tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3730373179178483272012-02-15T08:12:30.647ZA blog from a writer who is agnostic in the fullest sense, so the blog involves an exploration of choice, morality, decision based on motivation (or, more often, its absence) and the flickering existence of the hope or desire that the need to communicate can overcome all the shortcomings of ability or isolation. It would be good to know of others who also experience this, though my manifestation of doubt might be more extreme than most.Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.comBlogger391100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-28120249231819396402010-04-28T07:11:00.002+01:002010-04-28T10:46:35.182+01:00

I think it was a viper. My tongue went numb. I knew I had to keep still but panic rose as though my entire cellular structure had run amok and mutinied so that there was no longer a common goal, only attempts at individual, sub-organism survival. I wanted to scream, to talk to someone. I suddenly realised that there had never been someone there for me who I could talk to, that I'd always been

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-47647523926451614242010-04-18T08:08:00.002+01:002010-04-18T08:20:14.497+01:00

Alvarez and drugs. What other choices did he have? He was an innnovative boy, wanted to make good, wanted to escape the dire predictions of statistics which saw him dead or addicted within three years of leaving home. He was just a kid. He saw money and he saw white trainers, a car, a laptop, friends, good food, somewhere safe to live. what would you have done? There was a guy in a stetson in a

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-41238928653882951092010-04-13T09:44:00.004+01:002010-04-13T16:25:44.320+01:00

Fragments unedited stories connected Iknow not yet how. Yet here is a beginning to it: in Mexico, a boy has found a way to smuggle drugs under the belly of his pony. He crosses the line six times before he is caught. Alverez. The country of the mind. The dry moonscape, always in the dark. Always hunted. His little moments of triumph and grief. He has nowhere else to go but here, crossing and

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-49021160220845991612010-02-25T21:58:00.004Z2010-02-25T22:06:02.045Z

Oh, dear. In a moment of madness, I flung my idea that we need to reform the education system and elicit change so that children learn to think and respect for nature becomes a central pivotal notion from which ecological notions of community and economy will evolve. Now I see it's a business venture. They want me to keep most of the idea 'private'. Fuck that. Fuck the fuckers who think that it

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-2836400299121148872010-02-24T16:07:00.003Z2010-02-24T16:16:25.874Z

Years and years I went without getting significantly ill, apart from the sickness I imposed on myself 'from above', as it were, through my mental tortures, my, 'too fat' squidge of a layer of skin between fingers leading to 'too weak' and the gorge filling the abyss, the numb throb of heartbeat, pointlessly underpinning the rhythmic thrust of fingers into throat. Now my heart's arhythmic and

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-48341175591263531162010-01-28T12:32:00.002Z2010-01-28T13:01:24.488Z

Someone said to me the other day, you don't have a typical approach to ideology. You seem to contradict yourself: on the one hand, you are egalitarian; on the other, you're an elitist, in the sense that you think that you need a certain amount of education to appreciate art or asthetics. On the one hand, you're into self responsibility, total responsibility for your actions, on the other, you

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-12252432019498160972009-08-18T13:39:00.002+01:002009-08-18T13:42:17.566+01:00

All Rights are Reserved on the stories published below. Reserved for me. This is my little field and I'm putting a fence round it. Work is ownership according to Locke, so since I worked on this, this must be mine. Or must it? Is it just me, dipping into the zeitgeist? I can't see how my stories might be able to help someone, but if they did, would that person then owe me their gratitude? It

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-81217702979585656132009-08-18T13:38:00.001+01:002009-08-18T13:38:54.598+01:00

Mind's EyeI saw the body while it was still alive but by the time I reached it, it was still. I breathed into it, willing the chest to heave, but only a long cloud of seawater shot like an unplugged geyser from the man's throat and after that, a kind of gaseous exhale, like the smell of paintstripper or acrid ashes. A blessing, I began to believe, as I dragged the corpse up behind the dunes.

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-79743693940486601112009-08-05T08:16:00.002+01:002009-08-05T08:21:15.872+01:00

I don't know about the rest of you but right now, the work situation is not good, by which I mean, there is none. I don't know how we're going to survive. My husband, at least, has some work, and I am looking for whatever I can find, and seeing if I can fight existing employers for appalling working conditions. In the meantime, I seem to have a little more time to concentrate on the kids and the

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-45541065190314065472009-07-30T06:44:00.002+01:002009-07-30T06:50:19.472+01:00

I wake up some mornings to feel the whisky oozing out of my skin. I say, I'm going for a swim and head, headache notwithstanding, for the sea. I park. Get out into whatever weather - usually colder and windier than is comfortable - climb the gate (elegantly, given my state), trudge up the hill through clover and burdock, sea holly, thistle, coltsfoot, gorse, and tumble down somehow through a gap

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-8209753246371556992009-07-07T09:00:00.000+01:002009-07-07T09:01:11.433+01:00

Hi,I've just signed a petition urging the world leaders to support an ambitious, fair, and binding global climate treaty -- and specifically for Canada, Russia, and Japan to sign on to a global warming goal of less than 2 degrees centigrade at the G8 summit this week. Please sign the petition here, and the campaigners at Avaaz will deliver it to leaders in Italy: http://www.avaaz.org/en/tcktcktck

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-86803783898615758342009-07-07T08:46:00.002+01:002009-07-07T08:58:11.268+01:00

Shurely shome mishtake, I wrote on twitter the other day, when some newscaster described a hurricane with winds approaching 40mph. 140mph I think they meant. We rarely get that much wind here, but we do frequently get winds of up to 100mph, and sometimes over - OK, not frequently, but at least 6 times last winter, and I fully expect climate change to increase that frequency. Depression is a funny

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-19016040722505818802009-06-25T10:59:00.000+01:002009-06-25T11:01:03.007+01:00

Mark Garavan asks, 'What benefits there are for the country because this is another aspect of the selling of the project? It’s being projected as something that will have benefits for us all but when you analyse the situation properly there are actually no benefits for the country. It’s not even as if there will be some. There will be gas. There is no problem with gas supply. Two weeks ago a new

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-10919630628039961482009-06-21T10:49:00.002+01:002009-06-21T11:02:58.555+01:00

Iran. Corrib. Parallels? Police with batons and protestors with banners. Anything else? I don't know. The whiff of corruption from somewhere - but where? So hard to tell. Social unrest. Individual unrest. So depressed myself and knowing how that swings into rage, I am reluctant to judge. Mary Devins, on the other hand, is not. I would like to know what principles she applies when judging the

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-47758462794686446972009-06-14T13:10:00.000+01:002009-06-14T13:12:38.637+01:00

The Waiting RoomChapter OneIt is happening now. It is raining. Or perhaps the sun is coming up, or you are caught in the middle of a fine afternoon in June. The sky has clouded, just as you were thinking of going out, or the storm has forced you in for the last three days. The weather makes all the difference, doesn't it? Doesn't the weather make a difference? Doesn't it matter to you? Does

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-4998852927249716012009-06-10T11:22:00.003+01:002009-06-10T11:34:56.164+01:00

Do you take the view of a strong determinist, that what we see around is the effects of physical laws working themselves out? Or do you take the weaker view that there is choice? Without choice, of course, there's no morality. NVC practitioners seem to believe that there is no need to blame or criticise. You had a faulty upbringing, therefore there is no freedom for you to have chosen which way

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-26311832431970384762009-06-10T11:14:00.003+01:002009-06-10T11:19:28.146+01:00

What's the link between non violent communication and free will?If we can predict the possible consequences of behaviour, we can choose, in the sense that we can become inclined to, do that which is most likely to have an outcome we would like. Soft-wired behaviour... see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LE4uu49SU8&feature=related. So non violent communication is an attempt to open up the choices

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-70105918883147853002009-06-10T10:44:00.001+01:002009-06-10T10:47:23.178+01:00

Yesterday morning I found myself under serious pressure to admit to judging, blaming and criticising where I had thought there was a need for some sort of understanding. I hope that NVC doesn't throw out all other systems that have gone before it and rather builds on what is good in each. There are some jobs I wouldn't do, because I think they'd undermine my ethical or value system. Like working

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-58257767082829577832009-06-09T11:51:00.003+01:002009-06-09T12:07:54.182+01:00

Today I went to the sea and stood on the sand looking at cards with things like, 'Feelings (within)', 'Needs' and 'Receiving' as well as 'Judgement, Blaming, Criticising', written on them. I realised that one thing I really lack as a writer is a good sense of observation and/or listening. When I was asked to repeat back what the therapist had said, I could not do it, or at least not word for word

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-80733708690980994232009-06-08T08:49:00.002+01:002009-06-08T08:59:18.997+01:00

I get emails from 'get organised now' and Susan Jeffers, both attempts to get me to look at my life more positively. I don't know that it makes any difference. Sometimes I just stare at the screen, or stand in the kitchen, mouth slack, unable to think of what to do next. The mountain seems steeper, tasks harder to complete. As though I have a boulder in my brain that needs moving. Every part of

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-80087656686936157442009-06-07T21:07:00.002+01:002009-06-07T21:11:22.769+01:00

Watch my former supervisor. She is brilliant. We have a responsibility. Let's do something about it. Write. Contact. Talk about human rights, how they are honoured, for those at the margins. Without this kind of honouring, the entire system we attempt to defend as 'civilised' rots.

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-47167819139595786162009-06-06T12:48:00.001+01:002009-06-06T12:48:52.164+01:00

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-70939025909105689322009-06-05T18:57:00.001+01:002009-06-05T18:59:41.917+01:00

Are you creative or reactive? They're opposites of course. They're also anagrams of one another (I think...)

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-45633375653198264942009-05-31T08:25:00.002+01:002009-05-31T08:32:21.296+01:00

Fortyeight hours on the job. Tired. Miss home. Had to go to church. Went with an open mind. What a load of shit. Magical thinking. If you wish it... I wish for an extension - et voila, on return, I find one??? I don't think so. Still at work so that's all for now...

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-18081796696356213772009-05-27T10:53:00.002+01:002009-05-27T12:06:26.561+01:00

Went to therapy today. All very orientated towards how I feel. How do I feel? Sad. George and Martha: sad, sad, sad. Particularly pathetic in the face of such an intense examination of my own navel. My depression is not me, I hear myself repeat like a mantra. I must not give this dog a bad name. I must see myself as having sides, angles, perspectives, not being wholly consumed by anger or sadness

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-7444353227077678262009-05-26T20:09:00.002+01:002009-05-26T20:15:19.207+01:00

Don't even know how to spell it. Went to a seminar on starting a business in Erris/Iorrais yesterday evening. Suddenly thought, why not crisp up some seaweed and sell it like crisps. Would you buy it? I would. Particularly if it was advertised as something to help me lose weight. Had an eating disorder since 15. Know what it means. But what about the poor buggers who feed on shlouck (Irish word -

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-54775307133860392682009-05-18T19:40:00.005+01:002009-05-27T12:07:21.242+01:00

Synopsis: The Waiting RoomTo begin with, we must have, or create, a sense of entitlement. In order to be able to do anything, we need to have a sense that what we are doing is worthwhile, and that requires two elements: firstly that we believe in the cause, and secondly that we believe that we can, however minimally, contribute to the cause. The latter requires self-belief, that most fundamental

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-21002558582127513422009-05-15T09:52:00.002+01:002009-05-15T09:59:01.029+01:00

Last night, the author of The Pale Gold of Alaska and other stories, a well-known and respected member of the literary establishment, came to Belmullet to give a workshop. I was the only attendee. I'm not complaining. Eilis was wonderful - helpful, kind, supportive, interesting, provocative - but she was tired, too, and I think that might have been partly to do with how little support she got

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-89820947822466130832009-05-13T14:20:00.002+01:002009-05-13T14:27:11.838+01:00

Being here now includes an awareness of an end to this. Consciousness: the knowledge that I will die. That those I love will die. Acceptance of death is the most terrifying, the most death-defying feat I can undertake. Like a shaman, I must be prepared to face all my fears. And overcome them. Or would it be cowardly simply to embrace my fear and then let it go?Non attachment is an interesting

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-45908566990073751132009-05-12T11:42:00.004+01:002009-05-12T12:26:34.418+01:00

Here is something I wrote for you:'All is as ashes in my mouth. Words crumble from thoughts and fall like dust, losing meaning at the utterance. Never mind. No matter.I fell in love twice today, by the way. Thought you might like to know. Once was with a bright, cold, glittering star in his own right, wonderfully articulate, slightly overweight, replete with sensuality and a connisseur: once with

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-43778052623435501592009-05-11T08:42:00.001+01:002009-05-11T08:43:26.713+01:00

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-14811375266194553282009-05-11T08:19:00.003+01:002009-05-11T08:36:35.942+01:00

The mornings are the best. Mood most stable. The insanity of not having done all I expected myself to have done the previous day recedes slightly. Yesterday was difficult. Family matters unresolved and seemingly unresolvable. Are all relationships about power?Played tennis with some Polish people. Went to church (for a while - had to leave in the middle - but my son was in the choir so I wanted

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-51657119227817551692009-05-10T09:12:00.002+01:002009-05-10T09:18:20.998+01:00

Dark energy. I have just been standing on my head, sunbathing naked in the doorway to my hut (well, sorry. But I'm a yogi - of sorts - OK?) Apparently one is not supposed to stand on one's head when one has one's period. It's supposed to cause endometriosis. I've been doing yoga since I was around fifteen, but I only learnt to stand on my head in the last ten years. I've never had endometriosis.

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-1721058877047758222009-05-09T08:57:00.002+01:002009-05-09T09:09:01.170+01:00

Standing in their own reflections on the wide sweep of the meeting of sea and strandtwo blackheaded gulls stand. I bury myself here, in the sand while the sun starbursts out of cloud.The sun burnishes sand to gold, backlights the surf to turquoise and there, like something asked fora black head bobs, stretches its neck and head to a long, inquisitive point, then disappears. The seal (small

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-48983821897587093072009-05-08T14:06:00.000+01:002009-05-08T14:10:02.900+01:00

You do realise, of course, that this is totally unsustainable, this use of the web, the internet, the power and energy it takes, its exponential expansion (of which I am a part). What are we to do? We cannot go on communicating like this. What can we do to cut the energy this uses? We have to find a way to keep what is beneficial but to take responsibility for and mitigate for all the ill-effects

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-18467455559054851932009-05-08T13:58:00.001+01:002009-05-08T14:04:22.847+01:00

I'm trying to collect stories about Selkies or even stories relating seals to people in the barony of Erris. My initiating question is, does telling stories change attitudes? I want to see if attitudes towards seals and seal-people, the sea, pollution, and our relationship with the non-human environment is in any way either dictated or undermined by the stories we tell about them, and whether

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-75209331285845384002009-05-08T08:38:00.001+01:002009-05-08T13:28:41.949+01:00

I'm terrified of this being read. It's fine, writing into a vaccuum, either into notebooks or onto endless pages on the screen, but the idea that people might read, comment, criticise, praise or otherwise interact is about as welcome as swine flu. Never mind.That's the nature of the net, isn't it? The need to communicate. I am isolated, therefore I need to communicate. Perhaps if I lived in a

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-57863705461816675092007-01-12T08:23:00.000Z2007-01-12T08:55:16.658Z

The guinea pig has escaped again. It runs around the room like a mad thing. I feel so bad about it being in a cage all the time, I make no attempt to catch it. Shall I sign the MoveOn.org petition against the war? It's stormy again. Fishermen lost at sea. I am beginning to read again. Philosophy. Seems such a long way from life. What goes wrong? Rawls talks about people starting from a point of

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-373037317917848327.post-45323203670799468372007-01-06T08:13:00.000Z2007-01-06T08:30:31.549Z

Firstly, welcome to this blog, whatever that might mean. I hope to provide some thought-provoking material here on matters to do with morality, food, starvation, body image, yoga, sex, love, environmental issues, political corruption, power, sensitivity and art. I will endeavour to check the blog regularly to see if there are responses to what I have written, and I will also attempt to respond to

Lucy Weir Bingham McAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17343104128486404341noreply@blogger.com0