Good things

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." 

(opening sentence of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson)

|  Listening to: Eckhart Tolle on youtube. I like that he and Tara Brach, whose talks I also listen to a lot, can be very funny; it lightens the delivery of the content. The Power of Now remains one of my favourite books in its genre.

    In terms of music, I have been playing Anna von Hausswolff's "Mountains Crave" on repeat (I bought the album Ceremony). The church organ can be a bit of an acquired taste - I love what she does with it. Here is an interview with her.

|  Reading: I am haunted (sorry, I couldn't resist!) by Shirley Jackson's way with words (I had never heard of her before; my sister lent me the book). I can't wait to see the 1963 film based on the The Haunting of Hill House and read her other books.

|  Drinking: green tea with lemongrass, my new beverage obsession (also via my sister), the last of 2011's sloe gin in homeopathic doses, and, tonight, red wine instead of non-alcoholic beer. I rarely drink these days - even one glass can make me feel hungover the following day -, but I trust my instinct and will give in to my craving for earthy red (antioxidants and all that).

|  Looking forward to: autumn activities (not restricted to autumn), which will encompass hikes, sauna-and-swim sessions, picking sloes, making ghee, films, family visits, repotting plants, cozifying, gathering seaweed at neap tide (for compost) and a lot of reading.


* The photo and quote are a random juxtaposition - I enjoyed the rainy windy day in Ballyvaughan