Connectivity

Aloha Friend!

  Click on Today's Silly Song!

"Simplicity

is the ultimate

sophistication."

Da Vinci

"Don't ever get so big or important

that you can not hear

and listen to

every other person."

John Coltrane

"If you want to see the rainbow

  you gotta put up with the rain."

Dolly Parton

 

Let's just sit and stare out at the sunshine for a while,

Shall we?

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The holidays are supposed to be times to connect,

but they often lead us to think about the disconnections

in our lives.

These are times when we travel far distances,

sometimes looking for things that can never be found again.

But we hope.

We make plans, and we look forward.

We WILL  be home for Christmas.

Next year in Jerusalem.

We will make it home to the countryside

for Lunar New Year.

But wanna know a secret?

There is in each of us

a hearth

a heart

and we share it

with all the HEART

everywhere.

What we seek is

really within.

Everyone

from age one

to ninety two

feels the same sparkle-

It's new and shiny in young eyes,

 a smoldering glow

in the heart of age. 

During the holidays

we rush about

becoming dizzy like children 

who spin,

mouths open,

catching snow flakes.

Snow flakes blizzard-ing like blog posts

like bloggers:

All the same

yet each one truly unique!

Thank YOU for making time to visit here.   cloudia

Look Up Look Down

Aloha!

Hawaii State Federal Credit Union, Kaneohe

Look Up!

"I place a high moral value on the way people behave.

 I find it repellent to have a lot,

 and to behave with anything other than courtesy

 in the old sense of the word - 

politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit."

Fran Lebowitz 

Scooter Gal

Look Down!

"A human being

 is only breath and shadow."

Sophocles 

Look all around!

"If you are a dog 

and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater

 suggest that he wear a tail."

Fran Lebowitz 

When you get here, pause and reflect!




"Nature is by and large to be found out of doors,
 a location where, it cannot be argued,
 there are never enough comfortable chairs."

Fran Lebowitz 


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Thanks for visiting :)
Please leave a "hello"
    in comments.  cloudia

If I Could Be the Rain

Any Child Can Grow Up to Be

Aloha!

"Each week, from a different point of view, 

you get another look at God,

 and that's exciting to me."

Della Reese 

Do you recognize the couple from the 1960's?

"You know that being an American

 is more than a matter of where your parents came from.

 It is a belief that all men are created free and equal

 and that everyone deserves an even break."

US President Harry S. Truman 

Here is the same woman with their son.

"I remember my mother's prayers

 and they have always followed me. 

 They have clung to me all my life. "

Abraham Lincoln

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Middle Photo: Stanley Anne Dunham,
 and Barack Obama Senior.

Bottom Photo:
Stanley Anne and her son Barack

The University of Hawaii Foundation is forming an endowment fund that would honor the late Stanley Ann Dunham, President Barack Obama's mother. The fund uses the name Ann Dunham Soetoro, which she adopted after marrying her second husband, Lolo Soetoro. She also used the name professionally during years of anthropology studies. Obama was Dunham's first child, born in Hawaii to her and Barack Obama Sr., a UH student from Kenya.  Dunham died in 1995. Her second child and Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said in an interview Tuesday that her mother would have been moved to know that her work in the field of applied anthropology was being honored. Dunham received a bachelor's degree in math, and a master's and doctorate in anthropology from UH. During her travels to Indonesia and other parts of Asia, she worked with nongovernmental groups focused on women and poverty, and established microcredit programs in Indonesia and Pakistan. Dunham concluded after years of studies in Indonesia that the roots of poverty there did not lay with the poor, and that cultural differences were responsible for the gap between less-developed countries and the industrialized West. Her book, "Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia," centers on the metalworking industries in the Javanese village of Kajar and contends that rice cultivation was not the only viable economic activity in rural Southeast Asia, according to a description by its publisher, Duke University Press. The endowment will support a professorship in the UH Anthropology Department that will focus on research and teaching on Southeast Asia.  It also will finance one or more graduate fellowships for students studying anthropology or other social sciences.  Courtesy: Honolulu Star Advertiser 19 NOV '10

Every parent touches the world through their children. . .

 Thanks for visiting today.

        Please leave a comment!   cloudia

Silly Little Simplicity

Welcome to Honolulu

ALOHA  to  YOU

More Hawaiian Skies - Ho Hum

'Love is like a little old woman

 and a little old man

 who are still friends even after

 they know each other so well.'

Tommy - age 6

"At any street corner

 the feeling of absurdity

 can strike any man

 in the face."

Albert Camus 

"In order to understand the world,

 one has to turn away from it

 on occasion."

Albert Camus

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We like to sound smart.

And we think to do this

 by using big words,

many words,

jargon.

The most "intelligent" people

such as professors

and straight  "A" students

are the most guilty of this.

In the recent election

we voted on some amendments and such

that were SO impenetrable

that I could get but a general idea

what they were about,

let alone what specific choice

I needed to make.

And what about instruction booklets?

The people who wrote them

know what they mean to say

and it's just too bad

that it makes no logical sense

to us.

But it's not only jargon.

A whole 

"You know what I mean"

culture

has taken over broadcast journalism.

There is no longer even a pretense

of comprehensive

factual

news.

But there is a lot of giggling

cooking

and pets.

I like pets

but the News Greats

interpreted the world for us

instead of doing expose`

on the best place

to buy cupcakes.

The good news is:

Simplicity

&

Clarity

Stand Out.

Everyone's so used to sounding smart,

or entertaining,

that we have forgotten the power of a 

few simple words.

I hate you.

I love you.

Please stay.

I think that we over-intellectualise everything

to our hurt.

Religion is about thinking;

A life of faith is about feeling,

acting, and being.

Who cares what you call it?

Kindness

 is the universal language.

Gratitude is a big concept.

Let's have a conference about it.

I'll get sponsors

you book a hotel.

Clear your calendars

for one month, one year

from now.

Or better yet:

Stop thinking for just a moment.

Close your eyes.

Breathe.

Say out loud:

"Thank You for my life;

For this day."

If you do this daily

you will not write an essay about grattitude

you will begin living it.

Surprising stuff will occur.

Things will develop

and change

in most delightful

surprising ways.

I know.

I haven't been "thinking"

for quite some time now.

And I've never been happier.

Somehow my life has improved

instead of falling apart

as the ego threatens.

Weekends are a good time to start

it will feel strange at first;

stop being smart

and start allowing

wisdom.

Out of the mouths of babes

and bloggers. . . 

       Thanks for visiting. Please leave a comment! cloudia

Friday Sky Day

ALOHA!

Come Inside, Friend-

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,

 we must carry it with us or we find it not."

 Emerson

 “Looking back

 you realize that a very special person

 passed briefly through your life-

 and it was you.

 It is not too late to find that person again.”

 Robert Brault 

"Nature gives you the face you have at twenty;

 it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty." 

Coco Chanel 

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      Jesus, Buddha,

Hanuman,

didn't leave us

thick policy & procedure manuals.

They shared a few basic principles,

deceptive in their

simplicity. . .

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We had heavy rain

lightning

and rumbling thunder

last night while we slept.

The first winter storm

 rolled in from sea

and down the island chain

cutting off our brisk

Northeast Trades.

Volcanic smog,

VOG,

creeps towards us

from the Big Island

to the south east.

But it will not wreath us for long.

For many years

as I have grown older

magical Christmas Season

has receded to the weeks

around New Year.

But we must need a little of that

spirit right now,

or perhaps I'm living closer

to the love & fellowship

of the season

all year long?

Whatever the cause,

a Hanukkah glow,

 Diwali lights,

and Thanksgiving gratitude

are reflected everywhere

around me.

So share the spirit with me

if you wish.

Here is your first present:

          Thank YOU for visiting today, cloudia