Monday, February 15, 2010

Scry Me to the Moon

It's
Aloha Monday
Here in

W A I K I K I

please click on photos to enjoy them

"Your friend will argue with you."
Solzhenitsyn



"There are no rules of architecture
for a castle in the clouds."
G. K. Chesterton




Scry me to the moon



"The real object of education
is to have one in the condition
of continually asking questions."
Bishop Creighton


"Crystal sincerity hath found no shelter but in a fool's cap."
Gerard Manley Hopkins


><>



I am the scryer of surf breaks
who reads the entrails of this land,
this`aina.
Lines of hieroglyphic clouds,
and the sounds of Chinatown's
close city streets,
human languages, and trade winds,
all speak to me
in shadings and gradations
of truth.

An "enemy" dead
is revealed a friend
and co-creator;
thus I gratefully battle
my interlocutors with chivalry.
For, after all,
they serve their vision of the good
too.

And if they've taken
the hypocrisy oath
for power, security, or money only
they'll face a harsher Critic
than myself,
empowered to punish
and purify.

I read the entrails of this life:
"All Good."



ALOHA, Friend! cloudia

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Gung Hee Fat Choy

Happy Year of the

T I G E R!

Welcome Golden Tiger!
Let's ride the Tiger this year everybody!
GRRRRR!






Lions are making their visits, blessing the town.



Children of all ages are full of happiness.





In fact, they participate in ways
that make the festival-time even more special
for everyone.





Strange creatures are lurking in poorly lit places.


Best wishes to

Y O U!

Thank you for your
visits,
your friendship,
your blog posts. . .
All year long!


ALOHA, clouda

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Spiral Saturday

Aloha, Friend!
It's
Saturday
in
W A I K I K I







please click on the photos for soul expansion

"Thinking of you makes my life complete.
You're my golden clouds; you're my smile."

Unknown




"It is fun to be in the same decade as you."
Franklin D. Roosevelt (to Churchill)







"What does reason demand of a man?
A very easy thing--to live in accord with his nature."
Seneca



><>



"WHERE

Where the tree line
breaks at the headlands,
where the plowed soul
meets the unbroken spirit
we build the fires of life
within a ring of stone to warm us."

><>

Above is the opening stanza of a poem
by my friend, the Detroit poet, Mark Durfee.
The specific gravity, the sound, and the meaning in those words
are like the work of a master Stone-cutter,
and they please me very much.

You can read the rest of the poem by visiting the poet's blog HERE.



ALOHA! cloudia

Friday, February 12, 2010

Snow Memories

Aloha, Friend!
It's
Friday
in
W A I K I K I

click on the memories
Living here in Waikiki means lots of sun in February



"I have never seen snow
and do not know what winter means. "
Duke Kahanamoku


But when there is a major winter storm,
my thoughts return to my east coast childhood.



"Genius is an African who dreams up snow."
Nabokov



Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood. "
Andy Goldsworthy



><>



The day after big snow
in a great city
is a festival!


Sunny skies
like salvation show
a blinding white,
a crisp blue vast,
of
sky
with celebratory clouds.




Yesterday
there was no horizon
just a suspension of silver confetti flakes.


Today the sky's reopened.
Rivulets of melted snow,
and the squeals of children
in the
awe-hushed town,
promise Spring.



ALOHA, Snow Bunnies! cloudia

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Let's Flock

ALOHA, FRIENDS!


Welcome

to
W a i k i k i

click on photos to ride along
Driving under Hawaii winter skies


“There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky;

there is one spectacle grander than the sky,
that is the interior of the soul”

Victor Hugo


Santa is wintering in Hawaii!


Did you ever wonder why the tool is called a "monkey wrench?"
It was invented by Charles Moncky







The word "toy" comes from the Olde English for "tool."

Is a blog a tool or a toy?

><>

The Pew Internet & American Life Project
estimates that one in ten on-line adults has a blog;
That's 30 million blogging adults.

Glad we found each other!

><>

My blog is a kite
I send up every day.
Your daily dose of Hawaii
Through my eyes.

Some blogs are fighting kites
Cutting the strings
Of their opponents'
Arguments.

But Comfort Spiral
is a message in a bottle:
"Like minded people
Come out and play."

And like miracles
Or migrating butterflies
You come to display your colors!

The Sky is full of kites
Each one is different
Yes,
Another wondrous day . . .

A L O H A,
cloudia





Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Cloudy Thinking

Aloha, Friend!
Welcome
to
Waikiki


click on photos to enlarge
Did you know that the first person to fly solo from Hawaii
to the continent (in 1935) was Amelia Earhart?


"It is very simple to be happy,
but it is very difficult to be simple."
Rabindranath Tagore



"Time might be a great healer- but it's a lousy beautician."
CoCo


><>


"Clouds are such simple things,
nothing more than colloidal suspensions
of water droplets or ice crystals in air,
but they are the key to life outside the oceans.
Without clouds there is no rain,
and without rain
there is only arid land
where nothing lives."
Richard Brill


ALOHA, cloudia

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

New Orleans Saints

Aloha, Friends!

Welcome Back to Waikiki-

E Komo Mai, Come Inside and Warm Up

click on photos!
"The greater the philosopher the harder it is for him to answer the questions of common people."

Henryk Sienkiewicz

><>


Specialization is the glory of our species, we go to a physician who has dedicated himself to medicine, we have exquisite "experts" who are "the best" in every field. And yet I can't help thinking that this is just what has led us to the compartmentalization that seems the root our all our systemic problems (which are becoming unbearably great).
Perhaps the solutions will emerge from us "Non-Experts?"


Sweet little bungalow beside the H-1


"Much of what passes for advanced literary scholarship these days
is dreadful twaddle-
incoherent, emotionally empty, deeply illiterate."
Terry Castle, Professor of English, Stanford University

(Susan Sontag called her
"-the most expressive, most enlightening literary critic at large today.")





"Swim with the dolphins."



"Originality and a feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle." Dostoyevsky

><>

My sweet little collaborator, Miss Kitty, is sitting tucked against my side.

Favorite Husband has gone off to work (good fellow!).

The fan drones it's chant
here below decks.



Our ancient boat is still floating,
as are my spirits.
A magical, sense-smattering night in
Chinatown on Saturday
has me on a Lunar New Year high.



According to Lillian Too,
the famous Astrologer and Feng Shui expert,
I am the favored creature (lady water snake)
of the horoscope this year.




This nicely dovetails with my prevailing sense that:
"I'm coming into my own this year."
Having climbed so many invisible mountains,
and having had the privilege of assisting many forgotten folks
("Don't let your left hand know what the right one's doing,
nor dwell on good deeds.")
having had that privilege
I feel ready for new opportunities:
officiant, ghost writer, tour guide,
small business operator, clown-doctor.




Perhaps this is the year
that I finally know what I'm going to be
if I grow up.




Of course I'm all I need to be
Right Now:
posting my message to the world of all of
You,
then returning to the natural foods store
for the items that Hubby paid for
then left behind.
A mother blogger's work is never done,
eh friends?




Accidentally, I did a cool thing yesterday here in da Comfort Spiral.
I often put a picture, song, or quote
into a "New Post"
and schedule it for a brief time in the future
so that it will stay top of list
where I can complete and post it.



I intended to "take Monday off" as I sometimes do
and let Sunday's post (with the hula video) remain a deserved extra day.




Well, a "New Post" consisting only of a gadget to hear Beyonce`s HALO
accidentally posted on Monday.
First I was embarrassed.
Then I realized that it was basically
"freshening" Sundays post
which it seemed to "top."



PLUS, I had wondered if anybody cared about the new song feature
because only Fireblossom HERE had ever commented on one.
Well, yesterday people DID comment on the song!
So I felt a little less like I'd been caught with my
Blogging Pants down!
(I meant to do that.)




And while we're on the subject of songs
and second guessing,
a few posts ago
"Run this Town" featuring Rhianna
was my song of the day.
I feared that it was Too Something
for many of you bloggy friends.



Then I noticed that it was almost the
theme music of the Super Bowl.

Vindication!



PLUS I've been rooting for the SAINTS
all season.



Now THAT's VINDICATION! WOOOOOOO!!!!!




Now I'm looking forward to the Vancouver Olympics;
or the little kid in me who watched the black & white TV
on the living room floor
during the last century
is still looking forward to it!



And I feel like I've already been visiting that Magic City
through the blog of our friend Jo HERE.




Hmmmmm. . .
"Being an Olympic athlete"
another aspiration that I never actualized.
Always seemed that there was time.
But after 50. . . well, I'll watch it on TV and the web.




But take heart, Cloudi,
this is MY year astrologically.
Recognition, success, and satisfaction
are coming my way
as I ride the Golden Tiger.



Big thanks for riding along with me.
Your visits, comments,
and your own posts,
mean a LOT to me!
><>

Bonus points: During the Super Bowl, Hubby noted that the score board: "NO vs IND"
reminded him of our US government in Washington:
No versus Indecisive!
*Sigh*


ALOHA, cloudia