A Different Face of Romance

Chronicles of a Country Girl: Sometimes, I am a hopeless romantic#links

Serious Joy

A L O H A

Means: "Love" "Welcome" "Sharing" "Parting with Love."

It means giving without calculation or expectation of recompense....

click on photos to grow the Aloha content The past gazes on the present. Does anyone notice it?

"One of the unique characteristics of mammals is that we play, and as you get more complicated in the mammalian structure, you have a greater vocabulary of play, including laughter."

Dacher Keltner PhD

Univ of California, Berkley

Remember losing yourself for hours in nature?

"You need to get away from the notion that a lot of human behavior can be approached rationally, because we are not rational."

Robert Provine

neuroscientist, Univ of Maryland, Baltimore

Look past the cement and you will see a green abundance.

"Laughter is the GPS system of the soul. Humor offers a revolutionary yet simple spiritual paradigm. If you can laugh at yourself, you can forgive yourself. And if you can forgive yourself you can forgive others. Laughter heals and grounds us in a place of hope. It fosters intimacy and honesty in our relationship with each other and with God. And isn't that what grace is all about?"

Rev. Susan Sparks

"The human soul was created through divine laughter."

Egyptian creation Myth

"The Buddha's laugh fills the entire universe."

"Joy is one of the seven factors of enlightenment."

Buddhist teachings

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Life is serious business.

Much too serious to waste in grave seriousness.

"Life, Liberty, & the pursuit of Happiness"

is the founding principle of the United States.

A new idea in it's Enlightenment day.

We pay lip service to happiness all the time-

for ourselves and for others.

But we expect it to take care of itself,

as if it is an inexhaustible resource

that is always burbling over.

Is YOUR joy always burbling over?

Perhaps you will agree with me that we need to pay some much needed attention to the cultivation of joy.

The Hawaiians of old understood that energy & experience follow attention; What we focus on, grows.

What crops are you growing?

A possible first step in crop rotation

is to pay attention to the joy quotient in your life.

Anything we forget to notice, or appreciate, tends to leave us alone. Have you been a good host of joy, or do you think of it with suspicion, sending it back to the end

of your line of priorities?

Just for today, notice the gentle promptings of joy.

Allow them to blossom, even into belly laughs and profligate smiles. Yes, dare to be different.

Notice any "guilt" you may feel for thus "wasting" your time.

The first thing that newbie bird watchers notice, is all of the preciously unnoticed bird life all around them.

May it be the same with you and joy - your neglected friend.

We have made of the Divine a stern judge

(if mostly to judge others).

Dare we believe that Joy is the gift

that the universe wants us to enjoy?

It is certainly my wish for you -

because you are my guest here

and my friend, my Pili Aloha.

Do you need some pressure? Here it is:

Go take joy seriously!

Let me know how it goes.

Warm Aloha, cloudia
(all unattributed words are my own ;-)

bonus points:

King David in Psalms advises us,

"Serve G-d with joy, come before Him with jubilation."

The power of joy is unlimited, for, as stated in the Talmud, "Joy breaks all boundaries."

Waikiki from the Water

A L O H A!

click on photos to smell the surf Looking out at the sunset.

All Ted Trimmer photos today!

“The sky broke like an egg into full sunset

and the water caught fire.”
Pamela Hansford Johnson

Waikiki looks beautiful from out on the water.



"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."
Jimi Hendrix


"A clever man commits no minor blunders."
- Goethe



Here is the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
During WWII, Japanese subs would lurk here in the shallows
listening to the music wafting from the hotel.



"When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."
George Washington Carver

A drop of water on the lens.

Who cares?!

“Don't you realize that the sea is the home of water? All water is off on a journey unless it's in the sea, and it's homesick, and bound to make its way home someday”
Zora Neale Hurston

Today I am performing a wedding out on the Windward side of Oahu!

Please enjoy these photos by Ted Trimmer with my good wishes.

Aloha, Friends! Cloudia

Average VS Avant-garde

Aloha Cool People!

Welcome to My Pad.

Like, make yourselves at home.

Kick off da footwear - click on da photoArtPalm Trees against the sky - yawn.

Check out THIS view, cats!

“Everything we hear is an opinion not a fact.

Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
Marcus Aurelius

Wow! Like, Skies Are A'Changin` wit da Seasons!

"To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."

Emily Dickinson

We've seen plenty o` dem together, haven't we?



"Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence

Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance

Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence

Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance."

Yoko Ono, Season of Glass

Still, We Wait Patiently.

Seems everybody's waitin` for something!

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature— the assurancethat dawn comes after night, and spring after winter." Rachel Carson

The "normal" and the "mundane' always stifled me.

It was the unexpected, novel and new

- the DIFFERENT-

that entranced me growing up.

Of course, back in the day,

there was a prevailing impatience with old stuff,

as buildings, neighborhoods, and folkways were obliterated for tall, glass & steel "international style" blocks & towers.

If it wasn't for Jane Jacobs,

http://www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/placemakers/jjacobs

Honolulu's Nancy Banick: http://historichawaiifoundation.blogspot.com/2008/02/obituary-nancy-bannick-1926-2008.html

and other crazy citizens-without-portfolio, we'd be living in an even more sterile environment. So a rebellious love of "useless" old stuff has always been part of my makeup too.

As long as I'm swimming against the school, I know I'm going in the right direction.

Yes, swimming against the current has always been my default position, so love of the crumbling, archaic, and imperiled (be they people or buildings) came easy to me. It was just another early characteristic that set me apart from the progress-mad land that I grew up in.

I guess you'd say that nonconformity was the air I breathed and just as necessary.

To live buried in a bleached suburb was to me synonymous with death.

I needed underground comix: http://www.undergroundcollectibles.com/index.cfm/fa/categories.main/parentcat/8157

a bohemian district to breathe in, and plenty of non-mainstream nourishment like Pharoah Sanders:

But lately,

I notice that I'm finding delight in the most ordinary

people & things.

The very plodding, solid, grimy face of this life seems to me, at last, infinitely superior, fascinating, and worthwhile than the latest avantGard sensation.

Rather than seeking out the latest "exclusivity"

I mine delight from the abundant messiness of a normalcy

that has lately begun to reveal

a harmonious richness

in which the discordant oft provides

the graciest of grace notes.

My longing for belonging has expanded;

I'm not looking for the in-est connoisseurship any longer,

but feasting at the family table,

and enjoying every minute of it!

And thanks to all you fearless bloggers who share your daily bread with me!

A L O H A Cloudia

Life Abundanza

A L O H A

You Made It - Come On In!

click on photos for immediate gratification

"The greatest possession

is self possession."

Ethel Watts

"We work to become, not to acquire."

Elbert Hubbard

"We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion.

The great task in life is to find reality."

Iris Murdoch

HOLD IT GENTLY

Some may think

that exploring the Inner World

means gazing at your navel

and withdrawing from the world outside.

But when we begin to experience

the immanence of deeper reality

something else happens entirely:

the world around us is liberated.

The world becomes free to be just itself,

not "all there is" or mere anteroom.

This messy place becomes a wonderland,

and renouncing a celebration.

So

Just for today, pretend you do not know.

Let all be fresh, reborn.

We all live in the wheel ruts we have made,

but it's never to late to jump off the juggernaut -

if only for a day. . . or a lifetime . . . . .

Aloha! Cloudia

Wise Bird

A L O H A

Greetings!

You Have Entered a Zone of Ease & Good Spirits

Bring Your Well-Intentioned Self Inside for Refreshment

click on photos for the full sensory experience

The Morning Mists Yielded a Rainbow



"A dream you dream alone may be a dream,
but a dream two people dream together is a reality."
John Lennon




But Late Morning Shed a Blue Smile

on Diamond Head

and all the little bungalows of Kapahulu.

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see

when you take your eyes off the goal."

Hannah Moore

This picture has a story.

The bird was RIGHT outside our parked car, perfectly posed on my favorite husband's side. I handed him my "live" camera:

"Shoot it! Shoot it!

The bird flew from my sight, but hubby remained intent with the camera. "That's OK, just hand it back." I said, a little peremptorily.

Who ever heard of an impatient Cloud-ia?

(I wandered as impatiently as a cloud...)

I recognized my (sometime) tendency to impatience...

He got the swell pic you see above

and a sheepish apology.

Sometimes you just have to take a chill pill

and let them play it out!

A little bird told me.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves.

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you

because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is to live everything.

Live the questions”
Rainer Maria Rilke

A L O H A! Cloudia

Exactually!

A L O H A

WEB TRAVELER

W E L C O M E !

click on photos to participate fully

Moiliili, Honolulu

"It was labor that helped build the largest middle class in history.

So, even if you're not a union member, every American owes

something to America's labor movement."

President Barack Obama

Is that Jerry Dromedary

of Dorothy Hamill-Camel?

"I believe there surely is such a thing as truth,

but who among us can claim a monopoly on it?"

Edward "Ted" Kennedy

1983

Too Cute Pooches

"Censorship is the height of vanity."

Martha Graham

Times are tough.

Scary winds of change are howling at gale force.

Old certainties are daily revealed to be less than. . . certain.

People are showing their true colors.

Some are not handling it well;

They are aiming their anger at

targets of questionable appropriateness.

For it's easier to shout a punchy slogan

than it is to consider

the complexities

that brought us

here.

For those whose values,

whose guidance,

comes from

within

these are exciting times.

For much needs changing

in our hearts

before society can change

for the better.

So keep your powder dry.

Don't fall for the easy con of blame.

Dare to believe

that cure, or Salvation

is a relief - a release;

Not a sweaty hike.

Be cunning, relaxed

and poised as a serpent

while harmless as a dove.

And like a cork

you'll dance the turbulent waters

till brilliant Dawn

takes away all but

delight

(be it in this ocean

or the next)

Ahoy my friends

Aloha.

The most powerful thing we can do

is to love one another

and forgive each ourselves.

Thus is restored

the kingdom

of our

longings.

A L O H A! Cloudia