Ephemeral Life...

Last night I watched a documentary on Hiroshima and Nagasaki... Stories from survivors... Riveting accounts from children who were spared... Now in the Twilight of their aged lives... Physical scars paling in comparison to the raw emotional wounds... Tears flowed freely as the horror revealed itself... 70,000 people destroyed in Hiroshima... Another 40,000 in Nagasaki... Just as many painfully and irreparably injured... The bright searing inferno of bright white light... Vaporizing people where they stood... So many, many, innocent children... On their way to school... With all the excitement of a new day and a whole life... Erased in a horrific indiscriminate instant... Dreams, hopes, laughter and innocence... Turned into piles of carbon and stains on melted concrete... Awash and adrift in the rising mushroom cloud and fiery smoke... Only Man can create Hell on Earth... And as the soft ash and rain slowly and gently fell back to Earth... I found myself awash in ...

We will never survive...unless we stay together...

No greater gift...

Koa and I were fortunate to visit the new Hawaiian cultural center at Kamehameha Schools this evening. It is named Ka'iwakīloumoku...a reference to Kamehameha 'Ekahi. The 'iwa bird that hooks the islands together. It was very beautiful and full of ancestral spirits. Elliott was fortunate to sound the pū, the helmet shell, for the opening ceremony yesterday. He came home and excitedly told me about all the hōʻailona. The sudden heavy downpour, the winds, the quiet Sunshine...all the natural elements joining in the celebration as glorious signs of otherworldly approval...

Consumed by the fires...it shall rise again from the ashes...

I can’t really sleep right now, so I’m listening to a myriad of music on my iTunes while images and thoughts swirl in my higher consciousness. Enya’s Boadicea is playing now. Very soothing. Boadicea was Queen of the British Iceni tribe around 60 AD. When the King of the Iceni died, he left his Kingdom to his two daughters and the Roman Emperor. His Will was ignored, his kingdom annexed, his mourning Queen flogged, and his two daughters brutally raped. The Roman Empire, the most powerful force in the old World, was expanding all around Europe with their legendary Roman Army. Queen Boadicea took up arms and led her people in a revolt against the Roman Empire. Queen Boadicea relied upon divination, releasing a hare from the folds of her dress and interpreting the direction it fled while consulting the British Goddess of Victory, Andraste. The Britons, led by the Queen, destroyed Camulodunum, which is modern day Colchester. They routed an entire Roman legion and the infan...