https://blog.compassion.com/purifying-fire-burning-away-compassion-impurities/

https://www.commentary.org/articles/michael-novak-2/the-religion-of-paul-tillich/

A bird taps on our window every day,
Fast as flying leaves whirl in a gale.
But now he perches on the potted bay.
He feels the weather as the blind do braille.

This bird is faithful and I love him dear.
He’s thoughtless as he pecks upon the glass.
I hope he has a modicum of fear,
For who knows when a sparrow hawk will pass?

I see him like a human soul forlorn
Struggling to discern his own true way.
For soon he may be taken by a storm
But blithely he will eat, and after play.

The smallest bird has trust in the Unknown
By his example, our right way is shown

There was a holy place made with the screens
Where lay the old man, trembling into dream.
His face was pale, his nose felt like white ice
An offering on the block for sacrifice.

The sacred place was marked by song and prayer
Made quietly so no-one else would hear.
He held my hand and whispered, please don’t go.
I held him in my heart, as his went slow.

A cocoon made in noisy A and E
A strange place for the Lady God to be.
Deep silence underneath the usual noise,
Pierced only by my child-like singing voice.

I saw his soul, my tears made stiff curtains
Hidden so, I felt the weight of pain.
I felt my heart crack, struck by loss and grief
Death had been there like a silent thief.

His pale face on the pillow seemed to smile
The kindness of strange angels did beguile

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/mar/11/dont-forget-to-floss-the-science-behind-dementia-and-the-four-things-you-should-do-to-prevent-it?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

We are in this boat together
Sailing across the bay.
Some have an easy voyage,
The wind is blowing their way
I wish I could always be sailing
Across an ocean with you
And never reach the other side
though it may be in view.
I want to see the sunrise
Across the dappled sea.
The ripples of the water
Reveal a new world to me.
One day this boat will reach the shore
Unless destroyed by storm
And I shall have to leave your arms
Where I have been so warm.
So just before we get there
I wanted you to know
That I shall always love you
Wherever you may go.

Joy sings now in golden light,
Then after day comes deep,black night.
New moon is rising by grey trees,
The earth is where I want to be.

I want the day,I want the night.
I want the dark.I want the light.
I want to see and to be seen,~
And not to lose my precious  dreams

The sun has set, grey clouds turn black,
The day just gone  will not come back.
I’ll rest in quiet reverie
Until the reaper’s scythe takes me.

And then I drop and mix with dust,
Till worms and beetles sate their lust.
And fall into ten thousand motes,
And dance, in sunlight,  music’s notes.

No more striving ,no more ambition
No more fighting,no competition.
Every particle’s the same
Without even  a unique name.

And, side by side, we all are one,
The lusts of life have been and gone.
We dwell with dirt and grain and sand
At last we’ve reached the Promised Land

My husband was already a very humorous man. I was sitting holding his hand in A and E for 3 hours and he seemed to be concentrating on something

He lifted his head and smiled at me looking very happy and then he winked he put his head pillow and that was it. His pulse had stopped.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/soul-destroying

I was sitting on a plant pot in my grandads old backyard

He used to be a coal miner, so we had a lover birds

Grandad loved canaries I liked little wrens

We’ had few up in Manchester, we had big mills and rain,

Grandad had no deck chairs that’s why we sat on pots

When we went to Blackpool we had deck chairs by the lot

We went to Southport on the train, the sand was like sick dust

The sea was just a mirage, go there if you must.

The people were all friend they called each other cock

If you go there in the morning I wish you you much good luck

I was sitting in the plant pot hiding from the dog

Grandad called her lassie, she died at 6 oclock

Floating in the mists inside your mind

You have no connection to your kind.

Fear cut through the cord that make us safe

We float away we see no sharpened knife

Keeping the eyes blurred is our defence

One that needs no excess maintence

Yet if the lion approaches you and snarls

No fog will save you from his savage arms

Myopia is no aid in jungle war

we wont see the tiger with its claws

Cowards denied Christ he did not fail

Nor did Jonah sleeping in his whale

Floating in your non-existent world

Is safety safe ? Will fog destroy the hail?

 Katherine  beautiful thoughts, childhood, Courage, death, emotion, how to live, images, sorrow, Thinkings and poems, truthfulness, virtue  October 2, 2021 1 Minute

Ah,brother I don’t want you to lie still

No blood to circulate,no thoughts,no will

No help,no humour.jokes no

sharp true eye

From our old shared pram,to live, to die.

I used to do your homework

late at night

Abstract thought to you was no delight.

You wondered over X and y and z

Preferred the shapes of Nature in your head.

I shall retain the memories of the good

You who taught me speech and hate and love

There are superficial trends in our society to encourage us to build our self esteem and to value ourselves… to develop and achieve  a place suited to our talents.. but what is best for me is when I lose myself in something.I was reading an old blog of a friend and was quite absorbed and went into a different state of mind..then I regretted I don’t manage to lose myself enoughb have an adult having much on my mind and being busy.

Sometimes it can happen when we love a person.Sometimes a wonderful landscape feels like home.. other times a sunset across the Irish sea from the cliffs of the Isle of Man where myriad butterflies swirl and float over flowers and rocks.

Modern life, the News,talk,excitement of the wrong sort seem to lock us into  our self and frighten us so we forget the value of finding something in which to lose ourselves and grow as a result. Sitting by a river  fishing,knitting,sewing,a book, many things can elicit this response  And remember how horror filled was the self consciousness of adolescence and how good to forget one’s self being more comfortable and accepting of appearance and image..How to live like a wild flower for a time… and be happy not to be a rose but just a tiny wild geranium or a moderate  sized  gentle pink flower in a arden

.

The pebbled beach on which we walked at dawn
The sun was dancing singing stone to stone
The sea was pale as silk and gently ran
The tide was coming in, the day began

Why is my memory so deficient here?
I rem LPember little but you near
I remember Portland Bill at dusk
The sea was wilder then with many thrusts

Happiness was like a golden shawl
A world like Eden, man before the Fall
Today they say, illusion, I say, no
What matters is where this insight makes you go

The fruits of meditation are its test
May we be generous,kind, may souls be blessedS

https://support.google.com/android/answer/7662405?hl=en#zippy=%2Coption-troubleshoot-by-connecting-to-a-computer

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-does-a-mathematician-s-brain-differ-from-that-of-a-mere-mortal/#:~:text=Amalric%27s%20study%20found%20that%20mathematicians,of%20the%20brain%27s%20other%20capacities.

The red leaves in the sunshine seem to smile
A pale blue sky, a silver aeroplane
I’m happy,I am warm, in your arms coiled

I have no heater but the kettle boiled
I made us coffee then my parcel came
My face in the small mirror had a smile

My love is deep, you never were on trial
If we quarrel, we both share the blame
I’m happy,I am warm, in your arms coiled

Our sorrow is, we have not made a child
Jesus cursed the fig tree in its shame
Yet red leaves in the sunshine seem to smile

Sorrow need not madden nor make bold
We do not know the purpose nor the game
I’m happy,I am warm now as I toil

We need old fashioned virtues like restraint
We don’t see the whole as life we paint
The red leaves in the sunshine seem to smile
I’m happy,I am warm, the sea sings wild

Katherinef

Although Stan was 102, he still rode his bike locally  in the summer time.He was out in the garden pumping up the tires before  going off to the Library.Suddenly his neighbour Annie appeared at the gate, without him hearing her feet  tapping on the path of red brick;she was bedecked in finest Scottish tweed with a long pendant on a solid 22 carat gold chain swinging nonchalantly from her neck, with a matching ring attached mysteriously to her upper lip.

“Who’re you, the Lady Mayoress” he joked.
Where’s Mary?” she pointedly whispered.
”She’s  with her widowed sister Joan up  in Scotland ” Stan admitted nervously, unsure of her reactions.
”Joan, that’s not a very Scottish name!” Annie joked.” Anyway how about we sit down here on this bench for a moment”.She pulled him vigorously towards her.

Stan responded regretfully
“I’m afraid I can’t stop.I have all these books overdue and the library shuts in 15 minutes
.”Don’t worry, sweetheart”, she cried un-contemptuously.”I’ll pay all your fines.I’ve just come into loads  and loads of money.”
“Oh, how’s that.my angel” Stan murmured. “I  shot Bert.If you help me to get rid of the evidence, I’ll share the loot with you.”

At the funeral, Annie was dressed in a beautiful dark brown suit  with a black trim from Jaeger.She went around the room making sure everyone had enough food and drink.As she leaned over towards Stan her heavy gold locket, inside which was hidden the bullet that killed Bert, swung over and hit Stan a glancing blow on the temple.
Stan fell to the ground
.”Do you think we should ring 999?” someone asked sarcastically.Within minutes, paramedics arrived.
“So, is it that chair again?” they clamoured.
”Yes, this foolish old man fell over and the leg came off my  brand new antique chair.I’ve only had it a few days and it’s not insured.”

“Did anyone ever tell you, your eyes are like deep pools in the Saragossa Sea?”  Dave, the paramedic whispered into her right ear.
“Have you still not finished that Creative Writing Course?” Annie shouted.””I’m getting tired of you admiring my eyes.What about my nose?””

“Has anyone ever told you, your nose is the shortest they’ve ever seen?”

“That’s a bit boring” Annie retorted.
”Yeah, maybe I should change to Art,” he ruefully moaned.”I love the way your deep blue and turquoise eye shadow is melting around your eyes and running down the sides of your nose.”
“Hurry up and fix my chair, and while you’re about it, you may as well take Stan down to A and E for a head X-ray.”
Glancing furtively at Annie in her Jaeger suit with carefully contrasting deep coral blouse and opaque teal blue 80 denier tights with 6 inch stiletto heels to complete the outfit, not to mention her raspberry coloured bra which clashed violently with the coral blouse [which alas was more transparent than she realised], he picked up a hammer and began,excitedly,to mend the broken chair.
”This is what life is all about, my boy” he thought.One day I will  be just where I should be.Right here.With her,alone!

Little did he know the true tale, that Annie had murdered her husband merely because she felt very  bored.
Boredom is dangerous.If you are affected why not go out and look at some hats? Why not take up drawing. is now online

Microsoft Paint

Katherine fiction, humor, love, nonsense, reflections, sonnet, 

Soft corns,blisters,hard corns and toe nails
Ankle socks and stockings, tights and  boots
Cover up the wounds with dressings white
Put  your feet up, rest  by  doing nought

Skin so thin it frightens me  to think
All I am  finds boundary just here
Yet our heart and soul can  contain  more
Spreading like a shawl on loved ones dear

We cast our love like fishers cast their  rods
Not too sure  of what will take the bait
A   simile  so poor I blush bright pink
For love  seeks not to prey but rather waits

Across the entire world the hate runs wild
 Bleach your brain , don’t poison  with  your smile

It Jesus Christ and his mother Mary and father Joseph had arrived in a dinghy on the south coast the Home secretary would have sent them to Uganda. And if God were there

Would they have sent God to Uganda?

Well since God is everywhere he’s already in Uganda.

But 2000 years ago aeroplanes did not exist

Why,is it a long way to Uganda?

Where do you think it is is?

I thought it was one of the Shetland Islands.

In that case why are people from Uganda black?

Well it can get very hot in Scotland.

Is it doesn’t make sense because we are further South than Scotland and we are not all black

And Africa is further South than England and most of them are black.

This form of argument is clearly not very satisfactory. A lot of people in Britain believe that Uganda is an island off Scotland that might be why Suella Braverman gets away with her proposals. But I don’t think she really thinks Uganda is in Scotland.

I didn’t know she went around making proposals. I thought she was already married. Does she come from Uganda do you thinj?

What a racist remark. My newsagent came from Uganda because they were afraid of idi Amin

I’m sorry but I didn’t realise it was racist to mention Uganda

What about Uganda?

Strangely before the Germans killed the Jews they had wondered about sending them to Uganda. It’s understandable but Jews are not black. And Uganda was and probably still is very dangerous place to live for anybody.

Some Jews are yellows and they live in China.

What a remarkable coincidence. Can they speak Chinese

Yea they realised that’s Hebrew is not spoken by many Chinese people.Nor are Jews born speaking Chinese even when they’re living in China yet Chinese babies speak in Chinese. It’s all very puzzling

Well the Hebrew alphabet is easier to learn than the Chinese alphabet.

It’s one thing learning the alphabet but it is another to speak the language.

Just think most people in Britain didn’t know the alphabets until the last 200 years. They could communicate with each other really well. They could speak English perfectly

And when they learnt the alphabet they could read the Sun and the Mail.

What a great step forward for humankind. They couldn’t read the Moon though.

Don’t start talking about horoscopes.

Surely it’s the planets that count.

I can’t!

Very intelligent people can’t always count

Perhaps they were born before numbers were invented

I never knew numbers were invented

Well have you ever seen a number when you been out walking or when you been at home with your beloved.

Are you telling me that numbers are not real?

They are a product of our imagination starting off from the need to count your goat so sheep when the human race we came agrarian rather than Hunters gatherers.

But even Hunters would need to count the number of animals that they had caught unless it was only one or two

So the development of a number system which took hundreds of years then became something that anybody could use The symbol 0 zero is believed to have been invented by Indian mathematicians and I believe that when they traded it wasn’t only spices and silks and all sorts of goods but also ideas will travel. Maybe that’s why Marx believe that everything was economics.

In a very real sense everything is economics

zero

God is not the cold condemning Judge

He is a Golden Light,he loves us much

We meet him in our agonised despair

When doubts have killed us like the lack of air.

He will warm us; we can live again.

Despite the suffering and the intense pain.

He will come to us in tongues of flame.

Mysterious fire,oh love without a name

For so long you loved and imitated me

Then we were students at the university

Without you, I won’t feel like anyone

To whom shall I turn when you are gone?

When you’re the one who shared my infant bed

When you’re the one who treasured what I said

When you’re the one I soothed in the dark night

When you are gone there can be no more light

When the moment comes,I must believe

For trees shall weep their leaves as if bereaved

Then will my sister heart with sadness heave.

Oh do not do not ,do not ,do not leave

I came to see you leave, it was well done

I saw your faces blurred and indistinct

My eyes were full of tears I had to blink

Where I looked again the train has gone)

Kindertransport helped you to survive

I hope the children in Ukraine will live

I’m a ghost there’s nothing I can give

But tell you that my children are alive

My children have got children of their own

They live in in English towns, they play their games

English both in manners and names

Jewish in the blood and in the bones

I float away to join the other lost

I died and now you live, at what a cost

For so long you loved and imitated me

Then we were students at the university

Without you, I won’t feel like anyone

To whom shall I turn when you are gone?

When you’re the one who shared my infant bed

When you’re the one who treasured what I said

When you’re the one I soothed in the dark night

When you are gone there can be no more light

When the moment comes,I must believe

For trees shall weep their leaves as if bereaved

Then will my sister heart with sadness heave.

Oh do not do not ,do not ,do not leave

Your face is etched upon my heart.

I knew you in the morning light

Love is wise but never smart.

We have no need of others charts

In the mornings and the night

Your face is etched upon my heart.

As we waken sleep departs

To see your face is my delight

Love is wise and sometimes smart

Intuition, craft is art

Love is silent, hatred fights

Your face is etched upon my heart

Human Love can see in part

Face to face we’ll see aright

Love is wise love is not smart

Your face is etched upon my heart.

Love is wise but never smart

Is love blind? Who etched the lines?

Sacred, human, love is kind

What to me may seem a worthless weed 
Bears its little flowers to create seeds
Thus  it spreads itself as Love requires
Humble speedwell,hear of our desires.

In the pavements cracks were home to grass
The sidestep slabs were broken like thick glass
When heavy frost came, rain formed frozen pools
I trod in them as I tore up to school

The crackling ice, the mist dropped on the park
Our ginger cat, the trees, the dog that barked
Our mother in the kitchen making tea
The oven by the fire, the big door key

Little signs spark  tender memories
The future  fiction, gone the  past abyss

http://uk.businessinsider.com/stephen-king-on-how-to-write-2014-8?r=US&IR=T

1. Stop watching television. Instead, read as much as possible.
If you’re just starting out as a writer, your television should be the first thing to go. It’s “poisonous to creativity,” he says. Writers need to look into themselves and turn toward the life of the imagination.

To do so, they should read as much as they can. King takes a book with him everywhere he goes, and even reads during meals. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot,” he says. Read widely, and constantly work to refine and redefine your own work as you do so.

2. Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you can deal with.
King compares writing fiction to crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub, because in both, “there’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.” Not only will you doubt yourself, but other people will doubt you, too. “If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all,” writes King.

Oftentimes, you have to continue writing even when you don’t feel like it. “Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea,” he writes. And when you fail, King suggests that you remain positive. “Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”

3. Don’t waste time trying to please people.
According to King, rudeness should be the least of your concerns. “If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered anyway,” he writes. King used to be ashamed of what he wrote, especially after receiving angry letters accusing him of being bigoted, homophobic, murderous, and even psychopathic.

By the age of 40, he realized that every decent writer has been accused of being a waste of talent. King has definitely come to terms with it. He writes, “If you disapprove, I can only shrug my shoulders. It’s what I have.” You can’t please all of your readers all the time, so King advises that you stop worrying.

4. Write primarily for yourself.
You should write because it brings you happiness and fulfillment. As King says, “I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”

Writer Kurt Vonnegut provides a similar insight: “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about,” he says. “It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.”