Happy Hula

cclick on photos to enlarge!
The Happy Hula of Kumu Hula Mapuana de Silva & Halau Mohala Ilima
"Kumu" means "Source."
She is a source of hula to her dancers and to us. . .

"How can we know the dancer from the dance? ~William Butler Yeats

Never trust spiritual leader who cannot dance. ~Mr. Miyagi, The Next Karate Kid, 1994

Dancing is like dreaming with your feet! ~Constanze

The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie. ~Agnes de Mille

Dancing faces you towards Heaven, whichever direction you turn. ~Sweetpea Tyler

Dancers are the messengers of the gods. ~Martha Graham

You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart. ~Author Unknown

There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them. ~Vicki Baum

To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. ~Agnes De Mille

Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another. ~Author Unknown

It is of course possible to dance a prayer. ~Glade Byron Addams

Stifling an urge to dance is bad for your health - it rusts your spirit and your hips. ~Adabella Radici

One becomes in some area an athlete of God. ~Martha Graham, c.1953

Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair... ~Susan Polis Shutz

Dancing is the poetry of the foot. ~John Dryden

Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is not mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself. ~Havelock Ellis

Dance is the hidden language of the soul. ~Martha Graham

Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. ~Martha Graham

Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain. ~Martha Graham

The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word. ~Mata Hari

We ought to dance with rapture that we might be alive... and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. ~D.H. Lawrence

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I see dance being used as communication between body and soul, to express what it too deep to find for words. ~Ruth St. Denis

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. ~Kurt Vonnegut

Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking. ~John Wain

To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak. ~Hopi Indian Saying

Socrates learned to dance when he was seventy because he felt that an essential part of himself had been neglected. ~Source Unknown

Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain. ~Author Unknown

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. ~William James "

A L O H A! Cloudia

Writing Respiration in Waikiki

click on photos to enlarge!


"Red sky at night . . . sailors' delight!"
Banyan Beauty

Hilton Rainbow Tower ("Worlds Largest Tile Mural")

"Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." - Emerson

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude." - Denis Waitley

President-Elect Obama is home for Christmas here on the isle of his childhood. This t-shirt was made from an image of him body-surfing at Sandy Beach, Oahu.

An Angel has been here! (below)

"Elephants, like many of us, enjoy a good malted beverage when they can get it. At least twice in the last ten years, herds in India have stumbled upon barrels of rice beer, drained them with their trunks, and gone on drunken rampages. (The first time they trampled four villagers; the second time they uprooted a pylon and electrocuted themselves.) Howler monkeys too, have a taste for things fermented. In Panama, they've been seen consuming overripe palm fruit at the rate of ten stiff drinks in twenty minutes. Even flies have a nose for alcohol. They home in on it's scent to lay their eggs in ripening fruit, insuring their larva a pleasant buzz. Fruit fly brains, much like ours, are wired for inebriation." Burkhard Bilger in the New Yorker

The writing life, mine anyway, is a balancing act, a metronome; Back and forth, in and out: like respiration. Inspiration/inhalation - experiencing the world - then circling back inside to download pictures, to craft the words . . . . to exhale my mana`o (thought) and to share it all with YOU. . . This circuit repeated evolves into an upward spiral, a spiral of comfort, as we rise together on the minds wings. . .

.. .. .. . . . . . . A L O H A Cloudia

Hanukkah Tigers

click on photos to enlarge!










"Christmas is when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it." - Dick Lamm



"The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."
- John Maynard Keynes






"Whenever you find yourself in the majority it's time to pause and reflect."
- Mark Twain

I have a confession to make: today is sunny, balmy and delightful. Sorry, but it's just 'paradise' beautiful. I seem to remember when temps in the 40's (F) felt balmy after subzero weather, but now, after 20 + years in Hawaii, mid-60 degree temps overnight feel positively wintry! BRRRRR! Many of you currently have blizzard warnings - we have lizards warming! You say: "ski mask" I say: "Sunblock." But Hanukkah arrives this evening in Hawaii just as it does throughout the world with the lighting of candles, the re-telling of miraculous events, and the re-kindling of the passion for human freedom. . . AND there are gifts! Honolulu has received not just a bounty of beautiful weather this holiday season, but the public debut of 3 delightful Sumatran Tiger Cubs at the Honolulu Zoo yesterday. . . Walk along with me, as we stroll through Waikiki and manage to arrive at the zoo late enough to miss all the tiresome official ceremony. Let's just enjoy my newest neighbors in the company of other animal lovers local & international . . . . A L O H A! Cloudia

Birthday Princess

click on photos to enlarge!

"May you live all the days of your life." - Jonathan Swift

"One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them." - Virginia Woolf

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us." - Albert Schweitzer

Yesterday was December 19th, so I made my way to the Royal Palm Grove of Helumoa in the center of Waikiki to join the celebration of a royal birthday. It was Princess Bernice Pauahi Paki Bishop’s 177th. Hauoli La Hanau, Princess! The great-granddaughter of Kamehameha the Great, she was not only a chiefess of the highest order, but an educated Victorian lady, a Christian, and a member of a legitimate ruling royal family recognized by governments and heads of state throughout the world. She received her Hawaiian name (inoa) "Pau – Ahi" (finished – fire) when a house fire during her baby-hood kneeled and extinguished itself before her chiefly Mana (spiritual power) leaving her unharmed. It was at Helumoa in 1884 that Pauahi established the will & testament that would give birth to a wonderful legacy: The Kamehameha Schools. Though she died later that same year, her beloved husband Charles Reed Bishop carried out her fond wish to educate and succor the native youth of her dear Hawaii, for whom she felt urgent, and lifelong responsibility. Though the Kam Schools was (for a time) operated along the lines of the “Carlisle Indian Schools” model favored in the United States of those days for the “civilization” of indigenous youth, and later as a military school, this institution has become foremost in the field of Hawaiian Studies, Language, and Cultural Practice, and a source of pride to all Hawaiians. Her husband not only founded Bishop Bank, which has grown into today’s First Hawaiian Bank (my bank), and carried out her wishes to endow a first-rate private school, but the Bishop Museum – also founded by him in her honor – is the world’s leading scholarly institution for the research and preservation of Hawaiian and Pacific studies. In attendance yesterday were members of several Royal Societies, including the Daughters of Hawaii, in their antique regalia. Hula Halau Mohala Ilima performed a “name hula” in honor of Pauahi, there were prayers and remarks in Hawaiian Language and in English, and finally the Kupuna Kane (senior men) of the Kamehameha Schools Alumni Glee Club sang some rousing numbers in a style one might have heard at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in a bygone day – except it was all in perfect Hawaiian. These activities were evidence of a living Mana, not dusty museum exhibits, as the Hawaiian people continue to negotiate their culture’s meaning and purpose from generation to generation. My Hawaiian neighbors are very much contemporary people with both modern and ancient kuleana (responsibilities). Helumoa was referred to in ancient times as an ‘Aina Momona’ – a fruitful land, whose famous palm trees were likened to giant Kahili (feathered Staffs- royal emblems) marking this sacred home of high chiefs. In honor of the day many fine Kahili were on display; and the ladies and gentlemen of the societies held many small ones called “kahili pa`a lima.” (‘Pa`a’ means “fixed, held fast” ‘lima’ is the word for ‘hand’ which I like because it is sort of a familiar nickname. ‘Lima’ means the number ‘5’ so we call the hand ‘the five’ [fingers]. Charming, I think.) To my way of thinking, the rarest treasures on display were these surviving faces of Hawaiian bloodlines: Na Pua(flowers), the Hawaiian people, who are indeed the choicest flower of this `Aina, this land of aloha. Our hearts are full of gratitude to the Ali`i, the Heavenly Chiefs who provided for posterity to the benefit of ALL.
ALOHA! Cloudia

Waikiki Swimming Along

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." - George Orwell

"With the gift of listening comes the gift of healing."
- Catherine de Hueck

"Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experience."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

(click on photos to enlarge!)

Walking in Waikiki. . . “Kitty Takes a Dip”
Our third mate, Miss Kitty, is very adept at boat life and usually leaps to the dock with all the aplomb of a life-long sailor. But something must have gone terribly wrong the other day. Perhaps a juicy bird or captivating fish distracted her at just the crucial moment, a sudden breeze, or a feline brainfart. . . I’ll never know for sure, but from below decks I could hear the pitiful, guttural yowling of a deeply discomfited kitty! There on the shore rocks sat a VERY bedraggled and miserable creature resembling a water rat. I wanted to rinse the muck and who-knows-what out of her fur before she could ingest it with that busy little tongue of hers, but she must have thought I was trying to finish her off when I rinsed her in warm water. Being swaddled in a towel, rubbed, loved-up, and spoken to reassuringly was more to her taste, and she endured an unprecedented amount of it. In fact she didn’t leave my side for the rest of the day and night, though I’m proud to report that she is back to her old flair acrobatics. She does continue to spend more time with me than she used to, but I guess she’s simply learned a new appreciation for a warm lap in this sometimes wet and yucky world. . . A tip or two for human swimmers: For the past 20 years, Waikiki has seen a regular influx of jellyfish 10 days AFTER the full moon. So if you are planning a water-sports vacation here you may want to take this into consideration; of course, I like to dip a toe in the surf. . . and then lie in the shade of a palm tree (of which the neighboring lagoon has several wonderful examples). . . Ah the moon! There may be moon over Miami, honeymoons, and moon pies, but there is NO moon like the moon sailing over Waikiki! See for yourself. There’s another trip planning tip: be here for the whole lunar pie-in-the-sky if you can; you may decide to stay for the next one, and the next one, and. . . The Beach Walk project on Lewers Street has a new, classy Italian restaurant at the corner of Don Ho lane. I love Italian food, but can’t help comparing new places with the authentic South Philly parlors of my youth. Being taken to Dante & Luigi’s on it’s narrow city street, with it’s hundred year old waiters, and that unforgettable scent of red tomato “gravy” that has been percolating in the same seasoned pots for decades, was an authentic experience that newer places will simply take time to develop. I wish them Buena Fortuna! And speaking of Don Ho, local funny man Andy Bumatai tells about the time he and Don were driving down Kalakaua, when Don leaned over and tooted Andy’s car horn at a red light. The driver ahead of them climbed down from his giant pickup looking furious and walked back to their car. He was all ready to “beef” until he saw Mr. Waikiki in the passenger’s seat! “Hey Brah, that’s a ‘howzit horn’ no need to get all huhu about it!” said Don, in that unique ultra-relaxed way that he had. Needless to say, the guy was “shame” but he walked back to his truck with a great story to tell about the day Don Ho tooted “howzit” at him. . . “Honolulu” literally means: “Sheltered Bay.” The old folks say that we should call our town “Honolulu Town” or we’re just referring to the downtown harbor itself. OK! Honolulu Town it is. And remember: Manoa, Mo`ili`ili, and Kaimuki were all little towns of their own before the incorporation of the City and County of Honolulu. Today’s C&C covers not only the entire isle of O`ahu, but some surrounding islands and waters, making mayor Mufi the leader of quite a little empire. Take that mayor Bloomberg! (New York City). . . Walking in Waikiki, I feel as if I’m on the visitors’ turf, but when I stroll the other direction to Ala Moana Shopping Center, I feel that the visitors are on our turf (and they are most welcome!) Best international people watching in the world, they should charge admission. Here’s a secret: if you crave a quick, affordable lunch in Japan, simply ascend to the second floor of our own (now locally owned) Shirokiya Japanese-style Department Store. There you will find a delightful confusion of traditional Japanese prepared foods like you might buy and eat on the streets on Tokyo or Osaka. New visiting vendors celebrating regions or seasons rotate through all the time, so check it out. . . Ah! That snap in the air, the hint of Alaska snow in the trade winds, sleeping with a light blanket (and without “below decks sweat”) the hot weather is finally and truly passed. Now comes the good stuff! The hot fudge sundae of cool breezy temps and warm, healing sun that kicks Waikiki a few levels up the heavenly scale are just beginning for "the season." Soon the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center will complete its major re-imagining, complementing and adjoining Beach Walk. The former cement bunker between Kalakaua Avenue and the beach has been opened up and modernized. A festival of Hawaiian culture and entertainment is unfolding, i8ncluding todays 177th birthday for a princess! (Pictures tomorrow, OK?) Even the venerable pink lady, The Royal Hawaiian Hotel, is so impressed that she will turn around and place her grand entrance to meet the party when she completes her renovations, and has her grand reopening in just a few days. Instead of cement and shop windows we now see palm groves, sky and the pink Grande Dame too. . . just the thing. . . when you are walking in Waikiki. . . ALOHA! Cloudia

Hawaii Writer's Itch

" Good Morning Waikiki!"



(Click on photos to enlarge)


"Local Bananas in Chinatown"


















"Kwan Yin Altar"


"Want some BUMP-lings?"
or
"Won't you be my honey-tripe?"





"It's better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."
- Melville



"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." - Hubert Humphrey


"Most of the writers I know work everyday in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush's dog getting a book deal.
Writing is hard even for the best wordsmiths. Ernest Hemingway said the most frightening thing he ever encountered was 'a blank sheet of paper.' And Winston Churchill called the act of writing a book 'a horrible, exhaustive struggle like a long bout of painful illness.'" - Timothy Egan, in the New York Times

Today I felt well and truly blank, like a wall or like Hemingway's sheet of paper. After completing my early chores, I escaped to Chinatown. The busy streets, the currents of people and traffic, always make me feel good. Investing your years and memories in a place is what makes it home. The gritty streets of Honolulu's Chinatown say "Home" to me. Come, let's walk along for a bit. We can even stop for dim sum! And when I'm ready to move on to my next home, you can spread my ashes at Maunakea & Pauahi Streets. . . . A L O H A! Cloudia

Whales and Tales

Click on photos to enlarge!

Ted Trimmer, Maui by Air, top


"Invention is the mother of necessity." - Thorstein Veblen

"One's real life is often the life that one does not lead."
- Oscar Wilde

"The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are."
- John Burroughs

Lahaina Maui, one-time capitol of Hawaii, is also infamous as the battlefield of the "Whaler-Missionary War" back in the 19th Century. Missionaries were none too pleased when rough & ready sailor-men ("wooden ships, iron men") followed valuable oil - whale oil, that is - to the rich winter calving grounds of the humpback whales off Maui. These guys were no choir boys, and their hard-drinking, two-fisted, profane activities while ashore clashed seriously with the hymn singing, religious instruction, and "useful" labor that the men & women with the monopoly on God were trying to impose, er, offer the benighted Hawaiians. That "war" must have been some brawl! Imagine obscene pirates trading "licks" with fire & brimstone preachers wielding axes, and egged on by their indignant, hatchet-faced wives!

Today we lack the rectitude of the missionaries, and the pure spit-into-the-wind brio of the whaling men, but the whales still winter in Hawaiian waters and they still favor leeward Maui. Today they are protected and admired. Yet small boats of gutsy people still occasionally chase the whales, as one craft did yesterday. These pursuers were not whale-hunters but whale-HELPERS. In response to reports by recreational boaters of a whale entangled with discarded fishing line & nets (some an inch thick!) the team went in search of a giant mammal in distress. The gaffs, hooks, and blades they carried were all designed for the purpose of freeing the intelligent mammal to pursue it's hemispheric ramblings unencumbered. The ensuing water ballet would have baffled the whalers of old, as the scientists and marine specialists worked quickly but carefully to remove the debris straight-jacket. Finally the creature tired of the sport and swam for deep water. Scientists say that enough line has been removed to guarantee the oceanic visitor a good chance of healthy survival. . . To save Earth will require profound changes in our attitudes and activities; But for one afternoon, an important victory had been won. One of many . . . .one at a time . . . Experts estimate that 1700 humpback whales are currently wintering off Maui.

A L O H A ! Cloudia