Poem of Night

ALOHA

Welcome, Friend,

to the Time of Mystery

click on photos to enter deepest night

"The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight

has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"No sight is more productive of awe than is the night sky." Llewelyn Powys

Poems written upon awakening at dawn are called aubades.

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

Rumi

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Watching a small film called Three Days of Rain

inspired the poem below.

Some of you know that my Hawaii novel Aloha Where You Like Go

largely takes place in a Honolulu taxi at night.

The film took me right back to the taxi - and to the sacred night. . .

At the bottom of this blog you will see the cover of my book.

You may click on it to go to Amazon.com and read over 25 reviews!

<><

Things seen at night

fill me with delight.

They have a "not quite"

that somehow shows their deeper true.

All cats are gray

and pass on little mist feet.

A raindrop's path

down a pane of glass

is the timeline of an empire

too much to know:

dissolving,

freezing Master Mind.

Inconsequential words

are freighted with

eternity.

Inner seas hold sway-

till the light changes

and we continue

on our way.

We've reached your destination;

Thanks for riding along!

ALOHA, cloudia

No Comparison

Aloha Monday

It's
ALOHA Monday,

Friend!

Come Right In-

click on photos, eh?

"If you would live without worry, live one day at a time.
Drop yesterday with it's mistakes and failures.
Shut out tomorrow with it's foreboding.
Don't waste your time with futile fears and morbid musings.
Each day is a little life. Be glad and grateful for it's wonder.
Live it with confidence and joy."

Paul Osumi

"The devil is easy to identify.

He appears when you are terribly tired

and makes a very reasonable request

which you know you shouldn't grant."

Fiorello LaGuardia

"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly,

our whole life would change."
Buddha

><>


Look for the spiral,
ever widening,
inclusive,
more and more,
people are joining in.

The spiral is
dynamic,
pleasing,
and ever-upward.

More and more
it appears in our culture.
A dance we all may join.

Come into the spiral
with us!

You are always welcome
here!



ALOHA, cloudia

`Nana Patch Unfold

ALOHA
Friend

Welcome to
Sunday
on
OAHU


click on photos to rinse your mind

Let's shower in the banana patch!

Maybe you need more privacy?
The black tank on top warms the water in the sun.

"Privacy and security are those things you give up
when you show the world what makes you extraordinary."

Margaret Cho




"Publication is a self-invasion of privacy."

Marshall McLuhan

See how the Banana leaves unfold?
Banana trees are actually giant grasses, not trees.




"All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud,
you have first an instinct, then an opinion,
then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit.
Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

See how this fern is unfolding as well?
How does it know how to grow all wrapped up like that?





"Each of us is born with the potential for the unfolding of our true self.
When you deviate from the truth, you are interfering with the intention
of something greater than you are-
call it nature or a higher power.
As a result, you develop discomfort."

Annonymous

><>

My wish for you this Sunday?
Privacy
to share as you will
and a peaceful
exultation.



ALOHA! cloudia

Weather or Not

ALOHA
Friend!

Come In
E Komo Mai

Come Warm Yourself


click on the sunshine!

My first panorama shot on my FujiFilm A220 blending three shots into one.

"What we know of the world comes to us primarily through vision.
Our eyes, however, are sensitive only to that segment of the spectrum
located between red and violet;
the remaining 95 percent of all existing light
(cosmic, infrared, ultraviolet, gammas, and x-rays)
we cannot see.
This means that we percieve only 5 precent of the "real" world."
Amos Vogel

"Non-ordinary experiences are vital to us
because they are expressions of our unconscious minds,
and the integration of conscious and unconscious experiences
is the key to life, health, spiritual development,
and fullest use of our nervous systems.
By instilling fear and guilt about altered states of consciousness into our children, we force this drive underground,
guaranteeing that it will be expressed in anti-social ways."
Andrew Weil MD

"If the doors of perception were cleansed,
everything would appear as it is
- infinite"

Blake

The morning started grey and dark
with rain skirling the deck above our waking heads.
Boat Kitty came inside with damp fur-
our version of a Waikiki Snow Day.

Some part of my North American-born brain thinks:
Heavy clothing, Traffic Mess, and Wrenching My Back with that Sudden Slip on Sneaky Sinister Ice.
But it's just rain, folks.

Maybe it will clear the volcanic haze that we call VOG
from our skies, which have been blowing up from the Big Island Hawaii
(i.e. KONA Winds) for days now.


Then
as quickly as a local smile
the clouds lighten up
to show a True Blue
as the dancing palms smile back
a greener green.

Tomorrow
more Trade Winds will rush in from Alaska
like avenging, holy angels.
Skies, and heads, will clear
and newly arriving visitors
will think 'twas ever thus.


And so it has been:
Only in Hawaii - World's Best Weather
So lucky to be here in Waikiki.



The beauty of snowy pewter skies,
sparkling fairy trees,
muffled city streets,
and the heroism of frozen livestock water
finds me via YOUR blogs.


Mahalo, my friends.
There is always warm Aloha
here for you.

Come laze in da Spiral
before you scrape your
windshield (wind screen).



WELCOME! cloudia

Climbing Invisible Mountains

ALOHA

Friend!

Welcome to Friday

in

Waikiki

click on the photos!

See the lighthouse?

"Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence."
Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi

Japanese visitors are always stylishly dressed.

Americans, Europeans et al merely cover our nakedness

with shorts and t-shirts.

"The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days.

One has a sense that a catastrophe has occurred in the psychic landscape."
Leonard Cohen

Partying Gecko

"Noble deeds and hot baths

are the best cures for depression."
Dodie Smith

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A person suffering depression said:

"It's like climbing mountains,

peak after impossible peak,

and never getting anywhere in this life.

It's like climbing invisible mountains."

Immediately I knew what they meant.

For I have spent most of my life

negotiating

those same lonely peaks.

Drinking in

the Waikiki sun,

and the sheer joy

of not freezing,

I wonder:

Does merely living day to day

in relative peace

constitute success

in a life such as mine

has been?

Socrates taught us that:

"There is nothing stable in human affairs;

therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity,

or undue depression in adversity."

What do YOU think?

"Nobody realizes

that some people expend

tremendous energy

merely to be

normal."

Camus

ALOHA, Cloudia

Secret of Dr. OZ

ALOHA

Welcome to Thursday

in

Honolulu

click on photos to saturate your senses

The cruise ship is in!

"The mind I love must have wild places,

a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass,

an overgrown little wood,

the chance of a snake or two,

a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of,

and paths threaded with flowers

planted by the mind."

Katherine Mansfield

Holidays are nice, but isn't it a relief when the relatives have all gone home?

"We are only the beginning. I am only a beginner."

I was successful in digging up monuments

from the substrata of the mind.

But where I have discovered a few temples,

others may discover a continent."

Freud

Who? ME?!

"The little things? The little moments?

They aren't little."

Jon Kabat-Zinn

><> ><> <><

Dr. Mehmet Oz is an outstanding surgeon,

author, and medical professor,

whose communication skills and easy going presentation

make him arguably the most popular and influential health educator on the scene today.

On his popular daily TV show (where does he find the time? The energy?)

he engages the audience in an authentic and effective way

that never fails to give me some simple, practical ways

of supporting my health & well being.

Yesterday (Jan 6) he shared and demonstrated his "best" of

"Alternative" or rather "Integrative" medicine;

practices that his own family relies on.

The doctor's #1 tip of the day?

Try REIKI.

I have been a practitioner of REIKI for around two years.

Discovered and promulgated almost a hundred years ago in Japan by

Dr. Mikao Usui, and brought to Hawaii (as well as the rest of the world)

by Hawaii citizen Hawayo Takata, REIKI is hardly a "New Age" fad!

The US National Institutes of Health

consider it one form of "Energy Healing"

and investigation is underway.

Instead of purporting to move the recipient's bio-energies

as some other techniques do,

REIKI practioners (like me) balance their own energy

(as well as the energy of those they serve)

by gently placing our hands on certain positions of the body

and allowing the REIKI to flow.

It does so because of an "initiation" (opening up natural channels)

and some instruction

given us by a REIKI Master.

One needn't think or believe anything in particular

in order to recieve a REIKI treatment.

It is compatible with any faith, or no faith,

though Mrs. Takata oft called it "God Power" in her teaching.

Normal life depletes the body's natural energies.

Sleep replenishes us, so does REIKI -

and it is JUST as natural!

One's energy field is gently, yet powerfully

balanced and "re-filled"

which results in the reduction of pain,

anxiety, nausea, and other discomforts.

New practioners often report improved sleep and digestion.

(Me too!)

I have enjoyed some amazing insights as well!

When I told my trusted physician about my new practice

he told me the story of a concert pianist who suffered a stroke,

but was able to perform again "because of REIKI."

Those are my doctor's own words!

And YES, I do still go to the physician from time to time.

I often think of REIKI as a massage from the inside.

It feels good, my life (including certain health issues) has improved immeasurably, and it has twisted my mind into a

most pleasant pretzel.

How can this work? I wonder-

even as I experience results.

Sometimes the hands feel hot, or cold,

or as if they are vibrating subtly.

Sometimes nothing is felt but the results,

including a spectacular sense of well-being

which, incidentally, fuels much of the writing here at Da Spiral.

Many hospitals now integrate REIKI into patient services,

some even employ REIKI masters (sometimes the hospital chaplain) to supervise this service, and even to initiate interested staff!

Dr. Oz told us that his wife is a REIKI master,

and that she often treats him and their children.

"Do the hands feel warm?" He asked the audience member

receiving a brief treatment on stage.

When she answered affirmatively, he asked her what else she felt.

"My headache is going away." She answered.

Suddenly Dr. Oz' easy manner,

boundless energy,

and contagious attitude

made sense to me:

It's the REIKI!

The same practice that has improved my life,

and that of my family

isn't "fringe" any more after today.

So listen to your intuition.

If it is telling you to try REIKI

take it from me:

you have nothing to lose

and much to gain.

Recieving a treatment is nice.

But getting initiated

and practicing self-treatment regularly

will do more for you

than any apple-a-day ever will!

ALOHA, CLOUDIA