Auntie Glenna and Uncle Juergen: Pinehurst, North Carolina

At 9.30pm Tuesday 27^th April after a long drive, being OK’d by the security guard and passing through the gates, we made our way through the lovely little roads surrounded by pine trees and pulled up at Snowdon’s Auntie Glenna and Uncle Juergen’s house, in Pinehurst, North Carolina.  Oh my gosh we exclaimed on arrival - it’s a mansion!  I could learn a few things from these Siregar relatives about creating and maintaining successful businesses and designing gorgeous homes - from my current experience they seem to have some skill in this area and know how to live the high life!  I learned that Glenna is a nurse and cleverly joined up with friends and started ‘caring’ businesses for elder people in both Sydney and London, earning a very comfortable living.  Juergen created a business in textiles, which began with ladies leather gloves and evolved into high tech ski gloves (they have both lead active sporting lives).  He travelled a lot, particularly to Korea.  Eventually Glenna learned German and worked with him in his company in Germany, later Juergen ran the business from Pinehurst.

After a night in a huge king size bed with fully equipped ensuite, the next morning I pulled the blinds to a beautiful view of a bed thick with pine needles with tall pine trees towering over it.  We then dined on a delicious breakfast with Glenna, Juergen (and with son Sven popping in) of peeled orange segments with blueberry yogurt, German pate, and various cheeses on lovely mini wholemeal buns and hard German bread (Juergen is German and they’d spent a lot of their life together there). 

After breakfast we stepped outside on to the patio.  OH MY GOSH! Spread before us was an incredibly tranquil vista.  With my jaw hanging down, my eyes gazed upon a lovely patio area with deck chairs, then to a beautifully manicured lawn and garden, and out onto a calm twinkling pond, with geese and backed by several similar mansions, all surrounded by a very plentiful number of pine trees.

Naturally Snowdon and I migrated outside with books to enjoy the peaceful surroundings, and didn’t move far that afternoon.  Glenna supplemented our already very content selves with fold out chairs and a blanket.  Then arrived soon after with a tray of salmon rice cakes and coffee.  Then again with sliced up pears on flax skewers.  Yum!

Over the next few days we relaxed and chatted with Glenna and Juergen, were given several walking and driven tours around the surrounding towns (some very quaint with cute little shops), marveled at the beautiful area outside and inside (Juergen designed their gorgeous house and Glenna has filled it with carefully selected and well loved antique furniture – including an original Korean butchers table complete with knife chunks out of it), learnt that many of the people in the area play golf all day in the quality selection world class golf courses, we started watching a second Mike Moore DVD of Pauls, ‘Bowling for Columbine’, dined on Glenna’s lovely cooking, caught up on sleep, learned about German delicacies (including veal sausage with sweet mustard for our last breakfast there – yum!). I read a book all about Michelle Obama.  Glenna mentioned that Charleston (Gone with Wind is one of my favourite novels) is several hours south, and I felt like one of the ladies from back in that age living in the Southern States – a lady with all the time in the world to rest, read and dine on delicious meals (minus the corset and pedicoats of course).

On the last afternoon there I sat outside on the porch and posted this facebook status:

Amber Taylor

is in a sun lounger (Pinehurst, North Carolina) with the late afternoon sun shining down over an incredible tranquil view of a pine tree surrounded pond. Snowdon's exceedingly lovely Auntie Glenna has just brought me spring rolls with ginger and a goblet of Spanish wine. How much more relaxing can it get (Snowdon's well planned itinery says that we're leaving here tomorrow morning. Leaving here? how crazy is that)?  

On the last night became captivated by the USA news of Rachel Maddock (Arizona Bill/Brutal Oil Spill), and the various hilarious comedy, but also very informative, news channels.

I felt very at home with Glenna and Juergen, enjoyed their company (and their incredible hospitality) and found it hard to leave - I could have happily stayed much longer!

Reading Log 2010 - April

Channeling by Lita Alberdi

Quite an eye-opener!  This book has given me my first real look into the concept of ‘my higher self’, which I would like to find out more about.  It is about how to channel a guide (and contains some interesting meditations).  Such a way out and crazy idea to channel a guide, for me, so reading this book was great practice for me to keep my perspective open. I took a lot from this book.

• ‘It is through our thoughts and actions that we create our own karma, the accumulation of debts and credits in each lifetime’.  That’s an affirmation of my subconscious philosophy - be a good  person and life will be good to you!
• ‘Through the discipline of meditation we can come to move easily into a harmonized space where we can be in direct contact with higher aspects of ourselves.  Live with integrity from a higher place of awareness’.
• ‘Love – centered in the heart, not in the head.’  I realized that sometimes I try to love with my head!
• As the Buddha stated:  We should accept things, not just because they come from a sage or a famous person, but when they accord with what lies within our own heart.

o 

Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn

This book stunned me and altered my view of humanity.  The ideas in it are very illuminating and intense and I didn’t feel like reading anything else for several days after finishing it.  I highly recommend it.  We left our copy with Paul, Gina and Steve in New York as we thought they’d also enjoy it.

How I perceive the message of this book (and of course you may perceive differently) is: For ten thousand years humans were living happily, sustainably and in harmony with other creatures and the environment.  Relatively recently (several thousand) years ago a group of humans surmised that they were the final step in the evolutionary trail and that God had made the land for them (us) to rule.  Thus they (we) could do with it what they pleased and began to kill any competition that got in their (our) way.  This started with early agriculturalist nations, who believed that this was the ‘only way to live’, either converting or killing the competition (usually either animals or hunter-gatherer tribes who were living in harmony with nature), and basically claiming and covering as much of the earth as they could with agriculture.

Oh my gosh I thought, yes on reflection, I too thought that we were the final step in the evolutionary trail.  I mean of course we are the most important creature on the planet.  Geez how bulged out of proportion that is!  We’re just a blip on the evolutionary map.  Billions? of years, and so many creatures have looked after the land, and now were screwing it all up, because we think that the land is for us, only us, to do with what we like!  The final chapter, the end point of all of evolution of the Earth.  Evolution is complete because Human Beings have finally been created.  Human Beings!  How big headed and chest puffing and ignorant is that?!  As if evolution is going to stop for us!

This is also when humans became spiritually lost.  Acting as ‘God’, ‘God’ was lost, (people became separated from nature) and people began to look for answers to believe in, outside of themselves.  Hence there are so many Gods out there…  This resonates with me as I’ve recently discovered that the ‘God’ that is most applicable to me is ‘Mother Nature’, her very radiant self!

Anyway the exciting thing is that there are two other books after this, and we have one of them, ‘The Story of B’, which Snowdon has read and loved.  I’ll let you know how it goes..

Michelle Obama: A Portrait of the First Lady by Life

It was lovely to get to know some of who Michelle Obama is.  She is a very accomplished woman and I look forward to seeing some of the difference she makes during her time as first lady.

(Note this blog was posted in July)

San Jose to New York then a stop in Washington DC, Maryland on our way to Pinehurst, North Carolina

It’s over a week since my last blog (settle in for this one..) and during that time we’ve covered some miles, from San Jose, to New York, to Pinehurst, North Carolina via Washington DC and back to New York via Hampton, Virginia! I'm going to cover a bit at a time over the next few blogs...

The trip back to New York went pretty smoothly but we did witness one bizarre event.  At the San Jose check in, my bag was 3.8kg overweight, so I quickly transferred a big book and 2 heavy packing cells to my hand luggage.  After check in I realized that my choice wasn’t so clever, I’d chosen all my toiletries (completely forgetting in my haste the issue with liquids onboard).  I’d been trying to find out along the way what to do about this and then in Panama Airport we came across a team of young pink topped Panamanian women who’d been instructed to search all our hand luggage for liquids.  Snowdon and I sat and watched a huge crowd of passengers cram up in a big line itching to get on our New York flight.  They appeared irritated by the inconvenience.  As the line thinned out we stepped up for our turn.  I showed the ladies my toiletry bags and began to explain my predicament.  “Oh sunscreen no!” is how the ‘pink lady’ response began.  A boy wailed behind us.  His mother began to yell.  As I swung around to see what was going on, I was met by the furious and indignant stare of the mother, who said directly to me (I guess as a ‘comrade’ being the only other woman passenger still in the area), “She has broken my son’s favourite bag – what am I going to do with him wailing on the plane for the next 6 hours?”  My reaction was: raise eyebrows, spin back around to remove self from the situation, return to own issue, make sure the pink ladies didn’t think that I agreed with her by referring to the lady – loca (crazy).  During the next few minutes I turned around several more times to see the lady ranting, raving and abusing the poor pink lady and her supervisor with high aggression and high volume (the supervisor ensured that the bag actually got searched!).  Now engraved in my mind is one of her comments, “I have never seen anyone be so cruel to a child before” referring to the gentle Panamanian pink lady who had broken part of the very well used boys bag.  Eventually they left to board but she returned shortly after to aggressively ask who was going to clean up the boys vomit.  He was so stressed out by all the commotion that he’d brought up his dinner.

Meanwhile the lovely ladies had accepted my request of stashing my toiletries under the plane, thus allowing me to keep EVERYTHING (thank goodness it would have been $$ to replace it all). I thanked them profusely and stopped at the very upset lady to say, “por favor no te preocupes, no se que pasa con esta mujer” (please don’t worry about it, I don’t know what’s up with that lady).  As I walked in the plane I saw the incredulous looks of the majority of the plane – awestruck at what must have been the continued ranting of this woman.  It appeared that the whole plane, including Snowdon and I were frowning upon this lady.  When we found our seats, after having a bit of time to think about how I could have handled that situation better (and thinking of what the Buddha would have done), I said to Snowdon, “you know you’re really spiritually aware when you can show compassion for a woman like that” (and I mean in the moment not afterwards - that's much easier!).

I continued to wonder what the lady needed.  I think what would have made the difference to her was someone acknowledging what she was saying.  Maybe inside she was just a frightened lady who didn’t know how to deal with her son.  Although it was both brutal and fascinating to be a spectator of her behaviour, like us all she was just acting how she knows how to act….

After navigating our way to Paul’s house in Brooklyn in the early morning, arriving at 7am, we sank delighted into the deliciously cozy bed that was waiting for us.  We awoke many hours later to the cozy Sunday sounds and mouth watering smells of …..bacon …..hmmm.  I thought, ‘hmm that’s nice they’re having bacon and eggs for breakfast’, then snoozed some more.  We woke up at what we thought was midday, only to find out that it was actually 3.30pm local time!  Paul said, "we were about to start throwing mango’s at you" (Paul and Gina were in their cabina when I’d walked past and a monkey had dropped a gigantic mango on me, a few days later one had bounced off a tree and hit Snowdon, quite an unlikely occurrence with him being under the cabina roof).

We sat down to a magnificent brunch with coffee, and muffins topped with baby spinach, bacon, eggs and hollandaise sauce.  Flash man – what a greeting!  We had a lovely relaxing Sunday afternoon chilling about Paul and brother Steve’s lovely Brooklyn apartment.

In the evening we returned to the airport to pick up our hire car.    We had another strange experience with the hire lady Rosa who wanted us to sign the rental agreement with an incorrect total amount on it.  She found it hard to understand our resistance. After a series of hard to follow interactions, including one of, “if you had of called me and told me that you were going to turn up 10 min early I would have prepared it for the new time”.  Eventually I asked, “Can’t you print out another bill with the correct amount on it?”  She said, “No, what would be the point of that when we have this one and I’ve written 7.55am on the top”.  Make sense?  We didn’t think so either…  Finally she scrubbed out the incorrect amount, wrote the correct amount and we hastily signed it to complete the handover!

We headed into the big city – Manhattan!  We were wowed at what we saw!  I knew about the lit up billboards but experiencing them was something else.  Due to a malfunctioning cigarette lighter in our hire car, we ended up stuck in the city with no map and a flat GPS.  After a nice Irish meal, a quick look at the Hard Rock café (where I was excited to see various singers original concert clothing) and Snowdon finding our way back to the airport to get a car upgrade (nice), we fell into bed at 4am.

The next day began our sponsored family trip down south (originally we’d planned a very limited stop in New York lest we be left with nil finances, so thank you Harold for making this extra adventure possible!!!!!). First stop Washington DC!  On the way we stopped at two places: the first a gorgeous and delicious farmers market in Philadelphia, the second a sketchy market in Baltimore (where we felt quite uncomfortable and hastily vacated).  That night we stayed at the Travelodge in Silver Spring, Washington that night, and watched ‘The Big One’ (borrowed from Paul) by Michael Moore, on our Mac Book – very informative!

The next morning we headed into Washington.  It was wonderful!  We got free parking for 3hrs right in the middle of all the sites and this is what we saw:

The Whitehouse

The Washington Monument 

While we were viewing the Washington Monument this military helicopter flew right over us - the road to the White House was closed off when we passed by so we say Obama was in it.  

The World War II Memorial

The famous pool in-between the WWII memorial and the Lincoln memorial (which Snowdon remembered from the movie Forest Gump)

The Lincoln Memorial  

The Vietnam War Memorial  

The Korean War Memorial

The Holocaust Museum: very well explained, displayed and educational but of course disturbingly shocking that this ever took place.

On our way out of Washington DC we found ‘The Big Chair’ (aka Anacostia's Big Chair).

After a wonderful few hours in Washington DC (and Japanese for a late lunch) it was time to head to Pinehurst, North Carolina (see the next blog for that)!

Good Works

Wow I finished that post late last night, after planning to write a short post about our day in San Jose and it opened up all kinds of issues and contemplation!  I woke up early still thinking about it. During the night I dreamt about my friends being held hostage until I did something, but I wasn't quite sure what I needed to do, and was rushing around trying to negotiate my friends out of harm until I saw Steve tied up a high tree and thought that's it, the last straw, and broke down upset.  Immediately after that I looked up to see Steve wriggle out of the ropes and fall into the bushes below thus escaping! Huh clever Steve, things were looking up!  Then I realized one friend still wasn't caught because he'd stayed home to play playstation - we're in luck - he (and playstation) may save the day...  Then I woke up. I think the big message there is that the difference is going to made with people being empowered, not trying to save everyone with handouts.  The playstation bit I think refers to a comment Lita de Alberdi (Channeling: What it is and how to do it) had made is that technology is a good thing and will bring positive change - thus questioning  and adjusting my default view of technology being bad and ruining our environment and indigenous peoples way of life.  Also that globally we are coming to a period of greater spiritual awareness which will make a difference for everyone, whether spiritually involved or not.

It's interesting how a blog (writing) brings a lot of ideas to the surface.  I've ordered a book over Amazon (which will arrive at Paul and Gina's in Brooklyn soon after we arrive in the states) about Proprioceptive Writing (highly recommended by Christiane Northrup through personal experience).  It's a technique of 'exploring the mind through writing' and I look forward to reading it.  We also looked into a tutor while we're there but it's quite costly so we're going to try the book first!

In my inbox this morning I have an email from Good Works, an organisation who offer 'jobs with a purpose' (http://www.goodworks.co.nz/home.asp), and an email from www.dictionary.com with the word of the day moil, which means to work hard, drudge, to whirl or churn ceaselessly.  Well that was certainly my experience last night whilst trying to sort my thoughts out, around saving the world, in that blog!

Gladly my thoughts are clearer now:

• Originally when I travelled I felt worry and guilt around not personally being able to save the day.
• Then I came across Landmark Education and my focus turned to being empowered and having a great life myself, whilst empowering other people wherever I could.  This gave me and others a lot of fulfillment and also resulted in me meeting Snowdon, getting married and having the courage to leave it all to travel the world together on a spiritual adventure.
• Now I know that what will make the difference worldwide is a majority of people on the earth being empowered, loving, peaceful and compassionate.
• Thus the spiritual honeymoon adventure.  I'm here to develop myself spiritually (along with Snowdon) by having the time, space and experiences to explore whatever I come across that there is to delve into. Also to examine/question my current perceptions, open my view, follow my passions and create my future, from nothing, powerfully.
• That's what will make the difference long term, not guilt!

Another empowering belief/viewpoint from Lita (as above) and her spiritual guide is that we have all chosen our life on earth before being born into it, and each of us have a purpose to fulfill that we have also chosen.  With each life we are here to learn an important lesson and develop ourselves on our spiritual path (whatever it may be) and the experiences that we come across assist us to learn that lesson.  




Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little.  The Buddha.

Bye bye Santa Teresa Paradise hello San Jose

Left Santa Teresa 6am arrived San Jose 1pm. I enjoyed the trip, I couldn't stop singing 'Do you know the way to San Jose, da na nah nah nah na na na na'. I finished my latest book, just as we arrived in San Jose (Channeling: What it is and How to do it).  But I have mixed feelings about being here, it's a bit of a shock leaving the tranquility of a little beach town to arrive in the relative chaos of a Central American capital city.  I would have been quite happy staying in Santa Teresa, optimizing time at the beach and bypassing San Jose but I didn't want to rely on the transport getting us to the plane on time and Snowdon was keen to see some museums. But man on arrival into San Jose, there was so much to see out the bus window.  Everyone looked so strange and interesting, and there were so many  little cafes and shops - I was eyeballing everyone and everything!

Our hostel is pretty trendy - Molino Rojo.  Nice big lounge...only thing is that instead of having no-smoking signs it has these signs saying 'Smoking Area - we respect your choice'.  Not ideal for us!

We set off to see the sights, but on trying to visit the Art Museum, we arrived at a construction site and the very friendly and passionate curator explained that it wouldn't be open again until May and gave us some alternatives.

We decided to wonder through the park.  We came across a man selling fishing line - wow I asked him, "is there fish in there (pointing to the lake)?" He said, "yes and they're public property".  We walked another 20 metres and I saw a sign saying 'fishing prohibited in this area'?!  Anyway we saw three lots of people fishing!  As we wondered around we also  saw some very dilapidated and often strange artworks.

On rounding a bend we saw a family standing around with a couple of children skipping around them.  Snowdon said - hey look there's a dead guy (joking around).  'Ah hah', we laughed.  Then we saw a policeman with the group.  I stared at the 'dead guy' (while we kept walking) and said 'he actually could be, he's not moving....or he could be unconscious...trying to reassure myself).  It was all so weird though, the group of people just standing around with the policeman and the two children skipping around them, and then not far off people sitting on park benches with children or under trees relaxing.  As we continued on a happy looking policeman and his friend meandered past on a bike with a reel of something, and on looking from across the lake a few minutes later, I saw the 'death scene yellow tape' going up.  As we continued our walk our jovial spirits faded, and although I'd been reading all day about  us being on earth to fulfill a purpose then we die and are on to the next purpose whatever that may be (eg death being no big drama), we began to wonder who that man was.  We asserted that he worked as an icecream vendor (as there was a trolley parked nearby), and wondered what kind of life he had lived.  I looked around me and the people around didn't look particularly joyous either (the one age group that did were the teenagers).  Our jaunt in the local park did not turn out to be a very refreshing experience.

We came across a 'soda' and Snowdon got his long awaited steak.  While sitting there he was uncomfortably mesmerized by the jugglers trying to win some cash from the stopped cars each light change and how unhopeful/unprofitable it looked, and considering should he give them some money?  I was surprised to realize that I wasn't too concerned by them (generally in the past I probably would have been).

My issue/concern/worry is the many people all over the world not getting the basic necessities of life (food, water, safety, love, shelter...and I think that they should be, but I want to keep mine too).  During my year in Paraguay I was quite disturbed by the poverty (particularly with the impacts of leprosy).  Then travelling around South East Asia with Nicole I was very uncomfortable at my inability to assist the huge numbers of street-kids/people begging.  We had many discussions on charity allowance and I often carried leftover food around for people. I had feelings of guilt that I had so much and they had so little - an uncomfortable mixture of wanting to give (and be the good person/good karma), but wanting to look after myself more....  Currently I'm horrified at seeing and reading the appalling stories of so many people in many African countries.  I'm learning that often it's a mismanagement of funds (not actually a lack of resources) and that changes are necessary further up the line. Or of course racial/religious tension,  where we need a human judgement shift. I think about these things, obviously global problems, and am still not really sure what I will/can effectively do about it.  One thing that I have learnt is that it's crazy to think that I 'should be' single-handedly solving this whole global issue - what an ego trip that is!

Meanwhile for these men today, in comparison, although the 'work' looked unprofitable and frustrating,  they looked fit and fed.  I was surprised and pleased to see Snowdon so empathetic (if not sad).  I haven't seen this before.  Maybe I have an ally on my forgotten quest here?  In the meantime I'm happy enriching my own skills/awareness/knowledge (while we complete our adventure and get to our next patch of employment) such that I may be in a position to assist when I work out how to go about it.

Bed time..

Santa Teresa - Our last week, fingers crossed for some surfing footage...

Our last week in the paradise of Santa Teresa.  Looks like the rainy season has come early.  I woke up all keen for my morning surf this morning, but before I got out there (we woke up late), the rain, thunder and lightning began!  Well I've surfed in storms and lightning before (and we've laughed about getting hit by lightning ha ha as if what are the chances) but as you do when in a foreign country I checked the facts.  After a search on surfing/lightning on the internet I found out that lightning strikes the tallest thing on a flat surface, and so it's not very safe, and so I'm going to blog instead this morning, until the lightning stops!  I have all day to surf, no need to be all impatient and go out with a lightning storm going on!

Anyway, Snowdon is swinging in the hammock reading is new (mano segundo - second hand) book, whilst I tap away on the keys for one of my last blogs in Santa Teresa.

I'm currently reading the 'Chaneling' book (by Lita de Alberdi) that Snowdon got from the shop in town, and enjoyed.  This line popped out at me this morning:

Self love means being honest with yourself, not deceiving yourself to be pretending that you are nicer than you really are, and coming to know yourself fully.

I've realised in my blogs that I often don't share fully.  Snowdon, although he rarely shares fully out loud, does so in his blog writing.  I think this is great.  I shared with him my reserve in putting everything on a blog.  He said, but your life should be an open book shouldn't it?  I'm not sure, maybe it should.  This blog is a brave start!

Less than a week left here. I really want to publish a vid of my surfing progress (and some wipeouts) over the last 5 weeks, on this blog. This is partly fueled by catching some great shots of Snowdon surfing and my envy of him being able to post surfing material (considering his high amount of film time in ratio to waves caught)!  I'm not sure when I'll have another chance to surf so much, so I may be at my peak surfing ability! Only thing is that I can't do this myself, I need a cameraperson, thus am dependent on Snowdon.  My current observation is that seems to be available when there's no surf, not keen when there is surf, and not available in the morning when the surf is best (although fortunately he is coming around to the idea of coming down to the beach in the morning after meditation - this morning was going to be the first).

One gorgeous day (30th March), a rare day as it was a calm afternoon, glassy surf (usually the wind picks up at around 10am and grows throughout the afternoon, until it settles an hour or so before the sun goes down) I asked him to video me - a big step.  In the past I'd have thought that requesting to be filmed is way too vain.  To my delight, he agreed. The surf was great and I got stuck in.  Early on I returned to the beach to apply zinc to prevent my face from burning up, it was such a hot day, and I made sure I mentioned to Snowdon that I was going to 'catch some real good waves now' (eg. be ready to video me).  To my delight I kept my word and caught some of the best waves of the trip, really long lefts and even pulled off some new tricks that I'd been trying out!  As it was high tide I was finishing each ride about 20-30m from where he was.  Perfect video conditions and I was so happy that I was able to provide good material.

After several of these rides I looked up to see him lying face down facing away from the water, reading his book.  Oh well I thought, he must have already caught some good ones.  I mentally tried not to get my hopes up eg. he may not have got some of the best ones, and I may not look quite as flash as I think I look on film...  But he did say he'd film me so I was pretty certain that I'd have something to brag/blog about.  After 1-2 hours the wind picked up and I came in from my surf.  I tried to control my enthusiasm (not sure what the point of that is, I've just learned to do that for some reason).  Then I grabbed the camera for a look.

This is what I found.  Nearly a minute of our neighbour Federica entering the water and paddling out back for her surf with me collecting my board up after catching a wave in the background (this was useful for my current focus on being fem but not for any surfing video), me sitting out the back waiting for a wave, some random footage of waves, a lot of footage of our neighbours dog Polo chewing a tree, and in the midst of all this ONE shot of me getting a 1sec half-ride on a wave before it closed out.  I was pissed!! I couldn't believe it and couldn't understand how after so much material in great conditions with a clear request, I ended up with nothing for my blog.

After discussion later, Snowdon's perspective was:  I hadn't come to the beach to video you, I got one wave then got bored of waiting and wanted to read my book, so I did.  There's not much point arguing with that (although I probably tried).  It did make me consider finding the book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'.

My learning from that day - be far more direct!!  Since then I've also begin to notice where I don't trust myself to be direct and assert what I want, in case it doesn't work out.  I mean what if I asked to be filmed really clearly and then didn't catch any good waves.  I'd have to be responsible for the result.  I have this background idea that going with the flow of other people is good karma, but in reality it just makes it easy for me to avoid responsibility and make others wrong when it doesn't work out how I want it to.

Thus the summary is I grew from the experience and there is no viable surfing footage yet.  Five surfing days to go, so I'm being direct this week with my requests (vain or not) keeping my fingers crossed for  success, and at the same trying not to be 'attached/desperate' to it happening!  Snowdon has promised to assist me - so I'm willing my 'trust' vibes to be strong!

Stay tuned - it's fined up and I'm off for a surf now!

Santa Teresa - Honey!

I love the idea of buying local produce off the back of a truck, cutting out the middle men, supporting the people who made it, and getting it fresh!

One day last week on wondering home from my morning surf, I came across a older men and two teenage boys beside an old truck packed with dusty bottles, filled with brown liquid.  I found myself peering at the bottles and thinking oh my gosh it's 'back yard produced coca cola' just like in a very sketchy email that Snowda had recently send me.  Eww I'll steer clear of that!  But as I neared the truck the man stopped what sounded like lecture on local business practices to the two teenage (very over it loooking) boys, held a bottle up to me and said 'miel' (honey).  Great! The good Costa Rica vibe still sticks - from my experience local produce here is fresh and delicious.  Yehaa - I love honey, and after a closer look and some bartering (me being very clear that I needed just one bottle, and him being very clear that I needed two) he sent me off with the honey (one bottle) to go up to the cabina to get the cash. I handed over my 3000 colones ($7.50) which he, as if trying to find out, insisted was 'muy poco?' I think he'd done just fine. I asked Louise if it was OK, and if it was just honey with nothing added, and after a close look she said, 'Si miel, es puro'.  Pure honey.  Check it out:

Yes that's right folks - this is my 'Smirnoff' honey!

I've checked out the facts on honey and I didn't realise quite how beneficial to health honey is.  It's an energy and immune system booster, containing a whole lot of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. I've been having spoonfuls each day. Yum, honey!

Santa Teresa - An inspiring finish to a whole month here!

Snowdon and I have been recording and interpreting our dreams.  Christiane (Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom) states, 'Dreams are a doorway to the unconscious, listen to them'.  She says that the brain and the inner guidance system give us a map of the activities or goals that we desire or need for a healthy balanced future, and that they show us the beneficial and non-beneficial directions towards which we are focusing our energy and how and where we need to make adjustments.

She includes a quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, 'The night dreams speak wild women's language.  She is there broadcasting. All we have to do is take dictation'.

I like the idea of a healthy balanced future, so I've been taking dictation!  It's been very enlightening.  I get up, record my dreams in my journal first thing (before I forget), check out www.dreammoods.com to give me some help interpreting them, then I'm off for my morning surf.  Mia (Ugo's dog) and Polo (Andrea and Frederica, our neighbour's dog) come with me, which is lovely.  It's so nice to have some dogs - I love dogs! Here is a pic of me with our lovely new friend Mia.

This morning was one morning that I wasn't setting of for a surf with the dogs.  We still had the quad for half the day.  I was setting of for a surf, with my husband!!  We loaded the boards on the quad (by this stage I'd surrendered the reins to Snowdon and decided to sit back and enjoy the scenery) and set off in search of waves and to find the lovely Manzanillo.  Well we found a beach (Hermosa I think) for a surf, I jumped in but not for long (I'm so biased and happy by this stage with our local spot), and we found the sleepy little fishing village of Manzanillo.  The highlight for me though, was being out and about and exploring the area.  A month in one place with just your feet is quite a lovely but also long time!

With the rest of our 'quad time' I attempted to surf at another spot (for the first time here I couldn't get out the back through the break, and after getting hit on the nose with my board I gave up and came in - already convinced that our local spot is the best and finding evidence for my decision..), we swam x2, found out a surf shop will look at buying Snowdon's board, returned the quad, had an iced coffee, read and lunch out at Cafe Zulu, and then...Art Class!

On 3rd April I'd had a dream in where I was completing a  painting assignment that an old primary school friend had very kindly come up to help me with.  In the dream I was so happy to be being creative and recall very clearly the keen desire I had to get the paint onto that painting.  I woke up thinking that I'd love to paint something.  On 4th April I dreamt a dream that I wanted to paint.  That afternoon we  visited 'Cafe Rendezvous', and what do you know - right there I saw a poster advertising Art Classes, Tue/Thur 3pm, $5.  Wow Art classes, and even better, at a price that I can afford!  Here's a (not very good) shot of a painting of Fernanda's (the artist offering the classes) striking painting from inside the restaurant. She has a whole lot more - check them out on her facebook group (Galeria de Arte de Fernanda Lalosevich). 



So there I am (see photo) last Thursday 8th April (the Tuesday was a theory session which I didn't do) sitting with Fernanda Lalosevich, painting an oil painting. It was such a lovely art class.  Great ambience. We were outside sweating it out in the heat, with people wandering by, and painting.  Fernanda, who's Argentinian, had come prepared with a great idea for the lesson - she'd brought along a 'hat' for me to paint - how cool.  But I choose a flat piece of canvas - I explained that there was no place for the hat in my pack.  We talked (mostly in Spanish which was great for me, I don't speak much Spanish here.. ) about our relationships and she shared with me her experience of working in a design job that didn't 'light her up', and so she changed her life to do what she loves to do (paint!) and now she is very content.  She didn't 'teach' me, she empowered me to 'paint'.  She has such a warm, accepting presence that I felt fully comfortable to create what I'd seen in my dream.  She was patient too - I took about 2hrs.  In the end Fernanda was happy that I was happy and that I'd finished my painting (I'd accomplished what I'd come for). I paid the colones, I nearly paid more, she was worth much more, but my travel budget survival mechanism kicked in and I didn't (you're worth much more Fernanda!)  When I left I said I might come next week but if I don't it wasn't because I didn't love it this time 'I loved it'.  She said: 


'Of course - you will be doing whatever it is you need to do then'.  


Which translated from something like 'si, vas a hacer que tienes ganar a hacer'.  Wow - what a way to be, what a freeing response (for this occasion but I mean for life also)!  She offered me some sips of her delicious chilled ice coke (I'm not usually into coke but man it was good - perfect for that hot sweaty day).  


I bade Fernanda farewell and was on my way with my wet oil painting grasped firmly in my two hands (it was hot, hot, but a bit windy and I didn't want it to smudge).  I was so happy walking home, I smiled at everyone (I felt like I did the day of the watermelon off the back of the truck purchase in Monteverde).  I was so proud of myself for painting my dream, I mean what a clever thing to do!


So there it is - my pride and joy! I won't give you my interpretation - I don't want to inhibit yours..

I rushed home, called up to Louise (Ugo's employee), "Louise mire lo que pinte".  She smiled and congratulated me, looking happy for me and my obvious excitement. I showed my honey my painting, told him how proud of myself I was, and then I rushed off for a surf before the sun went down.


This day, the last day of a whole month in Santa Teresa finished off with me admiring how, when the sun goes down, the whitewash reflects the pink of the sunset.  Then me feeling very courageous when I met Jim said, "Hey you found your jandals?  I remember you, you were one of the only girls paddling out there on those big days".  Actually I think I might have a photo of you surfing on one of those days (fingers crossed that that turns into something).


What a day - exploring Manzanillo and Santa Teresa via quad. 'Surfing' in three different spots.  Being out in the heat all day sweating it out with my honey - feeling what it's really like in this town.  Expressing my creativity, carrying out my recent dream of painting, and being acknowledged for courageousness.  Nice.  A great end to a great month in Santa Teresa.

Santa Teresa - Dinner Party with Paul and Gina!

We hosted a dinner party last night at our cabina - lamp lit and with mosquito coils!  I cooked eggplant, red cabbage and zucchini mix with coriander. And Snowdon cooked rice and a delicious egg and onion omelette surrounded with crunchy green beans.

Our guests - our two new friends Paul and Gina.  They're here on a weeks Easter holiday from Brooklyn and are staying in the cabina below us.  They're very friendly and we all got yarning about the local sites and monkeys and surfing and quad day trips..  Yesterday Snowdon and Paul did a board swap for awhile, and Gina and I sat and chatted on the beach drinking beer and eating strawberries - while the boys were out surfing (hah a glimpse into the more often played roles).  Fun!  I love my husband and all but it was lovely to have a nice relaxed chat on the beach with someone else :)

Later on Paul came in from his surf and VERY KINDLY said that he has a spare room in his house in Brooklyn and would we like to come and stay with him.  Wow would we ever.

I wasn't so excited about the big city visit before.  Now we've got some mates and somewhere to stay there I am!  They say Brooklyn is a really cool place to look around, and that they've got some bikes that we can borrow (man I've been hanging out to ride a bike for some reason).  We've now also got a huge list of other things we want to see..

To part repay the kindness of Paul opening his home to us (and to hang out some more), I invited Paul and Gina over for dinner.  It was fun having a dinner party - they brought the drinks - we even got a bit boozed (didn't take much!).  We had some good yarns.

Then Paul, Gina and I hit the beach first thing this morning.  Snowdon had a sleep in, said he had a hangover (not sure it was a hangover in the usual sense of the word though..).

Santa Teresa - One a day. Make it go away!

I thought this was a very thoughtful, creative, simple, yet effective idea.  I'd noticed rubbish around and thought, geez I should really do something about it....but did nothing.

Then I saw this, and thought, hmmmm one piece huh?

Now I'm doing something.  Every day one piece seems to spring up in front of me saying, "I'm your piece today Amber!"  And I pick it up.  So simple, so effective.

Sometimes I think, 'man one's pretty pathetic I should probably pick up some more'.  Then I catch myself and I think, 'no the point is one piece - that way it's easy and I'll keep doing it'.  And I do. Man I've picked up two big pieces of glass from the sand - could've saved someone a serious injury!

Who knows who else is out there picking up one piece a day.

To whoever made that sign and display - thanks!