Red Bush, White Tree
2/8/01
A few days ago, I made much about the flowers, etc. blooming away in California in February. In the interests of avoiding drabness, here is the white tree (a choke cherry, as near as I can tell), without the sun full on it, but some nice pink sunrise clouds in the background:
And before your appetite for February flowers is sated, a nice red bush with a few lingering daffodils (which were out before Christmas) visible:
Actually, grey is the way I've been feeling. A lousy cold. Simple in its misery. At least twice my body weight a day drips out my nose, while an equivalent amount is tanked into me (drink lots of fluids when you have a cold!).
Because of my ongoing ISDN problems, I've gone into work each day this week, although I've tried to come in late and leave early. Actually, I'm beinning to feel stronger and dryer, although well I'm surely not, so with luck I'll be recovered by the weekend.
Another storm warning. With another promise of snow at low elevations. I still have some hope of getting some snowy pictures in here.
Among the many errands I did today was to get my plane tickets ot Hawai'i in March. I've been going twice a year to study Huna, and this year I'm going a couple of days early to buy a Hawaiian drum, an Ipu Hecke. I've been practicing chants and this year will join the drummers rather than the hula folks.
Hawaiian is a very challenging language. It has 8 consonants (counting the glottal stop, ') and five vowels. Syllables always consist of either a single vowel or a consonant followed by a vowel. This is a lot simpler than English, and the result is that all the words tend to sound the same. How, you ask, can you confuse Ke aho with Ka ohu? I assure you, it is easy.
Because there are so few sounds, most words have many meanings. So a little song about a bird flying to its nest in the mountain can also be interpreted as a graphic song about sexual intercourse or also a very spiritual song about the soul rising to meet its creator.
The Hawaiian gods and goddesses are mostly, like Jesus, mortals who were sent or touched by God and given a mission, typically to show the people of the Islands some skill or to exemplify some principle. So Laka, the popularizer of the hula (legends have it that her sister actually invented it, but didn't like to travel), is invoked at many hula festivals. And yet there are hula masters today who claim teaching lineage, if not blood relationship, with her. Perhaps the best known Hawaiian deity, Pele, was also believed to be a firey woman with an uncanny ability to speak to and control fire in all its forms, including volcanic. And quite a temper.
I am joining with a number of friends to put on a one-day introduction to Huna locally, right before I go over there in March. I'm responsible for an hour introduction to the philosophy, which I'm working on. Don't be surprised to see some of those thoughts appearing in these pages...
For now, tomorrow is a very busy day, and I'm going to bed...
Thank you for reading.
Copyright © 2001 Pete Stevens. All rights reserved.
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