Hey you Guys!

 

You are so much better than me at sending souvenirs and postcards!   In my defense, I can only say that this trip to Hawaii, as with all of the trips I have ever taken there, was much more hectic and fascinating than I anticipated. So many things were happening! I barely had time to think, much less go shopping.

I thought it might be cool if I gave you some souvenirs in the "real" sense -- souvenir, as you know, comes from the French verb "to remember" -- as in the Quebec license plate Je me souvien -- "I remember". 

 

So here is the closest I can come to some of the wonderful gifts and postcards you have brought me in the past. Here are some memories from my trip.

 

My first week on Kauai I spent chilling out from my "year of living horribly" in my computer job where they had no processes in place. I spent time just resting and poking around an island I had never been to before. In Kapaa there are some people majorly into healthy living, as well as some really cool vegetarian restaurants especially the Blosoming Lotus. I stayed at a B & B called the Rosewood Inn, an incredibly clean, friendly and beautiful place.

 

And I met some fellow travelers who took pictures of me showing me for who I really am -- you know, a really cool dude . . . .  . 

 

After a day of shopping or beaching it up I showered at night under the stars in the outdoor shower

 

 

 

 

I have to go back and do that hike again when it is not raining.

 

A few days later I drove to the opposite end of the "C" which makes up the main road going around the island of Kauai. At this other end of the road I hiked  the same mountain range, except this time from the West instead of the East side. On this second hike up the Napali coastline, the sun was out and it  was extraordinarily beautiful.

 

 

 

You start out by driving past the Princeville Resort where so many people get married. (A wedding rehearsal was underway.)

 

Then you continue driving through the town of Hanalei (where the movie "South Pacific" was filmed)

 

and keep going past a beach called "Tunnels."

 

 

It's called Tunnels Beach because of giant lava tubes which come out of the Napali mountains just across from the beach.

 

 

Tunnels beach is also where a few years ago the surfer girl got her arm bit off by a shark. I asked about that while I was there and the locals said "Oh, yeah, she's still surfing!"

 

The snorkeling at Tunnels Beach was INCREDIBLE. The best I have ever done. Better than Hunama Bay over on Oahu because there were less people and also the fish were more wild and larger. I bought fish food which comes plastic bags about 10 inches long and a little thicker than a cigar. I had in my mind that I would keep the fish food in my pocket and dole it out to the fish a little at a time. However, the fish knew the "I'll just keep the food in my pocket" trick. As soon as a tiny one half-inch of the bag was out of my pocket, one of the bigger fish (about 18 inches long) grabbed the entire bag in a lightening strike! (A blitzkrieg . . .)  I kept reaching into by bathing suit pocket wondering what happened to the food, but it was LONG gone, bag and all. It made me pray that the fish where smart enough to distinguish the long tube of food from other tubular-like things kept in my bathing suit . .

 

Between the hiking and the fish and the good food at the Princeville, I could stay up by Hanalei for a year and not get bored.

 

They say there is a magic in Hawaii. At Anini , a isolated and difficult to find beach on the North shore of Kauai,  the magic seems to be strong.

 

A young mother, dressed in a cotton gauze wrap and sandals, played a simple game with her children, holding their hands and swinging them around in a circle until their feet left the ground. The muscles of her young, strong arms bulged from the tie-died gauze tunic she wore as a top, the skin of her arms and chest perfectly tanned. Her serene faced relaxed even deeper into a lovely smile. The children lined up -- "Mommy, Mommy! My turn next!" 

 

Watching her on this isolated primitive beach, I could feel some sort of mind-shift within me, as if I had gone back in time. The scene seemed to be a metaphor for a  mother perfectly connected to her children. They seemed to be living out some sort of archetypal nature, doing what mother a children on a sunny day ought to do.  No Game-boys, no electronic equipment. No "I have become a jaded adult by the age of 6" look in the children's eyes. A young woman, dressed in simple clothes,  playing simple games. Very little in terms of material possessions, yet they appeared richer in happiness than anyone I had seen in years on the mainland.  

 

A few rental cottages line the back  end of Anini beach. As I looked at the "For Rent" signs, here, too, my mind shifted back to happy times.  I reminisced about the houses we used to rent on Cape Cod and how cool it would be if we could all rent a house her on this beach in Kauai.  

 

I wanted to stay longer on Kauai, but I my reservations at the beautiful Rosewood Inn were coming to an end. However, It so happened that May is the very end of the "off season" in the Islands and the hotels were still on their cheap rate schedules. So I was able to extend my stay one extra night at the Kauai Hilton.

 

 

The Hilton was an incredible bargain because there were free Hula shows every night at 6 pm. There was a different Hula group every night.

 

I would definitely go back to Kauai anytime and wished I could have stayed longer. But the main goal of my trip was to get over to the Big Island and see the progress my friend Blase had been making the past two years on his spiritual retreat / 30-acre organic farm (to which he gave the name "Ulaleo"  -- Hawaiian for "Spirit's voice".

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hanging out with Blase Harris is always an intense experience.

 

And it is always an experience difficult to put into words.

 

Blase has an incredible community of people around him. Part of the intensity is suddenly being connected into this community where everybody CARES about each other SO MUCH. Community, in my opinion, is the elusive thing which tourists search for when they hear about the magic of Hawaii, but miss as they speed around the main upper roads in rental cars. I have been blessed and EXTREMELY fortunate to have friends who again and again have  shown me the real Hawaii which is really about RELATIONSHIPS and healing and aloha.

 

It is, unfortunately, not possible to capture aloha on film. You will have to go to Hawaii, perhaps to Ulaleo and experience it yourself.

 

During the two weeks I stayed on the Big Island, I sometimes slept in the teepee,

 

  I sometimes slept on the couch in Blase's cottage on his 30 acre retreat, and I sometimes slept on Blase's office floor where Blase played the movie Copying Beetoven for me and shared with me his brilliant analysis of the movie.

 

I still have the 9th Symphony going thrgouh my head . . ..

 

 

I met INCREDIBLE people at Blase's retreat. All of whom are intensely committed to personal growth and to helping each other heal and become more wise.

Perhaps the best way to describe this community is to compare it to a similar community which existed in Switzerland before WWII.

 

In her book Jung his Life and Work Barbara Hannah described the atmosphere of Carl Jung's Zurich Psychological Club as "giving an incredible amount of support and companions ship to many lonely people":

 

 

 

          - B. Hannah in Jung, His Life and Work pp. 129-131

 

If you read Barbara Hannah's book and then imagined on top of that the unique psycho-spiritual orientation Blase's brings to the retreat. You can begin to imagine what a powerful experience it is to hang out here. One of Blase's many interests is studying ancient spiritual traditions (Buddhism, Christianity, Gurdjieff's work, Zen, etc.) and re-interpreting these traditions giving them a new twist and updated meaning. About many of the aspects of the Christian ideology which people complain (the priests who have sex with the alter boys, the stifling ridged rules, the anti-divorce and anti-abortion stances of the Catholic church, etc.) Blase asks "Was there ever any meaning in the Christian ideas at all?"

 

His answer is "Yes, there is" and like an archeologist, much of Blase's spiritual work consists of brushing away the many layers of dust off ideas like "unconditional love," "faith," "belief," "community," and "intimacy."

 

I was also privileged to sit in on some extremely intense discussions Blase had with members of the community. In the short space of this email all I can say was that, for me, these discussions were literally mind blowing. The skill with which Blase brought the energy of love and non-judgementalness to these discussions made everyone feel so accepted that they opened up and spoke about themselves and about life with an intimacy and honesty seldom experienced in everyday life. Simply by watching the discussions, things opened in me, too. Parts of myself,  parts I don't think I knew I even had, these parts felt-- I think for the first time -- that the atmosphere Blase created was a safe place for them to come out and play. I could feel my emotional side -- normally protected and guarded from years in the computer industry -- thaw out in unexpected ways.

 

When you start to melt like that and you are on the Big Island, right there in the middle of nature, God and everything, you begin to open up to the beauty of life all around you  -- miracles can and do start to happen.

 

 

A friend of mine keeps asking "Why on earth would you want to stay in a teepee for God sake?"

 

I remember one night a group of us stayed up late talking around the campfire inside the teepee. Leaving the firelight to step outside the teepee, my eyes adjusted to the pitch blackness of a Hawaii organic farm at 3000 feet above sea level. I looked skyward, amazed at the abundance of the stars arranged perfectly against the velvet black of the cool, crisp air of the night sky.

 

How incredibly beautiful.

 

I choked up. "I can't believe I'm not going to get to see those stars again, maybe for a whole year." (Later my friend Maria over on Oahu gave me one last fantastic opportunity to see the stars again before I left the islands.)

 

"Somehow those stars are symbols," I wrote in my journal, "for all the little pieces of myself with which I am out of touch. Each star represents a collection of undiscovered, unexplored energy within myself. The pain I experienced at the thought of losing these stars was due to the fact that they represented a piece of myself I will lose when I leave here. Only the ancient spiritual techniques enable us to reach this level: the technology of unconditionally loving everyone you meet, refusing at all costs to put labels on anybody or any living thing, and staying in love mode no matter BS comes your way."

 

I put two stars next to that journal entry.

 

As I was listening to Blase speak one afternoon, I think I opened up so far it frightened me.

 

I made what I think in retrospect was an abrupt decision to leave the Big Island.

 

I spent one last night in the teepee. I tried to hold my camera steady enough to take a picture of the stars, but like the aboriginal who fears you will steal his soul, the Hawaii experience resists being captured. It is like trying to catch a rainbow.

 

I thought of an old proverb a philosophy professor taught me:

 

"He who grasps, holds nothing." 

 

Some old friends John and Maria, invited me to stay fat their house on Oahu for a day or two.

 

So I left the Big Island for what I thought would be a good warm-down from the intense spiritual experiences of the Big Island.

 

I ended up imposing myself on my friends in Oahu for 5 days . I was treated like royalty at their house. My very dear friend, Maria, gave me a grand-tour of Oahu.

 

And  took me back to Sandy beach where 20 years ago I received the neck injury which contributed greatly (or caused) the death of my marriage.

 

 

 

And also to the North Shore of Oahu to a sacred Hawaiian site called a "heiau,"  a sacred burial site for the Alii, the royalty of Hawaii.

 

Maria and I talked for 5 days straight. Every day we went to a different part of the island. After the first day we realized we were talking about some very significant philosophical issues, and we bought a recorder to record our conversations.

 

We did not realize we would have such a connection. It took us both by surprise, I think.

 

I have never met a woman with as strong a connection to love and to life as Maria. She is able to articulate what she thinks so poetically, so beautifully.

 

We are going to make a book from our recordings.

 

Nighttimes we sat  on the roof of Maria and John's house and look across Hawaii Kai to Diamond Head silhouetted against the night sky. One night it began to rain.

 

 

       The cool wet of the rain drops

       teased our skin

       and we hovered under a blanket.

 

So that's it guys! I hope my memories bring to you some of the things I experienced on my trip.

 

As a Hawaiian acquaintance of mine says:

 

 

Peace to You

 

Love,

Your Bro,

Chip