I joined friends celebrating Thanksgiving Day at the Bird Park in Kau on the Big Island of Hawaii. I very much enjoyed the sunny day at the Park, which was off the beaten track amidst Koa and other native Hawaiian trees.
Here are some photos of the occasion
Little Jasmine welcomed my arrival. After I told her my name, she asked me if I'm really the "Little Mermaid."
We held hands and formed a circle. And then we prayed, acknowledging and thanking everyone and everything, including the trees, the sky, the birds, the ocean....
A "for posterity" pic
He obviously loved his whipped-cream topped pumpkin pie.
The other day, when I celebrated an important "th" birthday, I decided to quit smoking cigarettes. Again. It has been an off-and-on thing with me. I've quit in the past only to resume smoking again. For about five years -- from 2006 to mid-2011 I was not smoking. Then I met someone in 2011 who smoked and that got me into cigarettes again.
I've been dependent on tobacco whenever I need to think and write about anything. Having to do without the nicotine rush drives me nearly insane and climbing walls.
For the past several days, I've had to ask friends to distract me from my cigarette cravings, especially at night when I write my blog.
I'm afraid I just have to kick my nicotine addiction this time and for good. I have decided to make this both a public confession and a commitment. That way you can hold me accountable.
Besides, I have a hunch that the other side of the wall is a much prettier place than the one I'm in now.
As I make a mantra of what is in the graphic below, I ask for your prayers and vibes of support. Thank you!
Today, my birthday and one of those "th" birthdays that marks another decade of life, I think of how life has been kind to me. True I've had what may be called as "setbacks" but those may be seen as misfortunes only if I choose to look at them that way. Instead, I'd rather see them as growth and learning opportunities, which I am grateful for.
As I look back at my life so far, I have many to be thankful for; the most important of which is getting younger as I get older. Yep. It may sound funny but it is true. The older I get, I find myself dancing more, accepting more, forgiving more, loving more. If only for those I celebrate my "th" birthday with much gratitude and aloha.
Thank you for having been/ being there for me: Tony, Rosie, Arlene, Boyet, Arne, Alvin, Emil, Vera, Dimps, Miley, Vir, Philip, Michael, Scott, Tita Joy, Beta, Beda, Pinky, Greg, Monette, Debbie, Gerry, Pualani, Rex and Laurel, Marcella and Domingo, Elena, Ida, Barry, Mitch, Louise, Jewel, Serina, Janel, Lindsey, Lucena, Gary, Patty, Wanda, Dana, Ralph, Peter, Paul, Ste, Res, Lek, Lou, Cherlita, Cyn, Efren and Gemma, Shirley, Obet, Lowee, Arnel, Jill, John, Vicky, Laura, Emy, Badong, all my cousins, nephews and nieces, all my other relatives, friends and associates. If you're not mentioned here don't feel bad. Only my memory missed you. You're still in my heart! I love you all!
I am sharing below a video and lyrics of a favorite song to celebrate my birthday. Enjoy!
When your life goes round in circles, feel lost in time
You keep searching for the answer, which you never find
You've been holding on for too long, letting life pass you by
Give it up, surrender, let it go this time
Send it out to the universe, let it fly away
Send it out to the universe, whatever's meant to be will be
Send it out to the universe, let it fly away
Send it out to the universe, whatever's meant to be will be
Just have faith in things you can't see, open your heart
There's no better feelin' than to be free, right where you are
Everything that you need, the world will provide
Listen, hear your calling, it's louder than your own mind
Send it out to the universe, let it fly away
Send it out to the universe, whatever's meant to be will be
Send it out to the universe, let it fly away
Send it out to the universe, whatever's meant to be will be
When we trust in nature, on wisdom we fly
Just remember you're connected to the land and all lives
In the essence of our heartbeats, live old and wise
It's the truth within this kingdom, kingdom of the Most High
Send it out to the universe
Send it out to the universe
Send it out to the universe
Send it out to the universe
Let it fly away, hey hey hey
Send it out to the universe
Whatever's meant to be will be.
Ariel with friend and fellow scorpio, Janice Mancini at a surprise birthday party given by friends Pualani and Ralph, Lava Shack, November 8, 2013. Thank you guys for your thoughtfulness, hard work, and for going out of your way to make the party happen. Pualani, that cake you baked is to die for and I'm glad that you didn't put in all the candles! lol!
Today I am sharing the touching story of a man who pursued his passion undeterred by disability or age.
Hal Lasko is a traditional painter who now paints using the computer. Right! There is seemingly nothing remarkable in that -- unless you know that Hal is legally blind. He is also 97-years old.
It seemed to me that, in the video below, Hal looked both joyous and young.
What's bad is that I sometimes feel resentful and anxious.
But what's good is that I sometimes manage to catch myself feeling resentful and fearful.
Before all hell breaks loose and I am consumed by darkness I quickly shift my mind to visions of "raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens brown ... paper packages tied up with strings." (Care to venture a guess where that quote came from)?
I stop seeing people as predatory or a situation as utterly indefensible. Instead, I see the humorous in people's frailty and mine. I acknowledge the futility of worry. And all becomes well and I'm ready to dance like an idiot again.
Like my late husband often said: "It's all good!"
Thank you God for the gift of wisdom and flexibility.
I'm sharing the video below of Bruce Cockburn's "Wondering Where the Lions Are." Lyrics are are also shown below. Enjoy your weekend!
Sun's up, um hmm, looks okay The world survives into another day And I'm thinking about eternity Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
I had another dream about lions at the door They weren't half as frightening as they were before But I'm thinking about eternity Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
Walls windows trees, waves coming through You be in me and I'll be in you Together in eternity Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
Up among the firs where it smells so sweet Or down in the valley where the river used to be I got my mind on eternity Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
And I'm wondering where the lions are... I'm wondering where the lions are...
Huge orange flying boat rises off a lake Thousand-year-old petroglyphs doing a double take Pointing a finger at eternity I'm sitting in the middle of this ecstasy
Young men marching, helmets shining in the sun, Polished as precise like the brain behind the gun (Should be!) they got me thinking about eternity Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
And I'm wondering where the lions are... I'm wondering where the lions are...
Freighters on the nod on the surface of the bay One of these days we're going to sail away, going to sail into eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
And I'm wondering where the lions are... I'm wondering where the lions are...
One reason I like social media is the ability, without having to board a plane, to exchange feelings, ideas, thoughts with people from all over the world. Below is a sample of one of those exchanges. It is about finding something new.
It is amazing to me how I can read something again and gain something different than I did the day before. Just as it amazes me that we each read a comment or post and understand something a little different. I suppose we take what we need at any given moment or time. Taking a piece of the thought with us on our journey.
The same goes for music. Sometimes you hear a little something different the next time you listen to a song or instrumental music. The same can be said of people. Spend time with them and you see a facet of their character that you've never glimpsed before. Being able to discover something new even from the old is one of the joys in life and another indication of just how amazing our capacity to find beauty is. We are such wonderful beings. Thank you for sharing your insights +Abhishek Anand
When I saw a photo that my friend took and innocuously posted on his blogsite. I thought I saw something spooky
in the photo.So I jokingly commented
that I saw Casper,
the friendly ghost.
Photo of a light bulb by Mitchell Hegman
Today being Halloween in the United States,
I thought about how we are spooked and often because of our own doing. Here are
some forms of spooks:
Ego. This is the mother of all spooks. Many relationships
end up in the graveyard because of the Ego.Complaints like "she didn't communicate with me today" or
"he never takes me out to dinner"are mostly ego-driven.
Judgment. We cannot avoid judging, some say.While that may be true, a big mistake one
makes in judging is to assume that one's perception is valid and immutable.A friend practically laid out a
booby-trap in her relationship when she commented that her partner MUST have a deep-seated subconscious distrust and resentment of women because his ex-wife divorced him after 35 years of marriage despite his many attempts to save the union.
Fears. Most of our anxieties are about the future, something
that has not yet occurred."I can't have
a relationship with him. He has no money. Our future will be miserable" is
something I often hear from both men and women. My take? Trust! Have faith in the Universe's intention
for our overall good. There is both comfort
and hope in the saying "just do your best and let God do the rest."
Imagination.Imagination
is the knife that cuts the limits of what we know or are capable of.It is the mother of creativity and invention.
But when imagination is usedto build a set
of assumptions, as if they are facts, imagination can be very damaging. A friend accused her boyfriend of sleeping
with another woman solely on the basis of her rather wild imagination. Well guess what happened to her relationship?
Procastination. When are you going to say "I love you" to your spouse or partner or your children, your friends? What are you waiting for? If you are out of love, you are like an amputated arm or foot -- separated from the body called "us."
Without our realizing it, there are many spooks in our lives and they surface everyday,
not just on Halloween. Sadly, more often than not,
we only spook ourselves silly!
Enjoy the once-a-year Halloween madness. But remember: when we have a lot of spooks in our lives, Halloween becomes real time 24/7. And that is certainly not fun!
My friend Jack recently posted a news article (link below) on one of the social networks about the declining production of wine world-wide.
Although I am hardly a wine connosieur I would still drink wine every time I'm offered a glass or whenever I feel like opening a bottle. I prefer reds but wouldn't mind a Chardonnay every now and then.
Now that it looks like wine will be getting more expensive since demand is in excess of supply we might have to resort to some drastic measures, such as:
1. Stepping up production of local wine. Here on the Big Island of Hawaii, we have the Volcano Winery. They make a variety of grape, fruit and specialty wines. Some local favorites are Hawaiian-Guava-Grape Wine, which costs about $20 a bottle and Macademia Nut Honey Wine, also $20 a bottle.
2. Check the possibility of making wine out of other local fruits. The Big Island is known for, among other things, those sweet and fragrant papayas. Has anybody tried making papaya wine?
3. Rice wine abounds all over Asia. The Japanese have Saki. Filipinos have Basi. And since there are many Asians in Hawaii who are rice lovers, maybe it's about time somebody comes up with a Hawaiian rice wine.
4. If nothing else works and you're desperate enough, try meditating on vats of tap water and maybe if you're lucky, a miracle will transform water into wine.
"He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
She wasn't perfect, like many of us. She'd harrass and terrorize the househelp, hardly giving them time to rest.
She was so frugal she bought herself only one (1) new dress and only one (1) new pair of shoes every year. She hardly threw anything away and collected used plastic bags, bottles, and gift wraps and ribbons. She even kept little jars of used cooking oil which she got rid of only after they reached a dark brown color. "Never use oil from cooking fish for frying meat," she'd often say.
But she stashed money away in various places only she knew about and then promptly forgot she hid them. When her children needed money and didn't have the temerity to ask and go through her inquisition-like interrogations, all they needed to do was silently scavenge around her house and thank her later.
She liked to haul goodies. She'd go on vacations to the country and return to her house in the city bringing sacks of rice, fruits, vegetables, fish and even several live chicken, with their feet all tied together so they wouldn't get away. Her children were always in fear that one day she'd come back from the country and enter her house with a whole live cow in tow.
She loved gaiety. It didn't take much to get her to dance, sometimes just by herself. She'd cook for days, invite kin and friends to party and then complain of being tired and vow not to do it again, which of course she did. And repeatedly. It was a never ending cycle of cooking, partying and then complaining. Sigh!
She had an extra pair of antennae. She'd tell stories of having been visited by her long-gone father or her favorite aunt. Some mornings, she'd get out of her bedroom and announce that she had smelt candle smoke and that so-and-so had passed away. Somehow she knew when a friend or relative died even before she received news of the death.
Hers was somewhat an arranged marriage. Her husband's mother courted her mother. The two were classmates in cooking school.
Apparently, she had learned to love her husband. She was always at his side and nursed him through a stroke he suffered. Later, her husband did the same for her. They both passed away in the same year, as if they could not bear to be without each other. He died in March and she in August of 2004.
She was a stern disciplinarian. Nobody was allowed to leave the dining table unless his/her plate was clean of food. Spare time was to be used darning frayed clothes, wiping dust off furniture or watering the plants in the yard. She set curfews for her children, even if most of them managed to violate them and still get away unscathed except for a tweak on the ear.
Yet when one of her children had an untimely pregnancy, she gave only love and comfort instead of condemnation and reprimand.
Her name was Rosie. She was my mother. And today is her birthday.
Rosie during her graduation from college with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy
Only a few days after I replied to a question that my friend, Paul, commented in my blog about extra-terrestials (link below) and only a few weeks after I posted a series of "What If" blogs (links below), I came across a video that articulates my exact same intuitive thoughts about the universe, other life forms, and humanity's future.
The video below may seem a bit long but is definitely worth watching and thinking about, if only as an exercise in getting out of our many boxes, labels and "programming." Entitled "ETs, souls, and the coming global shift," the video might just lead you into thinking that there's really more worth pursuing in life than just "food, sex, and a good night's rest." :
Here are some statements (almost verbatim) made in the video that I felt were significant:
- "If we can
release many of the judgments and human fears that color our understanding. It
allows us the freedom to explore, and examine possibilities, such as the true
nature of human reality. Quantum physicists hypothesize that the Universe is
holographic in nature and everything is connected within this matrix.. If that
is the case we could discover we are all just souls playing different roles, in
the same cosmic dance."
- "What I have
discovered from cases world wide is that there seems to be a far broader ability
that suggests that we are being contacted on many levels of consciousness."
- "There are a
lot of metaphysical names given to these children. They are the ones saying to
me that they are not afraid of ETs but that they feel that they are family. And
they don't understand our world and our cruelty to one another."
- "2012 to 2017 is the crucial
time. There is something going to be profound. Earth changes. Dramatic
enough to change a great deal in the way our world is orchestrated from a socio
economic status because of the shift in human consciousness."
- "The awakening. Timing and trusting that when it's time, you will
know what you need to know. To know too soon would be disabling. There is a sense of an impending huge change.
Something we would need to trust that the soul will know exactly what it is doing."
- "I believe
that humanity -- that we are all being challenged
to grow and to change. Some of us are open to it and some are not. We can choose
to be high-frequency or low-frequency people."
If the video doesn't work, please click on this link:
I was still recovering from a nasty cold over the weekend but I nevertheless joined other members of my Rotary Club in going up Mauna Kea, one of several mountains/volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii. We went up there to work and do some star gazing at the Visitors' Center, which is over 9,000 feet above sea level. The Center's official name is Onizuka Center for International Astronomy Visitor Information Station on Mauna Kea.
Most of the gentlemen gathered weeds while the ladies watered Silverswords, a highly endangered plant unique to only two places and only in the state of Hawaii: at the Haleakala mountain on the island of Maui and up on Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.
My fellow lady Rotarians and I went to a designated place where young Silverswords were being nurtured. Each young plant was ringed by protective stones and marked by a small flag.
I watered the plants not just in my assigned area but also in others. I even surprised myself by returning for another once-over just to make sure that the plants were saturated with water.
I could not quite identify the overwhelming feeling but I felt both blessed and strangely comforted to have been in close contact with something struggling to live.
I thought of the efforts that have gone into nurturing the young plants and saving them from joining the ranks of the dinosaurs and other flora and fauna now extinct.
I thought it simply beautiful that people cared enough to take responsibility!
Photo of ilversword plants from savetheplantsandanimals.com
I took this photo of a very young Silversword. Note the tiny flag to the left of the plant.
Ariel and a Silversword
For more info about Silverswords, please click on the following links:
The grass is always greener on the other side, so goes the saying. But is it? Here's a funny Youtube clip that makes a parody of people's dissatisfaction with themselves or others. And if you still don't get it, you just might learn a thing or two by joining a vibrant Google+ community called "Acceptance."
I thought I'd share this with you. It was written by Rev. Dr. Kenn Gordon of the Spiritual Living Community.
[Science of Mind founder Dr. Ernest] Holmes
contends that the greatest discovery of all times was that the individual could
think. The next greatest discovery, therefore, must be our ability to think
anew. This “newness” is the catalyst for the involution of everything else.
Simply put, everything becomes the result of a new idea, a new concept put
firmly into a field of creation. The greatest tool we have in this is
imagination.
Every great discovery in our world was first started as an imagined idea. Everything
began as a previously unexperienced thought that through persistence,
awareness, and conscious application eventually became form.
New ideas are not created; they are recognized. More often than not, they are
recognized by intuitive and contemplative acts of surrender. They are not
new—they have always been there, and through the individual mind open to the
recognition, they find form.
What newness in your experience would you choose to bring to life? Health,
wealth, creative expression, loving relationship? What new idea do you want to
experience?
