Now this is a book review! How To Live As One

If you help one person, the book was worth writing.

I can’t tell you how happy I am. How restored too! I was approached at work today, by a woman, completely elated to see me. She said I’ve just this minute put down your book. For a split second I thought she might have the wrong person!

She went on to say I looked at it there for sale 3 times and thought to myself what would I want with a book like that? Then, on the fourth occasion, she thought, at ten euro, what harm could it do? She said it had changed her life. She often dipped into it. She said ‘it really is about remembering that we’re all one.’ ‘I’m through things that I never thought I’d get out of. I’ve no bitterness, only recognition and still lots of love and hope. She said ‘there were bits when I first read them that I thought, this one (as in me!) is for the birds, no way I’m doing that. But then I went back and tried it and it has completely changed my life. I came to your talk in the library, she said, so I knew how to use the pendulum but I knew that night that I’d have to keep going with it, for it to work. 

I’ve worked through the whole book. She really wanted to impress that on me …that this wasn’t just an enthusiasm as she’d bumped into me. She ran back to her car to get the book to show me and there was a well-thumbed copy, with not just occasional notes in the front but at least 200 words of notes crammed in around each page. We laughed about how brilliant it is to keep growing, for insights to keep rolling in, alongside every thing we read or experience. We talked about the ripple effect of energy, as you let go and see things differently. 

It was the boost I needed as I’d all but forgotten I had anything important to say. And that whenever I ask what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, I get that it is to write and remind people of the spark of divinity in them and in animals and nature too. To remind people to acknowledge, appreciate and respect it and that that is the way to heal. 

For too long I’d let the doubt creep in, mirrored by endless clients who wanted me to write things for them, Masters theses, legal documents, formal letters, advocacy and maybe to teach someone piano or how to cook vegan or share my little bit of enthusiasm for organic growing… all of them insisting, hoping, or just letting me know in a multitude of ways that they didn’t want to hear any take on what’s really going on energetically (for them, me or anyone or anything) Just not comfortable with that mirror yet, even though I had ideas how to handle what came up to. I used to be sure that these were the real gems I had and I just learnt to keep them to myself… (except for Freya. Thank God for her, the only person always ready in 5D and 3D and 2D (coz usually on the phone) to hear what I’m really on about and how it might be crucial in the bigger picture.

My book on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/How-Live-As-One-Yourself/…/1481184369
Freya Lawton's book on Amazon: The Peace Intention.
https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Intention-Handbo…/…/ref=sr_1_1…

I went on Amazon and was reminded how controversial the book was when I published it - on 12th of the 12th 2012 - End of the Mayan Calendar!! I was interviewed for radio and newspapers on 5 occasions, maybe more and NOT ONE MINUTE OF THOSE INTERVIEWS WAS AIRED or cameos in the paper!! Even though the journalists did their best and loved it. Vetoed from on high!! Which is interesting. 

So then I remembered the lady's opening gambit yesterday, about my book: She said I was brave to write it and brave to write it the way I wrote it. But it wasn't courage or perseverance that time, the book was what they called 'channelled'. I just sat down every day and asked for what I was to write about to come to me. Every time, it came as an exact paragraph. That's why, I suppose, it's an easy one to open at a page and mull it over, in the context of what's happening for the reader.

So I didn't write it, I allowed it through - Like the wonderful dance I had a few weeks ago, I had got ready but I hadn't dared to imagine what my efforts could be distilled into!!
Like, I had an entertaining turn of phrase already, I had done the multidimensional adventure, I had shown up to listen to as many people, places and animals that I could and then came the book. I had hoped that it would sell like hot cakes and I wouldn't have to meet anyone in person any more, just hang out here, in my own sacred geometry world, tuning in to things I wanted to work on, from afar. 

This is a way of working that Freya again validated in her explanation of what needs to happen and what life is all about (Just your average lofty topic for one afternoon!!). She described something along the lines of; we are here to intuit and articulate our own unique understanding of reality. Her example was Bach and his Flower Remedies, all discovered while communing with plants. Not about research or repeating and adopting what someone else said. 

So lets all trust ourselves and get our ideas down on paper, in art, in food, in business, teaching, whatever we do, just let it through from the heart not the head.

Washing Vegetables - The Devil You Know or What The Shops Come Up With

1min Video about washing leeks from the garden

Eclectic potatoes from last autumn, that front variety is truly a pain to wash let alone peel, as there's nothing left after! so just a scrub down is the answer!  

It's sometimes the small things in life that slow us down and put us off...like having to wash vegetables that you have grown yourself, as opposed to getting some Linda McCartney vegan sausages out of the freezer and have to only lightly rinse pre-washed organic potatoes, bought from a supermarket, to cut into organic chips. 

Spinach, chard and purple sprouting broccoli leaves about to be individually washed and checked  for visiting centipedes, baby slugs and snails from the garden!

With my own produce, sometimes only a quarter of the thing is salvageable and it's covered in soil and in a big sense you 'seen where it's been' - like when you caught a slug sliding over it earlier in its growing process.... STILL, persevere! Why? Because it is better the devil you know. A little bug, now all trace removed and rehomed in a less precious part of the garden is much much better than the invisible traces of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, preservatives, taste enhancers, plastics and often cooked to oblivion ingredients you will find in shops!

The non organic apple is shiny and that coating needs to be scrubbed off, using vinegar . The righthand one is from the garden, total perfection in nutrition and texture, if a little tart to the tastebuds! 

Video Update on growing avocados in Ireland

Here at Harmony Hall Bioarchitecture Retreat, Kilkenny in Ireland, I am experimenting with the principle of tree roots liking to communicate, growing avocados and building growing spaces that won't blow away! Oh yes, and will olive trees bring peace on Earth And a glimpse of the hydroponic growing system that might yet take shape, using some old guttering and strips of highly unorganic - looking kingspan insulation

Video update of avocado forest and other mediterranean trees in Irish Biome

Yin Yang, the original raised bed concept, to bring the ultimate balance to proceedings.

"The ubiquitous yin-yang symbol holds its roots in Taoism/Daoism, a Chinese religion and philosophy. The yin, the dark swirl, is associated with shadows, femininity, and the trough of a wave; the yang, the light swirl, represents brightness, passion and growth." John Bellaimey

At this stage I lost the yin yang curve as the second layer of blocks had to overlap! The block laying of the raised bed challenged my back to the extent that I had to lie down for a full month. (Maybe as I followed it with stretching to the splits in a fitness class and then salsa). There are the trusty olive trees though, still depicting the dots of the yin yang symbol

Here the beds were plastered, filled with top soil and planted up but not yet painted. It kind of says it all that most of the jobs in the new biome take hours and hours and hours and it is usually by torch light that I do the last things that I feel just won't wait until the next day!

Feed your pets vegan organic food and then their muck = future soil fertility

Everyone asks me what have I actually been doing at Harmony Hall! That day was part of my experiment in self sufficiency and promoting the vegan lifestyle. If you look closely in the 1st second of this 9 second video, you will see the pipes laid all ready for a water turbine so that when the power goes, I can still spark up the Stanley stove and heat the place and water up, in style.

 Then, of course, there is Legend, modelling the dance floor over the stream and eating some organic pig nuts (One shouldn't usually eat on the dance floor but if all the family are herbivores and eat organic, it means any muck is making a contribution to soil fertility, down the line...that is what I called a win win win. But I didn't tell anyone before the pigs were safely rehomed as I was worried someone might nick them and eat them, themselves!

Stream at Harmony Hall

Also, one third of animal products go towards pet food, so let's change that, whether you're motivated by health, animals, ethics or the environment! This is a recent pod cast about it!

Stitcher mini pod cast about vegetarian pet food alternatives. But I use Benevo as that is deliverable to the door and is organic too!!

The Ethics of Foraging and Canvassing For People Before Profit

Basic ethics of foraging: Take no more than a third, leave a third for wildlife and a third for the plant's regeneration! Wonderful morning foraging in Carlow's Green TD, Mary White's, beautiful meadows - with 80 types of grass in comparison to the 2 types in the sprayed fields around. 

Then an epic afternoon canvassing for People Before Profit's Stephanie Hanlon. I asked each person who answered the door what they needed to happen. Two families were living in the box room of their parent's house. Two aldults, two children each. Al children suffering from over heating seizures and menangitis. A lady who is on a 3 year wait for cataract treatment. It would be under a week if she had 5000 euro.Empty houses promised to one and then given to others. An older lady who asked for 2-bed bungalows so they could give up their 3 and 4 bedroom family houses for the next generation and have less to manage. Everyone agreed that no landlords want HAP tenants not because of their social or financial problems but because HAP are such a nightmare to deal with and landlords themselves are nearly guaranteed to end up homeless or in debt themselves after.

Benefit claimant with broken neck kills himself after being deemed fit for work

One man in his 70s summed it up. What do you think needs to happen? I asked. He said 'The country is lost is gone'....Then as an afterthought, 'I won't be voting party anyway. Fine gael have let themselves and all of us down. Greedy and against the people.'

I adopted a little girl of about 6 and everyone loved Cupid. It was great to speak for a candidate who is keeping it real, will not take any perks, is focussed on housing, health, the animals and the living tangible quality of life matters and is not corrupt like so many of the others.

I can confirm that of people I met trying to rent or continue their existence in Kilkenny even in their own homes, 99% of people have ZERO quality of life, 40% health max, 100% financial and housing difficulty and 101% stress.

My Arrival 20 years Ago Exactly In Kilkenny

Moved to Ireland 20 years ago, on 28th March 1999!!! Thanks Stef and Mike.

1) 'Build it here', the abandoned pony said - where now Harmony Hall stands.

2)'Up for moving to Ireland?' says Stef the person who can do absolutely everything...to the person who believes that absolutely everything is possible!

3) On the ferry, that fateful day, 20 years ago today.

4) 'It's not you, it's me' says he with Heather on the hay bale giving me the elbow.

5) 'You're my favourite of all of them', says Mike to Heather (Malgorzata) as he drives us from London to Foulksrath Castle

6) Padre and Skipper 'love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe' - @good decisions 1) moving to Ireland 2) rescuing these two out of the pound in Urlingford where they'd been born and NEVER SEEN DAYLIGHT.

7) The two recovered and me - Dreadlocks The Time Is Now, by the Gladiators https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAiAdLxltiU

8) Mike and Tom - Two great men still... how men should be!

9) As demonstrated by these ducks: Back in the evolutionary day, the males had to be colourful and us females were just naturally accepted as epic!

10) The original advert when we were living in Finsbury park, North London..thanks for bringing all these photos around this morning, Stef!!!

11) When he says to her 'can we be friends' and she says 'no way' and then 20 years later says, 'Why not!'

Ireland's Live Export' Shame and Pain

What the hell? Stena Line? Irish Ferries? Never shall I darken your doors again! Horrible to allow live export of animals!

Last year 158,000 calves were exported from Ireland. The new Irish Ferries boat WB Yeats will start sailing in March and will sail on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday every second week with the capacity to carry 4,000 calves in each sailing. Combined with the Stena Line shipments going out every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday there could be up to 80,000 calves being exported every month. This is a phenomenal figure. We don't know how many calves are dying during these journeys because shockingly the Dept doesn't keep a record, but out of the handful of journey logs we have seen there have been several deaths. It's not surprising when they are made to go without feed or water for at least 24 hours. (Compassion in World Farming Ireland)

So first things first, when you see the frost on the ground, is to get outside and feed the birds. There are bags and buckets of bird-seed at the farm shop on the Woodies’ slip road and or redmills near the Lyrath. I can’t bring myself to promote Killeen Hill as there’s a mart there and endless animals ferried in and out for people to profit from their untimely demise.

The second thing I hope everyone’s doing daily is their ‘loving kindness’ practice? First send some thought, consideration and well-wishes to a person or part of nature that is of concern to you at the moment – for me this was the animals in laboratories; day in day out being burnt, forced to inhale and injected with various substances to legitimize pharmaceutical companies putting them up for sale. I asked to ease their suffering, despair and loneliness and pray for a miracle to offer them sanctuary. Then focus on some people you love. For me that was my parents today. Thirdly send some kindness and understanding to somebody that you’re usually pretty indifferent towards. For me this was the people in the benefits office. Thankfully I don’t have to deal with them anymore but I still  had them down as robotic and dehumanizing, rather than individuals dealing with their own lives. Then send the loving kindness to someone you positively dislike. Simon Coveney and Quealy’s Meat companies are my two today. 

This process breaks you free from unforgiveness, protecting your heart and helps you move forward in life. I think it comes from the buddhist tradition.