Christmas Recovery

"One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things."
- John Burroughs

"People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas." - Anonymous

"The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated."

- William James

Christmas is the family holiday, for one day the world feels like our collective living room, and we want everyone to share in the joy. It's all about families gathering, gathering up the lonely, and seeing to it that every child has a present, every person a festive meal. Now New Years will be about our friends, about excess, and that all-important special other; we all want someone to kiss as the old year ends, someone to look forward with as a new year begins. Welcome to limbo week. Slowly the shoji screens of our life slide into place for the next performance of living. So take a moment to take a bow. All you people at the airport, all of you responsible for the explosion of Christmas in your domestic sphere - and for it's clean up; here's to us, all of us. And if it's a bit early in the day for a libation where you are, I say have one anyway, in the spirit of Christmas, of Hanukkah, of Kwanzaa. Take a break from the treadmill to take a look around. You've done pretty well this year, all in all. . . . Cheers &

A L O H A! Cloudia

Joy To Da World!

"I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it." - Rita Mae Brown

Today I wish joy to the world; to the creatures, to all people, and to the dear Earth itself. Each day that we spend here is a gift that deserves our gratitude. Dogma matters less than kindness. Today, start with yourself! Aloha, Cloudia

Waikiki Christmas

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"A sailor in a boat is a man in jail with a chance of being drowned."

"We all know what light is; but it's not easy to tell what it is." Both quotes- Samuel Johnson

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
- Edgar Allan Poe

“Does This T-Shirt Make Me Look Malihini?”

Leaving home today I wondered: “Is my ‘local-ness’ evident in this New York City t-shirt?” maybe I should just change into my ratty ‘University of Hawaii’ number from undergrad times? Not that there’s anything wrong with being a visitor, y’all are the WHOLE point of the daily festival that IS Waikiki! I think that my “Honolulu Chinatown Lion Dancing” shirt became my absolute favorite one during last Chinese New Year season while I was watching some local kids performing my second favorite dance (after Hula). “Is one of the kids yours?” another woman asked me. I’ve also been asked - by visitors - if I’m Hawaiian. What a wonderful compliment! My love of this place is as clear to them as. . . a slogan on a t-shirt. “I’m a malihini" (newcomer) I tell local folks who ask how long I've been in the islands, "only been here 21 years.” And when those that know me say: “Naw. You local already!” well, that’s one of the greatest compliments I could ever receive: to be accepted as family, ohana. That speaks for itself anywhere in the world, but especially in Polynesia where it’s the cornerstone of everything- and not just at holiday time. . . A handful of years ago I facilitated after-school peer meetings for special kids at two local High Schools. No, not special like that, these were attractive, smart kids who had issues in school because of circumstances beyond their control – kids who just needed a place to open up, to share, to feel safe, and to grow. I mostly just showed up (with food, local style!) listened, cared, showed up, and listened. At age 14 they were problem kids barely hanging on in school. By graduation (and yes, they beat the odds, stayed in school and graduated – most of them) they were tall young adults with some confidence. Wow! Knowing them has been one of the great things in my life. The other day at the plate-lunch place I didn’t recognize my friend Ho`o from one of the groups (pronounced: 'Ho-Oh') at first. So grown up! And so happy to see me! That hug and clear smiling face will warm me into the new year for sure. Just think for a moment of the Ho`os in YOUR life. People you think of, but rarely, who’ve not forgotten something that YOU shared with them. Those folks are among the truly important investments in anyone's life. For what is quality of life really? It’s other people, yes, just like hell can be. What are you investing in? If you want to learn something about 21st century modern culture, why just walk around in public smiling! Notice how folks look at you. Even as most of us are starved for smiles and sincerity, we’ve learned to suspect that smiling stranger. They usually do have something to sell! But if quality-of-life consists mostly of how we view, think about, and interact with others, then perhaps the Hawaiians of old had it just right: Aloha is not a soft concept, but rather a very smart investment! A while back, there was a letter-to-the-editor of the Honolulu Advertiser that I snipped out of the paper titled: “Sharing of Aloha Makes Visits Nicer.”
“It’s time to leave again. Thank you, Hawaii. Thank you for your aloha. In this world where people pass each other without a glance, you acknowledged others. Whether we were walking, riding the TheBus or enjoying the music in a lounge, you smiled, spoke, offered directions, talked story or shared a song. Mahalo. Your aloha will help make this world a better place. (signed) Lanny and Phyllis Younger, New Lenox, IL” Nuff said. . . . . We often get to see strange and wonderful sights off shore of O`ahu: the USS Missouri completing her final voyage to Pearl Harbor, or the voyaging canoe Hokule`a setting off to retrace the oceanic travels of those who came here first. The black and red Chinese Junk in the picture above turned up here this week, rather cool, I think . . And our local guy, Barack Obama is relaxing on the island for his usual Christmas visit home. It was just a few years ago that he could walk unnoticed and unmolested around Waikiki just as you and I can enjoy. Today he joined with family members to spread the ashes of the grandmother who helped to raise him. She died just a day before the election, but her boy came home to pay his respects. Her ashes join those of Barack's mother off the shores of our Oahu. . . Aloha and local ways are powerful bonds, and much more than just slogans on a t-shirt. I know that Ho`o will agree next time we meet up. . . Just walking here in Waikiki. . .

A L O H A ! MELE KALIKIMAKA TO ALL! Cloudia

Happy Hula

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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

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"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

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"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

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"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