To A Sister

A L O H A !

 

 

 " Scared and sacred

are spelled with the same letters.

Aweful proceeds

from the same root word as

Awesome.

Terrify and terrific.

Every negative experience

holds the seeds of transformation. "

Alan Cohen

 
                                                                
                        

                                                         

" A person who cares about the earth

will resonate with its purity. "

                                        Sally Fox 

"And we'll always work out together every day."

"The mark of a good marriage

is when only one of you goes crazy at a time!"

 

Heinz Kohut

 

 

 

"You don't marry someone you can live with; you marry the person who you cannot live without."

 

anonymous 

 

 

 

"What counts in making a happy marriage

is not so much how compatible you are,

but how you deal with incompatibility."

                                      Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

                
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                                                                                                                                                            ><}}(°>

             < ° ) } } > <

Yesterday, after speaking with a dear friend,

I wrote her the e-mail that follows.

Re-reading it,

I realized that it encapsulated 

much of what I've learned

about marriage.

You do not know my friend.

       She is not a blogger.  .  .

Dear Anonymous-ette:

Right back at YOU!
You are the one there making choices and I trust you completely.  What I have to contribute may or may not be helpful - but again, you will best know.
There has been so much 'mountains out of mole-hills" yelling & fuss in my life, that I have an immediate gratitude to someonewho ignores relationship ripples (your husband/my husband/men). 

Dwelling on the ripples, or 'working them through' has no interest to them. and you know what? it works! UNLESS (of course) you are really in an untenable relationship. In that case, you will know that you really need to get out. That's neither of us, I believe. The guys feel that something that is inherently 'right' (our relationship) will naturally right itself. . . hey, whats in the refrigerator? Gotta say: I kinda like that mentality, and have observed it to be true. The Abraham books might say that our job is to pick the best-feeling thought available to us right now. 
When we hold the joyful true energy of the best heart of our marriages, our partners eventually  respond to that beacon.

Like mountain climbers linked together, only one of us can 'fall' at a time.  When you are swinging on a rope,

thousands of feet up,you need a partner who is  securely dug into the rock face. Aniais nin said: 

  " What I cannot love, I overlook. Is that real friendship? "

I would say, that energetically and spiritually,

the core of every person IS LOVE-able.

  Overlooking what is unlovable, is to ignore illusion.  We have chosen and vowed to live in this amazing alchemical cauldron called "marriage." So let's defer to that when in doubt and disillusion. Trust that times demanding our action,

will undeniably demand our attention first. 

When in doubt, wait for a clearer message.

It will be obvious to you long BEFORE real danger/deal breakers fully develop. I can't help remembering that this is the first day of the year 5772.  The energy we hold this day will influence our entire year.  Shall it be an energy of doubtful deep-investigation, or one of awe and self-reflection and gratitude for harvest of all kinds? You did not ask for my opinion. It is only my heart of love for you that impels me.  Perhaps you'll forgive ME if I've intruded.
But looking up as I completed this note

I saw this  RAINBOW (above)  right outside my window! The first in our new home, on the first day of a new year. 
My New Year blessing to you:  "May you enjoy the new adventures and all the warmth of a relationship that has matured for 25 years, as I am." And many many rainbows, my Dear Friend Sister.     

                                                            Warmly, c-

   > < } } ( ° >
     

Thank YOU for visiting today.  Leave us a shout, or bit of relationship wisdom YOU've learned,

                                                          in comments.

                                                       Warmly, cloudia

Sweet New Year

A L O H A !

" I arise in the morning torn

between a desire to improve the world

and a desire to enjoy the world. 

This makes it hard to plan the day. "

- E. B. White 

 

"Hospitality

is a form of worship."

  The Talmud 

" You can't punish yourself into change.

You can't whip yourself into shape. 

But you can love yourself into well-being. "

 Susan Skye 

" Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,'

thought Alice;

'but a grin without a cat!

It's the most curious thing 

I ever saw in my life! "

Alice in Wonderland 

by

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson 

under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll

 > < } } ( ° >


Today an ancient people
celebrates
the dawn of a new year.

It is the Hebrew year
5772-

 "L'shanah tovah"

means:

"May you be inscribed and sealed

for a good year." 





      

 Thank you for visiting today.

Your comments are appreciated!

       Warmly, cloudia

 

Ann Dunham - Mother of our President

A L O H A !

" “We read to know we are not alone.” 

C.S. Lewis

 

 

 

 

" A lot of parents pack up their troubles

and send them off to summer camp.  "


Raymond Duncan

History is, strictly speaking,

the study of questions; 

the study of answers 

belongs to anthropology and sociology.  "

W. H. Auden 

 

 

 

 

" Anthropology

is the most humanistic of the sciences 

and the most scientific 

of the humanities.  "

Alfred L. Kroeber

" Anthropology is the science

which tells us that people are the same

the whole world over - 

except when they are different.  "
Nancy Banks Smith

President Barack Obama's mother,

Stanley Ann Dunham,

accomplished significant work as an anthropologist

when she and young Barack lived in Indonesia.

Last Sunday, at the East-West Center

here in Honolulu,

an exhibit opened which includes

photographs of Dunham

which were never displayed publicly before.

The exhibit is called:

"Through Her Eyes:

Ann Dunham's Field Work In Indonesia."

On display are also Indonesian crafts

and art indicative of the young scholar/mother's

life and work.

The photos are mostly non-professional 'fieldwork'

shot by colleagues working alongside her.

Here is a look into her pioneering work

among laboring Indonesian people,

including masters of various indigenous crafts.

Some of the crafts on display

were even collected by Dunham herself.

Though an academic anthropologist,

she hoped that her scholarship would make a difference in the lives of the people she came to like and admire.

Dunham had met Indonesian scholar
Lolo Soetoro

at the same East-West Center

while both were students
at the University of Hawaii.

They married in Hawaii in 1965.

Soetoro is the father of the President's sister,

Maya Soetoro Ing

Young Barack attended kindergarten

from 1966 to 1967 at Noelani Elementary School

near the University campus here in Honolulu.

Soetoro, a geographer,
returned to Indonesia in 1966,

to help map Western New Guinea
for the Indonesian government.

Dunham and her son
lived with her parents in Honolulu

(where young Barack had been born

at Kapiolani Hospital)

while she completed her studies
at the University of Hawaii.

She earned her B.A. in anthropology in 1967.

( The young mother had filed for divorce

from her estranged husband, Barack Obama Sr.

In January 1964. Barack senior had left Hawaii

in June 1962.)

In 1967, Dunham and her six-year-old son,
our future President,

moved to Jakarta to rejoin Soetoro. 

There Dunham taught English

and was an assistant director of the Lembaga Persahabatan Indonesia Amerika (LIA)

–the Indonesia-America Friendship Institute–which was subsidized by U.S. government.

Young Obama attended the Indonesian-language Santo Fransiskus Asisi

(St. Francis of Assisi) Catholic School around the corner 

from their house for 1st, 2nd, and part of 3rd grade.

The exhibit on the campus of my alma mater, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, 

will be on display until January, 

which includes the time when the APEC conference

will be meeting virtually under my window

at the Hawaii Convention Center in early November.

Thanks so much for visiting!

kindly leave your comment

   Warmly, cloudai

Your Stuff - My Stuff

A L O H A !

"Where your talents

and the needs of the world meet,

lies your calling." 

Aristotle

" Give me health and a day, 

and I will make the pomp of emperors 

ridiculous. "
Ralph Waldo Emerson

These are ukuleles. Isn't the little banjo-uke cute?

" A painter paints pictures on canvas.

But musicians paint their pictures 

on silence.  "

Leopold Stokowski

" Do not anticipate trouble,

or worry about what may never happen.

Keep in the sunlight. "

Benjamin Franklin

They told us kids,

that if we dug a hole deep enough

we could get to China.

Look, someone DID it!

" To be humble to superiors

is duty,

to equals courtesy,

to inferiors 

nobleness. "

Benjamin Franklin

The hardest thing for me

in day to day life

is my tendancy to be affected

by the emotions

of people around me.

Making their stuff - into my stuff.

Of course this is not unique to me,

Psychologists call it:

"Emotional Contagion"

which makes a frown or smile

akin to a sneeze or cough.

Others are entitled to their moods of course,

it's not my job to assess & uplift everyone I meet-

that would be presumptious.

One never knows what another is going through.

Kinda shallow to joke with someone who is mourning,

eh?

I don't want to 'kill with kindness'

or impose judgement or expectation on others.

All we can do, is to love them,

while respecting them

and their emotions

enough

to let them be.

Jollity & Jocularity can have a pushy edge

to them

at the wrong time. 

Jesus & Buddha weren't back-slappers.

They embodied an 'openness' to others

that invited without imposing.

Kwan Yin, Jesus & Buddha

had welcoming, gentle smiles.

I try to be like that too.

Quietly caring-

and blessing others

on their way.

It is their way, after all

" Rejoice with those who rejoice, 

weep with those who weep. "

Romans 12:15 ESV

        Thanks for sharing with us here!  Warmly, cloudia