Just Thinking

ALOHA, Friend!

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please click on the photos

The world is so much more basic and mundane than I ever realized;
and so much more magical.

We are all veterans of something. . .

Often it is the ways we don't fit in,
the things that don't go smoothly,
that lead us to the real treasures
of this life.

Emotions are like weather.
Sometimes storms just
arise. . .


Glad that we are in it
together!

Warm Aloha, Cloudia

Happy Sunday

Aloha Sunday,

Friend!

Did You SPRING ahead
to Daylight Savings Time?

(Steady, parts of Indiana! We know you don't Spring or Fall in time.)

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Hawaii remains (as always) in Hawaiian Standard Time.
New York City is now 6 hours ahead of me.
7 AM HST = 1 PM Eastern Daylight Savings

Click on the photos

"When I feed the poor,

they call me a saint;

when I ask why they are poor,

I'm called a communist."

Anonymous South American Priest

"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures

from the shelter of compassion and pity,

you have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."

- St. Francis of Assisi

"As long as you are kind and there is love in your heart;

A thousand hands will naturally come to your aid;

As long as you are kind and there is love in your heart;

You will reach out with a thousand hands to help others."

Dr. Sha

Thank You for taking your time to visit Da Spiral today!

cloudia

BONUS:

Honolulu Walk

Aloha Friend!

Let's Walk Around

Honolulu Today

and Look at all the Tall Buildings

Click on the buildings to see them grow!

"In the depth of winter,

I finally learned

that within me the lay

an invincible summer."

Camus

"People in the West are always getting ready to live."

Chinese proverb

"If you constantly think of illness,

you eventually become ill;

if you believe yourself to be beautiful,

you become so."

Shakti Gawain

It's a good time for a fresh look at what we value; not with our words, but in our day to day actions.

We post-moderns have gained much materially, but we have surrendered lots of the real texture, flavor and meaning of life.

Now the spell of "more & more" seems to be melting away.

But the things left standing are the real life treasure:

a warm bed, a healthy body, family & friends,

a quiet moment to contemplate the night sky,

while riding the earth as it ticks off time in seconds and in ages. . .

Sure there will always be day-to-day details,

but we've seem to have taken our eyes off of the treasure

to specialize in details, and we have become dull.

As I go about renegotiating the values in my life

a passage comes to mind:

"They shall mount on eagles wings."

This is a heroic cliche` of an image to someone who lived in a city.

But once I got to Hawaii and watched the IO, the red tailed Hawaiian Hawk, circling over the Big Island, what I saw was a bird going around in circles. They don't fly straight to the heights like a superman, or a rocket. No. As in a flying meditation they retrace the same circumscribed repetition in the sky. Over and over. But I noticed something else too: each circuit takes them imperceptibly higher and higher till they are friendly with the snow covered tropic mountain, Maunakea, and conversant with the clouds and early moon.

Finally, their view is unrestricted.

Stress and striving don't buy them that view.

They attain it by following their true nature.

Perhaps the groaning of the world economic system

will lead us to lives of paradoxical richness?

But just for right now: go outside into nature.

(after you leave your comment ;-)

Play with a child, pet, or childlike adult who you know well,

or just this moment met.

Stop and breathe and go to your heart.

All the answers you need are there patiently waiting.

I've found that stress defeats itself.

Believe me: the experiments were exhaustive and went on for years!

So take it from me: Walk the gentle path . . .

and you may just find yourself spiralling into control. . . effortlessly. Mounting on the wings of your grateful heart.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Me in the Mirror?

It's

Aloha Friday

in

Waikiki

Click on photos to widen your eyes

We sail on the tide.

"The only joy in life

is to begin."

Cesare Pavese

"Our lives teach us who we are."

Salman Rushdie

"Heirlooms we don't have in our family.

But stories we've got."

Rose Chernin

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What happens

when a vampire bites you?

That's right:

you become a vampire too.

And when zombies attack

they turn you

into one of them.

Back in the day

when country rubes

were sold the Brooklyn Bridge

(dreaming of the tolls they'd collect)

the only way

to make it pay

was to sell it to some

newer rube.

Yes,

we oft become

what conquers us;

They say that

we come to

resemble our enemy.

So what rules are you enforcing,

that were unhappily forced

on you?

And what did you hate

that now you perpetuate?

What is it you swallowed whole

that now you wish

you never ate?

Be happy friend

and celebrate,

the spell is broken:

A mere disguise

and not your

fate.

ALOHA, cloudia

Homey's Town(s)

ALOHA, Friend

Welcome

to

Thursday in

WAIKIKI

V>

Click! Click and put your back into it!

Let's turn down the shouting, and turn up the honesty

"It is a general popular error

to imagine the loudest complainers

for the public

to be the most anxious

for it's welfare."

Edmund Burke

Grainy World of City Night

"Victory is sweetest

when you've known defeat."

Malcolm Forbes

Fake it till ya 'make it' if ya have to!

"Self confidence

is the first requisite

to great undertakings."

Samuel Johnson

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I have never been to Paris,

Vienna, Rome, or Jerusalem.

London I carry inside my words;

New York was there

when I needed her.

Philadelphia

is my

essence-elphia,

Honolulu

my home town.

San Francisco, city on a hill,

the one that got away.

Re-tasting these names of cities

evokes the Candy Graces:

Salt & Sweet.

The flavours of my

life.

ALOHA, my Friends! cloudia

Aloha!

click on photos - oh my!

"Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face."

Victor Hugo

"The only way to overcome is to hang in.

Even I'm starting to believe that."

-Dan OBrien

"Love is, above all, the gift of oneself."

Jean Anoullh

Thank you for stopping by! cloudia

Gabe

ALOHA

Aloha, Dear Gabe. . . Until we meet again. . .

Hawaiian Superman:

The Big Man, Gabe, vacated his usual place of honor at the Harbor Pub some months back

to live with his grandchildren and family in Georgia.

Recently, he went into the hospital there for a routine surgery.

He never regained consciousness.

This full-blooded Hawaiian gentleman leaves a giant empty space in the lives of his many friends around the island.

Grown men wiped away tears the other eve

as everybody’s favorite band, Simplicity played his Aloha Party.

One time Gabe told us the story of his first childhood visit to downtown Honolulu.

Young Gabe, a boy from the country of maybe 5 or 6, watched as the double doors inside da department store opened to admit the people. When the doors opened again – the people were gone! “Don’t make me go in there! I don’t want to disappear!” The boy Gabe had wailed.

Gabe was walking history, a lot of mine included, come to think of it.

Aloha, Big Man, Aloha `Oe.

Parting is bitter; but you’ve always been really sweet. . . .

You see Hawaii is not paradise because it is perfect.

Rather, it is a paradise because we choose to greet life’s changes not with regret or despair, but with deep appreciation, acceptance, and aloha. . .

Paradise is what you make of it, and where you find it. . . And if you are lucky, you will make friends like Gabe. . . .

ALOHA! cloudia