have you ever noticed the cyclical nature of life? the way things tend to wrap around, and wrap around and teach you the same lessons in escalating degrees of intensity if you don't manage to learn them right the first time? these last few years (especailly the last two) i have really seen alot of that. the same lessons from different angles, peeling back the layers of protection and exposing the things that need work. the areas you need help in. while i'm here, i am nose to nose with the areas where i am weak. with the things that i will change, and with those little lessons. like this one "let go" or another "how to rely on and live with yourself" or still more "intercourse is not the same as sexual awareness" to quote DH lawrence, "sex is really only touch, the closest of touch. And it's touch we're afraid of. we're only half concious, half alive. we've got to come alive and aware [...] the touch of bodily awareness between human beings." an ideal that i have subscribed to for some time...but this is in truth a different rant for a different time.

there is a similar phenomena in school that again, in another subtle layer, is mirroring the larger life web i was just speaking of. where all the different areas and subjects that i have studied are starting to intertwine, similar to watching wisteria over a long period of time. it creeps slowly, lazily wraps a tendril around a railing, and the next thing you know there are solid, interlocking branches as thick as your forearm. amazing. i am taking literature classes in modernism, and history classes on the second world war that are currently closely mirroring and helping me to understand, not only one another in the context of post industrial disillusionment and loss, but the world i am starting to see around me as i become a litle more aware of my surroundings. and it seems to me that the hope offered in these novels, history texts, poems, are the same then as it is now. that return to "blood conciousness," the natural world, a realization of the body as holy, as the foundation for a new kind of life. and the healthy and natural sexual interaction of men and women as the great primal healing force for a barren world. see Children of Man if you can, it explores this in depth. DH Lawrence and TS Eliot were two writers who were deeply worried about the state of the world after seeing everything around them shattered by war. today, we have grown numb to that horror. after the wound was cut open over and over again, the nerves have been severed, and we no longer see the pain of humanity, we distance ourselves, we hide, we disbelieve. we want so badly to believe in the good things in the world that we are ignoring the bad. this is why education is mandatory, if a flawed system: for the hope that one day, far enough along, the pieces will connect and children (i include myself in this category, for as close to that adult time as i am, in many ways i remain ignorant, a child) can begin to see.

for this reason, i continue reading, and digging, and trying to understand. Education and nature are the foundations for our salvation. to be truely concious, to be truely in touch is a painful, frightening, and trancendent thing.

okay, playing hookey from gymnastics so I can get my bank transfter finalized and finish my resume. soooo while i'm waiting i thought i'd finish posting. cause i'm cool like that. okay, so...this weekend....yeah, so we went out again...cause you do that in ireland...and the next day they took us over to "one of the hidden houses of ireland" basically a tourist place that's tucked away so not that many people know about it. the coolest part was that because kate's family rents some of the land from the people who own this place, we were the only people there, and didn't have to pay. sweeet! so basically, it is a huge park / garden area. this is one of the most lushly beautiful places i've ever been. it's once of those places that takes your breath away and makes you think of midnight picnics with candles, blankets, a bottle of really deep red wine and a special someone in hand. it is unbelieveable, and you'll see it in a second, as i took way too many pictures. i wandered through this faerie wonderland like it was heaven...totally in a afterglow kind of happy moment. so amazing, one of those places that is so earthily holy that it touches you soul and makes it sing. there seems to be so many places like that here. the land is just unbelieveable.

so i'm now back home and trying to fit in a little studying around all my fun. i went to rugby with kate yesterday and dear lord..i have found my sport! this game is unbelieveable. it's a game full of sweepers (soccer position i played...) it's all hard tackles, short bursts of run till your heart stops action and then down time. they started calling me speedy gonzales cause they had us sprint so i did....apparentl;y i'm fast? so i was told i'll probably play wing. for all those nervous family members, that means less contact ^_^ so it looks like i'm going to be doing that, gymnastics cause it's amazing and i get to fly, hopefully volunteer at a hospital as i'm about to go turn in my resume to mercy hospital, and maybe some judo...we'll see if i stay with that. anyways, hope you all are having a lovely time in life, huge hugs!!

hullohullo, I'm back from a fabulous weekend and kicking my own ass profoundly in the best possible way, but first things first, the farm (pictures later i promise! i have to get some from some friends)

this weekend me and a couple of friends (chris, ifer, april and mary beth herafter refered to as mb) went home with our irish friends matt, alistair, and kate to their parent's farm in fuenog (again, i don't actually know the spelling) which is about an hour outside of cork. it was, in a word fantasmagorical. they live just outside of the little town, down the road from michael flatley (if you don't know who this is look him up....think lord of the dance) who was getting married that weekend to their milk farm. first night out al, matt and kate's mum fixed us a glorious dinner, we had copious amount of really good french wine (as well as some "american sludge" from the napa valley, lol) and then went out to the pub down the road. this place was tiny. i mean, tall people beware clean your clock on the ceiling tiny with two rooms, one for tossing hoops (a game that is way cooler than darts) and drinking, and one for music. i (well duh) wandered into the music room like a cat to cream, sat down and listened to the fast fiddle, crazy banjo and guitar, and as people went round taking turns and requests, the whole room singing together, couldn't help raising my voice to james taylor's sweet baby james. this is one of my favorite songs in the entire world. and as the song ended, the man with the guitar right in front of me turns around, tells me i sing like and angel and to quick, pick something i can sing from the book. we do the water is wide and the room stops dead. no joke. it was amazing. this whole room full of people who are there on a friday night because they love to make music together and we all sang and clapped untill it wasn't night anymore. i love ireland.

then went back to the farm, which after living in the downtown city center (which i never really have) was such a breath of fresh air. it smelled like the country, there were deep glowing green trees everywhere, the earth smelled damp, ivy twining around everything, laundry out on the line, the two herd dogs running up after the car and covering you face with shaggy loving dog kisses, scads of farm cats' eyes peeping from behind tractors that are waiting to be fixed and barn doors, and gardens, flowers, everything growing and loving and alive in abundance. i was really deeply happy.

the next day we headed out to see a rugby match, munster versus dublin. now, for anyone who dosnt know. cork and dublin dont.get.along. according to everyone i've ever met in cork, dubliners are prissy, rich, stuck up, materialistic, shallow, snobs. and i havent been to dublin yet, so i can't really speak for them. the match was, needless to say, incredibly entertaining. it got down to 23 munster 21 dublin in the last five minutes, and dublin scored, putting them up at 26...we were dispelased. but the match was amazing, and kate ( who is incredibly fabulous by the way, she's also the only girl after three big brothers) talked me into trying lady's rugby with her, so that will be later today, striaght after which we are planning on marching muddy, buised, sweaty and sodden into choir practice to sing our little hearts out! anyways, after the game kate and i were hankering for some chips (read frenchfries....now who here is suprised?) so we walked thorugh the town to a little takeout place (this is kate, mb and i) and got curry chips, garlic chips, and straight up no nonsence chips respectively and pigged out in front of the store. glorious. the it was back to the farm

we milked cows. need i say more? we went in, cleaned off the teats, had milked each one to make sure they're not infected or anything's wrong, then hooked them up and milked them. so freeking cool! i got used to slapping them good to make them move down, and feeding them to get them to stand in line, and having milk fights with kate (if you aim the teat as you're squeasing, the milk will fly really far...aim takes practice, so much fun) and dodging cow shit (...ew) and god it was awesome. totally messy fun. and i'm looking at the time so i have to get going. but ill write up the rest of our day's after class. that night was just drinks and ten fingers, not too terribly exciting. more to come!

this is really just for seanny, but really i think everyone could find something beautiful in it for themselves... check it out!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/09/13

okay, where was i? right. okay, so we're on the fabulous island of inis mor and get to go on this super cool tour with the crazy gaeltacht (from a pimarily irish speaking area) irishman.
first cool fact, pog mo thoin /pogue ma hon/ means kiss my ass in irish, second cool fact, this was the original name of the irish rock group the Pogues before they got outside of ireland. then the english had issues with the crudity of the statement, and they were shortened from pog mo thoin to the pogues. woo!


okay, moving on to the tour, the picture below is one of three memorials for all of the people who have lived and died on the island. very pretty, and it shows you just how insulated of a community they are, they really do rely on the community for everything, it's really nifty.
the next is one of the seven ( i think...) beaches on inis more, we actually saw some crazy boyos going out to surf the gravel beaches, whoah.


there are over 7,000 MILES of stone walls, built by the celts a couple hundred years ago for the sole purpose of clearning the land enough that they could plant crops. we saw a bunch of walls with pieces missing and animals chilling inside, and what they do to keep their sheepies or goats or any other quadruped really from wandering into their neighbor's yard if the stone fence isn't up all the way is looping them together by the leg (if it's a sheep) with rope, or by the leg and head (for more frisky goats) and the round thing at the top of this picutre is one of the ringforts, an duhronag, where we headed next, it is the inhuman love of my life.

this sign was posted at the beginning of the hill leading up to an duhronag and as you can see, it points toward the rest fo the world, in fact, New York was only 3,000 miles from where we were. and I like the additions by passerby ^_^



the guy there is my friend Billy as we are all climbing up to the entrance. i thought this was a pretty picture, as it shows the steep hill, and really the kind of feeling even walking up to this place gave you. Majestic. It is a ringfort up on the top of a cliff, built by the early celts on the island for shelter, and for meetings.

the cliffs of inis more



as we all look out sitting on the edge of the cliff, i haven't been that happy in a long while. the water was so blue, and so wild, and so powerful, and i wished that there was a way i could jump in and not die. but as there isn't i remain here ^_^ anyways, the wind there was so incredibly powerful, you could atcually stand and lean into it and it would hold you up, it really was something else. a force of nature. An duhronag had pride, and personality, and a fierce love. it was just...ther are not enough words in the english language to describe this. so with one goofy picture of some of my friends:

i'll stop trying (that was Dierdre and Dolker, by the way)
moving, on, the other side (the ring wall side) of An Duhronag:
and on to the rest of the island. The seven churches (there's actually only 3 churches on the island, 3 churches, 3 schools, 3 graveyards....and 6 pubs. tells you what's important eh?)


it's named for seven friars that once were there. and the tour guide sworre that they really didn't tear down the prosetsant churches...they just stopped being used! (the island is now totally catholic) it's interesting though, you drive around the island and see thigns like this all the time, places where most or some of the walls are standing, and ivy and plants are groeing all aorund it, there's remanants of houses in people's backyard, some converted into gardens, some not, like the past is right there living with them. they don't try to make it the present, but it is there nonetheless...
they still use these as graveyards as you can see from the modern headstone, very anachronistic looking ^_^ and all gravestones on the island face east, toward the "holy land" cool.
artsy shot, i really liked this place...
I'm not sure how well you can read this, but that is modern irish ^_^
this guy made enourmous baskets in his front yard as tourist attractions to promote the hand woven baskets he sold further on into town. our tour guide tried to tell us that they were for this special breed of "really bigg chickens...huge eggs!" uuuuhuh...i believed THAT!

anyways, that wraps up most of the galway trip, that and a relaxed night at one of the local pubs seeing the nightlife of Galway, and a really really drunk irishman who tried to convince the five of us to go to this club to dance all night, and the "hen party" complete with women in lingere and flashing bunny ears (no, i'm not joking) apparently having reserved the little room that we all thought we were so clever for having found. as a very well muscled man came in with screaming women arrayed from ages 20 to 40 and started to strip, we thought we had probably been mistaken about our cleverness.... anyways a hilarious night all around ending - as all nights should - with irish frenchfries from supermacs...mmmmm. anyways, there's a couple more pictures, but these really are the very best, so huge hugs, and as soon as my friends post the pic they took on facebook, i'll yoink em and post em here. love, peace, and crashing ocean waves..


~Jean~

hello all,

more pictures from another fabulous adventure. this last weekend I bundled up, and jumped on a bus with a couple of friends headed for galway. one very long sleepy busride later, we rolled out into a beautiful city and headed to the hostel, which turned out to be a little sketch, so i made up some story about us finding a place closer to the bus station to get our euros back from the crazy russian guy running the hostel and we went hotel hunting. now, mind you, there were five of us, so we left three people outside while two of us very responsible looking girls went into about 10 different hotels on a friday night to inquire whether they had any rooms open for friday and saterday night. we finally ofund one that was in our price range (split five ways it came down to about the same pice as the hostel, with the added benefit of doors that locked....) so we got our room key, went upstairs, pushed two twin beds together and threw some pillows on the floor and let in our cohorts through the back stairs, and hustled them into the bathroom when room service came with a whole bunch of extra blankets. (i'm not sure if you're not supposed to put 5 people in a double room or not but the intreigue was fun either way!) a glass of five dollar wine and really really bad irish mtv later, we curled up to the laughtrack of an irish slapstick comedy and went to bed.

early the next morning we rolled out to get on a bus / ferry to the aran islands. now, just to let you all know, i'm going to horribly butcher the names of all of the places we went to. my irish class has not kicked in enough for me to understand how to spell ANYTHING. it was a quick bus ride through rolling hills and endless miles of little stone walls, and a very rough and rowdy ferry crossing, i loved every minute. turns out that while some of my friends get a little green around the gills, i have sailor's blood in me, i stood out the back of the ship right by the rudder, sipped tea with one arm slung around a pole and watched the wake spray onboard. it was fabulous. see?

then we disembarked on this incredibly windy island called inis more.
We rushed aorund trying to find bathrooms, then caught a van tour around the island with a guy who grew up on the island as a crazy juvenile delinquent back when kids had to go to school to learn english. SO COOL. (this guy was about Sean's age by the way, not so dang long ago.) anyways, he drove us along all kind of pretties. the rest of the story will have to wait for a bit, because I am about to be late for class. poo. anyways, many more cool picutres later.. love!
~Jean~

as a disclaimer, don't expect capitalization, or regular punctuation. hey, it was good enough for e.e.cummings, it's goon enough for me!

moving on, i promised to go back and talk about where i've been, so here it is. I flew into Limerick (nicknamed "stab city" i found out later...eeesh) two days before the rest of the group to get over jetlag and get to see the city a little. i wandered the streets, got really frustrated at payphone (and found out that they don't take american phone cards, grrr) was a little homesick, and saw this beautiful place: it's called Saint Mary's cathedral, and it's just this rusticated stone cathedral rising out of a hustle and bustle of painted storefronts, winding roads and car horns. it's not the most detailed picture, but i spent a good bit of time wandering around these raised graveyards with beautiful old mausoleums and angels for headstones. you can feel the age there. i then continued on to see King John's castle (which yes, i know i babbled about quite a bit, but i was excited!) it's mostly been turned into a tourist museum to explain the historical origins of the castle and all that, and the many many times it changed hands. no mention of robin hood at all in fact, probably because King John speant more time in the sherwood forest chasing after him than actually being in his castle in ireland.....anyways, some of the old towers remained, though whitewashed on the insides with little dioramas and wax figures of John himself, with a hilarious voice track of a narrator then john cutting in to illustrate the various opinions about him, maninly that he pissed off everyone everywhere he went. anyways, enough of the history lesson, i just thought it was really cool. as i went out to the castle i got caught in a truely torrential downpour, so here's the only picture that i got:
it was pretty cool nonetheless. mmm, kay, so nexy off, I went with the Butler kids (that group that sent me here) to see Bunratty castle, which is an old castle that they restored a bit and then moved all kinds of period houses and gardens around to show how people in that time period really lived, it was really cool, and my camera ran out of batteries halfways through so i have some of my pictures, and some that i yoinked from my friend ifer.
so i'm going to load you up with pictures then explain them.




okay, so that's Bunratty. From the top, left to right. First Bunratty castle. next is the inside of the great hall, we couldn't use flash so the pictures are a little dark. But those huge antlers on the wall? yeah, those are prehistoric deer antlers that are twice as long as I am tall, that were found preserved in peat bogs, from before civilization when there probably weren't even little brown pictish people running around in the area. think about how freeking big that stag had to be, jesus! Number three on the top is the rebuilt wooden roof of the great hall, they had this firepit in the middle of the stone floor and a hole in the roof for the smoke to go out, and that was central heating. on top of it, this constant flow of smoke cured the wood, super cool. those little angel looking things below the candles are actually angels holding shields, there's a whole bunch of them and i couldn't get a clear picture of it, but the shields have the insignias of the great families in the area whose hands the castle passed through. number four top row is a shot of the throne backlit by a staioned glass window. you probably can't see it, but this castle's walls are now whitewashed, but used to be covered with plaster in swirls and vines painted all kinds of bright blues and golds mainly, royal colors, though an earl sat on this particular throne. there are also spy holes runing into the great hall from the resident preist's quarters, and from the women's wing. women weren't allowed in the main hall to "protect their chastity" form the unsavory charactors who milled around below. they did have a little window at the top that they could stick out their heads and catcall from, though they probably were too proper for that sort of thing. lets see, next row, first pic is this crazy stone goddess who is built into the wall that i thought was cool. she is said to be very powerful and has a scary skull face to scare away evil, specifically protecting mothers and women in childbirth. supposedly if you touch it, within a year you will have twins, or if she can't manage to give you twins you will most certainly have a child within the year...i stayed away and got only a picture. our family is fertile enough thank you. funny thogh, the picture wouldn't come out clearly and i took it about 5 times. heh, anyways, row two picture two is me, and two friends, john (in the foreground) and Billy (in the back) being shut in the dungeon, panic!!! rwo two pic 3 is a room i liked, there were these crazy sea turtle shells and stuff laid out. i just thought it was intersting. there's another one that i didn't take a picture of that had a dead rabbit on display. random. rwo 3 pic 1 is an etched / painted window showing the classic adam and ever, with eve pointing to the apple. i was mostly excited that the picture came out so well, and i thought it was pretty, and i'm a nerd so i think all of those little thematic things to remind the people who walk these incredible death-spiraling tower halls of the perils of going against god's word. funny times indeed. especially amusing ibecause of the pagan stone goddess built into the walls below....i have a strnage sense of humor i'm afraid. row 3 pic 2 is a view form on top of Bunratty castle, the whole countryside rolled out from underneath us, the swollen river shannon, little fishing boats off of the river, more moderns stores, some old looking, everything. it was unbelieveable. for the sake of brevity i left out the classic tourist shot of the butler kids, normal, posed, you know the drill, and a shot of the very tipy top of the castle that they'd gated off, i almost jumped the fence to get up higher but was convinced that it would be a bad idea. and they we're probably right. row 3 pic 3 is this marshy laguna-thing that was beautiful. what this picture unfortunately dosn't show (these are the pictures i stole btw) is one pof the most impressive behemoth's of a plant i have ever seen. it took over the center of this marshy laguna and claimed it, it had to be incredibly old. it had leaves similar in look and texture to a squash or pumpkin plant, but were bigger than i could span stretched out in the d'vinci man pose. it was incredible. row 4 pic 1 is one of the little houses with the thached roofing and one room. someone has a picture of me up in the little kid's loft that i'll get and post, it was awesome. row 4 pic 2 is a tree tunnel!!! it made me really happy. walking around to these houses you got to be totally enshrouded in happy plant life. *sigh* happyhappy, it was amazing, as i'm sure this picture hints at. the last picture is this maze that was kind of in a kid's park like area, there were swings (yes i jumped on, duh) and slides (that were definitely not built for an adult butt) and this maze that i squealed at seeing , climbed on top of and danced / walked on top of. you have to understand, as short as i am, even I could see over the top fo this thing. still, chris and billy and john said it was cheating.....i choose to see it as interpretive maze climbing.......way easier that way that keeping your hand on the right wall or whatever. aaaand that was bunratty. other than that it's been lots of discos, pubs, card games, hanging out and all. this weekend i think i may take a short (as i'm sickly) day trip with soem incredibly cool girls to galway and hopefully the Eryn islands (i really don't know how it's spelled, probably not that way, oops) and there'll be more pictures from that, as when Deirdre and I get together, there are pictures galore. hugs to all, love, and I hope this didn't bore you to death!.


oh, and classes are phenomenally cool...i'll gush later though cause this post is more than long enough!

love
Peace
~Jean~

Hello all!

well, this is a new venue for me, but it seems like fun, thanks seanny for the idea! To start with, Ireland is fantastic. The language, accents, little homey shops that all close promptly at six, it's a place that's none to hard to call home, as much as I miss everyone. I have a little apartment that i share with one other person who is nice, a little quiet, but when our paths manage to cross in our busy scheduals we have a grand time. My apartment looks out over the river lee (the photo of the view from my apartment at sunset is on the other side there, i'm still figureing out how to use this site...) i have some fantastic friends, some of whom live in my apartment building, two floors down, some of whom are about a fifteen minute walk away in another apartment complex called brookefield. I actually just went over there last night for tacos after soccer practice( I just joined the club team, it's fun so far, but might get a little intense...and playing on astroturf KILLS!!! bollux...) and styed there for a girly night of dirty dancing..oh good times. I missed movie parties. tonight will either be a curl up and sleep early night, or (more realistically) another disco night where a group of aboout 10 of us go and dance untill about 2:30 when the discos shut down. The music here cracks me up, they're obsessed with bad 80's music, and the stuff thatw as on the radio in about 8th grade, the amount of times I heared "eye of the tiger" and "backstreet boys" it was beyond funny. And an interesting cultural phenomena on these nights out. See, Irish people in general, and men in particular are very shy. they can bullshit with the best of them, but they won't just come and talk to you directly in geenral, and they really don't flirt, they beg, it's really very funny, and suprisingly affective. Or maybe that's just the accents, all I know is a number of my friends are quite taken. Bakc to the shynes though...you, get about 7 pints in them and all of a sudden they have charm up to the eyeballs (or at least they seem to think so ) and will dance with or ask out anything that moves! it's so funny, i got asked out to dinner after the disco (it was 2:30 am, NOTHING was open) to which i laughed out loud patted the poor lad on the cheek and moved deeper into my group of friend. Ah the Irish. Next up is a week of classes, tonight I'm going to go and look at the choral group and see abut joining the choir, probvabnly go dancing, and try to make it untill the weekend, when I'm going to get on a plane to London!! WOOO!, Anyways, I'll update more after that, hope this finds all of you well. Love,

~Jean~

oh, and on the way i'll update about my first two weeks in the country, where i got to sighsee some really pretty places and all, but for now, more class!
Peace!