For Sharing

'Aloha' is not merely a word.

It is a concept, a philosophy of life, a powerfully simple

faith in Love.

Sometimes, I just need to stare.
And to recover. Pleasantly numb.
(Sounds too much like a drug reverie :-)


How about you? Do you give yourself
 this permission and time?

Hawaii is good for staring

 and soul healing -

 so much beauty.

'Polynesian Paralysis' we call it.

Along with the power of Aloha,

It's why folks visit here.

Watching people in their natural surroundings -

 on the sand, by the sea, with their families,

or traveling alone for business, wisdom, or war. . . 

It is healing to hear the tongues of the world,

all relaxing, all unwinding together in welcome,

 all feeling lucky they 'came Hawaii.'

 

"It's a pleasant thing to be young,

 and have ten toes." Robert Louis Stevenson

Watching people, clouds, animals, flowers. . . 

hearing the breeze, the surf,

 Hawaiian guitars-

replenishes the flame in my soul.

I hope you feel that way

when you come here

 to share what we care about, 

and play in the sand

of your mind's eye. . .

enjoying the warm sun of our mutual

Aloha. . . 

thank Y O U

         for sharing it.  cloudia

100th anniversary of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire

A L O H A!

"He that oppresses the poor to increase his riches,

and he that gives only to the rich,

shall surely come to want."

(Proverbs 22:16) 

"I have always felt that it was important

that everyone who was a worker

join a labor organization.
IBEW Strike, 1941

.

I believe you should tell the story of injustices,
of inequalities, of bad conditions,
so that the people as a whole in this country
really face the problems 
that people who are pushed to the point of striking
know all about,
but others know practically nothing about.
CIO Convention, 1943

.

The unionization of domestic workers
will be salutary 
for both the employer and the employee. "


"My Day," 1946
Eleanor Roosevelt (all)

<°)}}><

  Friday marked the 100th anniversary
of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire.

  146 people died that day,
most of them young immigrant women & children
(many of whom jumped to their deaths
to escape the flames).

The  March 25, 1911  fire started on the eighth floor of the Greenwich Village building  quickly engulfing the floors above.

Firefighters' ladders reached only to the sixth floor.

It was also common practice
for "bosses" to lock factory doors,
back in those good old days
before those nasty unions
forced us to work only 8-hour days
and to forswear child labor.


Let all that sink in for a moment.

The tragedy prompted many improvements
in fire safety across the country,

such as laws mandating fire drills. 

SOCIALISM!




Days after the Triangle fire,
100,000 mourners marched in a funeral procession
through the streets of New York,
while another 250,000 lined the route.

Their grief was the foundation
for the right of garment workers to unionize.

The tragedy is credited with conferring a certain
"self evident" moral authority
to the U.S. labor movement.

 

"I cannot let my children or my grandchildren go back to that time; You know we are moving back. Not just unions, middle class in general is moving back in that direction. America has got to get out and protest."
One man told the AP at Friday's observance.

Little-Known Great

Aloha    Friend-

Just days before the earthquake & tsunami

Hawaii lost a living treasure,

Herb Kawainui Kane.

Come meet this remarkable person

now. . .

Behind this land of Aloha there is a past.

It begins in the sea's deepest depths,

where we broke out in fire.  

A fiery goddess danced creation,

the plants and birds placed themselves here

and rejoiced. 

And then (only then) the people could come. . .

by Herb Kane

Great voyagers they were.

While all the world clung near to coasts,

they knew and followed the sea,

currents, birds and stars were their colleagues. 

Following the Hoku Le`a (the Star of Gladness)

they came here to virgin islands and named them

'Hawaii Nei'

&

'Hawaii Loa'

 names shrouded in the mists of Polynesian history,

shrouded in the mysteries. . . 

No one knows what they mean. Or they're not talking.

Herb Kane's Battle of the Pali

Great kingdoms came and went. 

Keawe kings ruled the Big Island.

Then one arose who saw the first ships of Captain Cook,

and who then united the islands

in the face of a suddenly bigger world.

Kamehameha The Great, the 'Lonely One' 

drove Oahu's defenders over the dramatic Pali cliffs

just above our Honolulu Town.

  We drive over the Pali

with ghosts and gods in our cars,

we know about these things,

largely because of one man:

 

HERB KAWAINUI KANE 

 (pronounced KAH-ney)

Historian, Fine Artist, Author, Hawaiian.

Born in 1928, raised in Waipi'o Valley and Hilo, Hawai'i, Mr. Kane served in the US Navy,

then studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, earning his master's degree 1953, and also at the University of Chicago.

Fortunately, he set up his studio

and his home

in rural South Kona

on the island of Hawaii,

(near my first Hawaiian home in a coffee shack).

While anthropologists strenuously disagreed 

about the peopling of these islands,

Mr. Kane and a few like-minded friends birthed the idea of building a real-life Hawaiian voyaging canoe, the like of which had not been seen in centuries.

Calling her Hokule`a,

and naming Herb Kane her first captain back in 1975,

was a first chapter in

the reclaiming of pride and respect to the native Hawaiian people who lost so much

along with their sovereignty.

The Holule`a sailed without instruments,

and suddenly it was cool to be Hawaiian!

Music and Hula flourished

and there was again pride 

in the old ways & wisdom.

In 1984 the artist/captain was elected

a Living Treasure of Hawaii.

In 1987 "The Year of the Hawaiian" 

he was one of sixteen persons chosen as

Po'okela (Champion).

From 1988 to 1992 he served as a founding trustee of the Native Hawaiian Culture & Arts Program, a Federal program at Bishop Museum. 

In 1998, he was awarded Bishop Museum's Charles Reed Bishop Medal.

In 2002, he received an award for excellence from  The Hawaii Book Publishers Association.

He is a 2008 recipient of an honorary doctorate awarded by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

 

Herb's Hawaii commemorative stamp for the U.S. Postal Service, celebrated 50 years of statehood, when released in August 2009.

But those are just awards.

This man raised his people,

his home,

and human dignity.

He redeemed the ancestors.

What a legacy!

The Hokule`a has since voyaged as far afield as Japan, visiting all corners of the Polynesian Triangle, to Tahiti and the Marquesas.  

And when we Hawaii people think of grandmother Pele (the volcano goddess)

of the Pali Battle,

of the discovery of Hawaii by canoes,

it is the images created by Herb Kane that we see

in our hearts & minds.

     Herb Kane in his Kona studio, October 2010. Photo by David Croxford for HAWAII Magazine



 

“Every brushstroke and every word

has brought and will forever bring

wisdom, beauty, inspiration

and understanding.”

Herb Kawainui Kane

his website

My little Hawaii novel was considered worthy of being brought along

on Hokule`a's Japan voyage!

"Thank you; we have lots of time to read out there."

Nainoa Thompson, Captain of the Hokule`a

Simpler Times

A l o h a !

"Here is a test

to find out whether your mission in life

is complete.

If you're alive, it isn't." 

Richard Bach

Simple, boring peace & quiet;

Just what the people of Jerusalem

are NOT enjoying today.

We send them,

and all who cope with

violence,

our Aloha.

“To be humble to superiors is duty,

to equals courtesy,

to inferiors nobleness.”

 

Benjamin Franklin

And now, let's take a trip to a simpler time. Click on the song,

listen while you view the video!

Eye Path

Aloha to 

                                YOU!

Patiently Playing 'Second Fiddle'

"Oh, the comfort - 

the inexpressible comfort

of feeling safe with a person - "

Dinah Craik, 

A Life for a Life, 1859

"Marriage

is grad school

for the soul."

cloudia

"Let us be grateful

to people who make us happy, 

they are the charming gardeners 

who make our souls blossom. "

Marcel Proust

"Someone to tell it to 

is one of the fundamental needs

of human beings. "

Miles Franklin

><}}(°>

 

 

 

Every experienced motorcyclist knows

NOT to look at the rock ahead of you

in the road.

The bike will follow your eye;

Look at the path AROUND the obstacle

and that is the way you will go.

        Just like life. . .cloudia

Secrets in the Sky

'ALOHA'
              Means Welcome!

"This is the beginning of a new day. 

You have been given this day to use as you will. 

You can waste it or use it for good. 

What you do today is important

because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.

When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever;

in its place is something that you have left behind...

                          let it be something good."
                                                    annon

"Seeing into darkness is clarity
Knowing how to yield is strength."

Lao Tse

"We carry within us the wonders
we seek without us."

                                  Thomas Browne


You know what to do!  
    Play the song, then watch the video as you listen-

Super Moon Tonight!

          Aloha Friend :-)

 

"I'd say it's worth a look."  

Geoff Chester,

US Naval Observatory,

Washington DC

Gem!

 

 

 

 

“Truth is a gem that is found at a great depth;

whilst on the surface of this world,

all things are weighed by the false scale of custom.”

 Lord Byron 

 

                   

"Whoever possesses that chest,

possesses the leverage

to command Davy Jones to do

whatever it is he or she wants."

Captain Jack Sparrow 

Not-So-Super Moon, smiling

 “If, instead of a gem, or even a flower,

we should cast the gift of a loving thought

into the heart of a friend,

that would be giving as the angels give”
 George MacDonald

A “Super Moon”
like we will enjoy tonight,

is a new or full moon

when Mistress Moon rides within 90 percent of her closest approach to Earth.

While this happens 4-6 times a year,

NASA says that tonight's full moon will nearly coincide

with the moon's closet orbit point around the Earth, 

making tonight's performance the biggest, visible 
full moon in North America in two decades!  

Officially, a “Super Moon” is called a "perigee moon.”  But who cares about being official? 

Super moons are
about 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter 
than non-perigee moons. . .

When the weather cooperates, that is.

 "Tonight's full Moon (March 19th)
occurs less than one hour away from perigee – a near-perfect coincidence that happens
only every18 years or so;
The last full Moon so big and close to Earth 
occurred in March of 1993."
Said Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC.

Contrary to some alarms circulating  around the Web, perigee Moons do not trigger natural disasters. The "super moon" of March 1983,  passed without incident. And an almost-super Moon in Dec. 2008

also proved harmless. 
(Besides, don't we have enough disasters
right now?)

If you want to try and see the full effect,

(and take your mind off disasters

even closer to our planet)

  then look when the Moon is near the horizon

in the early evening.

 

That is when illusion mixes with reality

to produce an incredible view,

  say the nerds at NASA. 

 

They promise that it will appear 

close enough to touch!

A super perigee Moon is still 356,577 km away. 

But in space, that's kissing distance!

So blow some to the man, or rabbit, or goddess 

that you see up there.

       Your Loony Pal, cloudia