Real America

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. - e. e. cummings

[Memory is] a man's real possession...In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
- Alexander Smith

Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes.
- Clare Ansberry

"De-escalate! Make that your motto. De-escalate so reason, or heart, or any passing distraction can intervene." - Zen Cat

In Biblical times we were visited by plagues: boils, frogs, locusts, drought. . .

Today we are farmers of ideas, and so we are visited by a plague of experts. They argue convincingly for selling bottled water to the drowning, up is down, black is white, right is - plausibly - arguably - WRONG. All for a price. . . The expert business is doing great and "facts" are up for grabs; everything is in play. Religious fanaticism & Faux News ( "We Indoctrinate - You Decide") are the voices of the day. Plead for common sense and they call you naive. But I'm not talking the common sense of the mob! Doesn't Mrs. Palin know that EVERY American city (Even New York or San Francisco) is really just a collection of small towns called 'neighborhoods?' We all live with neighbors: some miles away as in Alaska, some of us crammed into blocks of buildings. We ALL care about our community and our neighbors. . . We are not responsible for each other, but in a democracy facing major challenges we are responsible TO each other and to the kids. . . The Hawaiians had it right all along; We live on an island, and if we don't stop demonizing each other, well, soon we'll live among only demons and "good folks." We are better than that! Please Vote.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Local Stylee

my little novel:

Hawaii Friends:

"The darkest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis." - Dante

"Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called." - John Stuart Mill

"All generalizations are dangerous, even this one." - Dumas

Walking down Kalia Road I spotted a pickup truck with the bumper sticker: "Born & Raised." My niece and nephew who live on the Big Island are born AND raised in Hawaii; but as niece's teacher taught her years ago in elementary school: "You are native to this place, but you'll never be local. Because her parents were haoles/caucasians from the mainland, perhaps even more damming: Pahoa town hippies. That sounds racist, and may have been an insensitive thing to tell a little girl in front of her entire multi-cultural class, but by passing through my outrage I have permitted some deep sociological truths to arise to my attention.

These islands have long been loved and cared for by the people who first found them: the Hawaiians. A second wave of contact with Tahiti brought the harsh KAPU (taboo) & human sacrifice to these shores. The islands battled within themselves for centuries, but according to strict and somewhat humane rules of war. Island xenophobia is nothing new. . ."O`ahu was NICE before Kamehameha dem/them came ovah heah!" ;-)

Kamehameha was a young Big Island/Hawaii chief when Cook landed-returned- offended and was killed in skirmish. (A forlorn plaque commemorating the great navigator is still to be found at Ke-ala-kekua - "the way/ala of the gods") Ka-meha-meha, the 'Lonely One,' heard Cook speak of his Queen, an Ali`i like young Kamehameha himself, who ruled a vast empire that covered the whole world from her own dear island. In those days, rival chiefs still held pieces of the Big Island, and Kamehameha realized that it was perhaps his destiny to unite his native Moku/island. When a lava eruption wiped out Koa/warriors on their way to battle him (their footprints can be seen to this day, set in lava rock) it appeared that Tutu/grandmother PELE, the fire goddess who had built the very islands, was favoring him. After all, he had lifted the great boulder - akin to Arthur pulling Excalibur from a similar looking stone - that is still seen today in Kohala! Next he built Pu`u Kohala, the very impressive Heiau/temple that stands on a big hill above the Alenuihaha Channel. From there, Maui's Haleakala peak is seen in the mists beyond that choppy, challenging, passage. The lonely, restless chief turned his attentions to the other islands of the archipelago.

Perhaps the lonely one merely wished to avoid becoming vassal to the English Queen with her floating cannons and great reach. He preferred that his islands remain 'lonely' in this newly broadened world. Kamehameha "The Great," as he was destined to be called, wisely acquired his own Englishman, John Young, who brought rifles and taught gunnery with the great cannon that the Hawaiians had named 'Lopaka.' (Young married Ali`i, became one, and is buried in sacred ground among them at the Royal Mausoleum in Honolulu. the Hawaiians of his day didn't refer to the English chief as a haole, but simply as a Kane Kea: a white man.)

In 1795 Kamehameha's army landed at Waikiki's Kaimana Beach, near Diamond Head, and forced O`ahu's defenders inland and upward in pitched battle. They gradually retreated to sacred Nu`uanu Valley. I was on the street in Waikiki that night 100 years after that battle, when dozens and dozens of Native Hawaiians wearing red shirts, blowing Pu/shell trumpets, and carrying ancient weapons, marched from Kaimana, the 'wrong' way up Kalakaua Avenue, through Honolulu, and up to the site of the battle. Waikiki was hushed that night in wonder at the sight. Night Marchers/ghosts, it seemed, were passing for once under bright streetlights. Usually these apparitions are heard, or more rarely seen, in quiet rural Island districts.

Lopaka roared in 1795, echoing through the pristine valley above today's Honolulu, driving the O`ahu chiefs and their warriors ever higher up the foot hills of the Ko`olau Mountains. Today's 'Puiwa' Street recalls the fear and trembling of the defenders. Ultimately, fighting raged right up to the cliff's edge, and the O`ahu warriors spilled over the famous Pali in helmet, weapons, feathered cloaks and defiance. Such was the courage of those Hawaiians of old. (Herb Kane's painting of the Pali Battle always reminds me of the mythic painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware, or childhood visits to Valley Forge - these are our Arthurian founding myths.)

The Hawaiian Monarchy, it's questionable overthrow, the inflow of immigrant labor from China, Japan, Korea et al, have all left their mark on these islands and our culture. The Hawaiians hanai'd/adopted the new plantation workers. White folks and King Sugar were in the ascendancy. All those Kanaka/Hawaiians and workers created a common language: Pidgin. They ate, labored, suffered, shared and survived together: They were the first "Locals."

So being "Born & Raised" does have resonance in our dear, tiny, fragile islands. These shores have seen successive waves of "new people" seeking advantage on the blank slate of their fond imaginings. But we locals continue to welcome the whole world with true Aloha. Really. Come see for yourself. Though there is a blessed state of mind, of life, still called "local," those who come here, who listen, learn, and care to understand us; those who struggle, care and share, and who have ceased speaking of 'home' elsewhere, CAN become local, I believe.

I was born and raised elsewhere - but I really grew up in dear Hawaii among unique (and perhaps uniquely challenging!) conditions. Now I could never live anywhere else.

And my bumper sticker? Perhaps it would these two: the ubiquitous "Live Aloha," and my own personal: "Voyaged here. Lived and loved here. Became a human- being here." A L O H A! Cloudia

Volcano Visit

Big Island Of Hawaii's Puna District near the volcano

"All great truths begin as blasphemy." - George Bernard Shaw

"In a time of universal deceit, truth telling becomes a revolutionary act.

- George Orwell

"AAAAAAAIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" - George of the Jungle

A while back, we made a pilgrimage to the Big Island of Hawaii to witness the living lava as it flows from the volcano, cutting across the Puna district and into the sea. Though it is somewhat dangerous and reasonably prohibited, local people soon find their way to new outbreaks by foot over the warm fields of pahoehoe lava and are soon followed by visitors. Not that the volcano operates in secret! From miles away, red light in the sky testifies to activities that are re-shaping the earth by pouring new land. Somewhere offshore another Hawaiian island, 'Loihi' rises to meet the oceans surface; but that will happen thousands of years from now. Video cannot show the actual appearance of the red orange lava as it flows. Nor can it convey the smell of sulfur, like a pinch in the nose, as you set off over new landscape to lay the first human footprint. Lava is first cousin to glass - so you really don't want to fall down out here. Once solidified, the fresh rock radiates deep earth heat for weeks.

Here and there the ground reflects like mirror glass. Our steps crunch or ring a bit as flashlights (torches) snap on and an impromptu tribe heads out towards the glow. No surface is level on the lava field, so walking quickly becomes more absorbing with each deliberate step. Taking the time to look out for collapsed lava tubes or other pukas ('holes,' we use it to mean 'zero' too!) makes progress even more precarious. Well it shouldn't be too easy to approach the homes of the gods! For Pele created these islands unto herself, and is the grandmother, Tutu, of Big Island Hawaiians to this day. She remains closer than myth on this island, close in legends and family stories, and in these very mountains and lands (still smoking!) that we live on. But especially she lives out here where she performs her continuing Hula of destruction and creation. There is now only one inhabited house left in Royal Gardens subdivision. But how can we begrudge her a road, or a house lying in her royal path, when everything here is of her will and bounty? Right now she's in titanic battle with the gods of the waters. . . Finally our small hushed group of humans draws close to the glowing pillar of smoke.

"Look! My sneakers are melting!"

Mine are smoking a bit also, I notice. My feet are really hot. Heat like the mother of ovens goes to work on our suddenly orange faces. It is difficult to look, or to breath. But it is harder to look away. The moving lava pours out like radioactive cake batter. She takes her time - this construction will last millennia, and only those of us who actually witness the movement, the glow, the smell and the heat of Earth creation can know what this miracle is really like - O, Our Mother of Special Effects! Pouring liquid rock, 2,000 degrees hot, falls among the waves, which themselves are never still. Elemental determinations collide. What would you expect? Hissing, threats, advances, retreats fascinate us. No one out here is mentally reciting a shopping list or looking at their watch. I notice a glowing boulder riding along the molten river, as it drops sizzling onto wet sand and is covered over by an avenging wave: Indignant sounds rise up! Hiss! Smoke! Smell! The pohaku (rock/stone) continues to glow, actual fire beneath the sea (!) as I watch it recede eerily into the chilly depths; A lantern for Poseidon. I know I have seen something great!

A L O H A! *cloudia*

Walking in Waikiki

"The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness."

-Motto of Hawaii

Walking in Waikiki
With Cloudia

I have always been enchanted by the romance of Waikiki. And while I envy kama`aina like Mr. Apaka and Mr. Brower who had the good sense to grow up here, they will never know the magic of imagination as it paints a pastel Summer Waikiki sunset over the pewter and gray of an East Coast Philadelphia, USA Winter sky. Talk about imagination! Arthur Godfrey filled my “small kid times” with real Hawaiian music that wafted over the radio waves while I memorized all of the Hawaiian words that National Geographic Magazine saw fit to print during the first thrill of Hawaii Statehood.
Ah, Waikiki – you are my home at last! I’ve been here long enough to miss the Kuhio Theatre, old Hula’s Bar & Lei Stand with it’s magnificent Banyan tree, Cillies, Lollipop Lounge, and yes, even the late lamented “The Wave” nightclub “on the edge of Waikiki.” So many rowdy, youthful indiscretions! I miss them too, sometimes. I think that a place truly becomes “home” when your memories are all tied up with that place, as mine have become with this place. So this must be the place, right?
But our first date didn’t go so well, me and Waikiki. Fresh off the jet at midnight, we told our taxi driver to take us to the “Outrigger.” Little did we know then that there are 627 Kelly family Outrigger hotel properties in Waikiki! Our reservation was at the old “Outrigger East” on Kuhio, right in the middle of a cement strip of bars and attractions that had attracted a crowd more like that on a New Jersey boardwalk, or Mardi Gras New Orleans than idyllic, tropical, legendary Waikiki! Things have improved considerably since the mid-eighties, but Kuhio Avenue in the wee hours remains, um, “lively.”
I was glad, back then, to move on to our first Hawaii home on the Big Island’s Kona coast. Only later did I become acquainted with ole Waikiki on sunnier terms. Today I’m happy to live with my husband, our cat, and all my memories and demons, on board our 55 year old, locally built, cutter-rigged pinky-stern line island trader. She’s steel, like a solid old car (or a dumpster!). This is not the boat that comes to mind when you hear the word “yacht” but it’s functional, funky, and “home.” Actually, it’s the boat a child draws: mast, Popeye wheelhouse, high bowsprit, and three round portholes on both sides, port and starboard.
So now my neighbors are reef fish like Moorish Idols, Trigger Fish, and the occasional sea turtle, like neighborhood favorite “Patty” with her missing fore flipper. Oh! And Boxy, my pet box fish. He looks eerily like a big, soulful human face, with brown expressive eyes grafted onto the front of a square fish body like a psychedelic nightmare, Yellow Submarine-stylee! If he weren’t so sweet natured he’d probably really creep me out, you know?
My human neighbors are a special breed, too: boat people. Folks with nice boats who come down for recreation on the weekend; there are also those of us persistent and patient enough to finally hold coveted “live aboard” slips. And always there are cruisers: folks in serious boats who stop here while circumnavigating the globe via the poles, like the big, steel Russian (the boat AND the captain) that was here a while ago, or retired couples from New Zealand on their way to San Francisco (or vice versa). We also see seasonal cruisers; folks who call no dock their home, just their trusty boats, along with their extended networks of connections in little coves and indigenous villages around a world that tourists never get to see.
Boats that I have known, or just marveled at, are just now cruising up the Thames, through the San Juan Islands, Central America, or the smaller islands of Samoa. The bulk of humanity does NOT live afloat, so most of us who do have an interesting story about what lured (or chased!) us off of dry land and the steady life. It’s a bit like motorcyclists, or hot air balloonists: “How did you get into this?” Yes, the sea has always been a safety net, safety valve, or alternative, to societies structures and life’s responsibilities ashore.
The always immediate and changing eternal sea makes light of today’s “important” concerns. Things always look different out here on the water, off shore, un-tied. Even boats that rarely leave the confines of the harbor remain attached to solid land only by a slender line of rope, a rope that may be thrown at any time. Floating out here at the edge we have furled sails, the sleeping engine, full water tanks, even boxes of canned beans. We are ever ready to slip away on the tide that always seems to be flowing somewhere. else. Yet…yet we stay in Waikiki…
Yes, our home is constantly moving, bobbing, swaying, heeling with the wind. Such a home nurtures different certainties about home and foundations. Our main attachments are to nature, and to each other: other boat people. We have learned that boat people will always catch your thrown rope and make it fast. They expect that you will do the same for them, that’s just the way of the waves. One day, the neighbor in the next slip will be gone, leaving only an empty space of water. Then a new neighbor in a new house will arrive to share our narrow dock to solid land. Boat people know that nothing is forever, except maintenance. Shipmates will sail on different tides at last, and nothing really lasts except the dear harbor itself, the frigate birds, sailing clouds, monthly jellyfish, and the sea itself, all constantly morphing, eternal with it’s ever changing light, spinning seasons, and our passing wakes stretching out behind us. Nothing else remains- except Diamond Head (that sphinx!), and the way we choose to feel about it all. . . Here at the edge of Waikiki. . . Till later, Malama Pono (do the right thing) I’ll be right here. . . walking in Waikiki. ALOHA!

My little Hawaii/Taxi Driving/self help novel: “Aloha Where You Like Go” is available at amazon.com Mahalo!

Obama Hawaii Guy

Myrtle K. Hilo

"In 1959 my protestant family moved next door to a catholic family. They had a daughter my age. In 19 years, we spoke to each other perhaps seven times. If you didn't live then, you don't know how segregated our country was when the 'greatest generation' was running things. My parents' generation wouldn't have sent Barack Obama to the Senate. They wouldn't have permitted a gay pride parade. They sent the physically and mentally challenged to institutions, to grow up strangers to their families and dependents of the state. My generation was the first one to say that America belongs to all Americans. I'd call that quite an accomplishment, wouldn't you?" - Jean Martin, Pittsburgh

"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows slavishly the new[ones]." - Thoreau, Walden, Mass.

"The man who sticks to his plan will become what he used to want to be."

- James Richardson

Barack Obama grew up and went to school about two miles from my home. His mom was a University of Hawaii/Manoa alumna like me. If you are not from here, if you have not lived for years in this unique culture, then you don't really comprehend how very much it means to us to be "local."

It means growing up in a place with no racial majority. Your friends, neighbors and schoolmates (and often, family) are of many cultures, backgrounds, and colors - but they are just that: your neighbors, best friends, and schoolmates. You grow up accustomed to seeing many different models of how life can be lived, and seeing many different kinds of role models. But we all share something special: we are Hawaii people with all that it means. We came here, or our fore-bearers came here from somewhere else; and this includes the first voyaging Hawaiians. Hard work, cultural dislocation, finding ourselves in a new environment, and learning the humanity of those very different from ourselves, are the bedrock of our identity. We live amidst great beauty, but with limited space in which to "get away from each other." On an island you have to learn to share and get along. Just look at our food: it's of many roots and flavors - just like us.

It is in this "chop suey bowl" that Barack, or "Barry" as his friends called him, grew up with a smart, determined mid-west grandma and a large, outgoing WWII veteran grandpa. Oh yes, and they were white people. Barack has written two books about his life, and has lots of friends in Honolulu who kept in touch all these years. He has vacationed here, walking unmolested in Waikiki, every Summer for years. We feel enormous pride that 'one of us' is inspiring the whole nation and world. We recognize the values he embodies and speaks of. They are not rhetoric. We recognize the familiar values that we (mostly) live by in him. It puzzles us and pains us to hear newcomers to the national dialogue (or even old hands who should know better, republican Gov. Lingle!) ask: "Who is this guy? Where did he come from?" He came from us and we are faces of America too. He calls his grandma "Toot." Any local person recognizes (and uses) the Hawaiian word: "TuTu = grandmother." When he leans over and kisses a woman on the cheek, we don't see politics, we see the way we behave every day!

We are so proud when someone from our little, isolated island home brings something world-class to a larger stage. So don't wonder why Barack looks "different." Instead, recognize your own family saga. Come visit us and get to know our unique flavor of America. Your life will be richer. Spread the ALOHA! GO MAUI BOY SHANE VICTORINO & the PHILLIES!!

Cloudia

Emotion Commotion

"Only through emotions can you encounter the force field of your soul."

- Gary Zukav

"In hiding our vulnerability and woundedness by fostering a relationship of dominance, we prevent healing, our own healing and the healing of others. In fact, relationships of dominance not only do not lead to healing, they often lead to destruction, the destruction of others and our own destruction. I discovered this fact while being a minister. . . "

- Douglas C. Smith

"By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers."

- Teilhard de Chardin

Many of us believe that 'doing the right thing' is about knowing and obeying 'the rules' so that God, or the Bogey-man, can't play 'gotcha' with us - even if we transgress a rule in good faith, ignorance, or compassion.

Others consider 'intention' to be the golden rule - though deluded people always arrange to believe that they have only the best intentions (for they know best).

What I know is this: If you do good to yourself and others in gentleness, you will end up a very different person than one who followed every rule perfectly, yet reduced compassion to a slogan.

The Secret

Positive thinkers, prosperity types, fans of "the secret" all tell you clearly what to do: "Feel & Think Positively & Prosperously" but they don't tell you how to do that. Often we end up feeling worse than before when we feel like impostors trying to brainwash ourselves.


Our thoughts definitely shape and color our experience, which is our reality. It is difficult to feel prosperous as you struggle to meet obligations. So what's the "answer?"


I suggest that you focus on finding areas in your life where you can notice your prosperity, where you feel and be prosperous in ways that are detached from $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ .


In our culture we equate abundance with finances - even though studies show that, above a certain basic level, more money does not equal more life satisfaction or happiness. So what does?


As we open up to a broader understanding of abundance, life satisfaction & joy, we begin to really notice our life instead of just sleep-walking through it. We inevitably begin to live and to savor the real treasures already in our lives. Mental and spiritual attitudes begin to shift. You will experience your unappreciated abundance first. Once you value, celebrate and enjoy what you have with real gratitude (not a mental strategy that you "try to put feeling behind") MORE will be added to you: pressed down and overflowing. For real!

A L O H A ! Cloudia