The countryside and our little valley look immaculate and very green. We have been blessed with a lot of rain in recent months leaving us with overflowing bridges and a very active waterfall. This has prepared the soil for our tree planting activities at the centre. With the assistance of Alhyrian from the permaculture site, [...]
It’s a soggy Sunday keeping me indoors. This has been one of the wettest January I have recorded since arriving here 18 years ago. Nearly 300mm of rain which is half of our annual rainfall! Greenery is abundant and the grass and weed growth is phenomenal. It feels as if things grow as you look [...]
by the lazy Buddhist Happy New Year! It’s 2022 and I’m probably not the only one who happily waved goodbye to 2021 and its challenges. Early on in the year, I came across a Facebook post in which H.E. Garchen Rinpoche talks of what Khenpo Munsel Rinpoche taught him while in prison. ‘When you find [...]
TO MY UNIVERSAL FAMILY AND FRIENDS A JOYOUS NEW YEAR – 2022 Paulo Senior and Paulo Junior joined us for the Compassionate Living in Difficult Times retreat with Alan and Pippa. This was their first visit to TRC, and hopefully not the last. One more challenging year has come to an end. But economic hardships [...]
I cannot believe that I have been at Tara Rokpa for a year already. The time has gone so fast. It certainly has been a year filled with trials, tribulations, new experiences and great learning. It has been wonderful meeting interesting people, making friends, learning different cooking methods, getting accustomed to a new landscape, and [...]
A few weeks of spring rains have replenished the valley and brought welcome green growth. The weather is however unpredictable and is not following the usual early summer patterns. Layers of clothing seem to go on and off according to the ever-changing temperatures. For me, a recent highlight was attending our recent Green Tara practice [...]
Back in the late 1900s, (I kid you not, it was 1997!) my now-husband and I spent just under a year travelling around America in a camper van. It was the most amazing adventure and something I have thought of often in the last few weeks as the Gabby Petito murder unfolds. At the same [...]
1 September, Spring Day, in the southern hemisphere, was always the day the public swimming pools opened in Johannesburg when I was a child. I’m sitting on my lovely “stoep” catching the last warmth of the setting sun. I tried dipping my feet into my pool and they became completely numb, so no swimming for [...]
In mid-June the cold creeps in as the sunsets. I have just come in from the cold where I braved a bowl of soup while watching the sky colours change and the waxing sickle moon and Venus and Mars growing brighter as the darkness crept in. The welcome wood-burning stove is now glowing, bringing needed [...]
Goodness, I am showing my age. Way back in 2007, when Clive Holmes visited South Africa, I was fortunate enough to attend his Better Health through Meditation Retreat at the Randburg Centre. It was in the good old days, long before Drupon Rinpoche pointed out that taking notes was not the best way to benefit [...]
