though not as much of the white stuff as we'd have liked. The children lamented as they saw every other part of the country slip into Narnia~esque dreamscapes, while we languished on the edge of our temperate, rainswept grey eastern coast, the glistening snow visible right there on the mountains, just within reach.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisivIv9frAeNhSWapk5VrCoybp0gg249RQOhtC7pRgtM13ce8Jc-txdgybfl-wix4MUjY9-Rr-ZDFxFFU6Ua9-gMa1J-FBB4CsGoxniLC2pv42rShkA_PiL0pwW-U7Emic1ru3TbizFLst/s1600/blogpic2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisivIv9frAeNhSWapk5VrCoybp0gg249RQOhtC7pRgtM13ce8Jc-txdgybfl-wix4MUjY9-Rr-ZDFxFFU6Ua9-gMa1J-FBB4CsGoxniLC2pv42rShkA_PiL0pwW-U7Emic1ru3TbizFLst/s640/blogpic2.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Winter Solstice fire on the beach.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbZjLGaoMt8qzyo-MAYanuIiyNv4RwrRFNfVoXT5nBIK0Mxlhd2IqfefS9UJbcOnsdUR352wq5gSPEr9DOBAw2DFxHgT5eVyCZE7NeSUoVrUnWoa1oi42FsXF-rKj2Qb_Ii_3r3cYmuiCx/s1600/blogpic1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbZjLGaoMt8qzyo-MAYanuIiyNv4RwrRFNfVoXT5nBIK0Mxlhd2IqfefS9UJbcOnsdUR352wq5gSPEr9DOBAw2DFxHgT5eVyCZE7NeSUoVrUnWoa1oi42FsXF-rKj2Qb_Ii_3r3cYmuiCx/s640/blogpic1.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Winter walks.</td></tr>
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Languishing, quiet. Until now.<br />
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Until the persistent piping of our neighbour, a little Great Tit who makes their home each year in a nearby Silverbirch tree, breaks through the sloth and torpor that we have sunk into these last couple of months. Like a clarion call, it pierces our Winter atrophy, rouses us, stirring something deep within us, some recognition of unfathomable, subterranean Knowing that is all around us ~ Nature just getting on with it regardless what we humans get up to. At the same time my body relaxes its cold weather holding tension, there is a quickening in my blood.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTDhor9660V45W2qRoiIa193PM4mZq6cZuqf5hQuZrtmCZAN8u3LIaddHFuLsBAC-mKINbIvBwhfkNIPasoh_53Fkf0OXZRtR2uvZqG09sBr0BQPpws30w6pUpzJSNnkiQZpbSSB0D4_O-/s1600/blogpic7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1082" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTDhor9660V45W2qRoiIa193PM4mZq6cZuqf5hQuZrtmCZAN8u3LIaddHFuLsBAC-mKINbIvBwhfkNIPasoh_53Fkf0OXZRtR2uvZqG09sBr0BQPpws30w6pUpzJSNnkiQZpbSSB0D4_O-/s640/blogpic7.JPG" width="638" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Winter walks.</td></tr>
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And I am reassured.<br />
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And so, we loosen our scarves just a little, sniff the cold air, breathing in that delicate hint of something moving in the air, our extrasensory ears divining the first trickle of sap rising beneath our feet.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZDdiBbSZtvYcL-mTvvpszLLFVuPv1uQBfuEQiLH6M2LyrFyAhFwgMSsK2UgjKotE1kUP0Qhd6RZ1NegAXSrP_QUADo_ja8IaoxhafUoBEDAJK9ab6PcOzjNOSQJZ1B58V4nGHUmByBYQZ/s1600/blogpic5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1080" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZDdiBbSZtvYcL-mTvvpszLLFVuPv1uQBfuEQiLH6M2LyrFyAhFwgMSsK2UgjKotE1kUP0Qhd6RZ1NegAXSrP_QUADo_ja8IaoxhafUoBEDAJK9ab6PcOzjNOSQJZ1B58V4nGHUmByBYQZ/s640/blogpic5.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Winter walks.</td></tr>
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It is time for new beginnings, for dusting down and shaking out our hibernating nests, for waking what is sleeping in us. Like Mole, we suddenly long to scrabble our way up to the sunlight and roll in a warm meadow. And as the evenings stretch themselves, reaching their fingers towards that first glimmer of extra light, the warm meadows of summer beckon us and we too leap forwards in the simple joy of living and the delight of spring.<br />
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So here's to Imbolc, officially the first day of Spring here ~ Happy Brighid's Day to you all!</div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Alegreya; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gearradh lena ghéire</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Alegreya; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ach ar Lá ‘le Bríde</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Alegreya; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gar dúinn Earrach Éireann.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Alegreya; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The house of winter is very dark</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Alegreya; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cutting with its sharpness</span></div>
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<br />Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-72886200890577080342017-11-06T09:34:00.000+00:002018-02-01T09:49:46.525+00:00Stealing Stitches ~ A Samhain Interlude.After a weeks break for Samhain (Halloween), we are back at school. Outside the window, there is a tree who is clinging to the last of its leaves, just on that bit that hangs over the garden. Rust, orange, yellow, green, fluttering merrily in the wind, and each day when I leave to go home, my car is festooned with them and it makes me immensely happy. The day before Ophelia I rushed to the woods, sure the trees would lose their splendid autumnal frippery in the following winds, but miraculously they didn't, and I have spent the last few weeks eyes skyward at every turn, filling them, drinking in that yellow and rust and orange, saving it for those dark winters evenings when the world rests in greys and browns, and I can close my eyes and find it there, that warmth. We are blessed to live in a place that is made up of winding roads lined with beautiful broadleaf trees both old and new.<br />
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Daily I wrestle with time, feeling as though it does not belong to me yet demanding that it does, stealing stitches, one at a time, pushing the needle determinedly in and out, making, creating new things where before there was only thread and fabric and vague notions wisping around my head or somewhere over my shoulder, there behind me where I cannot quite see them except perhaps out of the corner of my eye. (You know the way some things you cannot look directly at, instead approach gently, sideways. Innocently.) But eventually, those individual stitches begin to add up, become something, and take on a life of their own.<br />
And they begin to tell a story...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAX62C9zZa7Wz6ATJ_wJpGXwxJvtQ_4kFbNjj4M20N_lba2JpyZBeX_pbiu49cvpYdvwkWEU1QZAqDkLnqTDp8Jp3AJJOeWnOzZebhrx4K43NcCj2bMKDRqyUunZi6yrmb4RNeHZO9fD4y/s1600/dragonfly3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAX62C9zZa7Wz6ATJ_wJpGXwxJvtQ_4kFbNjj4M20N_lba2JpyZBeX_pbiu49cvpYdvwkWEU1QZAqDkLnqTDp8Jp3AJJOeWnOzZebhrx4K43NcCj2bMKDRqyUunZi6yrmb4RNeHZO9fD4y/s640/dragonfly3.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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So many things in my life can be added up like this, things created a stitch at a time, things big and small, things that felt frustratingly slow or simply not any-thing until the whole cloth is revealed. Whether it's one of my stitcherys like this one that took me forever, or a big project like our school that seems impossible until suddenly, look! we've done it.<br />
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Samhain brings many things for me, my favourite time of year. As soon as the clocks go back it's as though we slip in to a different world, under cover of the growing dark, shadows and hidden things become more present in our days, and we find the time to sit with whatever awaits us once the distracting summer sparkle drifts away.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbnKIB1Op8HfeAgpiZXY4kBIOLpFycGcHcuGkpONeszaRjCkz2w38eaAhWFxTWJBsGIjgY4wTpA64E1hgLqQy2ql-7DtP0XnlVueU8CKL8dMXxpj0shvhZEOV2nk2QgQbhEdKaeU3nFpXh/s1600/dragonfly4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbnKIB1Op8HfeAgpiZXY4kBIOLpFycGcHcuGkpONeszaRjCkz2w38eaAhWFxTWJBsGIjgY4wTpA64E1hgLqQy2ql-7DtP0XnlVueU8CKL8dMXxpj0shvhZEOV2nk2QgQbhEdKaeU3nFpXh/s640/dragonfly4.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Outside the window in the fading light, the children bounce in the leaves on the trampolines, barefoot, hooded, their voices high and excited, glad to be back, bringing the cold air in with them and their pink cheeks when they've had enough.<br />
We are past Mabon, the equinox, now, speeding towards the shortest day.<br />
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And so we begin to slow down, savouring the darkening days as we slip comfortably into our slippers and light the fire, snuggle up together on the couch, and, as though pulling out photographs of our summer past, I mull over and examine all the threads that have been weaving together throughout the busy Doing months, pulling them together where needed, revealing the picture of what is being formed, thinking about what comes next for us.<br />
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There is work to be done over the winter months, for we have what is perhaps our biggest pot on the boil, to date. Bigger even, in some ways, than starting an alternative school ~ that is, creating a magical place to live with a bunch of kindred folks who share the same dream as we do.<br />
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There is a mountain looming ahead of us, but what lies beyond it is just too enticing to not at least try.<br />
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<br />Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-40464650518985892992017-09-05T23:57:00.000+01:002017-09-05T23:57:57.122+01:00Swimming In The Deep.<br />
Summer is slipping away,<br />
into the fading green that is softening towards sepia toned senescence,<br />
the vigor and vim and zest that sang off the trees since May now toned down, flagging,<br />
like a bedraggled party that went on a day or two too long.<br />
Outside my window the autumn mists roll over the hill, over our rooftops, down into the town and out to sea.<br />
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The first yellow leaves pop, rain-bright against the grey,<br />
and the gardens around town have lost the puff of voluptuousness that makes them so alluring all summer; among them the air is one of satiated contentment as they wither slowly,<br />
rain heavy,<br />
decaying happily towards winter.<br />
Rest.<br />
<br />
Spider.<br />
Moth.<br />
Retreating.<br />
All hurrying towards some Otherness we cannot know.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicHJckc3DBSmnPD4UctNVrxWGl77DrA2rOfl3i0kJU1vosKprO5Ext9FzhFc5fhUCtu95zZ5MCU0wR6ZuyodldopBizw__xjAST3bXaQqQeXG8IO7_qPexJa3Kva7RzPxqvFYKxddvGYi9/s1600/Blogpic5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicHJckc3DBSmnPD4UctNVrxWGl77DrA2rOfl3i0kJU1vosKprO5Ext9FzhFc5fhUCtu95zZ5MCU0wR6ZuyodldopBizw__xjAST3bXaQqQeXG8IO7_qPexJa3Kva7RzPxqvFYKxddvGYi9/s640/Blogpic5.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Our summer was a mixed one.<br />
July busy, bright, beach days galore, while August sneaked by,<br />
suspended in a waiting game for the sun to return, things to begin, things to finish,<br />
and in the end we woke up and it was suddenly September.<br />
Suddenly there are no more beach days. Not the summer kind.<br />
And even though Autumn is my favourite time of year, I somehow don't feel quite ready this year.<br />
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Somewhere in August, in the midst of it all I got lost. Fell into a big lacuna. Looking at the world around me was like lying in a dark sea looking up at impossible stars, being overwhelmed by their presence and extraordinariness, but not knowing whether it was a terrible beauty, or just <i>Terrible. </i>I want to believe the former, but secretly believe it is the latter. Given all that is going on in the world, the craziness, the breaking apart of the way things were, events and people that stop us in our tracks in horror, norms that are now taboo and taboos that are becoming mainstream, this <i>coming apart at the seams, </i>this deconstruction of the old story, some parts of it are exciting but most is very scary, and how exactly is that we are all still standing and functioning and <i>carrying on? </i>Human spirit and all that, right? Is that what it is? Or is that just denial?<br />
<br />
I didn't write then. I couldn't. I was too cowardly. And I was in too deep. People don't want their faces pushed into it, I know that, (even though all you really have to do is open your Facebook or Twitter feed to get a whammy of a face full) and in some ways I'm not sure what good it does, writing about it - people come to it when they are ready (or their backs are to the wall). But I can no longer not talk about it - <a href="http://greenmanramblings.blogspot.ie/2015/03/of-capitalism-and-cortisol-or-trouble.html?m=1">my body is talking about it</a>, singing it, a lament of epic proportions, which is hard to ignore.<br />
However, if you find yourself unwilling to engage with this, that's okay, I understand, but some days we just want to know we are not the only one who sees the world the way it really is, as I said before the one that is beneath the market driven consumer enchantment.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhssJHOssVqUFWDSwZRuyOUtzzNMwfpsSbOD7KXkVgiHeD1sS4AGc_ofkRvnDcvBzZhAttX1BzaLXw0KNkMbsW-CIr1LoFGSKhieW-rv0ImaWWsilz4oV5rQR8XE5UKZQXSprQSjAvfQeR0/s1600/Blogpic4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1201" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhssJHOssVqUFWDSwZRuyOUtzzNMwfpsSbOD7KXkVgiHeD1sS4AGc_ofkRvnDcvBzZhAttX1BzaLXw0KNkMbsW-CIr1LoFGSKhieW-rv0ImaWWsilz4oV5rQR8XE5UKZQXSprQSjAvfQeR0/s640/Blogpic4.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<br />
But thankfully there is human spirit, or whatever you want to call it. And we all find our causes and our means to continue, because it's what we do. But I truly would love a conversation about this. A healthy, honest, and balanced conversation. I balk at the notion of becoming a catastrophist, really and truly, but talking about this stuff to people who do not want to talk about it can be isolating, and if left to ones own thoughts I can see how it might be a slippery slope.<br />
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<br />
<br />
So we carry on, and some days feel too full of daunting change, others just the right level of excitement overriding that, but in the midst of it all, <i>stuff is getting done. </i>Exciting stuff that makes me feel like we are powerful after all, and we can make a difference.<br />
Yesterday <a href="https://www.instagram.com/wicklowsudbury/" target="_blank">the school we made</a> opened it's new doors to sixteen students, and being there at <a href="https://wicklowsudburyschool.com/" target="_blank">Wicklow Sudbury School </a>with all those eager, happy students (seriously - kids and <i>teenagers</i> happy to be going back to school?) and parents was a truly exciting thing to be part of, and with a growing waiting list, <i>hope </i>is in the mix there too.<br />
<br />
Our active, vibrant community <a href="http://commongroundbray.com/" target="_blank">Common Ground </a> is gearing up for a busy autumn, with <a href="https://www.instagram.com/commongroundbray/" target="_blank">a lot of truly great stuff happening</a>, for example we have <a href="https://communities.cyclos.org/dargle" target="_blank">The Dargle Exchange,</a> which is a 'skills, services and goods trading scheme' which includes our own currency, Cogs. We also have a food savers scheme which is redistributing food which would otherwise be dumped. And these among the many classes and workshops and groups that happen on an ongoing basis.<br />
<br />
And we are also busy beavering away trying to get a housing co-operative off the ground, and my, what a brilliant bunch of people we have landed ourselves - after nearly three years fumbling around in the dark we now have folk who can drive the way we drove our school project, and it no longer feels exhausting and overwhelming but exciting and hopeful (those words again!).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiddJTi9r2HGrNhsEeHOqsGMgkFJKTb4Egp0khCS0MxwWRHOj9Z6JOXKrglHlufv0wjQoQ4BBD3jYqyEAxupLwhyphenhyphenRonxC-TNzKC_CKzN2tSoEOmol6tk54KZnlVaFLl9TNMf4SaSlsIkGg/s1600/Blogpic3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiddJTi9r2HGrNhsEeHOqsGMgkFJKTb4Egp0khCS0MxwWRHOj9Z6JOXKrglHlufv0wjQoQ4BBD3jYqyEAxupLwhyphenhyphenRonxC-TNzKC_CKzN2tSoEOmol6tk54KZnlVaFLl9TNMf4SaSlsIkGg/s640/Blogpic3.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
So summer slips away from me and much as I love the huddle and nesting of winter, I am loathe to take shelter indoors just yet, my sea fever not yet content, the wild ways of the woodland still with stories to tell before I retreat in to the fireside to distill and extract the fragrant essence of Summer, of whatever our bones and skin and minds have absorbed these last few resting months. I will delve, winnow, and weigh, ponder all of this as I gaze into winter's fire, and somewhere in there will be the nugget, the means for what is next, and my words will find their conduits, and break out into the world, for I've been writing like a mad woman, and I've a great big story to tell.<br />
<br />
I am swimming in the deep, still, treading water. But alongside an intrepid ship that I am hitched to, come rain or shine, and there is <i><span style="font-size: large;">something</span></i> about having a ship that is skippered by many.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ4XNryTIhvdq5xnoNmJsUwbZDzvtrYTSpibPbzjyYHJdF7phPDJaYKNvVD9-tvmYGXQcUnPYtjRv0B0RClnSR5mMU-xrPIogidiFnbcY5c3pbZlb6JoLNLuSzzTthZbENZMFzHuD4pIZq/s1600/Blogpic1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1574" data-original-width="1180" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ4XNryTIhvdq5xnoNmJsUwbZDzvtrYTSpibPbzjyYHJdF7phPDJaYKNvVD9-tvmYGXQcUnPYtjRv0B0RClnSR5mMU-xrPIogidiFnbcY5c3pbZlb6JoLNLuSzzTthZbENZMFzHuD4pIZq/s640/Blogpic1.jpg" width="478" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
~*~</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">The Return by Geneen Marie Haugen</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Some day, if you are lucky,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>you’ll return from a thunderous journey</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>trailing snake scales, wing fragments</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>and the musk of Earth and moon.</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>Eyes will examine you for signs</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>of damage, or change</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>and you, too, will wonder</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>if your skin shows traces</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>of fur, or leaves,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>if thrushes have built a nest</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>of your hair, if Andromeda</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>burns from your eyes.</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>Do not be surprised by prickly questions</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>from those who barely inhabit</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>their own fleeting lives, who barely taste</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>their own possibility, who barely dream.</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>If your hands are empty, treasureless,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>if your toes have not grown claws,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>if your obedient voice has not</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>become a wild cry, a howl,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>you will reassure them. We warned you,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>they might declare, there is nothing else,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>no point, no meaning, no mystery at all,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>just this frantic waiting to die.</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>And yet, they tremble, mute,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>afraid you’ve returned without sweet</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>elixir for unspeakable thirst, without</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>a fluent dance or holy language</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>to teach them, without a compass</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>bearing to a forgotten border where</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>no one crosses without weeping</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>for the terrible beauty of galaxies</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>and granite and bone. They tremble,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>hoping your lips hold a secret,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>that the song your body now sings</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>will redeem them, yet they fear</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p2" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>your secret is dangerous, shattering,</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>and once it flies from your astonished</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>mouth, they–like you–must disintegrate</span></div>
<div class="m_-5482894390487667387p1" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span>before unfolding tremulous wings."</span></div>
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<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="m_-5482894390487667387s2"><span class="m_-5482894390487667387Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<i><br /></i>Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-39753452130953424992017-05-28T17:09:00.001+01:002017-05-28T17:29:39.501+01:00Mapping; finding. Our Mother Map.<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><i>“This we need to know: how to participate creatively in the wildness of the world about us. For it is in the wild depths of the universe and our own being that the greater visions must come.”</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><i>Thomas Berry</i></span></div>
<br />
Today the rains came. I mean <i>really</i> came ~ buckets and buckets of it, the air almost white with it at times. Just when we thought summer had arrived, the blue sky and balmy breeze of the last few days has been swept away as a covering of torrential rain clouds is drawn up over our heads from the southern seas, (though it's still balmy enough to have the windows wide open which gives the whole thing quite a tropical, monsoon~y feeling, which I love).<br />
But you know I love the rain, any time of year. Its like a pause button. There's something reflective about it, turning our thoughts inward, giving space to dwell and mull and ruminate, and all those other analogous words.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6JcvFxg58C_JvY7BJJhTGdS0fSIz0JFtg9NQUHJ8A0lx1PL1W5cJ71_E6b69qBLVCdDoSZcs59Btequoqmr7h49V6NkefYYqSAfuSHq_qnIX4wsliWXCgwuvj5R7xmSRuvNVLcuX5tx_/s1600/clareisland2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6JcvFxg58C_JvY7BJJhTGdS0fSIz0JFtg9NQUHJ8A0lx1PL1W5cJ71_E6b69qBLVCdDoSZcs59Btequoqmr7h49V6NkefYYqSAfuSHq_qnIX4wsliWXCgwuvj5R7xmSRuvNVLcuX5tx_/s640/clareisland2.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clare Island<br />
April 2017</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Ten years ago, when I started writing at <a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/">Milkmoon,</a> I was deeply immersed in mother-land, swimming in the milky waves of life with small ones aboard, and completely in my element. To this day I am slightly baffled and bemused when I hear Jay talk about how life~changingly terrifying and bewildering it was for him becoming a father. For me it was like slipping into a warm sea and discovering I was, in fact, a Selkie. Those years were a dream, not without their difficulties, of course, but the parenting part I was comfortable figuring out as we went along.<br />
<br />
I have maintained my mother~sense. It leads. Always. But I know we don't always trust ourselves, do we? We are bombarded on a daily basis with other people's opinion and advice, on absolutely everything, unsolicited or not, and sometimes it's actually bloody hard to know when it is actually our own voice speaking and not some (occasionally) well meaning 'latest research'. Sometimes I long for the quiet space between words, thoughts, experiences, that our ancestors had. The time to listen to our gut, to know and trust what we know.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik1Ww6T1FQMft0Fsg_hCMZBahfc3DhorT4HSg3Il30AmLzMcCU3pJ5f8q5rNWQhNhUo3ojYwoD3rva8BYfhDuncMv6I7mQzmG45cHOy0yCQmiFwKlC7wVmCWdBnbZLYYx8pgbHwTajTFq5/s1600/clareisland6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik1Ww6T1FQMft0Fsg_hCMZBahfc3DhorT4HSg3Il30AmLzMcCU3pJ5f8q5rNWQhNhUo3ojYwoD3rva8BYfhDuncMv6I7mQzmG45cHOy0yCQmiFwKlC7wVmCWdBnbZLYYx8pgbHwTajTFq5/s640/clareisland6.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clare Island<br />
April 2017</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In <a href="https://charleseisenstein.net/video/">a podcast by Charles Eisenstein</a> that I recently listened to, he spoke about how we have lost our animal instinct around food, we no longer know what our bodies are telling us and so <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/heribert_watzke_the_brain_in_your_gut">we eat things our brain tells us we want but that our bodies would not if we were to ask them</a>. Isn't this really just a good example that can be applied to any aspect of modern living? How many articles have you read about how we have become detached from the natural world we live in? How many people have written about this topic, lamenting it's loss, or simply stating it as a fact? We no longer know the world we actually, physically live in. The one that is beneath the enchantment that is our consumer focused idea of what the world is. (The truth is, take away one or two key<i> man made</i> elements (electricity, the internet) and the illusion disappears, and what then?)<br />
<br />
And <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/">we are suffering for it.</a> Our <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/21st-century-childhood-needs-to-reconnect-with-nature-1.3091031?mode=amp">children are suffering</a> for it. Our<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Ou1A9F9y4"> planet is suffering</a> for it.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM0xqlsqmJAeosDgW7T0cb3-pZ4jmBOby1SbZc2gWW3S_1NwRZzw5iO1xc5vberGVQjjUM7Nnz1_nE7vCF1qBnTOXMaD7dK1yZHIg6rhdMqMbUpQ89kEMwDaNLOrcDJkiCoZ5yhlHJkboq/s1600/clareisland3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM0xqlsqmJAeosDgW7T0cb3-pZ4jmBOby1SbZc2gWW3S_1NwRZzw5iO1xc5vberGVQjjUM7Nnz1_nE7vCF1qBnTOXMaD7dK1yZHIg6rhdMqMbUpQ89kEMwDaNLOrcDJkiCoZ5yhlHJkboq/s640/clareisland3.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clare Island<br />
April 2017</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Carol Black has written about one aspect of this, an aspect that is close to my heart, explained in simple yet powerfully clear words just what it is we are doing.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"When we first take children from the world and put them in an institution, they cry. It used to be on the first day of kindergarten, but now it’s at an ever earlier age, sometimes when they are only a few weeks old. "Don’t worry," the nice teacher says sweetly, "As soon as you’re gone she’ll be fine. It won’t take more than a few days. She’ll adjust." And she does. She adjusts to an indoor world of cinderblock and plastic, of fluorescent light and half-closed blinds (ne</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">ver mind that studies show that children don’t grow as well in fluorescent light as they do in sunlight; did we really need to be told that?) Some children grieve longer than others, gazing through the slats of the blinds at the bright world outside; some resist longer than others, tuning out the nice teacher, thwarting her when they can, refusing to sit still when she tells them to (this resistance, we are told, is a “disorder.”) But gradually, over the many years of confinement, they adjust. The cinderblock world becomes their world. They don’t know the names of the trees outside the classroom window. They don’t know the names of the birds in the trees. They don’t know if the moon is waxing or waning, if that berry is edible or poisonous, if that song is for mating or warning." </span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">~ Carol Black</span></i></div>
Read her wonderful <a href="http://carolblack.org/on-the-wildness-of-children">full article here</a>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBKxM6-Ba-RhI-v9ZjTad-nrN1J-ETk167yj0VCwxsI4PRj_rslQ0pNYWCE6uNs1EbPNH9UopSttsVjDBXEkX6eUVcj0JSxaKKDUUJv7eprqP4fAA4pRtzLVcWJVeK-1yezaAn0bOxIQS6/s1600/clareisland4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBKxM6-Ba-RhI-v9ZjTad-nrN1J-ETk167yj0VCwxsI4PRj_rslQ0pNYWCE6uNs1EbPNH9UopSttsVjDBXEkX6eUVcj0JSxaKKDUUJv7eprqP4fAA4pRtzLVcWJVeK-1yezaAn0bOxIQS6/s640/clareisland4.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clare Island<br />
April 2017</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Most parents I know have pretty good instincts when it comes to their children. After all, it is already mapped out for us, in our bones and gut, there for us like a safety net when we need it. It's there even when we can't see it. It's a map that was drawn by our mother's mothers and their mothers before them. Each line carefully added as experience drew their hand, in beautiful curves that echo a sleeping child's cheek, and sharp, painful angles that hurt but are overcome, and without knowing it we are adding to it day by day for our children. Some lines reinforcing what is already there, some finding new inlets, islands, mountains, valleys, and places that cannot be seen or found other than by closing your eyes and looking into your heart. But all of it tracing the outline of something that is deeply inherent in us, that is deeply rooted in our ancestral culture, in our place on this planet, wherever that may be. And if we know how to listen, those whispers tell us the truth we already know.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOoTsHdsTqXYRPIbKH_OUjkLgNLvdU1aTOI7RJwXPSJUMB7eBxzpYWR2ZrsOwBV0CoPgZoz0DyENf1ttRLZ5-jQ_4tBgdEakDH9mGsEqwUd1cu3LzP8slvNRtWQWWfG4cYBebA5siCKVYv/s1600/clareisland5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOoTsHdsTqXYRPIbKH_OUjkLgNLvdU1aTOI7RJwXPSJUMB7eBxzpYWR2ZrsOwBV0CoPgZoz0DyENf1ttRLZ5-jQ_4tBgdEakDH9mGsEqwUd1cu3LzP8slvNRtWQWWfG4cYBebA5siCKVYv/s640/clareisland5.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clare Island<br />
April 2017</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
From the time I was a child, I was always a little outside things, always in the edges, never the centre. I was defiantly different, even though this was often a difficult and lonely place to be, but I had no choice, for I had a very loud internal voice that had no problem overriding those other questioning voices when it really mattered.<br />
But when I became a parent, for the first time in my life I was <i>aware</i> of that inner voice, <i>aware</i> my instinct was louder than those other voices. It was like suddenly being released and being able to turn my head to see who it was that had been there beside me all those years, that voice in my ear; and it was me. But my voice was not just one voice, but generations of my mothers, the voices that many of them most likely never had in life.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyg9vhOvon14gnHMVqaEBZBtA2QPhxyCot-xDDy1DFwsZYEglA5PSu86CQqfk2DbAEqPZfiaEHdkgG6fo2kv8BKXrGws4gkYJfeoYft7Wp1ycVVVLSY5d8hfbrROS179Pdjbh5zEVtBeUr/s1600/sandycove3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyg9vhOvon14gnHMVqaEBZBtA2QPhxyCot-xDDy1DFwsZYEglA5PSu86CQqfk2DbAEqPZfiaEHdkgG6fo2kv8BKXrGws4gkYJfeoYft7Wp1ycVVVLSY5d8hfbrROS179Pdjbh5zEVtBeUr/s640/sandycove3.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sandycove<br />
May 2017</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But lets be honest. Sometimes those other voices, call them cultural, societal, whatever you want, they drown out that other inner instinct that knows what is best for our children, and without questioning it we step in (to the straight) line and put our heads down.<br />
We consume, we buy, we don't think about the cost to the planet, to humanity of every single thing we use because<a href="http://ecocult.com/2016/the-big-lie-of-conscious-consumerism-and-what-it-means-for-you/"> we would go mad with guilt and grief.</a> We just carry on.<br />
<br />
We send our children to school even when they cry because we don't know what else to do. <b><i>For if we don't know that a question needs to be asked, how will we know to ask it?</i> </b><br />
And do we know where to find answers we can trust?<br />
But<span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">ask</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></i></span>the why, and the why and the further why, and the neverending why, until you get to the heart of it and find either the true-for-you answer, or you find there is nothing there after all.<br />
You'd be surprised just how often there is simply nothing there - <a href="http://carolblack.org/a-thousand-rivers">no substance to a cultural belief you've always held as true.</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEginnMWGmvMWgu0fOuiseuWvVsuhjVHul26pBT_aoHymT7T_tKdhtH1TsAiwk3-lxZEFi-AHpqq47muDFbsmdTk5cmWzUFONdioHXw-TxNs55_u74T3VQhA-j1EaB5vV6_maV60fSgF5hSb/s1600/sandycove.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEginnMWGmvMWgu0fOuiseuWvVsuhjVHul26pBT_aoHymT7T_tKdhtH1TsAiwk3-lxZEFi-AHpqq47muDFbsmdTk5cmWzUFONdioHXw-TxNs55_u74T3VQhA-j1EaB5vV6_maV60fSgF5hSb/s640/sandycove.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sandycove<br />
May 2017</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Outside my window, seagulls are crying in the rain like emergency sirens, echoing around the hillside, the alarm in their voices has my ancestral antenna twitching. I cannot ignore it.<br />
<br />
It's time to listen to ourselves again, my friends. Listen to your children, to <a href="http://carolblack.org/on-the-wildness-of-children">the wildness in them</a> that still knows themselves and what they and the world needs, that still speaks the language of<a href="https://participatorystudies.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/thomas-berry-and-the-evocation-of-participatory-consciousness/"> <i>Anima mundi.</i></a><br />
<br />
Every day we tell ourselves a story<i> and we believe it. </i>Every word.<br />
So what is it you want to believe? That you can be true to yourself and live a life that is authentically yours? It's not easy taking that first step, but that's the hardest one. After that it gets easier. Tell your story to whoever will listen, and miracles will happen. You will find others who feel the same, and that's when magic happens.<br />
<br />
We create the world we want to live in. Every day.<br />
<br />
And here's something to ponder : you are already doing it, <a href="http://www.childrenandnature.org/2017/05/03/imagine-a-newer-world/">so what is that world going to be?</a><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDdH-yty-m6ku32Giot1Zrq5un8yb19PHVah4E09MvdfxlQNXYA5kZLufGdXgytMd2BVC11falg2zzDnnpZYQnpVd-kJu9Oyqrs6fN5ZBC8siF_iuWVTTlSY53qtqDYSoR3dR-D0_scIO1/s1600/sandycove2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDdH-yty-m6ku32Giot1Zrq5un8yb19PHVah4E09MvdfxlQNXYA5kZLufGdXgytMd2BVC11falg2zzDnnpZYQnpVd-kJu9Oyqrs6fN5ZBC8siF_iuWVTTlSY53qtqDYSoR3dR-D0_scIO1/s640/sandycove2.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sandycove<br />
May 2017</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext-italic"; font-style: italic;"><b>The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext-italic"; font-style: italic;"><b>Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext-italic"; font-style: italic;"><b>‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext-italic"; font-style: italic;"><b>– Alfred, Lord Tennyson</b></span></div>
<br />Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-3282483893241622652017-05-11T09:44:00.001+01:002017-05-11T09:44:44.814+01:00All That Is Good And Beautiful.<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.16; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘...fairytales are true.’ He describes a way of looking, seeing right through reality to the truths beyond. He is one of the beyonders, those wise enough and willing enough to yearn to dwell tenderly in the metaphoric world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">~ Jay Griffiths on Italo Calvino.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-917a3010-f6ad-9eeb-a815-982abcb63c82" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.16; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Storytelling has long been a theme in my life, but it’s only in recent years that I have come to fully understand the importance and significance of stories in our lives. We tell our stories to one another, and on some deep level we understand things more profoundly, it’s how we make sense of the world. It’s how we are changing the world. It has become more and more clear to me just how powerful it can be. In sharing our stories with one another, in the act of Telling, we gain insights into our own understanding of the world, and so does the listener. It helps to dismantle the old story, making room for the new one.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Springtime in Wicklow.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.592; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A couple of weeks ago I found myself thinking a great deal about that big theme in our stories, Love. I was thinking about just how essential it is in our roles as adults, how important it is as a ground zero for any and all things we may ever share with our children. The power it has to give meaning to something is not to be overlooked. I understand, of course, that it is a very fundamental need in us as humans, to need a meaning for things, and children know this and trust this instinct because it comes from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">themselves. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And when they trust themselves, their instinct is almost always Love.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We were lucky enough recently to spend a weekend in the company of</span><a href="http://robgreenfield.tv/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rob Greenfield</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> who was in Ireland to start his</span><a href="http://robgreenfield.tv/europe2017/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">European tour</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which he kicked off with a talk in our lovely community here in Bray,</span><a href="http://commongroundbray.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Common Ground</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I feel so grateful that my children have opportunities like this to meet and talk to people like Rob and see the difference one person can make, how our choices every day have an impact, and we have the power to choose, every day. It’s far more powerful than coming from mum or dad! Hearing about his adventures, and the challenges he has set himself, was so inspiring for them. They were amazed that it was as simple as me reaching out to him when I heard he would be in Ireland, and the next thing he is sitting at our table, breaking bread with us, and speaking with such honesty and authenticity about his life and his ideas. I know the 13 year old and his friend were particularly inspired, and came away with new eyes for the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rob Greenfield talking at Common Ground.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.16; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rob spoke about the world as it is today, he spoke about how we all have choices, every day, and the impact those choices have. He told stories of just how far he discovered we need to go in order to truly address the brokenness of what we are living with. But he told all of these stories with such love and warmth, and without judgement, that we were left feeling inspired rather than guilty and overwhelmed. As Rob spoke to the room that Sunday in Common Ground, I couldn’t help but be aware of the love and openness his message was both given and received with. Everyone was there to be inspired, and honestly, it’s the biggest attendance we have had for an event to date. From start to finish, the generosity that was shown was incredible and heartening. From members getting stuck in to our annual spring clean Meitheil work party (nothing like an incentive to put a date on it!) on the Friday and Saturday, to those who helped organise the room on the day, the dishwashers, the techie people, the food bringers, and those who donated to Rob’s non-profit charity fund, and of course to Rob himself in so many ways.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chatting with Rob in our lovely reclaimed forest garden at Common Ground,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We had a community pot luck dinner after, and as always there was enough food to feed everyone, and a chance for people to meet one another, to have conversations, to share ideas and information about different things that are happening in their area, because that is what it is all about - sharing - an expression of love and openness and authenticity - something that can be hard to find in so many walks of life, but often for teenagers and young adults in particular.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Early morning in the mountains.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.16; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And there is the kernel of my thoughts and mullings and ruminations these last couple of days: now more than ever, the importance of those three things, love, openness and authenticity in how we communicate with our children, and by ‘our’ I mean the children of our time, whether they belong to us or not. It’s a scary time we live in, especially for those who are coming of age right now, and we need to instill a sense of hope and power in them. This might seem obvious to most of us, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">but are we actually expressing that to them on a daily basis?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And what about the idea of connectivity? When it comes to ‘the world today’, and the endless list of imminent crisis’ that always seem to be inescapably looming, it’s too easy to go down the road of 'us and them', to feel overwhelmed, and to ignore the simple Truth that we are all part of the same organism.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="468" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/SKkpzn505y4ZRABHtpdwoDD2-3wS7KbnwM_2jbTER6bR9MRnuDHVcvW_JNb0wmyHJa70g-3FokGJKAwg3cFsB9lS_2FevhWE7XSr7_Nm_oT2aaR_nibpu_7JOiyunnHFetbf6KKa" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Team work!</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.16; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s an important distinction between fighting for the sake of the fight (our own), and fighting for something bigger than ourselves. One is reactive, the other proactive. And in both we have a responsibility.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.16; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was so good to see love, openness and authenticity in action in Common Ground on that day. Everyone listening, rapt, drinking it in - the bigger ‘fight’ that does not need to be a fight, but Doing! Here is someone Doing, and we can all Do, we Do every day, but doing it with awareness and intention is what is important. There was a very clear coming together in the room that day, everyone there already Doing in their own way, and even though I am used to this because that is the very essence of Common Ground, it draws in people already there or looking for it, through my experience of the other hat I wear, the school one, I am reminded daily of the need to create a space for our younger folk to talk about these issues, to discover what they already know but cannot name.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="468" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/BTyw2Jsv0iEsvfihaj8fuOVeGMvU8_SefwU8lnekxtbzYYgYtlC9kUQ7QvPMB7DRjHIQzQZY5Ebgj6QN6K-zlYE9mhwbT3wdqiP_7FHYgOcihcdNuQoqgTvcJIjc9YBc3kGNaYkS" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rewilding.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'IM Fell French Canon'; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Throughout the journey away from traditional schooling that we’ve been on these last few years, I have become so aware of the challenge facing today's children, and their parents, and just how important it is that they are supported and listened to, and not given up on. It’s not enough to wait until they grow up and ‘cop on`. We owe ourselves the honour of being the best guides and mentors we can be, the Elders they so deserve, in order to ensure that when the time comes they can take the reigns with confidence and surety, and bring this new story to the next chapter.</span></div>
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<br />Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-68442879206761128572016-12-04T17:21:00.000+00:002017-09-01T13:47:08.871+01:00Reaching For Home While The World Teeters And Cannot Right Itself. <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Thoughts drawn to the past while contemplating our future.</i></span><br />
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Sometimes, in the small hours when my drowsy mind wanders through dusty hallways,<br />
or when the rain is falling on the quiet house,<br />
on the yellow leaves that drift in drifts in the abandoned garden,<br />
I close my eyes,<br />
try and reconfigure the cool air from the open window,<br />
the light behind my eyes,<br />
feel the chair against my back,<br />
and for the briefest moment<br />
I am back there - my senses expanding, reaching out to something bigger and greener and wilder.<br />
And in that moment that <a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/2012/07/leave-taking.html">other silent, lost place </a>is inside me<br />
and I'm inside it,<br />
as though my skin,<br />
painted with a lifetime of invisible layers of its particles<br />
and<a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/2012/07/leave-taking.html"> all that is was to us,</a><br />
<a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/2012/07/leave-taking.html">is no longer just Me,</a><br />
<a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/2012/07/leave-taking.html">but Us</a><br />
and It<br />
and everything<br />
everything<br />
that the atoms of our bodies<br />
remember.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>home</i></td></tr>
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<img src="webkit-fake-url://f7f739b8-1807-4282-a2ff-f361711c6375/imagejpeg" /><img src="webkit-fake-url://d56c84fc-c357-4da6-9517-60a5a86decd9/imagejpeg" /><img src="webkit-fake-url://03d9866c-4d50-4b05-be10-de46431b60f1/imagejpeg" /><img src="webkit-fake-url://6eda531d-3223-47b8-a815-481eb4fc225d/imagejpeg" />Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-88401152350971981332016-08-24T17:18:00.000+01:002017-05-27T12:43:28.134+01:00Mapping; finding. The Door To Joy.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqQ4yknwgbW1kJUG5xvMRw2Zb0lbc-IaKYrwglCuO_IiwWQR-xHilMytf_2bLe3wjI2K_9OZlR4JTwNvaD0VtBewbS9Cd3YTniu5y97yIwqm_NUEFPZpsmtiPOYfwbBWGKW9SkPcmd2aY/s1600/edges1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqQ4yknwgbW1kJUG5xvMRw2Zb0lbc-IaKYrwglCuO_IiwWQR-xHilMytf_2bLe3wjI2K_9OZlR4JTwNvaD0VtBewbS9Cd3YTniu5y97yIwqm_NUEFPZpsmtiPOYfwbBWGKW9SkPcmd2aY/s640/edges1.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BJgU0TQAcIH/?taken-by=milkmoonmama">You will find me in the edges of things.</a><br />
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In the hinterland where old things coalesce with new and something else begins to be born.<br />
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In the edges of things where it all happens, the new and juicy microbial beginnings we at first don't see,<br />
that slowly grow to become part of us,<br />
open up new, unimagined landscapes,<br />
a bloom on the skin of yesterday.<br />
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Is this particular edge a threshold or a precipice? Or both?<br />
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I trust and thrust, run<br />
forwards, towards something that is still in shadows beyond the edge,<br />
trusting I am not alone,<br />
<br />
the wrenching now sweet relief.<br />
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And I find it is true, the door to joy opens outwards.<br />
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<br />Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-12991482197987238352016-08-17T17:16:00.000+01:002017-05-10T18:44:35.338+01:00What Song Will You Follow?<br />
As we drift lazily towards the end of the summer I am always amazed when I look back through my photos at just where we have been, what we have been getting up to. The lovely reminders. In spite of the odd weather, we have had a lovely time, and I suspect it's not over yet.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>'In the forest, the child. Inside the child, the forest.'<br />Jay Griffiths.</i></td></tr>
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Even though Autumn is my favourite time of year, I adore the summer for what it is ~ time to sink into just 'being', time to stop the schedule, take a different route, try new things, explore. What is it about warmer temperatures that make everything easier? We have wandered all over this lovely isle of ours (as well as a foray to Harry Potter world in London for some of us), and, as is our tendency, dipped our toes in the sea many times in many places. We just can't help ourselves! Each summer becomes a long lovely list of why we love this dear island of ours, why we love where we live. (For more regular photo updates you can follow me on<a href="https://www.instagram.com/milkmoonmama/"> Instagram)</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Nui1Ly6aJo9pGbvsqWc96u8LiI9h51d70d97wW7GNZfXmv14FzTqnxxe9wDb1KsXgOkXt4vlEHwwlvqKIt2CFpSqZZ8tEPfBDnXbRP4p30pr11c8_czXpt-h7TM2NPJXkv2sxf_vYu8/s1600/summer162.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Nui1Ly6aJo9pGbvsqWc96u8LiI9h51d70d97wW7GNZfXmv14FzTqnxxe9wDb1KsXgOkXt4vlEHwwlvqKIt2CFpSqZZ8tEPfBDnXbRP4p30pr11c8_czXpt-h7TM2NPJXkv2sxf_vYu8/s640/summer162.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Happiness runs...</i></td></tr>
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Our wanderings took us here there and everywhere, finding pockets of time with lots of dear friends we don't see enough of during the year, time we filled with soul~deep conversations and lots of laughter, around many tables and many campfires that nourished us all no end. In beautiful homes and gardens, on tops of mountains, in deep valleys and by lake shores, in the sea, by the sea, and nestled in mountainous dunes, we delved deep into the human condition, explored our feelings about living in today's world, what it means for our children, and what we are or are not doing. We spent time dismantling the Old Story, examining its parts and figuring out how to proceed with<a href="https://newandancientstory.net/about/"> creating a new one</a> that upholds all that we hold dear in our hearts, and in doing so we moved along a little deeper into our understanding of what this future should look like.<br />
One thing that struck me was the collective, deep and abiding love for our world and all it gives us, and a desire to counter the ugly craziness that is going on around the world and that is being flaunted in our face as though it is all we have. <i>It's not all we have</i>. The world is better than this but the power of social media would lead us to despair and hopelessness if we let it.<br />
Instead, each of us, like millions of others,<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjoxh4c2Dj0"> in our own small way</a>, are making a difference.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglrryuFcchxR6EywVv2KQXdimHkJ6W831grSjWG9CaBdulx9OTmpcCbHM3RauyX6MlmMVeJjuYXyKD-1vxkl42c-vG4Utu5IIzBM0HpzAy-K2Mkpqjz5bJZK_KM1mFwjph0CyGFKM5Kt0/s1600/summer167.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglrryuFcchxR6EywVv2KQXdimHkJ6W831grSjWG9CaBdulx9OTmpcCbHM3RauyX6MlmMVeJjuYXyKD-1vxkl42c-vG4Utu5IIzBM0HpzAy-K2Mkpqjz5bJZK_KM1mFwjph0CyGFKM5Kt0/s640/summer167.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>'Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.'<br />Mary Oliver</i></td></tr>
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And so, for the first time ever we are looking forward to September. The 'Back to School' signs in the supermarkets don't fill us with dread and spoil the last few weeks of the holidays. We are full of plans and promise and excitement. As I wrote about<a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/2016/06/dwellers-under-different-sky_26.html"> here in my last post</a>, there are new beginnings afoot here, and not just for the younger two boys, but also for our older two, as well as for myself. Our eldest is off to college, (the very same one where our story began all those years ago), and our daughter has bravely decided to skip her last year in school and go straight to further education ~ 'I know what I want to do so I'll just skip the stressful, unnecessary part and go straight for what I want'. I am filled with admiration for her wisdom and bravery. And the journey we have been on with her has shown me, unequivocally, that there really is Another Way to educate our children, another perhaps more unconventional route to the exact same end, and the bravery is stepping out of line with your peers and finding your own way.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlM_P8Tvlup4F9nsFN7mpQFSYb22XBdvnl838gaiggNyrN1Rlm604pjhWovOcXC2uT0d7blNhPv-2wLevpHuigxLNQCcFN2MawSTVsrMEn1oabx2QkWlH5RQQTPAVi36AQr3go37WSfpA/s1600/summer166.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlM_P8Tvlup4F9nsFN7mpQFSYb22XBdvnl838gaiggNyrN1Rlm604pjhWovOcXC2uT0d7blNhPv-2wLevpHuigxLNQCcFN2MawSTVsrMEn1oabx2QkWlH5RQQTPAVi36AQr3go37WSfpA/s640/summer166.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Summer's bounty.</i></td></tr>
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As we continue our explorations of how we are reinventing our future,<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn"> the more I read</a>, <a href="https://wicklowsudburyschool.com/inspiration/links/">the more videos I watch</a>, the happier I am ~ every qualm and worry and question <a href="http://www.etreetdevenir.com/EED.en.html#Accueil">is being answered or put to rest,</a> and as time goes by I sink deeper into the surety of what we are doing. I am filled with admiration for those who find it in themselves to begin this journey when it first becomes an issue for them, and the only thing that stops me from being filled with regret that I didn't is the knowledge that Homeschooling wouldn't have worked for us, (me teach a curriculum?!) and Unschooling sadly was not heard of here, twenty years ago (oh if only!). I am, however, grateful that I can at least do this for the younger two. I am grateful to our older two for giving me the impetus and bravery to 'be the change I want to see'. Without their two very different but equally difficult experiences of school, I never would have begun the journey we find ourselves on. Their experience and my helplessness in the face of it, ignited my mother-bear, <a href="https://wicklowsudburyschool.com/">made me take a stand</a>, and so here we stand, on the cusp of new beginnings.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPdiEIATUzW8XcPUXzRL3hLL9qBs15zJ5sJjzUVkgepKdZg_ABUKqjP7cDQh6c_3Avvn6p8iC1wbIELeD6eCDEuGn2xE8pa-WK1s-mC6eidWrLSfsr0TSIfrpjT0rDD3mkvL8pgmcFaZM/s1600/summer164.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPdiEIATUzW8XcPUXzRL3hLL9qBs15zJ5sJjzUVkgepKdZg_ABUKqjP7cDQh6c_3Avvn6p8iC1wbIELeD6eCDEuGn2xE8pa-WK1s-mC6eidWrLSfsr0TSIfrpjT0rDD3mkvL8pgmcFaZM/s640/summer164.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Irish summer...</i></td></tr>
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So the seasons roll along under our feet, carrying us along towards this Next Thing, and this morning when I step into the garden there is a distinct cool whisper in the air after the rain. On the road yesterday we all commented on the sudden golden~ing on the trees, as though overnight they decided, party over, they are tired and its time at last to rest, and withdrew the bright light that gave us that viridian summer canopy that dappled our days these last few weeks. And as the tawny and umber creep in, all around us the trees and bushes are bursting with abundance and we pick and forage and graze as we go, summer exploding in our mouths as we do, warm and intoxicating and vibrant. Sustenance for the months ahead.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTrWe-3B9TehjFnQgZoJE81ThzaVHox1vJNA1IT6LW5vnwkA1MmAg5PMyscU_zYRXff7GxvrP4UHLprE2CL_4lcfixttl1V0Sh5wdW4cdEWDZe2HFqdidw62s6-g5rUaHmrnYviShrPOk/s1600/summer163.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTrWe-3B9TehjFnQgZoJE81ThzaVHox1vJNA1IT6LW5vnwkA1MmAg5PMyscU_zYRXff7GxvrP4UHLprE2CL_4lcfixttl1V0Sh5wdW4cdEWDZe2HFqdidw62s6-g5rUaHmrnYviShrPOk/s640/summer163.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Fraochán berries ~ wild blueberries ~ Wicklow at it's finest.</i></td></tr>
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So here at summer's end we dance on, towards this next chapter, full~filled, re~booted, energized, looking forward. We have no idea what is ahead for us, what bumps as well as joys we will encounter, and it is scary, as well as exciting. But given how difficult the last three years have been, it feels good and empowering to be <i>doing</i> something. To be taking control of what we are not happy with and changing it, making it better for ourselves and others.<br />
And I hope to be here in the Blog~shire a bit more often now, as I'd love to share with you how we get on, warts and all, because already I have inspiring stories to tell of our deschooling experiences so far.<br />
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Here's to an abundant Autumn, wherever you happen to be.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_s8NmOSzjC7nT1DoL_yGHZ7BZE4ZZFM2wcn08fxxGgwTcPwGQFzAp5lxWOH9K9JPlmpyfvwc6o3rgRn-HaqPSQmrH6IftHdlKO_JkMIlBHVAawL0sKwvEPfrWHMllQeCRm8L65ksD6RY/s1600/summer165.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_s8NmOSzjC7nT1DoL_yGHZ7BZE4ZZFM2wcn08fxxGgwTcPwGQFzAp5lxWOH9K9JPlmpyfvwc6o3rgRn-HaqPSQmrH6IftHdlKO_JkMIlBHVAawL0sKwvEPfrWHMllQeCRm8L65ksD6RY/s640/summer165.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Looking forward.</i></td></tr>
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<br />Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-65871855676724237752016-06-24T17:13:00.000+01:002017-05-10T18:40:12.581+01:00Dwellers Under A Different Sky.<br />
Friday morning. I'm sitting in the gloom. We are barely past the Summer Solstice, and monsoon~like rain is thundering down from ponderous clouds, bouncing vigorously on the table outside my window, turning the air white with moisture, the room suddenly dipping into evenfall light. In the distance, car alarms wail, seeming to waver and weave through the thick air. I am in a contemplative mood, and despite a significant to-do list, I cannot help myself but pause ~ something to do with the abundant, dripping green outside my window, and beyond that, Bray Head lost in the rain.<br />
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Regular readers here will be very familiar with what the Summer Solstice means to us, and the<a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/search/label/solstice%20party"> seventeen years of parties</a> we celebrated in Kilcoole, and how hard it was<a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/2012/07/leave-taking.html"> to walk away from it </a>when we moved to the town. The first two years here we distracted ourselves, but somehow this year it caught up with us and in the weeks leading up to it each child mentioned it to me at some point, with varying degrees of sorrow and nostalgia. It may have been prompted by the end of the school year which required photos to be found, which involved hours of pouring over our iphoto libraries. Each time someone sat down to search, the children, big and small, were drawn to it from all corners of the house, like dustly moths, alerted by giggles and exclamations of delight. And then began the reminiscences, spending literally hours at a time, our years in Kilcoole brought back to us through photos and videos that I realised we have avoided delving into very much over the last three years. We are only now acknowledging how painful it has been, tearing ourselves away from that place that was so intricately woven into the very fabric of our identity we grew as a family. It's impossible. It will never leave us, it will never be replaced, and we don't want it to.<br />
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But then, in the midst of our sadness something lovely happened ~ a most lovely friend, sensing our regret, threw a spontaneous Solstice gathering and sleepover (on a school night!), complete with fire and friends, and I cannot tell you how it filled our hearts. To wake with the din of the dawn chorus, in a house that smells of woodsmoke, made us glad and sad at the same time, and so very grateful to be reminded of why we did it every year for so long.<br />
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There is something about acknowledging the cycle of the year, our ancient history, how deep and abundant and important and tenacious the Green is. We cannot remove it from our bones, our blood, our genetic memory. So what happens when you turn away from something that is so deeply ingrained in us? What happens when we decide the bright shiny fake consumer world is more important? How long have we been pretending? How long have we forgotten?<br />
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This passage from 'Kith' is both magical and truthful, and so very poignant. It both reminds me of childhood yet also of what we lose when we grow up, and I can't help but wonder what the world would be like if we never lost this sense of wonder of the world.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">{ "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn', the Pan chapter from The Wind in the Willows, which is situated right in the middle of the book. Rat and Mole are rowing their boat, looking for a little otter which has gone missing, and they find not only the otter, but </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">also Pan. The scene takes place at midsummer, on an island in the middle of the river. At the heart of everything is Pan. (Sadly this core chapter is excised in some editions of the book.)<br />Rat, entranced, hears the pipes just in the threshold of hearing. The music rouses 'a longing in me that is pain'. As they arrive at the island, Rat knows it with the unequivocal recognition of finding oneself at the heart of things: 'This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me...This time, at last, it is real, the unmistakable thing, simple - passionate - perfect'.<br />Pan grants the animals a necessary forgetfulness so they are not later haunted by a nostalgia they cannot bear. It is as if Grahame is writing of the necessary forgetfulness which adulthood demands, that we forget some of the simple, passionate, perfect knowledge we had as children, dwellers under a different sky."<br />~ Jay Griffiths, 'Kith'. }</span><br />
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So, over the last year or so I have found myself on a an Unexpected Journey, one that I had no choice about, propelled forward by an awakening that was precipitated by challenges three of our four children were going through in school. I wanted to know if losing that 'simple, passionate, perfect knowledge' was inevitable or not, and what if it was not? What if it was a case of the emperors new clothes? What if we were just buying into something because we were told it was the only way by someone who was only interested in management and control and no one had bothered questioning it before now? Discovering people like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5J2Y9VqEXM&feature=youtu.be">Ken Robinson</a>, and reading articles like Carol Black's<a href="http://carolblack.org/on-the-wildness-of-children/"> 'On the Wildness of Children', </a>really just catapulted me into a world there was no going back from.<br />
I was on this journey before I realised it, and I never imagined where it would lead me to ~ to setting up an independent, alternative, democratic school, the first of it's kind here in Ireland.<br />
When I began to give voice to my doubts and questions around the true nature of our children's education I quickly discovered that I really was not alone, and soon there had formed a collective of parents who felt the same, had the same questions, the same vision of something better for their children, and the result is <a href="https://wicklowsudburyschool.com/">Wicklow Sudbury School</a>, the story of which you can read about <a href="https://wicklowsudburyschool.com/2016/06/17/the-story-so-far/">here</a>. I will be posting more on this as we go, but here today I just want to express something behind it all for me : the absolute conviction I now have that nature knows the answer, it knows what we need, what is best, how to fix the things that are broken, if we could just learn to listen again. To listen to our children, to listen to ourselves, to pay attention to how things evolve <i>once we remove Ego</i>. And by nature I mean in all it's forms ~ not just Nature, but <i>our</i> nature, our human nature that understands deeply what it is we need, and when given voice can be a powerful changemaker for us.<br />
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When we stop clenching our fists, when we soften our hold on our children's lives, when we learn to flow and <i>trust</i>, something kind of like magic happens, and it ripples and flows out to embrace everything else in our lives. I have likened it to a door in our minds (or hearts or souls) that once opened cannot ever be closed, and it is incredible to see your children from this perspective. To give them permission to be their true selves, to run through life like the wind, so sure of it's path, it's place in the wildness that is the natural world that lives beneath our feet and all around us, every day. It's there, even when we are distracted and disconnected from it, when we are wholeheartedly enmeshed in this unsustainable, crazy, broken world that we have found ourselves living in. Our children don't need to think about it, they just <i>know, </i>but when we don't trust them it makes them doubt themselves.<br />
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I know my rejection of traditional school has upset some people. The Sudbury model is a radical leap to make, and the whole idea of questioning the norm makes people uncomfortable, challenges them, I understand that. But I'm not going to say I won't apologise for it because I do apologise ~ I have no desire to make life difficult for people, life is difficult enough without me adding to it, and I know that a lot of the time it's easier to not question things and to just get on with our struggles, and who am I to criticise that? So I am sorry. But I have to do what I have to do so I can live with myself, so I can look my children in the eye and know I did my best to create a better world for them to live in, and if in doing so other children can benefit, then I am happier still. Earlier I said I had no choice about this and I truly mean that. I, like many other parents, was led to this new place by my children and their bewildered response to today's world.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not our garden but our Solstice host's one ~ and far lovelier and wild than ours.</td></tr>
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The sky has lightened now, the rain softened to a steady downpour. The dripping green outside my window makes so much sense to me now. It is wild and untended, and <i>natural</i>, a mish-mash explosion of all sorts of everything growing tangled and enveloped with one another, climbing our suburban walls, creeping over pathways, everything in it's natural state, just doing what it is meant to do, and I love it. The birds love it. I recall yesterday's conversation with my lovely elder neighbour who was lamenting the loss of her ability to tend her beloved garden, and I sensed her dismay at our unruly mess that is now hanging over her wall like a friendly but unwelcome drunk. I assured her we would take care of it, and I will, but on days like this when Bray Head is swathed in rain or mist I miss<a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/2011/10/thoughts-on-mountains-following.html"> my view</a> so much it makes my eyes smart, and the last thing I want to do is tame it.<br />
Yet I know this wild place where we can be our true selves is also in our hearts, and in our heads, and I am learning to trust myself, the child in me who knows what I need and is learning to give voice to it. And I have faith that in doing that, we are in our way, to quote <a href="http://charleseisenstein.net/">Charles Eisenstein</a>, creating " <a href="http://charleseisenstein.net/project/the-more-beautiful-world-our-hearts-know-is-possible/">the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible". </a> And that's a good enough reason as any for me.<br />
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<br />Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-42009090659893922922016-01-01T17:11:00.000+00:002020-05-25T11:58:23.844+01:00The Time Between The Years.<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="text-align: start;"><i>"When the world breaks the light pours in. It's always been this way." </i></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">~ Karen Young.</span></i></span></div>
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It's New Year's Day, quite early. The sun is just creeping up through the inky night. The house is silent, seagulls clamour suddenly above the rooftop, the familiar clicks and cracks as the walls and floors cool down after the heating has gone off. I am very grateful for this warm house. Not so long ago we were in a very different situation and every day I appreciate what we have now.<br />
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I love this time of year. I love the Solstice, and Christmas, and I especially love this part now, where the important day has been and gone, and we get to pause, retreat back into our burrows and sit by the fire, watch through the rain spattered window as the dark swirls around us like a pulse, a vital sign, barely gone from the east side of the house before it's back again; indigo nights coalescing into skies too omnipresent to simply be called grey. I want to find new names, to call them cesious, cinerious, griseous, <i>plumbeous. </i> To stand beneath them, to feel the stinging rain and know that this weather, these grim skies, belong to this dear island of ours, no matter how much it shocks people to find it here in December. The darkness holds, pulls us deeper into reflection, contemplation, and so here we are resting between the years, looking both backwards and forwards, making notes from the past for the future. It's been a couple years since I had any definitive new year resolutions, but this year I seem to have a ream of them.<br />
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This last year was not an easy one, for the last few months in particular it has felt as though everything around us has begun to fracture, unravel and come apart, the world wobbles on it's axis; murder and terror in Paris, children and families drowning in the Mediterranean, marginalised people right here on our doorstep <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/father-who-lost-relatives-in-carrickmines-fire-fears-further-loss-1.2432329">dying tragically, unnecessarily</a>, climate change, rising sea levels, pollution, suffering of animals, storms, floods, the list goes on. It's as though someone hit the fast forward button and everything is exploding, multiplying, and we cannot stop the tide.</div>
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Now stay with me for a moment while I dive into this dark place that I know we don't want to go, I promise it finds the light again. I have been mulling over this post for some time, the words eluding me, like a timid deer somewhere there among the trees but not quite visible, as though some part of me did not want to look too closely at what I want to say. <a href="http://greenmanramblings.blogspot.ca/2015/03/of-capitalism-and-cortisol-or-trouble.html?m=1">I realised that I was paralysed, I realised that feeling in my chest and stomach was grief.</a> I know I am not the only one to feel this. I found the exact things I needed to read were popping up in my news feed, articles (highlighted throughout here ~ please make a big pot of tea and click on them for further reading), that were addressing these very questions and thoughts that were waking me at five am, the rising panic that it was too late. What on earth can we do? And above all, how do I talk to my children about this? They <i>know. </i>They feel it. In particular, ask anyone with (or who works with) teenagers and they will tell you, if they don't have first hand experience then you can be sure they know someone who does, (their teenagers definitely do). They are the vanguard, whether they like it or not, and they are telling us in no uncertain terms we need to face this because they don't know how to. We have sailed some stormy seas with ours these last two years, and even though it has not been something we have, until recently, spoken much about with them, I have no doubt this is part of it, the fear, the unknowing, their growing awareness, their expanding sense of self, looking to their future and thinking 'what the hell!?'<br />
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Was I just naive and now I am cynical? I think I <i>was</i> naive, but I think I am now realistic rather than cynical. I was looking the other way even when I thought I wasn't because I was aware and doing my bit, right? And I know many people dear to me are there now, and like me, too uncomfortable to <i>really</i> go there. But I invite you to, now, before we are forced to (well, I admit, we are actually kind of being forced to already), for as fast as the forest darkens and grows frightening, dense with tangled undergrowth and clinging vines, there are lights among the trees, flickering there, if we can just slow down our thrashing (or come out of our hiding) and look for them quietly, hopefully. And if we find one another in the darkness we have hope because there is still so much we can do. And yes, we may have to really shake up and change our ideas, our perspective, about some very fundamental things, such as what exactly it is we <i>actually</i> <i>need</i> to live our lives. It is uncomfortable, maybe even painful. We are nostalgic creatures, we really are. We love tradition, and our sense of place and who we are that history gives us. We have become used to defining ourselves by what we have, what we own, how we dress, what we look like. But perhaps it's time to be defined by what we do, what we say. We are all here at this time, and there is no getting away from that, so we might as well buck up and take up the challenge. It's very empowering to stand up and say f**k you, I am not sitting back on this any more. It's absolutely not up to our children, it's up to us, it's our generation that need to doff our hats and say 'I'm sorry, here let me help". It's <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/oct/02/grieving-pathway-destructive-economic-system?CMP=share_btn_fb%22As">important to grieve</a>, to accept this state of affairs and in doing so release ourselves from the paralysing non-action we have been stuck in.<br />
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<span style="text-align: start;"><i>"Living more simply does not mean deprivation or hardship. It means being content with what is sufficient, and seeking enjoyment from non-material pursuits. Living in ways that are frugal and that minimise resource use should not be seen as a burdenor sacrifice that must be made to save the planet. These ways can be sources of great life satisfaction."</i></span><br />
<i>~Frederick Trainer</i><br />
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So how do we help our children? <a href="http://www.heysigmund.com/">Hey Sigmund</a>, a brilliant website I discovered a few months back, posted <a href="http://www.heysigmund.com/how-to-talk-to-kids-and-teens-about-world-trauma/">an article</a> on this recently, which, while it may only skim the surface, at least helps to address the beginning of a conversation with them. Watch <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/17/tomorrowland-review-george-clooney-turns-mr-incredible-as-a-man-genius-world-saver">Tomorrowland</a> with them, (it's brilliant - Disney meets Dr. Who, with a bit of Miyazaki thrown in, and<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "guardian text egyptian web" , "georgia" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> 'if its diagnosis of what’s wrong with the world is ultimately simplistic and rather hokey, there’s still some truth to it' - what's not to love?) </span>and ask them what they think about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSMQC2q8NAc">what Hugh Laurie has to say about the state of the world</a>. I think they might surprise you with their depth of understanding.<br />
Above all, talk to them, open up room for the possibility of having these conversations. Please don't pretend it's not an issue. In today's connected world you can be damn sure they are aware of it. We owe it to them to allow them to give voice to their concerns, to help them understand, because as we all know, misunderstandings can cause all manner of fear and confusion to the young, and that's why we are here for them.<br />
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<i>"The answer is obvious. We don't need more scientific data or superficial behaviour change initiatives but to engage individuals at a deep emotional, psychological and spiritual level." </i></div>
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<i>~ Jo Confino</i><br />
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At times it may not seem like it, but there is much going on that is positive and hopeful. We know we really and truly <a href="https://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/12/31/historic-failure-5-takeaways-from-the-cop21-paris-climate-talks/">cannot rely on the likes of COP21 to do what is necessary</a>, so it's up to us, the real people. So go talk to your neighbour. Be visible. Ask questions. The bottom line is, start conversations. Honestly, in my experience people are relieved to talk about this. A kind of magic happens when people find their common ground, as I <a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/2013/12/what-ive-been-up-to-lately.html">wrote about here before</a>, and the most heartening things happen. There is power in coming together, it is tangible and real, and it is encouraging and gives you reason to get up and keep going. Find out what is already going on in your local area; if you live in Ireland check out <a href="http://www.changex.org/">ChangeX</a> for a growing list of initiatives at community/local/grassroots level, and if you want to know how we started and made a success of <a href="http://commongroundbray.com/">Common Ground Bray</a>, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ediblebray/?fref=photo">Edible Bray</a>, come and visit us, ask us, and we will help you do the same.<br />
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<i>"<span style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">However much we are affected by the things of the world, however deeply they may stir and stimulate us, they become human for us only when we can discuss them with our fellows. We humanise what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human.”</span></i></div>
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<i>Hannah Arendt - Men In Dark Times.</i><br />
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Above all, remind yourself daily of all that is good and beautiful in this world, because this is where our hope resides. Physically get out into the forest, go up that mountain, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/claire-wren-dunn/natures-wall-of-grief_b_8229816.html">it will help you sort it all out </a>in your head and get the right perspective. For starters, read the illuminating writings of Maria Popova on <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/">Brainpickings</a>, look at what they are doing in Canada with their <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2015/sep/17/the-leap-manifesto-isnt-radical-its-a-way-out-of-canadas-head-in-the-sand-politics">Leap Manifesto</a>, think about how you can implement a <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-simple-life-manifesto-and-how-it-could-save-us-33081">Simple Life Manifesto</a> for yourself, check out <a href="https://www.ted.com/speakers/pam_warhurst">Incredible Edibles</a> in Todmorden in the UK, see what one small village in Spain <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/marinaleda-spanish-communist-village-utopia">has been doing since the late 70's</a>, check out the <a href="http://www.pachamama.org/">Pachamama Alliance</a>, and please share here in the comments any other things you think we should be reading or seeing.<br />
There is nothing like a state of emergency to bring out the best in people. But I am proposing we initiate this response before it is actually a state of emergency. Here at the beginning of a New Year, we have an opportunity to reflect on what the coming year can mean for us. What do we want to invite into our lives? Let's reaffirm what a resolution really means, and why we make them at this time. Let's start living more co-operatively, open-heartedly, and honestly.<br />
Reach out, and I bet you will find another extended hand taking yours.<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/neoliberalism-mental-health-rich-poverty-economy"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "century" , "times" , serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "guardian text egyptian web" , "georgia" , serif; line-height: 24px;">So, if you don’t fit in, if you feel at odds with the world, if your identity is troubled and frayed, if you feel lost and ashamed – it could be because you have retained the human values you were supposed to have discarded. You are a deviant. Be proud." </span></a></i></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "guardian text egyptian web" , "georgia" , serif; line-height: 24px;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/neoliberalism-mental-health-rich-poverty-economy">~ Paul Verhaeghe.</a></span></i></div>
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Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-7294779872986283602015-10-17T17:07:00.000+01:002017-05-10T18:37:25.440+01:00The Theory of Letting Go.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">"Kindled in earth, of a kind with all animals, kin to kittens, cubs and chicks, children are not aliens to wildness but akin to it, wild at the raw core. Their original fire is sparked by the embers of a world flame which also lights the peacock and the stars. Intimates of wildness, all of them." ~ Jay Griffiths, Kith</i></div>
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Yesterday was one of those days that arrives with it's own plan, an inkling the day before becomes a quiet certainty upon waking in the blue dark before dawn. Before my eyes were even open I knew I would be changing what I had planned to do that day, and so, instead of taking off without them for the two days I decided to go with my younger two boys on the adventure that had been planned for them for my absence. </div>
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We gathered a little gang and we drove up into the mountains, marvelling as always that we have this right here on our doorstep, a mere 40 minute drive away. Every single day I love these mountains from afar, I see them each morning and afternoon as I travel to school, framed as they are now by glorious autumn maples that line the roads like merry medieval flags leading the way towards them. Some days it's hard not to bypass the turn for school and just keep going. These great tellurian mother's arms that encircle this town of ours here on the edge of the sea, I love them from afar each day, and some days I just have to go to them.</div>
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We arrived and we walked down the mountain into the valley to the lake, a winding road that found the children racing, roaring, tearing onwards ferociously as though trying to outrun all those indoor, sedentary hours of school and darkening evenings; that October-<i>knowing </i>in our blood and bones that the light is fading from our year, hastening us towards the dark point, turning our thoughts inwards, deeper, and we just have to inhale as much of it as we possibly can to keep us buoyant in the dark months ahead. </div>
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There's something about all that wide open space that allowed them to just let out their inner Wild Things, yelling like demented moose across the valley to hear their voices yell back, (to the bemusement of the herd of deer grazing peacefully below), chasing, running, tumbling, like the pack of cubs they are.</div>
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This photo here, this was the moment of arriving, of stepping into the cool waters of Lough Dan after the race down the mountain, when they took a moment to take a breath, to reflect, and just be there.<br />
In all the tumult and joyous riot of the getting there, I found myself thinking of a conversation earlier in the week with our youngest, aged 8, and his unexpected response to something I was sure he'd love: a lovely video of a child his age doing parkour in a purpose built learning gym, something he dreams about doing. Instead of being sparked and inspired by it, and running out the door to climb a wall or a tree or my car, as he would have just a few months ago, his first response was 'What if you fail?' Can you imagine my shock? Those words have never been uttered in this house before and I have to say it kind of broke my heart a little. When we talked a bit more and agreed that to get as good as the boy in the video you'd have to 'fail' (fall) quite a few times, he then told me that the people who owned the gym would be 'blamed' if the kids fall and hurt themselves, and it all came out then that this is what they are told in school. All the time.<br />
Let's just say I am quite impressed with how I managed to not react as I wanted to...<br />
(There may have been steam coming out of my ears as I smiled at him.)<br />
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It brought to mind the many articles I have been reading on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/640168596040798/">Another Way</a> of late, which talk about the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/18/real-risk-to-kids-play-mollycoddling?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">mollycoddling that we are guilty of</a>, and the affect this will have on our children as they grow up. Of how insane things are getting in the US around the issue of children <i>being<b> free to walk around</b> by themselves</i>, (seriously, just consider that for a moment). </div>
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I've always considered myself defiantly permissive about letting my children roam, play on their own away from us and out of sight, light and tend fires, make decisions, rely on themselves...I could go on. But I do realise it's pretty much impossible today for our children to be as free as we want them to be, as they would want to be. It's so difficult to live in such a fearful society and not be tainted by it in some way, despite our best intentions. Every day I have to ignore that faint but squawking, hysterical mother-voice in my ear as my boys play out in the fairly busy street, cycling, chasing one another, and <i>trust </i>that they will be safe. It's not easy. But we have to do it, in spite of the neighbours grumblings (yes they do, on occasion). </div>
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And I have even fallen prey to it myself. </div>
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As we made our way back up the mountainside, their energy still, <i>somehow</i>, boundless, I actually heard myself warning them to stop; stop flinging themselves into the ferns, look there's big boulders hidden there; no, not on the other side either, there's a cliff! </div>
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Honestly, they were in no real danger, yet I jumped in as though they were. Preempting a possibility. Just in case. Within minutes I heard myself and I was dismayed and I shut up, but following as it did so soon after my chat with my wee lad it really brought me up short. Am I doing this a lot? When did it start to creep in? Surely I would have noticed. And I am sure I am not the only one out there who thinks the title of 'helicopter parent' doesn't apply, (and of course it really doesn't in so many ways), and yet....for all our best intentions perhaps we really are all getting caught up in this? It permeates our culture so thoroughly, how on earth can we remain immune?</div>
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We have a responsibility to these small folk in our care, to trust them, and to trust ourselves. To know when to stand back and let them figure it all out, and eventually fly away on wings that are robust enough to take them where they need to go, for we know we do them no favours by hovering to make sure they are doing it right, do we? </div>
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There is no doubt that they are well capable and willing, if we let them. </div>
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We need to be those tellurian mothers, solid as the earth, arms out to shield and hold our charges but from a distance. </div>
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And as they grow, some days we will be hidden by rain or mist or cloud, but always here for those days when they need to go to us, to be reassured. </div>
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And even when we are not in sight, the knowledge that we are there is all the surety needed.</div>
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Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-9791699608800414392015-03-31T16:40:00.000+01:002015-10-04T19:56:58.843+01:00The Forgotten Little Me.<i>Reflections on five days immersed in Nature.</i><br />
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How long is it since I lay with my face in the grass<br />
breathing in the sharp green smell whose tendrils weave into my fibres<br />
pull me back into the forgotten Little Me that I see mirrored in my youngest one.<br />
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How long since I muddied my knees<br />
felt the rain on my face<br />
dug up a worm<br />
lay in the lee of a tree<br />
examined a daisy<br />
played all day, rain or shine?<br />
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I woke up this morning and it felt like a dream<br />
a sun dappled, green dream<br />
that had hidden<br />
somewhere in the neglected silence<br />
of the Little Me.<br />
<br />
That place where mud and flowers and creepy crawlies live<br />
Where their simple existence is a reminder of our insignificance<br />
Our place in the grand scheme of things.<br />
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I was reminded to stop and look<br />
to listen<br />
And not just to the trees and the wind and the turning year<br />
but to listen to my children<br />
and to listen to myself.<br />
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For the first time in years my hand was taken in a childlike way<br />
I was grounded<br />
given roots<br />
given permission<br />
to not have answers<br />
to be wrong<br />
and most of all<br />
to be Little Me again.<br />
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<br />
I woke up this morning and it felt like a dream,<br />
a sun dappled, green dream<br />
that has followed me into my day.<br />
<br />
<br />
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~*~</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>For anyone in Ireland interested in finding out more about </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Forest School Leadership Training, look here</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><a href="http://www.earthforceeducation.com/courses/forest-school-training-20152016/">Earthforce Education</a></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Or in the UK look here </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><a href="http://www.circleofliferediscovery.com/index.php?page=forest-school-training">Circle of Life Rediscovery</a></i></div>
Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-43869845457101047492015-01-20T12:29:00.000+00:002015-03-01T12:47:20.277+00:00This Mending & Stitchery Thing.A word on the name, Mending and Stitchery.<br />
These words have a multitude of meanings in my life, and somehow seemed best for tying together the different parts of my life that I'll be blogging about here.<br />
The most obvious one is the fact that I sew. My primary medium as an artist is textile based, I adore stitches, thread, wool, I make my marks with them. And I love mending things. Visible mending is my latest addiction, partly because I never had the patience to do things perfectly, but also because I love imperfect things, I love unfinished, I love half things, I love when the making is visible in the end piece. And I was delighted to discover the Japanese have a name for this (but of course they do) which is Wabi-Sabi.<br />
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<span class="_Tgc" style="font-size: 16px;"><b>Wabi-sabi</b>. <b>Wabi-sabi</b> ( わび·さび) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centred on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete".</span></div>
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You can read a lovely piece explaining Wabi-Sabi in the links below. It's wonderful to see this concept creep into western mainstream. (I believe Pinterest may be hugely responsible...)<br />
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Over on Milkmoon, <a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/search?q=thread">a regular analogy that crept in to my writings was the idea of how Life is made up of a Great Weaving of Threads</a>, a concept I love. The people and relationships in our lives, events, journeys, phases, each a different colour and texture, I love to think about how those threads weave together to make this tapestry of my life, of pulling those threads tighter, tucking them in nice and secure when they loosen, and on occasion, perhaps, loosening or snipping them, if needs be. (If anyone has read the wonderful Alvin Maker books, this was a concept that was used beautifully in the Native American story arc, for the world and how people have roles, and how their lives play out.)<br />
This blog is about many things that are blooming in my life right now, things that for a long time seemed too diverse to reconcile into one place, but they have now come together into a Thing cohesive enough to stitch together, under the loose mantle of Sustainable Living. (I'm not sure I want to really use that term, but it will do for the time being. I'm hoping another word emerges over time).<br />
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I wrote before on Milkmoon too, about <a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/2013/12/what-ive-been-up-to-lately.html">Common Ground</a>, and my thoughts on community, and building community, and what it means to me, and to us as humans. We have helped create a thriving hub here in our town, a place where people can connect with one another, to find others who are on the same wavelength (I always loved the imagery of that phrase ~ <i>wavelength ~</i>), and where we can get projects and ideas off the ground. A tying together of threads, as it were.<br />
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And a word on that word 'Thing'. I do love a good Thing. It just seems to perfectly sum up so many different...things. It originally comes from the Old Norse word for 'assembly', and in Dublin, until 1685, the Thingmote was a mound, 40ft high and 240ft in circumference, where the Norsemen assembled and made their laws. It was eventually taken down at great expense, and the mass of earth and stone was used to raise up what is now called Nassau St. (ever wonder why it is so much higher up than Trinity?), at the time called St. Patrick's Well Lane, a place prone to flooding <a href="http://www.geocities.ws/heatheneurope/thingmount">(more reading here, if you fancy)</a>. I'm not sure how the word came to it's present day, all encompassing meaning, (I'm sure it's long winded and interesting), but I love that it originally meant a place to gather, something which means a lot to me. I love gatherings. I love bringing people together. I love talking with people and exploring ideas. And this is something I hope to do here.<br />
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People are gathering at Common Ground and talking about sustainable living, and they are gathering at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/640168596040798/">Another Way </a>and talking about sustainable, nurturing eduction for our children, and this Thing here is really just somewhere that I can flesh out some of the ideas that are driving my involvement with these, and other, projects, such as how we can house ourselves, feed ourselves, and the impact our daily choices have on the world around us.<br />
And this is where the Mending part comes in. We need to mend this broken society we have, the beautiful planet we are destroying, the childhood which is being rubbed out for children across the world. We know these things are happening, and with that knowledge comes responsibility, we cannot ignore them any longer and we now must act.<br />
And Together is the only way.<br />
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~*~</div>
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Reconnecting : </div>
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<br />
Japanese style :<br />
<a href="http://www.utne.com/mind-and-body/wabi-sabi.aspx#axzz3O8MrtGjK">Wabi-Sabi.</a><br />
<a href="http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/blogs/forest-bathing-take-a-dip-in-these-serene-forests">Shinrin-yoku. </a><br />
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Norwegian style :<a href="http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/blogs/how-friluftsliv-can-help-you-reconnect-with-nature"> </a><br />
<a href="http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/blogs/how-friluftsliv-can-help-you-reconnect-with-nature">Friluftsliv.</a><br />
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<br />Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-8741722306186174582015-01-09T16:54:00.000+00:002015-10-04T19:56:37.837+01:00First We Get Away.<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This post was originally written back in October for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/640168596040798/">Another Way</a>. Myself and <a href="http://square-sunshine.blogspot.ie/">Martin Hodges, of Square Sunshine</a>, had set up a Facebook Group under this name, which is proving to be <i>the </i>most active thing amongst all my social media. It's a place where people can share their thoughts, and posts they find online, around the topic of educating our children. This is a subject that has been taking up a lot of my headspace over the last year in particular, and one I will be writing about here regularly, and one which, clearly, a lot of people have a lot to say about. Parents are passionate about this, about what they perceive to be wrong with today's system, and the conclusion we are coming to is we are going to have to sort it out for ourselves.</span><br />
<span class="s1">So, my ranting sparked some lively connections, and a bunch of us like-minded folk got together one weekend to just get outdoors with our children and eat, play, love, and just hang out together. It was great. And out of it I wrote the following piece - the first time I'd written a blogpost in the best part of a year, which is what has finally led to the existence of this Thing.</span><br />
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<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1">~*~</span></div>
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
<span class="s1">Last weekend, we drove out into the autumn mountains, the winding road taking us up away from the sea and into the wild wilds of Wicklow, down into deep, green valleys where the trees are just beginning to turn, that first melting of green into yellow and ochre and brown. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Down we came, down the steep roads, across the rushing river, and the place we found ourselves arriving at felt like a refuge, literally the last house in the valley. No electricity, no running water, no phone signal. Perfect.</span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span id="goog_540898728"></span><span id="goog_540898729"></span><br /></span>
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<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Here was a gathering of folk, families much like ourselves, many of whom had never met one another before but who were there because they wanted to talk, to connect with others who shared the same concerns of today: how do we guide our children, and ourselves, through this very new experience of parenting the first ‘touch-screen generation’, or Digital Natives, as they are being called. In the last couple of years having two older teenagers no longer gives me the sure footing of the experienced parent, as our knowledge garnered from parenting them in the late 90’s and into the first decade of the 2000’s, doesn’t cover this most recent, all encompassing development, (and indeed leaves us totally unprepared for what the teens are experiencing, but that’s another days discussion). </span><br />
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<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Alongside this growing concern, is a strange dichotomy, whereby this digital age is, on the positive side, allowing us to put our voice out into the ether, and to hear common voices that others are putting out too. Suddenly topics that need to be addressed are gaining ground. Topics that before may have felt like a voice in the wilderness for those that were searching for communal ground and a place to be heard. Suddenly we are finding one another. We are connecting with one another, discovering we are not alone in our questions. For me now, the questions and uneasy feelings are about something we have never questioned before: our education system. And how does it fit in with this new app-for-everything age. It’s confusing, right? The pros and cons, the good and the bad, the amazing advantages and the horrendous disadvantages of this digital age. How do we find the right balance? </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Here’s something I don’t understand: we want the newest gadget, the latest update, the most recent version, of everything else in our lives, yet why are we not looking for the same for our children? There are countless writings out there on the latest studies on how children learn best, and yet, as the wonderful Ken Robinson points out, we are still using an education system that was devised for the industrial age, an antiquated system who’s purpose is to turn out workers. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">We know better. We do. But it’s so huge no one wants to tackle it. </span><br />
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<span class="s1">But what if we did? Us parents, and educators, what would we do? What are we already doing? It’s as simple as starting a conversation, because that is where the seeds are sown. If you have read this far, chances are you are on this journey with us already. </span><br />
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<span class="s1">Last weekend we started a conversation. We talked, shared ideas, and who knows where it will lead, but it is definitely a beginning. And here on this blog, and over in our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/640168596040798/">Another Way Facebook group</a>, we've started a conversation, and although we are all scattered around the world, we are all thinking the same thing, and that's what reassures me that change is on it's way.</span><br />
<span class="s1">And in the meantime we can get our children off those screens and outside into nature, back into the wild where they know how to learn without being told how or when or what goals they have to reach in order to be deemed successful. We owe them that much at least.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">So, back in the valley, while the grown ups warmed themselves up, cooked up some food to share, got the fires going, and talked up a storm, our children ran wild. They forged the river, chased one another in the dying light as the sun sank behind the towering mountainsides, and even the darkness did not slow them down. Later, before we made our way to our candlelit beds, we sat by the river, around the campfire, and the conversations continued, our thoughts and ideas carried along with the rushing water, like prayer flags taking our wishes and dreams to the future. </span><br />
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<span class="s1">In the morning there is frost, the gorse festooned with dewey spiderwebs, a spider city revealed to us as though our time here has granted us special Nature Powers to see, really see the world around us. Driving home the road steams, mist drifting into the sunlight, and the trees across the valley seem to fall away from us, as though we are skybound. We feel energised, renewed, cleansed. In the back of the car, Billy (age 7) cannot stop talking, and do I imagine his voice is lighter and clearer than yesterday? There has been no mention of the iPad in the time we’ve been here. ‘When we get home can we <i>smash </i>the iPad with a hammer?!’ he calls out with slightly manic glee in his voice. There’s a moments silence and we all burst out laughing at his uncharacteristic drama.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">And as we pause at a crossroads on the road, turning towards home but for a moment gazing at the further mountains that seem all too inviting, all at once we see them, a pair of sika deer hidden among the trees, the dappled light almost fooling our eyes. They pause in the dim glade, gaze at us shyly, and for that moment we are held captive, connected to this creature who’s curious eyes meet ours with calm acceptance. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Eyes shining, hearts singing, we make for home, yet he takes us with him when he turns and melts into the deep green of the woods. </span><br />
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<i>Edit: Since writing this we have set up a more local group called Wicklow Hedge School for anyone in the area interested in taking this further. You can find us here: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/355802601270068/">Wicklow Hedge School.</a> </i></div>
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Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-66456840522338440372015-01-05T16:30:00.000+00:002015-10-04T19:50:18.516+01:00About This Thing.For six years my blog home was <a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/">Milkmoon,</a> a place where I wrote about being an artist and a parent, the beautiful environment I found myself living in, the weather, and my musings and reflections on these things. I stopped writing there when my life took a very new direction following a number of changes that happened in our lives which I found difficult to navigate for a while, a significant one being leaving the beautiful place we had grown our family in. But now, almost two years after moving, and a year after winding up <a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/">Milkmoon</a>, I have a new sense of where things are going, as though my head has finally just broken the surface of the fast, muddied eddy that I have been caught in. I'm not clear yet, there is still murky, choppy waters ahead to negotiate, but it's a move in the right direction.<br />
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I am an artist, first and foremost. I stitch and mend things. Thread, needle, wool. I make. I also use words. I use them as I would a paintbrush, suggestions rather than hard lines, and I love to use them to reflect on those things such as what I mentioned above. The path I weave in my art is patchy and only faintly consistent, as I suffer from distraction and great ideas that have nothing to do with art, that pull me off down into exciting rabbit holes of adventure, and which I gladly explore and always love to share with others.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9sGJ4xILy9NM6v1cfc1ift1V6m1X56cPP_e7SRhOXFT_2jYZIiCRhIZ9FcmYAo8kifGxloD81ULefsF16CB8BeCfVsoMNUiaf0Doob5iqIDTFPQ6q6Bwnl1YRdpe3apWmQPBoXqi5SF-3/s1600/Bray1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9sGJ4xILy9NM6v1cfc1ift1V6m1X56cPP_e7SRhOXFT_2jYZIiCRhIZ9FcmYAo8kifGxloD81ULefsF16CB8BeCfVsoMNUiaf0Doob5iqIDTFPQ6q6Bwnl1YRdpe3apWmQPBoXqi5SF-3/s1600/Bray1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Over this last, difficult year a number of different things have begun to take root, and not only are opening up exciting ventures both personally and as a family, but are prompting me to examine more than ever how we live, and our response-ability in the choices we make. How do we do this thing, this Living In The Modern World? The time has gone when we can just look the other way, or stick our heads in the sand and pretend that all will be well if everything <i>looks good</i>. We now need to put up our hand and say 'I pledge to strive to live a sustainable life', to do the best we can, no matter what, and, to paraphrase Paul Kingsnorth, author of <a href="http://www.paulkingsnorth.net/books/one-no-many-yeses">One No, Many Yeses</a>, a book which was a turning point for me and one I refer to again and again, to figure out our own Yes in the multitude of yeses that are in response to the one resounding NO. The no, in this case, being 'NO, we won't be part of this plunder any more, we won't buy into the rampant consumerism that has it's claws in every one of us and is sucking the meaning and joy and poetry out of Life, and (<i>insanely) </i>is destroying the only damn thing we have to keep us alive, this beautiful planet of ours. The insane part of it is that we all know this, yet those insidious claws go deep and most of us haven't a clue how to extract ourselves because it's all so neatly sewn up that it appears we cannot.<br />
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But we all do our bit, in however small a way, and here in these pages I am attempting to create a place where I can bring together the many different strands of this new, resolute part of my cloth that I am weaving now; how we eat, how we educate our children, how we live, how we commune, and how we express ourselves on these subjects. I am no expert on any of these things, but I muddle through, and am willing to try, and to share this journey with whoever is doing the same.<br />
Because I for one am not ready to give up and walk away, <a href="http://grist.org/climate-energy/i-withdraw-a-talk-with-climate-defeatist-paul-kingsnorth/">as Mr. Kingsnorth has</a>. I understand why he has, and some part of me thinks he is right, but I'm just not there yet. I need to have hope. And so I will keep trying, I'll keep on trying to figure how the <i>how</i>, for whatever good it does. Because our children <i>shall </i>inherit this earth, and when my child turns to me, as has happened, and cries and asks why we are so beholden to money and why we believe we can only do what we are told we can and cannot do, and not what we know is right for us, I want to be able to say that, at the very least, we did our best to do what is right, to do things our way, and that will have to be good enough.<br />
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Some Recent Reading/Viewing.</div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX5jsq74fAo&feature=share&app=desktop">We Are All Seeds.</a> </div>
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<a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness-book">Sustainable Happiness.</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mnn.com/family/family-activities/blogs/how-hygge-can-help-you-get-through-winter">How Hygge Can Help You Get Through The Winter.</a> </div>
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Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-53737508739899253642014-12-29T14:00:00.000+00:002015-10-04T19:44:53.234+01:00Starting Over.A year ago I stopped blogging. What had once been a successful, vibrant, and focussing element in my life had slowly stuttered to a stop, whether I liked it or not, and much like a boat cut loose from it's moorings I drifted on, not really sure where I was going, but soon caught up in a very new, very busy phase of my life that quickly gained a momentum I now know to be unsustainable.<br />
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On three occasions this year my body yelled at me to stop, the most recent just last week on Christmas Eve, once I knew everything that needed to be was done (of course), and my back seized up without warning. </div>
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The two previous occasions this happened, I went straight back to the same pace afterwards and did nothing to change how I was doing things. This time, however, perhaps it's the time of year, as I lie in bed, feeling restless and impatient, unable to focus, something changed. </div>
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Today I stop trying.</div>
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I lie there.</div>
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The window is open on a cold day. There is frost, still, in the shade, the sky that impossible, perfect winter blue that falls away to milkyness at it's hem, golden sun skimming the tips of the trees, rooftops, hills, as somewhere on the other side of the house I know it's already melting into the mountains.</div>
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Downstairs music hums indistinctly up through the floorboards, an upbeat, sunny, somewhat dated sound, and I lie and listen to it, the sounds of Jay humming along, pottering, moving around the house.</div>
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Birdsong.</div>
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Sea.</div>
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The quiet house.</div>
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I realise I need to change things. I realise that there is no coincidence to the articles that have come my way over the last few days as I finally find the time to read, (some of which I have linked to below) and yes, this reflective time between the years does call for something of a review, doesn't it? </div>
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One phrase that leaps out at me in my reading is <i>'Busyness is a decision.'</i> This stops me in my tracks. I realise I must take responsibility for the choices I make, the too many yeses and the not enough nos. In the chaotic, difficult year that was 2014, I now see how frenetic, and actually quite manic, I had become, the troubles of the world becoming my own, and the feeling of being overwhelmed by it all just became my State of Being. I think this is probably what happens to a lot of people who stop and look at the reality of the world we live in. How do I live a sustainable life? How do I feed my family healthfully? How do I educate my children? How do I ensure their experience is as real and healthful as it can possibly be? How do I practice right livelihood, with full responsibility? How on earth can we ever reverse or stop this hellbound capitalist consumerist roller coaster....! You see where I was? Yep. </div>
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All of this, though, made certain things happen. Wonderful things. Things which are the cornerstones of some really amazing, significant presences in my life now, which you will be hearing more about here, as we strive to simplify and reduce, to make sense of this modern life.</div>
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So, here we are at the end of this year, and about to start a new one, and for the first time in an age I am approaching it in the spirit of New Beginnings, because I have to. It's time. Time to take all the good stuff and bring it together. Time to refocus. </div>
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I stopped blogging over on <a href="http://milk-moon.blogspot.ie/">Milkmoon,</a> in part because my life had changed so much that it didn't fit any more, but also because I didn't know what the focus was. But now I do. And it's that there kind of isn't one. There is just Life, and me muddling my way through and figuring it out as I go.</div>
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I hope some of you join me, join the conversation, add your voice. For the most important task ahead of us is communion. Finding Common+Unity and building a new global Community together.<br />
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~*~</div>
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Some recent Reading of Great Inspiration:</div>
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<a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/01/seneca-on-the-shortness-of-life/">The Shortness of Life: Seneca on Busyness and the Art of Living Wide Rather Than Living Long.</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.holstee.com/pages/manifesto">The Holstee Manifesto.</a></div>
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<a href="http://theconversation.com/the-simple-life-manifesto-and-how-it-could-save-us-33081">The Simple Life Manifesto.</a></div>
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<a href="http://itstartswith.com/2014/12/slowing-down-to-connect-across-the-world-two-sisters-reconnecting-guest-reflections-by-easkey-and-beckey-finn-britton/">It Starts With ; Slowing Down.</a></div>
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Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192218786957689157.post-17276443891557997752014-02-20T16:39:00.000+00:002014-12-31T14:37:23.108+00:00A Pause.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Walking out of the deep silence;</div>
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a deer skeleton lying by the side of the rushing river.</div>
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Bone, antler, hoof.</div>
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Stark and severe after the rich decay of the forest floor.</div>
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We fall into stillness.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHNCWPwjO3DMn9SZec-a5NlEbkTvsNBXDkxAKSIW6BdNn6kK-_wbYvHtdaskfwmR_zWDGlDHhDpUV8oPuBlugWKAP-5K_-KmWYOERgjZqgTtGzyRGhgE98xkRUmv1Tr1G-M9xkJl1wUiUq/s1600/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHNCWPwjO3DMn9SZec-a5NlEbkTvsNBXDkxAKSIW6BdNn6kK-_wbYvHtdaskfwmR_zWDGlDHhDpUV8oPuBlugWKAP-5K_-KmWYOERgjZqgTtGzyRGhgE98xkRUmv1Tr1G-M9xkJl1wUiUq/s1600/unnamed.jpg" height="478" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Ciara Brehonyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10583812950426579762noreply@blogger.com0