The F-Word

Dear Diary

Mind is the master power that moulds and makes,
And we are Mind, and evermore we take
The tool of thought, and shaping what we will,
Bring forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills,
We think in secret, and it comes to pass -
Our world is but our looking glass.

James Allen

Flip It.

I read a bit about this book in Amazon’s Bestsellers recently.

I read about it; haven’t actually even seen it and we don’t have it in the library but I like the ideas contained within it. The F word has been running in my brain since I discovered it. No not that F word even though I have had cause to use that one this weekend but am unable to blog about it here. I can’t blog about it but I have thought about it and maybe this book’s philosophy has reminded me of what I believe anyway and it has spurred me on in a direction that perhaps I should have taken long ago.

But hey ho, I can’t help but be happy today, it is a Sunday and there is something about this day that always puts me in a happy frame. Even if it’s a bit damp and cloudy and not very warm, the snowdrops are out and Spring can’t be too far away. There are buds-a-plenty in the garden, the daffodils are rising, the snow has gone and the birds are at ease once again.

I digress..

Flipping, now that used to be a teeny bit of a swear word in my youth. Probably like feckin it was a more acceptable word to band about than the unspoken F word . Funny how words can carry so much emotion, a good thing though or I wouldn’t love poetry so much.

So it’s all down to turning negatives into positives and how we should and could do that to make life better. Simple when you say it like that but not always easy in practice. But I am thinking of it and making lists helps. Write down all the negatives in your life at the moment and then re-write them (and the script) in a positive light. Ask yourself open ended questions that invite a positive proactive response, it is quite fun when you start. One door closes another one opens, that sort of thing. You may find it nauseating, you may not. But the Greek word crisis means opportunity and that is how I like to see it.

Before I go here is a poem, totally unrelated but I like it. It somehow suit’s a Sunday.

The Superwoman


What will the superwoman be, of whom we sing -
She who is coming over the dim border
Of Far To-morrow, after earth’s disorder
Is tidied up by Time? What will she bring
To make life better on tempestuous earth?
How will her worth
Be greater than her forbears? What new power
Within her being will burst into flower?
She will bring beauty, not the transient dower
Of adolescence which departs with youth -
But beauty based on knowledge of the truth
Of its eternal message and the source
Of all its potent force.
Her outer being by the inner thought
Shall into lasting loveliness be wrought.
She will bring virtue; but it will not be
The pale, white blossom of cold chastity
Which hides a barren heart. She will be human -
Not saint or angel, but the superwoman -
Mother and mate and friend of superman.
She will bring strength to aid the larger Plan,
Wisdom and strength and sweetness all combined,
Drawn from the Cosmic Mind -
Wisdom to act, strength to attain,
And sweetness that finds growth in joy or pain.
She will bring that large virtue, self-control,
And cherish it as her supremest treasure.
Not at the call of sense or for man’s pleasure
Will she invite from space an embryo soul,
To live on earth again in mortal fashion,
Unless love stirs her with divinest passion.
To motherhood she will bring common sense -
That most uncommon virtue. She will give
Love that is more than she-wolf violence
(Which slaughters others that its own may live).
Love that will help each little tendril mind
To grow and climb;
Love that will know the lordliest use of Time
In training human egos to be kind.
She will be formed to guide, but not to lead -
Leaders are ever lonely - and her sphere
Will be that of the comrade and the mate,
Loved, loving, and with insight fine and clear,
Which casts its searchlight on the course of fate,
And to the leaders says, ‘Proceed’ or ‘Wait.’
And best of all, she will bring holy faith
To penetrate the shadowy world of death,
And show the road beyond it, bright and broad,
That leads straight up to God.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Well that’s enough for today, I have a lunch to cook, a log- fire to sit by, a Sunday paper to read and more writing tasks await.

I hope you have a great Sunday!
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait

Quite by Chance

I have spent a long time this morning just surfing around, seeking for you you a song and a picture and maybe some words, just bits and pieces that might brighten your day.

So it's just a bits and pieces post today.

Cara Dillon won an award at the Folk Awards 2010, I love her voice and own one of her CD's but I couldn't decide on a favourite song of hers to post for you. Then I thought of Paul Brady who I also love and started looking for a song from him. What should I find quite by chance but a song with Paul Brady singing with Cara Dillon and a song that I love so. I hope you enjoy it too, it is a shame that video is a wee bit dark colour-wise... but the voices light it up don't you think?

The Streets of Derry


After the morning there comes an evening
And after the evening another day
And after a false love there comes a true love
I'd have you listen now to what I say

I swear my love is the finest young man
As fair as any the sun shines on
But how to save him, I do not know it
For he has got a sentence to be hung

As he was marching the streets of Derry
I own he marched up right manfully
Being much more like a commanding officer
Than a man to die upon the gallows tree

"What keeps my love so long in coming
Oh what detains her so long from me
Or does she think it a shame or scandal
To see me die upon the gallows tree"

He looked around and he saw her coming
And she was dressed all in woollen fine
The weary steed that my love was riding
It flew more swiftly than the wind

Come down, come down from that cruel gallows
I've got your pardon from the king
And I'll let them see that they dare not hang you
And I'll crown my love with a bunch of green

And here is something visual to complete the mix. I stumbled across this artist while surfing, quite by chance...but then nothing happens just quite by chance does it?

Bolus Head

The Kerryscape

Killorglin,

All paintings of County Kerry, my mother's homeland.

Quite by chance Killorglin was the town nearest to her home.

Jay Mulligan is the artist
http://thespilledpint.com

Ireland has been calling me this week and quite by chance I caught a snippet on the Welsh news last night that the Swansea to Cork ferry is at long last opening up again. I am thrilled because it means I can now be in County Cork quite quickly and painlessly. (I hate flying). All it takes is a not-too-long drive to Swansea, an overnight sleep in a cabin and then I am there, landed in my favourite Irish county.

I am a little late posting this as I had, quite by chance, a visit from my beautiful daughter

and my equally beautiful granddaughter who is one month old now.

I spent a couple of hours cuddling her, what more could I ask?

A perfect afternoon.

The day is not over yet, what may yet be about to happen, quite by chance?

I hope you have had a perfect day too, if not there is always tomorrow.

Look out for happiness, it can come quite by chance.


Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait

War on a Whim

 
War on a Whim

A Recipe


Do not entertain any alternatives to war.

Be polished; hone your obvious acting skills and make sure you are always well-rehearsed.

Mix up one full pail of pride and lace it with wishes for a future sense of achievement  and national greatness.  Madness helps.  Believe in yourself.

Convince yourself that 9/11 was instigated by Saddam Hussein.  Or rather convince others  - you have already convinced yourself for the sake of convenience.

Spice the lies and sex them up as much as you can over the few months leading up to the invasion.

Keep the 45 minute mantra going, it will persuade the weak and scare out living daylights.

Hold private meetings away from Cabinet, exclude those in opposition to your plans.  Some will resign anyway, some will die.

Disregard all international legal experts and most senior civil servants when they say military action is contrary to international law.

Override the rules of the United Nations Security Council at all stages.  Call them ambiguous.  Ignore the fact that there is no legal basis for regime change and send in the troops, however ill-prepared.

Play down any mass protests on the streets of Britain and abroad.  People must not believe in such a thing as a democracy.  Ignore all protest, your self-belief will hold the cake together, however fragile the base.

Come the invasion.  Label it with shock and awe.  Be macho. Swagger alongside the Bush man with your coat off, hands in pockets and shoulders wide.

Talking of Bush, keep all your correspondence with the man forever out of the public domain.

After it is cooked, ignore the burnings.  Play down casualties, especially civilians, women, children and babies, young boy soldiers… and their mothers’ tears.

You will have to keep this up for years and years.

And years.

At any possible future enquiries spend your time arguing over pieces of paper.  Bring your professional skills to bear here.  You are so good at this you could win an Oscar. 
Again ignore the tears and the anger of bereaved families by so doing.

Never feel, show or admit regret (this will come easy to you).

Remember that the law is always the law except in an imperialist’s war.

Above all never mention the O word (OIL).

Cait O’Connor 2010

Another Good Read

Dear Diary,

Two things. First is a poem that I promised to post for the wonder that is Willow and then a book review. Well not a proper review, just a little mention really.

First the poem by a much loved poet Czeslaw Milosz

On Angels

All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe in you,
messengers.

There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems.

Short is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.

They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.

The voice -- no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightening.

I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:

day draw near
another one
do what you can.


Czeslaw Milosz


And now the book.

Guernsey is a place I have visited only once but it left a real impression on me and I loved it. My brother-in-law and his family have lived there for many years, they are lucky so to do. We spent a holiday staying with them many moons ago.

My son was conceived there and he is a young man now. I always remember the feeling I had as the boat set sail from Guernsey back to England at the end of our holiday - I just knew that I was ‘with child‘. So it holds fond memories for me. Apart from that it is a beautiful island; it is genteel, quiet, full of gorgeous bays, magical coves and pretty countryside. Island life is very appealing to me though some say it can be claustrophobic. I guess nothing is perfect.

Enough about me and Guernsey; it is a book I want to promote. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. You may have already read it as it is not a new one but if you haven’t I would like to recommend it to you.

It is our library book group's latest 'book of the month' and we meet in a week’s time to discuss it. I must say that I am very grateful to the person who put it forward. Someone else had suggested it to her and I find that word of mouth is always the best recommendation. I had picked the book up before in the library but not been tempted. This has happened to me before, with The Secret Life of Bees for example - that was also recommended to me (or rather forced upon me!) and it also turned out to be another must-read book. I digress.

When I finished the Guernsey book I was bereft. I felt I had left a host of close friends behind and I had that awful feeling ‘What can I read now?’ Nothing will live up to this, And the author Mary Ann Shaffer died a few years ago so there will be no more of her writing to look forward to and she has written nothing else in the past.

I turned again to Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka, a book I had put aside for a while, I had been enjoying it very much prior to switching to the Potato book (I call it the Guernsey book or the Potato book for short). But now Caravans was really too harsh and depressed me greatly, so much so that I couldn’t read it - the description within of the lives and deaths of battery hens didn‘t help. I have put it aside for a time in the future when I am over my too recent literary bereavement.

Mary Ann Shaffer wrote her novel as a series of letters sent to and fro between the characters in the story. It builds gently and softly, layer upon layer and you get to know and love each one of the people purely through their correspondence. As a would-be writer I love this kind of writing. I always love books that are constructed from letters or diaries I won’t give much away as I think it spoils a book to do so; I would like all to unfold for you as it did for me but I will tell you is that it is based upon the story of the Nazi occupation of Guernsey during World War II and a literary society that was set up by a few islanders during that period. It is informative, well-written, light of heart, uplifting, romantic and very moving, everything one needs from a novel. A perfect read really..

So that’s all, if you haven’t yet done so, do read and enjoy.

I started with a poem by Milosz so I may as well fnish with one. It seems appropriate somehow.


And Yet The Books

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.


Czeslaw Milosz

Bye for now,
Cait

PS What are you reading?

A Home

Dear Diary,

My little Welsh cottage is writing today.

(She writes in Welsh but I have translated).

I am of the riverside, Ty’r Gof is my proper name which means 'home of the blacksmith'. My other half, the Forge is set apart but not far away. Happily I nestle not too near the water’s edge, I know her moods too well and am always prepared for those rare days when she can quickly roar, flood and turn against me. There are sandbags at my door.

Do come and visit me. Everyone says I have an aura of calm and I will surely welcome you in like a long lost friend. The locals used to call me 'little house' in Welsh for I was not much more than a cabin once, if truth be told, but I have been added on to overtime and always very much loved. I am built of river-stone, no-one knows my age but it is over two hundred years at least. A road of the Romans is in my pastures, I may have dwelled here before but in some other form, a past life is highly likely.

No word like property defines my soul (I am a home) and there are no en suites to be found. My mistress would not allow the words master bedroom over my threshold. She is a feminist and she is rather eccentric She cares not that all about me is offbeat and quirky, all is small. But I do have a big heart (but then between you and me she does too).

I am built of ancient heartbeats, there is buried silver in the ghosts of passed children’s laughter and the sound of the blacksmith’s anvil breathes in my rough-hewn walls.

My kitchen has walls of deep red now, she is like a scarlet woman who comes into her own at night. Her bare wood shelves spill over with staples and pots and pans hang over the cooker. Everyone and everything is just comfy here,not grand but comfy. It is a place to eat, to watch birds at the feeder outside the window, to mull and to moodle or to lose oneself in music or the radio, to cook even and to maybe bake a poem from a dream.

My tiny snug is rough-ceilinged but walls of gold adorn her and the view past the river is of an ancient wood. A very old Rayburn lives here. She is an easy-sleeping and a peaceful reading room, I cast a spell on all who enter here as I sit upon a magic spring.

Come into my parlour where fairy lights adorn the walls and crystals dress the windows - like dogs they are not just for Christmas for the angels love them all year round. They love my bright colours, candles, music too.

My bedrooms have not much room for more than a bed of brass with patchwork thrown across them but there is a vast patchwork of green without for the tiny windows open on to a river-view, the tops of the pine trees and a field with hills beyond.

My garden is still sleeping but as if from a dream has been reluctantly emerging from the deep snow which adorned her for weeks. She was beautiful and magical then, I miss it so, we made such a pretty pair. And now she is just a soggy mess. But Spring is nigh and I promise to show you round her then when she is looking her very best.

For now she must not be disturbed……..

Remind me, do.

Bye for now,

Ty r Gof.xx

Haiti

Go to this blog, Poet in Residence for a brilliant idea, spread the word.

Meditation

Each day I climb my hill to meander through a wood of oak

but I cannot see much below me on this grey December morning.

All is shrouded in silver and even I am lost in meditation,

dry-wrapped in a white and frost-ridden silence

which seems holy and most soothing

for it dulls the senses and muffles tears

with a sound that is something like Peace.

Its soft blanket of comfort embraces and protects me,

over and over till I am warm and safe again,

snug in its womb-like cocoon.

It is starting to clear now and

I believe that with its inevitable lifting

will come a dissipation and true inspiration,

a renewal,

a different view of things

and warm, warm sunshine.



©Cait O’Connor