The Tree House,
or My Ivory Tower
That’s the way HD and I have awakened the last four nights.
Until our furniture shipment arrives, we are sleeping (sleeping?) on a plastic blow-up bed. It’s a queen size, as tall as a box springs and mattress together (about 2 feet high), so when it leaks air—guess that is the destiny of air beds—we are dumped into an ocean of floppy plastic and getting out is like a walrus floundering in a bathtub.
I’m in my tree house. It’s not built in a tree, but close enough. It’s on posts about 10 feet off the ground. The house is small, 4 feet wide by 8 feet long, with a deck of the same dimensions, but perfect. With the two doors open—into the house and out onto the desk—the breeze wafts through keeping the little room a perfect temperature. My ivory tower. I love it. I bought a little potting table for a desk. I have paint for the interior, our island colors, lime green, aqua, yellow-orange, not that I relish a painting job again, I finally got the paint out from under my fingernails, but fresh paint will make it pretty and mine.
I’m waiting for painting motivation to strike.
I thought about calling this blog Ode to a Refrigerator, for when we got here we had none. DD said, “I’m not living without a refrigerator,” and thus pressed us to buy one the first day we got here. I never told you that our Hawaiian refrigerator stayed pristine because we never plugged it in. We used the freezing compartment only and bought ice. Priorites, you know, lights, computers, an ability to watch DVD’s on the television at night, and oh yes, electricity for the water pump. We figure we will pay for the refrigerator with the money we are saving by not buying ice. Ice, ode to ice, now with an ice maker, what luxury, more ice than we can use. Wish we could send some to Hawaii, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t make the voyage. DD said she never knew how much she would appreciate ice.
Remember the lady at The Ponds Restaurant who said, living as we were, we would appreciate everything?
Here in the upscale town of Temecula California, we are like country bumpkins. “Golly gee, look at all the stuff.” The shelves are full, the stores are well-stocked, abundance is scattered about over the hillsides, the stores, and the houses, like glitter on a Christmas tree. We live in the wine country so there are vineyards alongside on the road to our place, and the wineries look like castles.
CALIFORNIA BY WAY OF HAWAII. WHAT A TRIP.
I do hope you guys stick with me, for although we are not in Hawaii, the adventure of life continues for us as it does for you. Send me a note if you wish for I’m sure your escapades put mine to shame.
A fascinating aside is that three days after we were here HD’s boss wanted him to be in San Diego. And that drive is easier than from our place on the Big Island to Hilo. On top of it, because we are here, HD will oversee the San Diego production on an instrument they were working on. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
A RETROSPECTIVE:
A night at Houkalinis Steak House in Kee’au Hawaii: the wife on one of the singers volunteered to dance the hula for the patrons. She was a mature woman, not the curvaceous young things you see at Luaus. Here dance was sign language for the singer, I couldn’t understand a word of the song or a stich of the movements, yet her dance was a spiritual experience.
There is a movement of the feet and a graceful swing of the hips we don’t normally associate with the frantic gyrations of the Polynesian hula. This woman was so present, so concentrated, so graceful, it was mesmerizing. After the exquisite hula dance, a couple of little girls played with the dance and you could see how the women can become such masters of the hula when they begin as a 3 year old.
At Luaus you see the sexy side of the dance, beautiful bodies, scantily clothed, grass skirts. It is the dance of many Polynesian islands. The Hula of Hawaii has a power beyond the martial arts. No wonder the controllers outlawed it. The martial art of Karate opposes energy battling it head on; Jujitsu redirects energy by turning it back on itself. Hula goes a step further. It teaches that when the life force flows uninterrupted from the feet through the hips and joy out the finger tips, the dancer is in a perfect state of grace with all life. The dancer is immune to negative energy—a target for nothing, it is a place where no fighting exists.
Geronimo, Crazy Horse, and other native shamans practiced this sort of energy. They would ride their ponies back and forth before their enemies knowing that nothing could hit him. They were on “Sacred ground” a place that attracts only the joy of being.
The Big Island gave us so much I am grateful to her for the experience. She certainly taught us to feel “energies.” DD used to laugh at any references to new age- type “frequencies.” Now she says, “I believe.”
For some living on the Big Island is a permanent dwelling place and they enjoy it and are light hearted people. For others, there seems to be some resign to their lives. DD has stated emphatically that we do not want to get to that place of resign.
If you stay too long you will become accustomed to the area, the energies, the situation, the scenery, the people, and you will take pride in living the rugged life. When I told my Chiropractor we were leaving he said he wondered why we came, being smart people. Hum. He is working up to leaving as well, Think about it, he said, “The most sold item at the Cash and Carry across the street is alcohol.”
Then there is the blank stare or expression coming from the natives. I know cultures are difference and we need to respect that, and this does not apply to all native Hawaiians, but many do not want us there. One does not need to live under prejudices if they can choose another way of life. And there was so much security on the island you might wonder if they were keeping you safe or keeping you controlled. If you go to the bank, at the Ready Teller after 6 pm there is a security guard. I asked him once if there was a problem. He said someone took money from a customer six years ago. Six years ago?!!! And there is security at the grocery stores, the movie theater, even the Laundromat after a certain hour.
In reading about Hawaiian heritage, and how oppressed they were, controlled, enslaved, as were the Native Americans, you can see that they are attempting to climb out of that oppression, but still have a control mentality. And anger at the haole. (The foreigner.) An oppressed culture has a hard time feeling free, even after the oppression has lifted. They can resent the missionaries, and still be Catholic or Christian forgetting that they had a splendid spirituality before the foreign controllers arrived.
You have probably heard the word haole, a derogatory term used for outsiders. It means “without breath.” The Native Hawaiians observed that the missionaries did not prepare themselves for prayer with the necessary breath work, and thus dubbed them haoles. It has come to mean foreigners. I never heard the term used, and I never worried about it, and no Hawaiian would know how much “breath work” this family done over the years.
DD and I both feared we would die before we got off the island. First I feared for Husband Dear when he had his heart situation. He got that regulated, and then I was afraid I would die. Finally DD confessed that she was having those thoughts about herself. We were like Ray Bradbury who at fourteen feared he would die before the movie Fantasia was released in the theaters.
Pila of Hawaii in his book the Secrets & Mysteries of Hawaii states that it is common for people to feel “Called” to the Big Island. Yes, I say, and it is common for people to beat feet out of there.
I believe there is a power point on the island much like one in Sedona Arizona. Sometimes the Grandmothers will kick you off. You need to go there, you need to get when you came for, and then you need to leave.
A friend and reader sympathized with our “misfortunes” in leaving Hawaii. I said it was only drama and Pele having her last word. We believe Hawaii called us, and we believe she kicked us off. Before we left, though, she had to state emphatically that SHE was the boss. And then she laughed at us and put us into first class and sent us on our way.
P. S. Budweiser is at it again. If you like the Budweiser Clydesdale horses, and want to see something really cute check out this minute commercial.
Snowfight.mpg (2494KB)
