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The Rock of Cashel
In July and August 2005, I spent two weeks in Ireland. Most of it was with a tour group via a public radio station, before I stayed at a Dublin hostel for three days.
Lambs wag their tails while nursing, like kittens purr and knead. Contentment.
We stopped at Killarney, County Kerry, at 10 am, for a restroom break (and Matthew needed to gas up the bus). Killarney Outlet Centre resembles an American mall.
I bought a wooden Buddha at a booth in the wide hallway. This Buddha is nontraditional, like a postmodern Buddha, in a stylized fashion and resembling a bald monk holding up a flower. It looks like a lily. I think it refers to a Buddha story in which the Buddha is about to give a dharma talk, and he begins by simply holding a flower. One of the monks sees the flower and smiles — and the Buddha knows that monk just reached Enlightenment. So this Buddha statue holding the flower represents Enlightenment.
The mall has an upstairs gallery, where we walked along looking at “before and after” photos of Killarney. They included photos taken around 1900 next to the same place photographed in 2004. Some haven’t changed, but one street scene showed a couple of thatched-roofed cottages between some buildings that look about the same. The cottages have been replaced — or at least altered a great deal.