Walking Stones

A  L  O  H  A !
 

Click on the Pics

 " I am one

 who is fond of 

olden times

 and intense in quest 

of the sacred knowing

 of the ancients.  "

Gustave Courbet

" Some are so very 

studious 

of learning what was done

 by the ancients

 that they know not

 how to live

 with the 

moderns.  "

William Penn"

 “ Reflection is 

a flower of the mind,
 giving out

 wholesome fragrance ”

 Desiderius Erasmus

 “ But who will watch my lilies, 

 When their blossoms open white? 

By day the sun shall be sentry, 

 And the moon and the stars by night!”

Bayard Taylor

 " The snowdrop and primrose

 our woodlands adorn, 

and violets bathe 

in the wet o' the morn.  "

Robert Burns

 {] : [}

Ah the ancients.

How did they do it?

Building things,

unimaginably heavy

things;

Voyaging

across  oceans

vast.

How?

Modern theories are often

untested-

Old stories

tell of magic

and gods.

There is a stone

not far from here

at the gates of Punahou School

that our president passed

daily there

as a school boy.

Actually, the stone

by the gate

is just a fragment

of the original 

Pohaku.

[ Link ]

There remains

an old legend 

about the moving 

of the great Pohaku: 

" This is not a stone,
it is a man "

click to read

The stone that 

walked

like a man.

sounds cool, right?

Well below is a video

of a large stone

"walking"

with the help of 

some friends
right here
on this island.

It may clear up

an enduring mystery

about the great Moai

of Rapa Nui.

 ( "Easter Island" )

Thank YOU

for 'walking' here today

' Take Peace & Laughs - Leave Your Comment '

                               Warmly, cloudia

Watching the Wheels

Aloha 

& Welcome to My Waikiki. . .

"Remember

not only to say the right thing

in the right place,

but

to leave unsaid

the wrong thing

at the tempting moment."

Ben Franklin

 Sometimes

we feel hemmed in,

like we've come to a dead

 end.

 But a shift in perspective,

perhaps

a glance over or around the obstacle. . . 

Just for today

I will be happy.

Everywhere I go

there are people to love

including myself.

 ><>

So many wonderful blogs!

There is just NO way I can visit each of you,

my favorites,

as often as I wish. . .

I hope you understand. . .

You enrich my life

and are much appreciated!

<><

"Life is what happens while you are making other plans."

I had studied till I could study no more.

Now I just had to get all that information

intact to the midterm examinations.

Nothing could be permitted to disturb

my edifice of facts;

Tomorrow I would write my essays

in that blue book

proving my comprehension.

Now I must sleep.

Just a few moments of music.

I turned the radio on.

"We repeat: John Lennon has been shot in New York.

No reports yet on his condition."

Suddenly

my exams seemed trivial.

How can I explain?

Fortunately, I don't really need to:

his lyrical genius

and his brilliant irreverence

touched the whole world.

For us,

his voice was the sound

of our growing up:

Pop that changed the sound of the world.

Explorations in consciousness.

A plea for PEACE.

Music and ideas

that expanded with OUR consciousness.

I loved John.

Today would have been his 70th birthday.

My path has not always made sense to those around me,

or even to myself;

but it has been 

honest as it has been

idiosyncratic.

John modelled the courage

to follow your personal genius,

to follow your heart

to give yourself fully

to that which you love.

I have always loved the song below

and identified with it.

All I am saying

is give peace with yourself

a chance.

Make it count.

Because John was right:

Life IS what happens

while we make other plans.

We make plans

and God laughs.

So laugh along.

Cry some too. . .

Thanks for being

my friend!  cloudia 

Here Be Giants

A L O H A

& Welcome!

click on photos to enlarge giantsThis is Mount Olomana on Oahu's windward side. Back in the day, Olomana was a giant whose whim & mood were the daily weather for the people who lived in his area of influence. One day a bigger giant appeared who used his weapon to slice the bully Olomana from the top of his head almost in half. Olomana instantly turned into a mountain as he fell, hence the twin peaks that seem to be rotating apart.

“There were giants in the earth in those days. . . ”
Bible

Today, Olomana is joined on our island by

a convention of giants.

An Antonov 225 is here loading up with emergency supplies for ravaged Samoa. These planes are the largest in the world!

“The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies.”
Lester B. Pearson

The USS Ronald Reagan is here too with it's battle group after deployment off the Horn of Africa. 80 aircraft call the ship their home. She can distill 400,000 gallons of fresh water from the sea every day- enough for 2,000 homes! Her nuclear reactors could power a good chunk of our power grid too, I think. Today we will see her sailors all over Waikiki.



“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Our is a world of nuclear giants
and ethical infants.”
Omar Bradley


And the USS Missouri is being moved into Pearl Harbor's dry dock! Above you see the behemoth rounding Diamond Head the last time she moved. Read more about the move itself at this post:

http://comfortspiral.blogspot.com/2009/09/battleship.html



“When the war of the giants is over
the wars of the pygmies will begin.”
Winston Churchill


There are many kinds of giants. Some can be seen across the horizon of history, some block out the sky as they pass.








There are giants who look just like average people - until you get to know them and to understand their affects on others.






Here's to the giants, big & small!
You might even be one...

In fact, I KNOW
that many of
Y O U
are
!






A L O H A & Giant Hugs. . . Cloudia

Passing Scene

A L O H A!

Welcome to Friday!

click on photos

" If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

John Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan 20, 1961

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan 20, 1961

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die."

Ted Kennedy, Democratic National Convention, August 1980.

"My brother need not be idealised or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it"

Ted Kennedy, eulogy for brother Robert Kennedy, June 1968.

“This disaster reminds us that we are all part of the American family and we have a responsibility to help members of that family when they are in need,”
Ted Kennedy

“I think about my brothers every day,”
Ted Kennedy



"Trials never end, of course. Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that wasn't there before, and isn't just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through, that says: we've won this. Things are going to get better now.

You can sort of tell these things."

Robert M. Pirsig,

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

PSSST! Change is afoot;

Pass it on

with

A L O H A, Cloudia

Back in the Day

A L O H A!

Welcome back to Waikiki

(Pull up a Swanson TV dinner)

"And that's the way it is. . . "

Pigeon Party

"Did you bring any crumbs?"

Torch Ginger blossoms have blossoms!

Watching Paul McCartney return to the Ed Sullivan theatre awakened many 60's memories, and begged perspective on the life that unfolded for the kid-me who watched the Beatles perform from that stage in 1963. . .

And this weekend marks the 4oth anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing (yes, I capitalized it) - oh and of Woodstock (but we've already discussed that).

I remember the grainy pictures of men in diving suits planting a curiously limp flag amidst that "magnificent desolation" as Buzz called it. I remember stiff Nixon speaking to them on the phone as we all watched. I remember walking outside and looking up at the moon. "Humans are there," I thought; "We are there." And the whole world from Africa to Asia to Europe celebrated the achievement. We were'nt quite so hated then. The liberation from fascism in WWII still painted us as the "good guys." I remember that Wilson Pickett ROCKED big time that night on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the prototypical host.

I remember tiny black and white TVs wheeled into an elementary school classroom, all of us (teachers included) mesmerized by the countdown. "3...2...1...Kickoff" as we watched John Glenn and the other Mercury astronauts leave the Earth and look back at it as only God had done before.

I remember seeing adults cry for the first time, they were my teachers, on that Thursday afternoon when they sent us home early. President Kennedy had been shot.

The world was still, oppressively still like a wake. For three days we were glued to the TV. "Mom! Someone shot Oswald!" I remember the reaction on the sheriff's face captured in newspaper stills.

I remember John John saluting the caisson and the handsome, lone, black horse behind it in the procession.

I remember the police riots and convention floor fascism of the Chicago Democratic Convention in '69. (I've always followed the conventions). "Mom! Do you see what's happening?!" "I'm only glad you're not there!" (You Crazy kid who turned out to be right about so many things.)

I remember watching the Watergate hearings all that weird Summer.

In a black and white world where we had three TV stations to choose from, where the narrative of public life was amazingly uniform (if stultifying), the authority who explained it all like the One True Patient Adult was Walter Cronkite.

News wasn't liberal or FOX; it was news delivered by newsmen (yes, overwhelmingly men) who were professional and didn't carp or advocate. They informed. We all have unconscious bias, but news was supposed to be about facts. They tried to be objective.

All the things above that I remember, I remember largely through the lens of my TV. I remember Walter telling us the story, sharing OUR modern story.

When he announced Kennedy's death and took off his glasses, that was a more powerful moment than all the posturing and shouting we see in a week of cable news today.

If you didn't live through all of that, it is impossible to explain just how much of a giant Walter was. From the WWII beaches of Normandy, to the assassination of Dr. King, to the relentless nightly spectacle of Viet Nam, Walter was the narrator of our times. When he expressed the opinion that 'Nam was a morass, LBJ turned from the TV and said: "If I've lost Walter, I've lost middle America.

There will never be another figure like him. Uncle Walter.

I remember looking up at that '60s sky as Canada Geese sailed before a harvest moon. I remember the smell of burning leaves, and the sound of a train from far away. "How old will I be in the year 2000?"

I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got."

Walter Cronkite

Today I've used "Times" as the font of the day as tribute. Be sure to wash the black ink off of your hands before your touch anything.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Feathered Friends

Aloha! Welcome!

Click on photos to enlarge"Life is like getting dropped off in the middle of the woods, and then year by year, gradually walking home."
April Foiles


"We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse."
Anne-Sophie Swetchine

"Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such." Henry Miller

"While we have the gift of life, it seems to me that only tragedy is to allow part of us to die - whether it is our spirit, our creativity, or our glorious uniqueness."
Gilda Radner

Today I will tell you an old legend of Waikiki: The War with the Owls.

A proud young Ali`i was walking one day near Waikiki and disturbed a nest of baby owls. The mother claimed her rights and demanded that the impetuous young chief apologize, but he refused and even insulted the mother owl. These were the days when humans were still a part of nature, and guardians of the `aina, the sacred land of Hawaii - especially the Ali`i!

This mother owl was righteous in her
indignation and took her offended righteousness to the
King of the Owls. "Hear me!" she implored. "Humans no longer respect us as cousins. We must act before they all become like this impudent young fool, chief or not!" The Owl king listened to her plea with the gravity of a high chief - then he spoke his decision: "Hear Me our
people! The time has come when our treaty of peace
with the humans has been abrogated. WAR!"

All the owls (and, some say,other birds nursing grievances against disrespectful humans) took to the air. From every part of the island of O`ahu, and perhaps Maui and
Molokai as well, vast clouds of angry birds circled higher and higher over Manoa. They darkened the tropic skies and filled the space under heaven with the voices of angry, righteous multitudes. It didn't take long for them to get to Waikiki, home of the foolish young chief. The carnage was ugly, frightening, and - um-messy.

"Why is this happening?" asked the chief of Waikiki,
father of a certain young fool. An unsettled young chief had to humble himself before his father and his people (and in front of Lani who he loved). His humiliation was eloquent, his bold stupidity was being repaid and everyone in his life knew it. finally his father's Kahuna
chanted apology and respect to the feathered cousins,
inviting them to a great feast at the ancient heiau (temple) on the slopes of Diamond Head. Peace was reestablished and has held to this day. You haven't been mugged by an owl, have you?

So the treaty holds!

A L O H A! Cloudia