Always Blessings

My dad playing dress up--circa 1940. Looks just like Bodhi!


E kala mai ia‘u--please forgive me.

It has been a while since I last wrote something on this blog. What a whirlwind March has been. Instead of transgressing into reasons why I didn't write, I will highlight all the blessings March brought.

On March 11--My dad, Rodney Arakawa, transitioned from this life we shared together. His soul was ready to make that walk over the rainbow. It was a blessing that my mom was here on the Big Island with us when my dad passed and she was able to get some support during her time here. I am so tremendously grateful to Kim for organizing many of the details that come up when someone dies. I was in Kona for nine days after my dad died and Kim held it together for all of us.

From March 13-21 I was in Kona for a Huna Workshop. It was an incredibly transformational week of study. One of the highlights for me was a trip to Volcanoes National Park. I had been to the park on many different occasions, but I had never experienced it the way I did with the Huna group. The energy I felt and the intensity of the connection to the place was amazing and life altering. If anyone is interested in studying Huna with the group--check out the Empowerment Partnership at nlp.com.

At the end of the workshop, Kim and Bodhi drove out to Kona to meet me and we stayed a couple of extra nights at the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort. The hotel is a really fantastic property. The land belongs to Kamehameha Schools and they are doing a stellar job at preserving the sacredness of the site. Bodhi had a lot of fun being at the hotel and he also got a chance to have a trolley ride that took us down Ali‘i Drive. Fun, Fun, Fun. And it was a great way to launch his Spring Break.

Spring Break 2010 for Bodhi--It was his first Spring Break. No, crazy romps to Ft. Lauderdale or Palm Springs. It was a few days in Kona and park time in Hilo, Volcano and Kalapana. Bed time has been the usual 6:30, what a blessing. He's been growing up so fast.

Here's a little equation I want to share with you--
C>E
In this equation C=cause and E=effect.
Life is about cause and effect.
The question is, which side of the cause and effect equation are you on? Are you the cause in your life, or are you the effect of things in you life?
To gain maximum power, take responsibility for everything that happens in your universe.
On the cause side of the equation are results.
On the effect side of the equation are reasons--all the reasons you are not getting results.
I recommend getting on the cause side of the equation.
Equation is from the Empowerment Partnership.

Again--E kala mai ia‘u for the gap in the blog writing--March just zoomed by.

Happy Easter everyone!--Let's all celebrate the life force that goes on and on.

Got some Honey?

It was a wonderful Sunday for the Maku‘u Farmers' Market. The tsunami warnings had all passed us by, the breeze was cool and just a hint of light mist floated around on the air.

Part of our routine when we get to the market is for Bodhi to get his strawberry smoothie. We wait patiently in line as the smoothie maker throws in strawberries, freshly squeezed pineapple juice, ice cubes and a little bit of coconut milk into the blender and whips together a taste sensation that one sip will involuntarily make your eyes close and go, "AHHH. . ."

Ernie Cruz Sr. played country western music and captivated Bodhi with his fast guitar playing. Kim and Bodhi watched Uncle Ernie under the covered tent as I went about getting some veggies for us. I got a loaf of fresh, locally baked sour dough bread, a dozen eggs from happy local chickens, and organic kale and collards grown by local Hare Krishna folks. What a bounty of great stuff.

I bought a freshly made crepe chocked full with shrimps, spinich, artichoke hearts, avocado and lightly dressed with white sauce for our lunch. We sat and ate as Uncle Ernie crooned out a really good version of "Lucille". I couldn't help thinking of the the Frank Delima version--"Eh wot Lucille! You going leave me now? Da kids nevah eat yet, mango season not pau . . . Oh wow! Lau Lau!"

After lunch we walked around the stalls and Bodhi was thrilled to do some shopping. We found a guy selling all sorts of garage sale type items. Bodhi scored a free toy from the guy and bought a used copy of a Curious George book for a dollar. He was so excited about his purchase that he showed his items to each vendor booth we stopped at.

As we were about to leave the market, Kim took Bodhi to the bathroom and I waited outside of the restroom area. The sun had come out, so I put my sunglasses on to keep my eyes shaded.

As I waited a guy in his mid 50s, wearing an Indonesian batik print shirt, comes up to me.
He leans into me and whispers, "Hey man, you want some honey?"
He opens the plastic bag he's carrying and I see about five jars of honey. I tell him no thanks and explain that I already did my shopping.
He looks really disappointed and tells me,"Ah man--I was hoping to trade some honey for some ganja."
I was a little taken aback by what he said. I mean, no judgement on my part if he wants to smoke pot, but I had never been approached in that way before.
I just looked at him and said, "Sorry, can't help you man."

Kim and Bodhi came out of the bathroom. Before Kim could say anything to me, I asked her to step back and look at me objectively as if she didn't know me.
"Now look at me and tell me, do I look like a person that would have some weed on me?"
She stared at me for a moment then said, "Well. . . Actually. . . Maybe."
I laughed at her assessment and thought about how very interesting and inaccurate outward appearances can be.

It is very true that you cannot judge a book by its cover. It is especially true, I believe, here on Hawai‘i Island. At our local health food store you may see this grungy, grungy, dreadlocked couple with three snotty faced kids in tow shopping for groceries. When they leave the store, we see them all pile into a very late model Range Rover and zoom off. Trustafarians? Maybe, or maybe just people that would have ganja in their pockets. You never can tell.

There's this African American man in his 60s that walks around Hilo Town. He carries a big tribal looking walking stick and just cruises around. I would often see him sitting in front of Bear's Coffee. I always thought he was a homeless guy, until I was told that he is actually a world famous painter whose works have been displayed in the White House.

There are countless other eccentrics walking around Hilo Town that I believe have astounding and unexpected stories to tell of their lives. Michael Franti, lead singer of Spearhead, reminds us in his song, "Stay Human" that, "All the freaky people make the beauty of the world."

I believe the Big Island fosters a very live and let live environment. People feel free to express themselves without fear of judgement of what it looks like. I believe we all have a little bit of a freaky person inside of us that is desiring to get out. Let that person out, it'll feel so good. Nobody is watching really. People are too caught up in their own affairs to really care.

So dance like no one is watching
Sing out loud like you're in your car by yourself
If you have long hair, let it down and let it swing free
Show off those tattoos that have been hiding
Say "no" to the razor for a week--men and women
Laugh out loud
Be free
Nobody's watching--really

So do I look like the kind of guy, that would be carrying a bag of weed in my back pocket?
Who cares?

Local Roots

This past Saturday we took the beautiful drive along the Hamakua Coast to Laupahoehoe for the Laupahoehoe Music Festival. The weather was spectacular and the music was really great.

As we turned off the main highway and descended down the winding road that took us to Laupahoehoe Point Beach Park, the ocean opened up before us in all of it's glorious expansiveness. As the road narrowed on our way down, drivers on the opposite side of the road got friendlier and friendlier as each us became more and more aware of the others' presence.

When we got to the beach park, festival staff members guided us through the parking area and onto a grassy area. I rolled down my window to get parking directions from the guy working the grassy area. His instructions went something like this,
"Ho--OK bruddah--hea's wat you going do--Pull up ova dea an den back um in right in front of da black cah ova dea--Make shua you leave nuff room so da oddah guy can get out." Simple enough. I nodded, said, "tank you--my bruddah.", and parked.

As I got Bodhi out of his car seat, he looked at me a little puzzled and asked, "Daddy, how come the Uncle( the parking lot attendant) was talking so funny?"

Kim and I shot each other "Uh-OH!" glances.

We consider ourselves very conscientious parents. We work hard to make sure that he has as many experiences that we can set up for him to aid his development. But that morning at Laupahoehoe we realized that we had neglected an area. It was about exposure. He wasn't getting enough doses of his local culture, he wasn't hearing enough Pidgin English.

Kim and I basically speak Standard American English and so does our very articulate three and half year old. I grew up speaking primarily pidgin. The pidgin is part of who I am and part of my cultural make up. It, like any other language is part of how I understand and perceive the world. It is a vibrant language with many subtle nuances. Also, it is a connecting point for people who grew up in this glorious place.

There have been attempts in the past to squeeze the pidgin out of Hawai‘i's youth and homogenize the language into Standard American English. I actually hear less and less pidgin being spoken as Hawai‘i's local culture has become more closely aligned with the culture of the rest of the Continental U.S. I hear more of our youths' language emulating the stars they see on MTV, rather than that of their local culture.

Perhaps I have a cultural responsibility to expose my son to more Pidgin English. It is a growing language. It is very different from the pidgin my grandmother spoke on the plantation to communicate with all that gathered here to make a new life. But it is still a part of the culture of this wonderful place.

So---Afta we wen pahk da cah, we wen go check out da music an all da ono grindz had fo eat. Burah, was so good fun! Me an Bodhi wen go check out da watah. He neva have da kine swim shorts, so he wen jus go in wit his bebahdees. He neva keah. Bodhi had one Redondo Hot Dog fo lunch--he wen bite um, look at me and say--"Ho Daddy--dis Hot Dog is winnah, winnah--chicken dinnah."

Actually, I made the last sentence up. He actually took one bite of the hot dog and said, "Daddy, this hot dog is really yummy." We're working on it.

The Bliss List

In the January/February 2010 edition of "Cook's Illustrated", Cook's founder and editor Christopher Kimball writes "The Bliss List" on his editorial page. Kimball does a great job of distilling a few of the more blissful moments of his life into a few delightfully written paragraphs. To see Kimball's list go to http://www.cooksillustrated.com/byissue/default.asp?doctypeid=12&selDate=153

I thought it would be fun to write my own bliss list. I admit that I cannot possibly jot down every single blissful moment of my life. There are countless wonderful moments that I have shared with Kim and Bodhi that would make the list stretch far beyond what could be feasibly written down. But here are a few that I came up with to share.

July 1, 2006. Our Nu‘uanu cottage is quiet. Kim and Bodhi are sleeping on our bed. The midwife and doula have gone home. We all just went through 31 hours of labor. I sit on the sofa with the morning sunlight streaking in through our picture windows. Tears are flowing down my cheeks as I soak in all the joy and fear of new fatherhood.

March 20, 1994. I'm standing at the altar of a small candle lit chapel in Manoa. A string quartet plays as the murmur of the guests' voices vibrate through the space. Suddenly voices stop and the quartet begins to plays Bach's Suite #3 as Kim comes walking down the aisle toward me.

Early morning May 2001. Dawn patrol with my brother Scott. The water is icy cold as we paddle out at Schwabbies. The waves are breaking about 3-4 feet and glassy. Every time I would take off on a perfect right my eyes would squint up from the bright sun coming up in the east. No crowd.

October 1989 New York City Central Park. It was a beautiful Indian Summer day. The leaves were just starting to come into their autumn glory. The air was crisp and dry. I was away for college. It was the first time away from Hawai‘i. A group of friends and I had spent the day going to museums and taking in the city. In the park we came across three guys playing guitars, drinking beers and singing "Three Little Birds." I was 20 and I was free.

March 1991 on a train somewhere between Riga and St. Petersburg. My head and the sleeping car was spinning from drinking too much homemade whiskey from the Latvian compartment mates I had just met. We attempted to communicate in broken English, broken Russian, broken French and tremendous amounts of hand and facial gestures. We must have been pretty successful at communicating because we laughed and laughed all night long.

March 2008 Kurtistown. Kim and I are standing next to Jim and looking at our bull dozer guy Bill in his D-7. Bill fires up his engine and the sound of it rumbles through all of us. Kim and I look at each other with looks that are mix of "WOOOOOHOOOO!" and "Oh My God! What are we doing?" We walk behind Bill's dozer as it clears what will be the future driveway into our land.

Thanksgiving 1999--Kim and I are Innkeepers at Kia‘i Kai Bed and Breakfast. We wake up in the morning and are greeted by the wonderful smell of cooked food. It smelled as if someone had cooked us breakfast. But there was no one there but us. We had no guests booked for the whole weekend. About an hour later, our neighbor comes into the house and thanks us for letting her use our oven to cook her turkey while we slept. When she started to cook at her house, she ran out of gas and knew we never locked our place. She came in at three in the morning, turned on the oven, roasted the bird and was so quiet she didn't even wake us. I love that kind of neighborliness.

Fall 1989--Running through Stony Brook Village to the Long Island Sound. Fall leaves floating down all around me and the streets are quiet. When I get to the beach it is absolutely empty and unlike anything I had seen in Hawai‘i. The fine sand was blown into dramatic dunes and tall grasses danced in the breeze. It was stunning.

Summer 1995 Kyoto Japan. Kim and I are walking around the streets of Kyoto and come across the biggest Bon Dance we had ever seen. The air was still and humid as we joined the masses in the circle dance. We danced all night long and didn't care if we knew all the steps.

January 2010--On the land. Jim came by the other day on his tractor. Bodhi, Kim and I were on the deck and saw him drive up. He stopped in to chat a bit. As he was leaving, he invited Bodhi to sit up at the driver's seat with him and steer the tractor. Bodhi got to pull the lever that raised and lowered the front bucket. When Bodhi got off the tractor he had this thrilled look that was worth a million dollars. He told Kim and I as he walked away from the tractor, "I want a tractor like Uncle JIm's."

Every night before we close our eyes to sleep, Kim and I go through the process of recalling to each other what we appreciated about the day. This ritual of ours really helps to keep us open to all the wonderfulness that is happening around us all the time. There is, I believe, always something to appreciate and be grateful for. It's all a matter of deciding to see it. This "Bliss List" is in no way a complete list, it couldn't possibly be. It was in a way just a fun exercise in recalling some of the joy I've experienced in the last few years.

There is so much wonderfulness happening in the world. What's on your "Bliss List"?

If you haven't had a chance to see this video clip of writer and adventurer Mike Dooley, check it out. It's well worth a watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PH-6FTraz4

Seeing Clearly

I just bought my first pair of reading glasses a couple of days ago.

It was a slow process of realizing that I needed reading glasses. It started with not being able to read bills at dimly lit restaurants. Then it proceeded to moving reading material closer and farther from my face to get a good focus on the words. I even started having a hard time reading the numbers to the combination lock on the gate to our land. It was time.

Kim and I were in Longs Drug Store shopping for some things to get rid of the cockroaches that have been skittering around our place. I was in Honolulu all last week to visit with my dad and to help my mom with a few things. One sleepless night while I was away, Kim kept hearing those critters run on the beams above our bed. It can get incredibly quiet up on the land at night and so the sound of the running of the roaches was definitely amplified. It freaked Kim out. It would have freaked me out too. We're trying to balance our tree-hugging ways with our total disgust of the gigantic B-52s. So besides getting a couple of packs of chemically laden Combat roach traps, we are concocting a mixture of baking soda and sugar. We are supposed to spread the mixture on different locations around the cabin. Supposedly the roaches cannot resist the sugar, but eating the baking soda will dehydrate them. Also we will be spreading around bay leaves, which are supposed to be absolutely repugnant to the six legged fiends.

So while in Longs we decide that it is time for me to get some reading glasses. There were a whole array to choose from, everything from old fuddy duddy to über cool. We paid a little more for a pair that fell on the über cool end of the spectrum. Hey, I'm only 40 and it actually makes wearing the glasses fun.

My week in Honolulu was filled with epiphanies and moments of tremendous gratitude. I was there to visit my dad, who had been admitted into a nursing facility over the Christmas Holiday, and to help my mom work through some of the decisions that need to be made.

About six years ago, my dad had a stroke that paralyzed his left side and made him wheel chair bound. Recently, he's been losing some of his strength and it's been harder and harder for my mother to take care of him by herself. Having my dad at home became really a safety issue for both my parents. So, now he's in a facility with around the clock support from a professional staff.

It's an awakening to see the body temple slowing down. Our physical bodies are our chosen vehicles that transport our souls around this third dimension experience. Everyday when I went see my dad, I saw people whose body temples were definitely slowing down. Witnessing that made me really realize that all of our bodies are on a gradual slow down. It is one of those inescapable things about being a participant in this temporal world. Our Life Force and Spirit are eternal, but our bodies are not. From this experience, my inner guidance posed the question, "Are you fully enjoying your body temple?"

Am I? I asked myself. Am I fully present in my body? Do I take every opportunity to dance and sing and move this wondrous vehicle around? Do I appreciate every pore that opens up and drizzles cooling perspiration on my skin? Do I let the sun bathe me and the rain replinish me? Am I savoring the flavors of food and drinks I put into my body? Do I take the time to smell all the amazing fragrances that surround me? Do I listen to soothing sounds or music that excites me? Do I allow my body to be intimate enough? Do I adorn my body with beautiful things? Some may say that this last question borders on vanity. But I want to draw the distinct line between vanity and appreciation. Vanity is when you are adorning yourself with lavish things to fill an emptiness or void in your being. Appreciation of the body, on the other hand, will lead you to embrace and be present with your soul's vehicle. So wear beautiful things and scent your body with wonderful smells and enjoy your temple.

Here's a suggestion--If you are ever presented an opportunity to stand naked in the rain, do it. It is so liberating and it will make your body feel alive. Don't, however, do it if it puts you in jeopardy of a possible public decency arrest. If you really want to do it, and you need a private place, let us know. You can come up to our land. Our nearest neighbor is about a mile away and we usually have quite a bit of rain.

Here's something I came across which may help you enjoy your time in this third dimension--

Apache Blessing:

May the sun
bring you new energy by day,
may the moon
restore you by night,
may the rain
wash away your worries,
may the breeze
blow new strength into your being.
May you walk
gently through the
world and know its
beauty all the days of your life.

And so it is.

Energy

We live in an infinitely abundant Universe and yet things seem to be appearing in finite amounts.

The other morning I was cooking breakfast and just as I was finishing Bodhi's egg the propane tank runs out of gas. Lucky for Kim and I coffee was already made. The water tank has been between low and empty with all the dry weather we've been having and I'm also keenly aware of when our 12 volt battery needs a break to let the solar panels recharge it.

After the gas sputtered out on us at breakfast, two thoughts ran through my mind. First, was that I should have had the spare tank filled. Second was the burning question of why, in an infinitely abundant Universe, do we experience things in finite amounts?

I posed the question to Kim and she had a good sense about it. She said that, by living the way we do, we are actually more conscious of our role as co-creators of the Universe's abundance. When the gas runs out, we know we have the energy and resources to get more gas. When the water runs dry, we know we have access to more of it from different sources. We have been able to tune in our senses to see abundance all around us, not just in places that we've looked before. Knowing that the water tank was running low, we began collecting the water from the melted ice in the cooler and using that to wash the dishes-- cold but effective.

We've become very conscious of how things flow into our lives and that has been a gift. It's very easy to get complacent and lack an appreciation for the bounty of the Universe if it flows in seemingly infinite amounts into our lives. In our modern world, water, electricity, and gas flow effortlessly into our homes and the only indicator of how much wonderfulness has come into our life is monthly paper statements we get in the mail. We should all be continually amazed at turning on a switch and seeing a dark place lighten up. We should all feel so blessed to stand under a warm shower and feel our bodies and spirits washed clean. We should all be so grateful to be able to cook a hot nourishing meal.

Karen added some clarity when I asked her the burning question about living in an abundant Universe and experiencing things in finite amounts. She said it's all energy. Energy takes on different forms that may be finite. The chair is energy, the floor is energy, the fan is energy, it's all energy, everything is energy.

The comedian Louis CK did a wonderfully entertaining and thought provoking interview on the Conan O'Brien Show a few months ago. It really talks about appreciating this amazing world we live in. If you haven't seen it, it's really worth a look on youtube. Here's the link--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOzNrO54xsY

The energy is always flowing and that is infinite abundance that we all have access to. So the key is for us to have an appreciation for all this energy that surrounds us and to have a conscious awareness that we are the co-creators of how it appears in finite form in our lives.

Flowing

The water tank has been empty for the last couple of days with no rain in sight.

We've been able to get by with bringing up county water in seven gallon containers and spending the weekend at Karen's. Running low on water is not dire for us, it's more inconvenient than anything else. It's actually been pretty nice to dry out a bit on the land. A couple of days ago the trade winds returned and blew out the vog that has been hanging around, the sky was clear with a few wispy clouds.

It's getting pretty close to Kim and I needing to build another compost heap for our humanure. Jim suggested that we build it next to an avocado tree growing on the land. That way, even if we don't do anything with the compost we create, it'll slowly feed nutrients to the avocado tree for years. Good idea.

The saw dust toilets continue to serve us well. Bodhi sometimes asks us why we don't have a water toilet, but for him the system seems pretty normal. A few weeks back we ran out of saw dust and we knew that it would be a few days before we would be able to get to the mill to get more, so the substitute we used was grass from the lawn. I grabbed a five gallon bucket and a rake and gathered up as much cut grass as I could. The grass was a nice substitute. It had been cut a few days earlier so it was all dried up, but I gathered it in the morning so it was covered with dew to add some moisture to hold down smells. After doing our business, we would just grab a handful of grass and cover up our stuff. One night when Kim was sitting and doing her thing, a very familiar, "KOH-KI!" comes from inside of the five gallon toilet bucket. She gets up and grabs a flashlight to see what was going on. Sitting on top the mound of grass was a brown frog. The light caught his eyes and he dove deeper into the toilet. What we surmised is that the coqui frog must have been in the grass I raked up. No one was going to dig in and try to find the frog, and Kim couldn't muster it up to use the toilet with the little guy in there. Lucky for us, we have a bucket set up downstairs as well. We actually have more toilets at the cabin than we did at our cottage in Honolulu. I never heard the coqui in the toilet, but the next morning I took off the toilet seat on the bucket and lidded it up. It has since been dumped into the compost heap. Maybe he's living out his life in the heap or maybe our collected human waste was too much for him.

After almost five months out on the land, I'm still so grateful for the experiences that living off the grid has brought to me. It's little things like hearing a coqui in your toilet that make me think, "Wow! How cool is that?" If I had a regular flush toilet I wouldn't have such a fun story to tell. Although, I have heard stories of people coming home and finding a huge rat sitting on the toilet seat just hanging out. Now that would freak me out to no end.

During this past Christmas Season, Kim was on a rush to finish some DVDs she made. She would be working on our laptop for hours and our 12 volt battery would start to run out, so she would run off of the computer battery and that would run out. I ended up running an extension cord from our car battery to the laptop so we could charge it up. In the meantime our rechargeable lamps started to lose steam, so we worked in the dark with only a few flashlights. It's fun to think back to that night and the scramble to get our projects done.

So we're building a little bit of resilience out on the land and some of it has been a lot of fun. I think of the lesson of the flowing stream. The lesson goes that when the water flows and it hits an obstacle, it simply finds a way around or over it and continues on it's way. There is a good World War II story about a Tokyo University Professor after the bombing of Tokyo. His home was completely destroyed. As he walked through the ruins, he could pick out different areas of what used to be his house. There were charred remnants of the rare books and scholarly works he had collected over the years. Amidst all of this devastation, he reached down and picked up a handful of ash, "This," he said to his wife, "will make fine tooth powder."

The power to move on.

We'll make it through this drought and have fun doing it. Life flows and so do we.