Chapel of Nature; All Welcome

A L O H A, Friend

You are Welcome Inside

click on photos to dally gaily

Delicate Ladies of Nature Invite Us to Linger,

Wreathed in their best Pink Perfume. . .

“Some people are still unaware that reality contains unparalleled beauties. The fantastic and unexpected, the ever-changing and renewing is nowhere so exemplified

as in real life itself.”
Berenice Abbott

A Sky is Just a Sky . . .

(A Diamond is Just Flawless - That's all!)

“Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere.

Climb the mountain just a little bit to test it's a mountain.

From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.”
Frank Herbert

But Villain Mood May Even High-Jack the Eye!


“You will find poetry nowhere

unless you bring some of it with you.”

Joseph Joubert





Don't let it!
Refuse to board the train of recrimination
when it slides into your station.
Standing with doors open
inviting us inside.


But it only goes
to the end of the line,
never really seeing
the glories
as they skip
and sing past,
oblivious to all
"stinkin` thinkin`"
as we ought to be.

Eat the ice cream!
Cut the cake!
That we save goes mouldy
so dance like
today's the
Day
!



A L O H A
Means "Love" unconditional
to you &
to me. . . . Cloudia

Happy Birthday Oscar

A L O H A!

Welcome to the Belated Party. . .

photos may be clicked upon

Happy Belated Birthday you peculiar, lovely man. . .

October 16th

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."

All Oscar Wilde Quotes Today

It's been a long road. . .

"I have nothing to declare except my genius."

(At customs)

"Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act according with the dictates of reason."

"The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it."

"This morning I took out a comma

and this afternoon I put it back in again."

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing

can be taught."

"Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon."

"The well-bred contradict other people.

The wise contradict themselves."

Have an

ALOHA Saturday,

my Friends! Cloudia

Honolulu in October

A L O H A!

Welcome to the Beach at Waikiki

click on photos if you care or dare

Torch & Tanker in the Gloaming

“The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere;

the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling;

vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”

John Muir

Every No-Where Spot Has It's Charms When You're Roaming.

“Optimist: Person who travels on nothing

from nowhere to happiness.”
Mark Twain

Still Mourning WWI Dead.

Dated & Devoted.





“Nowhere to fall but off, Nowhere to stand but on.”
Benjamin King

My Waikiki News column is called Walking in Waikiki - but I haven't done NEARLY enough walking-about lately.

Guess It's time to tell you all about October in Honolulu. . .

You see, October is a hot month here.

No one talks about it, though kama`aina (longtime locals) quietly plan vacations for this time of year.

You might even say that it's the cruelest month.

Usually, a generous North Pacific (weather) High ushers cooling Trade Winds our way. But it can wobble and dematerialize as the globe juggles

Summer and Winter. Bully typhoon lows are brawling too near Asia, sometime shoving our laid back surfer High aside.

At such times the trades disappear, and a land/sea breeze regime marches in:

As our (is)land heats up in the day's sun, the air expands and rises, conjuring afternoon clouds.

Cooler oceanic air, thus invited, rushes ashore for a sailor's day-leave, bringing contagion of salt funk and humidity; Pressing smudgy fingers over every innocent blossom in our harbor town; Besmirching our snappy crispness with unseemly sweat.

Then as the island cools in the early evening, the air mass overhead contracts and sinks, pouring down off the mountains and carrying earthy, forest essences rushing past us on their way out to startle the creatures of the sea.

And Madame Pele, the volcano goddess

who formed these islands,

continues her work on the latest, the "Big" island of Hawaii;

There pouring lava, accompanied by haze.

Vog, we call it,

and when Kona winds prevail they bring this grey sister to wreathe our mountains and tickle our throats.

Some say that Kona winds derange human moods and tempers. Vog snears at our science, chasing us indoors with headache tiaras, there to pray at the altar of local weather acolytes, Imploring of the Trades, blessed Trades(!)

When will they return, like a wayward puppy?

Instantly to be forgiven,

and making everything PERFECT again.

But the cruelest month?

How dare I be so ungrateful for my place in paradise!

Well, childhood is the loam we each bloom from every day,

and mine well remembers flaming leaves,

the celestial voices of Canada geese like angelic carillons on high, the smell of burnt leaves, and crisp apple cider.

In short, I carry in my heart an ideal Fall season

of New York City Sundays

and New Hampshire peaks,

of cheddar at it's moment,

and the Village Halloween Parade.

Nights of whispy clouds part-veiling the huge spooky face of an orange moon; Days when anything seems possible (even epoch-ending terrorism) and the unholy pagan spectacle of "Christmas" promises respite from harsh realities

(if only for a few weeks).

So yes, cruel, very cruel: October here in Waikiki.

Just as my soul expects cool new clothes and opening nights, the sweat hogs thrust their dripping snouts into my hand

and laugh.

But I'm preparing my revenge, weeks, mere weeks away!

When mainland snows of childhood frenzy

turn from ethereal beauty to the black slush of winter despair,

Then shall I be cooling on the brow of a friendly Trade,

as all the sea sparkles compete in concert

to dazzle the happily fried brains of us beach people.

Another juice! A bubble tea! A shave ice!

And here comes Santa in a canoe!

Revenge?

Yes, I'll have mine. For even "paradise"

is perfect in it's turn-

“I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere.”
Jawaharlal Nehru

A L O H A, My Friends! Cloudia

Here Be Giants

A L O H A

& Welcome!

click on photos to enlarge giantsThis is Mount Olomana on Oahu's windward side. Back in the day, Olomana was a giant whose whim & mood were the daily weather for the people who lived in his area of influence. One day a bigger giant appeared who used his weapon to slice the bully Olomana from the top of his head almost in half. Olomana instantly turned into a mountain as he fell, hence the twin peaks that seem to be rotating apart.

“There were giants in the earth in those days. . . ”
Bible

Today, Olomana is joined on our island by

a convention of giants.

An Antonov 225 is here loading up with emergency supplies for ravaged Samoa. These planes are the largest in the world!

“The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies.”
Lester B. Pearson

The USS Ronald Reagan is here too with it's battle group after deployment off the Horn of Africa. 80 aircraft call the ship their home. She can distill 400,000 gallons of fresh water from the sea every day- enough for 2,000 homes! Her nuclear reactors could power a good chunk of our power grid too, I think. Today we will see her sailors all over Waikiki.



“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Our is a world of nuclear giants
and ethical infants.”
Omar Bradley


And the USS Missouri is being moved into Pearl Harbor's dry dock! Above you see the behemoth rounding Diamond Head the last time she moved. Read more about the move itself at this post:

http://comfortspiral.blogspot.com/2009/09/battleship.html



“When the war of the giants is over
the wars of the pygmies will begin.”
Winston Churchill


There are many kinds of giants. Some can be seen across the horizon of history, some block out the sky as they pass.








There are giants who look just like average people - until you get to know them and to understand their affects on others.






Here's to the giants, big & small!
You might even be one...

In fact, I KNOW
that many of
Y O U
are
!






A L O H A & Giant Hugs. . . Cloudia

Not All Grass Huts

A L O H A!

Honolulu Happily Welcomes YOU with a Warm Embrace

click on photos to smell some fine, old local buildings

There is a bell hanging in this, um, belfry.

"Bells are aural icons of the Voice of God"

Russian Orthodox Tradition

It's a church - no wait, it's a pagoda.

In the next picture you can see that it has 3 levels,

Father, Son & Holy Spirit. . .

"Still round the corner there may wait,

A new road or a secret gate."
-J. R. R. Tolkien

It's the First Chinese Church of Christ in Hawaii,

founded in 1879 under a charter granted by King Kalakaua.

Happy 130th birthday!

Originally known as the Fort Street Chinese Church

(Fo Gai Food Yim Tong)

the congregation decamped from Honolulu's downtown

in the 20's

for the "new" sanctuary (above) that is celebrating

a mere 80 years this month.

Designed by Hart Wood, the South King Street building encorporates Christian symbolism (Nestorian crosses, brought to China as early as 635 A.D. / C.E. by Nestorian missionaries) Chinese style (that pagoda tower, interior ideograms for "longevity" and a distinct "hui-wen" or meandering motif) all woven together in classic 1920's Hawaii regional design that keeps the interior cool.

Original members were Chinese immigrants

to the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Pastors were brought from China back then. By the 60's the congregation was English speaking as were the clergy.

Today the church ministers to many immigrants once again, conducting services in Mandarin with simultaneous translation into Cantonese and even English.

On Friday nights, 50 to 70 China-born teens worship, socialize, and arrange English-language tutoring here. Many of them attend McKinley High right across King Street.



"In a land of immigrants, one was not an alien

but simply the latest arrival."

Rudolf Arnheim

In 1915 some ethnic Punti members of FCCC left it's overwhelmingly Hakka congregation to form the Second Chinese Congregational Church, which later became the United Church of Christ on Judd Street, above.



"The holiest of all holidays are those Kept by ourselves

in silence and apart;

The secret anniversaries of the heart."

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Of course, Honolulu has many temples too,

such as the Chinese example above.

You can see another local Chinese Temple

and a Shinto Shrine here:

http://comfortspiral.blogspot.com/2009/01/honolulu-chinese-new-year.html

This is a Korean Temple on Liliha Street.




"The crafty rabbit has three different entrances to its lair."

Chinese Proverb

A L O H A! Cloudia

Muse-Day / Tuesday

A L O H A

to YOU

&

Welcome to Waikiki!

click if you pick on the photo-rotos

“Good friends are like stars.... You don't always see them,

but you know they are always there”

Anonymous

(And sometimes they leave comments :)

“The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears."
John Vance Cheney

“I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.”
Little Bird (above; quoting the bible)

“And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,

And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart.”
Edward Lear

Whimsy
or whining?

Fasting
or dining?

Despoiler
or refining?

Closed
or opining?

Falling
or climbing?

Wondering
or defining?

Losing
or finding?

Straightforward
or winding?

Forgetting
or reminding?

Leading
or behinding?

For today,
I have chosen
never-minding.

ALOHA, YOU LOVELY PERSON! Cloudia

Leaving the Beach

A L O H A, to YOU

and Welcome to. . .

Where is this?!

click on photos, doo dah

This bleakness has always been a place apart.

Scientists have sampled changes in the world's atmosphere from this

unique spot since 1951. Tropical splendor?

"Beautiful! Beautiful! Magnificent desolation."
Buzz Aldrin

(as he stepped out of the Eagle to join Neil Armstrong

on the first moon walk)

It is the summit of Mauna Loa, on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Our islands are the very tops of sea floor volcanoes.
Mauna Loa's Big Isle sister, Mauna Kea, is
(from the sea bed to it's peak)
the tallest feature on the face of the Earth.



"Two voices are there: one is of the sea,

One of the mountains,-each a mighty voice."

William Wordsworth

Mauna Kea means White Mountain.

Here (from Hilo Bay)
you can see her mantle of snow, the home of the goddess Poliahu;
also home to. . .

World-Class Astronomical Observatories.

“If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mauna Kea is arguably the BEST place to observe the heavens because the thin atmosphere creates no optical barrier.
Ancient Kahuna made their observations here hundreds
of years before the invention of the telescope.
There is an uneasy truce between the scientists,the University of Hawaii,
and native Hawaiian cultural practitioners who decry "desecration" of this unique place. Others feel that it fulfills & honors the ancient ways to
use this place in the same questing spirit.



In 1913 the US Army was still a segregated institution. Stationed here on Oahu, at Schofield Barracks (of From Here To Eternity fame) were a group of African American "Buffalo Soldiers." That name was given with respect to earlier units of such troops by Native Americans who faced them in battle.


These troops were sent to the Big Island to build trails, horse stables, and a summit cabin atop Mauna Loa (the place in the top photo) so scientists from the nascent Hawaii
Volcanoes National Park could study the eruptions of the day.

It takes a village to "do" science. And we have come to expect science to
repay us handsomely. Well, the Big Isle's peaks have not disappointed.

Just recently oxygen deprived astronomers discovered a giant galaxy surrounding the most distant, super-massive black hole ever found!
"It is surprising that such a large galaxy existed when the universe was
only one-sixteenth of it's present age, and that it hosted a black hole 1 billion times more massive than the sun," said UH Astronomer Tomotsugu Goto.

Then Rolf-Peter Kudritzki, director of the UH Institute for Astronomy, was awarded the 2009 Schwartzchild Prize by the German Astronomical Society.


And just last week the UH star gazers downgraded the odds of a 885-foot asteroid called Apophis slamming into our home planet on April 13, 2036 to one in 250,000. Apophis, the size of two American football fields, will make a preliminary visit passing within a mere 18,300 miles of our surface in 2029.
Details are being worked out, but the asteroid is rumored to be sponsored by Coca Cola.

The Big Island is the only place where you can snow board, see lava flowing, and relax on a tropic beach, all in one day!

A L O H A & Thank YOU

for your visit today! Cloudia

"People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering."
Saint Augustine of Hippo