Ephemeral Life...

Kamehameha Pai'ea went to Hilo and overturned the massive, seemingly immovable Naha stone as a fulfillment of a prophecy on his huaka'i, or Journey, to unite all of the Hawaiian Islands.The 7000lb monolithic p ō haku from sacred Wailuanuiaho'ano on Kaua'i. Pai'ea overturned the stone. Many of us today carry our own "Naha" stones on our backs. The Divine and Sacred conditions of our own struggles on this Journey, not to unite the Hawaiian Islands as Pai'ea sought, but to understand and Unite our own Body (Kino) and Soul (Wailua). So many vices, bad habits, addictions and other challenges can seemingly crush us like a 7000lb stone. Crush us not only physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  Some of us are able to huli that p ō haku, to flip that stone off of us, only to have it roll back over us again as we slip back into old habits, old thoughts, old modes of dealing with stress and Life. We continue to hurt ourselves and worse, ...

Tonight I was Reflecting again. Digging as deep as I have ever tried to. Reconciling. Trying to Heal. Remembering what it was like to be 19 again. So out of touch. Surrounded by rebellion. Insecurity. Dark Forces. So lost within. So lost, that when your best friend asks you at a party, what would a .22 caliber bullet do to your brain. Would it come out the other side. Would it bounce around inside your skull and kill you. That you didn't give it a second thought that he might be contemplating suicide. That the every day lamentations of being losers blunted any recognition that all was not well. That the obvious signs were so easily ignored.  Then on top of that, you go out shooting a few days later with a stolen rifle. Shooting road signs hanging out of a speeding car window along a desolated beach coastline. That no further warning signs emerge to a self-absorbed clouded brain. Of macabre inquiries. Of Depression. Of access to a weapon. Until a few days after that, you se...

This is the look of a Tiger that wanted to kill and eat me. I have no doubt. At the Panaewa Zoo, I approached the big cat enclosure. The White Tiger was sleeping. The Orange Tiger was pacing back and forth along the fence. Despite signs that said not to tease the tigers or walk back and forth, some families were standing right by the pacing cat while their little toddlers ran back and forth, screaming and laughing, while racing the cat. I'm sure it didn't put him in a very good mood. Aside from that, it was around lunchtime and I saw some other animals being fed a meal. I took some photos and then decided that the growing crowd was getting to big so I departed up the hill along the enclosure. I stopped to see a beautiful blossom on a nearby tree. I opened my camera bag to switch lenses. As I was digging around in my little black backpack, I felt eyes upon me. I turned only to see that the Orange Tiger had also walked up the hill and was intently staring at me through t...

Give a Woman Your Love... And you Feed Her Soul... For a Lifetime... Show a Woman... The Power and Depth of Your Love... And you Feed Her Soul... For an Eternity...

Tonight I was Reflecting again. In 2012, when I came out of my coma, I thought I might have a few weeks to live. My organs were in bad shape and the liquid infection in my abdominal cavity wasn't responding to anti-biotics. The worse part, my pancreas was damaged and the team of doctors eventually had to open me up. One relatively young doctor on my team was in no small way letting me know that surviving without a pancreas was not really an option.  He came in one morning and was checking on my drains.  We made small conversation as he talked about all kinds of things. My sister Nalani quietly watched from her chair-sleeper bed. Then the doctor told me, "You will be alright. We just had a guy in here with pancreatitis in way worse condition than you. Oh no...sorry. Wait. He didn't make it." It kind of went over my head in my morphine induced state. After he left however, my sister, Nalani was furious. She said he should have never told me that and wanted to r...

As Sweet Night... Gently Falls... So Do I... For You...