Passing Scene

A L O H A!

Welcome to Friday!

click on photos

" If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

John Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan 20, 1961

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan 20, 1961

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die."

Ted Kennedy, Democratic National Convention, August 1980.

"My brother need not be idealised or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it"

Ted Kennedy, eulogy for brother Robert Kennedy, June 1968.

“This disaster reminds us that we are all part of the American family and we have a responsibility to help members of that family when they are in need,”
Ted Kennedy

“I think about my brothers every day,”
Ted Kennedy



"Trials never end, of course. Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that wasn't there before, and isn't just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through, that says: we've won this. Things are going to get better now.

You can sort of tell these things."

Robert M. Pirsig,

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

PSSST! Change is afoot;

Pass it on

with

A L O H A, Cloudia

Towers

A L O H A!

C I A O!

Eh! Click-a on the photos! Venezia

“A well-ordered life is like climbing a tower; the view halfway up is better than the view from the base, and it steadily becomes finer as the horizon expands.”
William Lyon Phelps

“I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;

A palace and a prison on each hand.”
Lord Byron

“This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty - this city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism."
Annonymous



Venice was built in a lagoon,

a special place of power,

where culture, history, energy lines,

and geographic paths meet fortuitously.

The Venetians have always loved & celebrated this place.

Her fairy constructions

are their lovely thoughts made visible.

Arriving in Venice, even today,

we see her famous tilting towers.

Their marshy bases love to sink uneven,

seeming to swirl

like slow motion wands

casting spells among the clouds.

What towers have you built

that have danced

and warped

with time?

Would you trade them for

a pyramid?

For a server farm?

A warehouse store?

Would you trade your dear whimsy

for a strait cinder block shelter?

I much prefer

your folly,

reaching

daring

sinking.

I like your tiles

and crenelations;

I love the colors

and texture

of your

thinking.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Floating Out the Back Door

A L O H A!

click on photos to see & smell the sea!" It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument."
William G. McAdoo

"Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible."
Eugene Ionesco

"One day the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful."
Sigmond Freud

"Violence is the diplomacy of the incompetent."
Isaac Asimov

"Today my spirit is going to school while my body stays in bed."
Bill Watterson

" The writer is the engineer of the human soul"
Joseph Stalin

Well, as I sagely predicted, my happy side has bobbed to the top again.

It never ceases to amaze and delight me,

I finally possess a magical talisman or something!

I've confessed my crabby past, and you lovely, bloggy friends came visiting with tasty cupcakes, perfectly ripe fruit, and a crop of rosy comments!

You uplift and you humble me

in a most pleasant fashion.

Being a person among other people (blogger among bloggers?) is really very nice; when those others are like

Y O U !

Having my faithful kayak tied just outside the hatch

(you call it a "door")

just at the top of that companionway (ladder) over there,

two paces from where I write this,

doesn't hurt my prospects for a paradisaical afternoon either.

One minute my eyes are living through this silicon screen,

the next I'm pushing off,

and skimming out into the channel

behind my home-boat.

Water flows (I'm reminded)

like the web, touching every shore,

but it is wet, and fragrant and intimately close

when you glide upon it low,

with a wet bottom.

Normally I enter from the land, down the dock, and into my home via the Port hatch. It's such a delightsome, kid-like whimsy to slip out the other side (Starboard) and traverse a completely different venue.

I'm like the character in a surrealist nursery rhyme, exiting my chimney to float above the town

in the basket of a jolly red balloon.

Wind in the willows, wind in my hair. . . . Deedle DEE!

That's how the singing begins.

My senses open with the skies.

From out here on the water

sky and heart are unobstructed.

Settling into my own physical rhythms,

heart synchronizes with the sway of the waves.

Lungs exalt to be filled and under load once more.

Soon I begin to hear the piano concerto sky.

Sweeping passages of cloud and color

interlace with arpeggios of torn cumulus notes

that glissando into every shade of emotion,

settling, finally

into exultation.

And each passing piece of flotsam,

is a tiki from the sea,

bumping my canoe with it's brusque little blessing,

bobbling away with satisfaction,

in the winged sweep of my wake.

Out here

Floating flowers decorate the grocery bags.

And nets of radiant modulation

cast broad

evolve like a web of tiny ridges

across the bulging tidal surge.

Today

a sneaky, confident little Autumn

is laying her clues everywhere.

These trade winds carry the scent of Northern Cooling

and keep the hurricane

away

to the south.

The Canada Geese of my heart

begin to flutter

and to

Honk.

All this treasure

for the plunder!

I will be bold

as a pirate

and fill my

fairy boots

with black

pearls.

A L O H A! Cloudia

One of Those Days

A l o h a !

click on photos to muse dreamily The Sky is so Vast!

My Heart is so Tiny- but the Love it Contains

Reaches to the Skies.

We each paddle our skin canoe.

Conditions change day to day, minute to minute.

Will there be a paradise cove, surrounded by a loving reef, containing sweet water? Unseen, a Helper paddles behind us. The waters around us are tipped with the gold of Spirit. But life's brine brings on a mighty thirst; so paddle, paddle. . . rest and paddle some more!

Sometimes I just don't want to get out of bed.

Recent research indicates that, yes, children can suffer from depression.

When I was a kid, being sad and withdrawn was considered to be bad behavior, a stage, something to be jolly-ed or threatened out of. A character flaw.

So, being a depressed kid, I was on my own.

Unfortunately, that can lead to a self-reinforcing downward loop: one feels sad, shy and anxious; other people respond negatively,and so a gulf with a moat and a wall coalesce around one.

All the stimulation feels overwhelming, so one withdraws.

But children need relationships in order to develop.

When relationships are painful, the child develops into a hermit.

Solitude becomes the only solace.

Reading, nature, pets are one's reliable companions.

But since "life" is all about being among others, one is severely handicapped. It's impossible to do everything for oneself - but you can try if you have to.

This sort of pressure-cooker produces some diamonds.

Perhaps music or mathematics becomes your opiate?

Or philosophy, or observation and paying attention.

The Cloudia you meet here, is the result of decades of searching, experimenting, surviving & yearning.

Being sad and overwhelmed is a powerful impetus to inquiry.

I have discovered a few things.

And I am grateful and genuinely happy most of the time.

But some mornings I awake with a start.

Life is slipping by and I have achieved nothing commensurate with my potential.

Others who perceived less complexity, or who had easier temperaments and social graces, have single mindedly achieved careers. It's easy!

What's wrong with me?

The mountains I have climbed

are on the other side of the moon.

Or long forgotten.

I meet old colleagues who are still in the same field

and can't believe they are still living

in what for me has become a former life.

I've lived a dozen incarnations since then!

But the floor needs vacuming again,

a million and one little chores need to be accomplished

in order to simply go

nowhere.

Entropy swallows every day's post from the Comfort Spiral.

Perhaps I should delete all this and just run some pictures and some cool quotes;

But now you can see my achievement:

"From Survival to Satisfaction."

Indeed.

My emotional set-point

supposedly immutable

is no longer stuck on this fearsome emotional muck

(as it once was).

Like that clown punching-bag

somehow I return upright

to peace and beauty every time.

(Eventually)

Then I'll be embarrassed by this post.

But perhaps there is important truth here.

You are not alone.

Sometimes it just takes a little while to feel good again,

to stop focussing on all the "issues"

(mine and the world's)

and to notice the eternal thrum of loving truth

underlying all,

so that "all" is revealed an illusion.

And today's lack of

achievement

is really so very small.

I need to rest a while,

to dream,

to stare,

to hide away.

Wise people say that everything we touch, everything we produce, carries the "energy" with which we produce it.

If we act out of fear, or greed, we are spreading that energy to others. Some days I want to quarentine my existential angst at home.

But today I dare

(Dare I?!)

to show the trembling weakling behind the curtain.

Isn't that how friends are made? By being yourself?

So here's this lump of coal

in the stocking of my gift to you.

Go be human today!

If it is a day of heart and new beginnings: I salute you!

If you are hiding at home like me,

I want you to know that you are not alone.

Life is made of circles, of seasons, of weather-

inside weather and out.

Let's ride the Comfort Spiral

together.

Please, if you have the time,

leave me a comment,

a piece of fruit,

a flower,

or a word.

We are all hungry - but we all get fed.

We are blessed to feed each other.

Don't look away

for I am you,

and to love my yearning

is to heal your own

and the world's.

A L O H A Cloudia

Gates of Prison or Joy

A L O H A!

Glad to See YOU again

Here at Waikiki

click on photos, see BIG

Lingering Moments

“The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company”
Seneca

Psychedelic Fish

"A fish may love a bird, but where would they live?"

Drew Barrymore

"Assure a man that he has a soul and then frighten him with old wives' tales as to what is to become of him afterward, and you have hooked a fish, a mental slave."

Theodore Dreiser

Where There are Fish,

There is the Heron to Catch and Eat Them.

"Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish."

Steven Wright

Old and New:

Traditional-Style Polynesian Tattooing & Cell Phone

"Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Modern physics and western medicine

have discovered the mind/body connection.

Some even call it

bodymind.

As the mind believes

the body percieves

and reacts.

According to Huna,

the ancient beliefs of the Hawaiians,

the world is what you think it is:

Filled with God's glory,

or empty nihilism;

You decide - You experience.

We are at the gates

of

Joy.

I Hate Poetry

A Different View of Diamond Head

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among human creatures."

Lincoln

A Working Artist Making People Happy in Waikiki

(see his wheels?)

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

Einstein

That's "Haute" Dog!

"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."

Aldous Huxley

"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us."

Alexander Graham Bell

Actually I revere poetry.

But not the way it's presented in snooty publications that I otherwise enjoy, like the NEW YORKER.

They run only "challenging," good-for-you stuff that demands a thesaurus and a masters degree in the current, insular, expert-driven jargon to "get."

The enjoyment it conveys to its devotees must be the shallow, acid satisfaction of exclusion.

Makes your heart sing, doesn't it?

How nice for "them."

But the rest of us, we need to re-read Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Rilke, Whitman, Basho, or Richard Wilbur to get our fix of words dancing with deceptively weighty import.

They make it simple and welcoming,

so you may go deeper as you grow

yet still resonate to the

simple,

the true.

Well a tough little weed of authentic beauty is attracting attention to the vacant lots, gunshots in the night, and strangely proud despair of once-mighty Detroit.

There at the epi-center of "whats gone wrong with America" is a prime example of what is best in our country: a craftsman with nicotine stained fingers, a retired mechanic who can fix cars as well as conundrums, a fiercely honest, yet compellingly stark-gentle soul who produces Real Poetry, proving that this miraculous species, yet thumbs it's nose at the hot-house imprisonment attempted by academe.

Words, those impish little gods, will find a mouthpiece, one who has been made ready by a life at the working-edge of grass roots, in da street, a democratic genius presenting a scornful, sage appraisal of the

"way things are going."

This is no hot house flower.

This is the guy you want to have a shot, and a smoke, and a convo with at 3am as the sirens wail:

Meet Mark Durfee

AKA "The Walking Man"

on his coffee stained, eponymous blog:

http://themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com/

This grizzled wanderer/biker/war veteran/no-bullshit workman has recently produced something like 100 straight days of Real Poetry at his blog!

The rythmn and gravity of his words are the exposed beams of a meaning that had been torturing your abilities to express it; Then Mark dashes it off and posts it for us to read,

in a form that is spare, and rich, and usually inspiring.

I feel that I have made a friend, hell, I know that I have.

This poetic voice has my vote:

Mark, you may speak the keen truths that knife through our coats, and walls,

for me, for millions.

We remember comon sense, responsibility, and governing based on more than "say anything" power games, and spoils for the rapacious.

We remember a trust and a solidity that has decayed:

just like Detroit it's perfect emblem.

So visit The Walking Man.

Obtain there his slender new volume, beautifully named:

"STINK

Poetry and Prose of Detroit"

If I know you as well as I think I might, you'll taste something fresh, yet beautifully familiar: your own

despair & unquenchable hope

dancing cheek to cheek, down the broken sidewalks

of Detroit

at close to midnight.

For reals!

A L O H A cloudia

A Dream Recalled

Aloha Dreamers!

click on photos to unleash the magic

"We all grow up with the weight of history on us.

Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell in our bodies."

Shirley Abbot

A Hawiian man and his friend.

Yes, Daryl,

they are both waiting patiently!

"In a false quarrel there is no true valour."
William Shakespeare

"To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization."
Harriet Beecher Stowe

A True Story

When we got married

I was surprised at how "strange" and "different" I felt in my skin.

Even though we had been living together for years

the intention and the ceremony

brought something else into our home,

something wholly unexpected.

My husband felt it too;

We even marvelled and discussed this mysterious, unexpected,

and tangible feeling.

Who knew?

Around that time

I had a dream,

a dream of deepest morning.

I had entered a room

and many women were seated there.

I didn't see their faces

but felt their joy in being together.

They were casual and relaxed

but the atmosphere was very high.

I suddenly just knew that these ladies

were all my ancestresses,

my blood relations going back

and back.

I felt that my grandmother was there.

It was not time to meet them yet

but I was there for a reason.

So I never saw their faces.

Suddenly a manicured hand

(wearing a charm bracelet (!)

reached out

and

offered me:

A slice of honey cake!

My grandparents used to bring it.

I hadn't thought of Honey Cake in years!

I understood that they welcomed me,

as a married woman

and one of their line.

I even told my husband about the dream.

It was all so vivid!

I hadn't thought of

Honey Cake

in YEARS!

Later that morning

we were in the store where we've shopped for years.

For some reason

(smile)

I looked down

and there is was:

Honey Cake

Where I'd never seen it before!

Someday I know

that I'll revisit that room.

I'll sit with all the ladies

and we'll offer the plate

to the next generation

and the next.

There will be lots to talk about!

A L O H A! Cloudia