These photographs were taken on the Guhyaloka Ordination course in the Autumn of 2004, which was a 16 week Buddhist mens retreat in a remote valley in Spain. Guhyaloka means the Secret Valley. I was there to get Ordained into the Western Buddhist Order, along with 17 other friends, and was given the Buddhist name Alokavira, Hero of Light. We did a lot of meditation, ritual and study of traditional Buddhist text over the four months. The landscape was rugged and dramatic, in this beautiful space close to the elements we lived in very simple huts in a little monastery type place supported by a team of 4 guys who live there all year and drove out "in the world" to get food for us, we didn't leave the valley for the whole time.