I will walk 500 miles

A photographer came to stay at Dzogchen Beara and we went out exploring one day. He took this picture of me while we were out. He's also working on a project where he's taking portraits of people meditating for an exhibit he's doing in May. I got a chance to be one of his portraits and my mug will be on a wall in Dublin.

I walked to town today. Well, almost. I got an hour into it and a friend drove by and picked me up. But still, I got in some good excercise and the scenery's wonderful. I went into the SuperValue grocery store and was standing in the dairy aisle looking at cheese. There's a lot of Irish cheese and I've found that I'm not that big o' fan of it. So as I'm trying to decide between bitterly strong and something they call "Vintage" cheddar, many people are coming up and reaching past me to get their cheese. One of the men leans over, picks up his cheese and as he's walking by me says "Excuse me, which one of these cheeses would you recommend?" and bursts into laughter. Nice. The sense of humor here is priceless.

Things are going great still. I have today and tomorrow off and I'm roaming the countryside. No wedding bells with my sheep farmer, but something tells me that I haven't seen the last of him.

I'm sorry there's not much to report today. I'm going to take my random purchases and wait for another friend to come pick my butt up and take me back. Ciao

My Future Husband

Now don't be jealous all you single women out there. He's ALLLL MINE!

A few friends and I decided to go to this place called Healy Pass one afternoon. Gary had been out there the day before and said it was absolutely beautiful. He had also met the farmer who owned a lot of the land out there and talked to him for about 45 minutes. His story of the farmer was amusing, but harmless. Well, off we go to Healy Pass and park the car by a beautiful river with a little stone bridge over it. Picturesque. When out of nowhere, this blue beat up Buick drives by us and starts to turn around. Gary says "Uh Oh!". I say what do you mean "Uh Oh!". Gary says, "Well, this is the farmer I met yesterday, and what I forgot to tell you about was that he said AT LEAST 20 times that all he wants out of life is a wife and kids. So beware when he walks up because I'm not sure of how many women he's actually been around.". And wouldn't you know it. He gets out of his car, shakes hands with Gary, BARELY acknowledges our other friend, Lucas, and comes straight over to me. You know how the French kiss on both cheeks? Well, he did that in the form of a hug. He hugged me on the right, really hard, and then let go only long enough to hug me on the left, equally as tight. He then placed himself between me and the guys and began his 100 questions. "Where are you from? What brings you to Ireland? How long are you in Ireland?" Now mind you-there's no time to actually answer any of the questions because he's firing them at me so fast. Not to mention, he has the srongest Irish accent I've heard so far and can barely understand him. At the same time he's looking me up and down, probably measuring me up for the wedding dress he has hanging in his bedroom closet. Just waiting for someone to come along who can fill it. Or WILL fill it. The questions continue. "How do you like Ireland? Do you think you could live here forever? Do you like farms? Do you have any sisters? How many sisters do you have? When are THEY coming to Ireland?". Now at this point, I'm backing up because he's also a very close talker and smells PUNGENTLY like sheep. I'm making eye contact with Gary and Lucas the whole time for help, and they're just laughing. Thanks guys. So finally, I stop the questions and tell the farmer I'm going to go take some pictures, and attempt to say good bye. The farmer turns to Gary and says, "Would you be so kind as to take a picture of us?". He takes MY camera out of my hands and hands it to Gary, grabs me around the waste and presses his head up against mine(I laughed because Mom always makes fun of Tamarra and I for doing that). Gary took one picture and then said " Oh no, the flash wasn't on, I need to take another one." I almost killed him. After the second picture, Gary offered for us to send the man a copy, but he could care less. He just wanted an excuse to hug me. We ended up finally prying ourselves away from him after another session of hugs.

If you look closely in the photo, this man's zipper is wide open and there's a huge hole in his sweater right over it. Another friend back at the Hostel refers to "My Farmer" as "Quick Draw" and said, after hearing the whole days events, "You could be the new EWE!" buh dun bum bum.

So no worries folks. I'm well taken care of over here. If you need me, I'll be over at the Healy Pass. At least I know I have options right?

Did anyone miss me?

Hi Again...I'm back! We've had technical difficulties at Dzogchen Beara, so I'm in town right now in an internet cafe. I guess the way things work here is that they pay for a certain amount of downloadable space a month and if you go over it, it's extremely expensive. Kind of like our cell phones. Well...one of the volunteers here (and NO it wasn't me) was apparently downloading a TON of stuff WHILE streaming american radio and making online phone calls. Every Day! So it was a big hubbub and it all came to a head the day AFTER I downloaded my ONE picture onto this site...nice. I thought maybe I had let in a virus that was eating the info or something. Luckily, the guy fessed up. So, the consequence was no internet for awhile.

Anyway-on to the fun. The other night I hitchhiked for the first time. Don't worry-here it's actually a very normal thing, but as you can imagine, I was a little hesitant to try it. But, as luck would have it, a friend (Niall) and I were somewhat abandoned in town by another friend (Mimi). We had all gone into town for dinner and Mimi decided she was gonna run "around the corner" to a friends' house and come back to get us in a "few minutes". She left her car in the car park (Irish for parking lot)and walked away. After about an hour or so, Niall and I decided to go looking for her. We figured she couldn't have gone far seeing as her car was still at the pub, so we started walking. In the meantime a police officer was driving by and Niall said he'd ask him if he knew where Laura lived (Mimi's friend). I, of course, chuckled and made fun of him for thinking that the cop would know where LAURA lived. And whatta ya know-HE DID! He gave us great directions except for the fact that he said LEFT-when it was really HIS left, not ours. So unfortunately we got lost beyond belief. When we made our way back to the pub, the pub was closed and Mimi's car was gone...nice. It was 11pm and we were 7 miles from town. So we started walking. Niall tried thumbing a lift a few times and the cars just whizzed by. So the 3rd or 4th car coming, I stood right out in the road with my thumb high, and they stopped...on the way up to the center, we talked to the driver who turned out to be the owner of...are you ready for this...none other than...Lovey and Dovey! I asked him if they had names and he said he doesn't have time for things like that. So I told him their names. Fun huh?

Things at Dzogchen Beara are going wonderfully. I'm working my butt off (Really I am) but I'm learning so much and just loving the environment. I've met just the most interesting people and had so much fun. It's not the peaceful, free time experience I thought it would be, but I'm loving it. I've been here a month already, isn't that nuts?

The picture I've attached is of the full moon from my back yard, about 20 feet from the back door. Gotta love it.

I hope everyone is well and I miss you all-Love, me

My day off!

So, I was going to go into town today so I could download a whole bunch of picturess, but it is ABSOLUTELY FREEZING and rainy and miserable today. And seeing as town is about a 2 hour walk from here, I decided to try and get a picture or 2 out of this computer in the woods. This is all you get. It's taken me a good 40 minutes to get this one on here and I'm freezing my tookus off out here in the aluminum can.

BUT! That picture represents my day off yesterday. I wasn't feeling too well, so I decided to stick around here. I went on a short walk and ran into these 2 lovely animals...I call them Lovey and Dovey...they are wonderful. They couldn't get enough lovin' and then went about their day grazing. After lunch I went and lied down for awhile with a cup o' tea and then after dinner I went outside to see the sky. It actually took my breath away. Every night there are a million stars, but last night, I've never seen so many stars. I went down to the meditation garden, where there's less light polution (not that there's much to begin with here), and I lay on the ground surrounded by the Milky Way. I know that might sound corny, but it doesn't even come close to the actual description. I finished off my day off by hanging out in the living room while 3 or 4 guys played guitar and flute for a few hours. It was the perfect day off...

Today however, is cold and rainy, but I still managed to get down to see Lovey and Dovey. They were down closer to the sea today and when they saw me coming down the hill, they came running over and met me at the bottom. I hung out with them until I was almost completely frozen and then decided to finish the job off by sitting out here in this meat locker. I think the rest of this day off will be me with a book and a cup of tea.

Tomorrow, I start my week with a split shift in the kitchen. There's a Retreat going on right now and we have to work a little harder than usual. I'm not a big fan of the kitchen duty. It's a lot of vegetable chopping and washing dishes. But anytime I think I don't like what I'm doing, I look out the window-(one whole wall of the kitchen is glass)-and it's ALL better. You guys will love this, Today the Retreat is in silence, so the whole place has to live in silence...including me.

Love and miss you all-gotta go suffer... :)

WHOOHOO!!!

I wasn't prepared to be able to get onto this site today, so I don't have my notebook with all my funny notes to write about. But thanks to VICTOR, I have a link that will hopefully allow me to get on the site more often. WHOOHOO! THANKS VIC! YOU ARE MAHVELOUS!!!

So, anything good going on here? Well, some things. I am now the senior volunteer member here. Yup, that's right folks-I'm THAT good! Or it could also be attributed to the fact that all the other Volunteers that were here before me, have gone. I actually trained a new volunteer yesterday in the art of bathroom management and bed making...go figure. I was just happy that they found me a sidekick. You all know how much I LOOOVE having a sidekick. Now, if I can only train him to bring me breakfast in bed. We'll see. The power of the MARTZY is awful persuasive.

Other than that, things are great! I'm suffering through with the LOOONG work hours and HORRIBLE scenery. I went on a 3 hour walk the other day and kind of got lost. Of course, my theory is that you can't really get lost if you don't have anywhere to go, right? I made friends with some cows and sheep, I climbed a few fences and crossed a few cow pastures to get to the other side of the peninsula. I came upon the ruins of an old farmhouse by the sea and hung out there for awhile. It was amazing...until it started to get dark and I realized that I was not only nowhere near Dzogchen Beara, but I was nowhere near a ROAD! So back through the cow pastures and over the fences I went, in a mad rush to get to the road before dark. You see, the land here is very deceptive. It looks flat in places, but it's really hilly and filled with these bushes that look soft and fluffy until you fall on one-they are SOLID PRICKERS! So I didn't want to have to feel my way through a mile or so of those bushes-although, that would make for a better story. I made it. It started to rain as I walked back and by the time I made it back, I looked as though I'd been at war or something. It took 2 days for my shoes to dry out and I don't think they'll ever be the same.

So far though, believe it or not, I think being surrounded by four leaf clovers and leprechauns has actually cleared me of my bad luck (I can't believe I just said that), but it's true. I'm still a clutz though. The Irish must all be really short people, I hit my head just about everywhere I go.

Well, that's all folks-I'm outta here and hopefully I can get on this site again soon. I miss all of you-me