Mo’olelo | Ethics, morality, cultural values in Hawaii

Ethics, morality, cultural values: In all human societies, they are the rules of behavior established by religious beliefs.

For Native Hawaiians who have adopted the religion of another society, then, there is a question of whether their traditional values also have been replaced.

For most people living in Hawaii today, rock ahu (altars) and restored heiau are interesting artifacts of a time in the past, reflecting cultural values that are no longer valid.

But Hawaiians rediscovering their cultural roots also are rediscovering and validating their ancestral cultural values, which inevitably brings them into conflict with the dominant society.  […]

 

Source:   https://www.moolelo.com/haleakala-hakumoolelo.html 

Mo’olelo | Voyaging Chiefs of Kāne‘ohe Bay, with Dennis Kawaharada

Kāne‘ohe Bay is surrounded by some of the most well-watered lands in Hawai’i and some of the most beautiful mountains in the world: the Ko’olau Range­peaks, two to three thousand feet high, joined by walls of sheer green cliffs. Ka Moa’e (the ENE trade winds) sweeps warm moist air into the mountains and clouds form along the summit. Rainwater has cut steep gullies into the cliffs giving them their distinctive wrinkled appearance. When it rains, dozens of thin silvery waterfalls run down the vertical gullies; half obscured by rain and mist, the waterfalls seem to pour directly from the clouds. […]

Source: http://archive.hokulea.com/ike/moolelo/voyaging_chiefs_kaneohe_bay.html

Mindfulness | Being The Change

“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” — Leo Tolstoy

Research shows that most people spend up to 50 percent of their time in their heads – a tendency that does nothing to increase our happiness and in fact has been proved to be detrimental to it. Instead of being habitually consumed by thoughts of the past or of trying to control the future, mindfulness is a way of engaging with the present moment. It’s a mode of being that helps increase clarity and peace of mind.

It is often in the more repetitive, day-to-day activities that we find ourselves switching into auto-pilot. So why not embrace these moments and see them as an opportunity to be more mindful? Do not to worry about trying to clear the mind of any thoughts or feelings. Instead, try and see yourself taking a back seat; witnessing the thoughts and emotions as they come and go. If you find yourself getting distracted, simply bring your attention back to the physical senses and focus your attention back on the activity itself.

  1. Being Mindful in the Shower

Unmindful: Vague awareness of the sensation of water as you step into the shower. A daily battle with the temperature control trying to work out why the temperature never quite hits the spot. Within seconds your mind wanders back to that episode of American Idol last night. Was Simon Cowell wearing a wig? Is his hair naturally that glossy? I wonder where he gets those high-waisted trousers from…?

Mindful: You become aware of how good the warm water feels as it washes over your skin. Being mindful of the smell of the shower gel, and the sensation your hands passing over your skin; being mindful to set the temperature before you step in the shower; mindful of thoughts cropping up; mindful of how much water you’re using; and mindful of the noise of the water coming to a halt.

2. Being Mindful whilst Brushing your Teeth

Unmindful: Brushing your teeth furiously, whilst noticing your reflection and bemoaning the appearance of that spot that seems to have cropped up from nowhere. Running around the house with the toothbrush hanging out of your mouth, trying to prepare breakfast, pack today’s lunch whilst hunting out those ever elusive car keys.

Mindful: Becoming mindful of the taste and texture of the toothpaste; mindful of the sensation of your feet on the bathroom floor; mindful of the way that your arm moves to direct the brush across your teeth; mindful of each and every tooth.

3. Being Mindful on your Commute

Unmindful: You’re squashed into the train or bus in a way that you didn’t think was humanly possible. The resentment builds as you move through the journey and people launch themselves into the space as though the world is coming to an end and this is the only route to safety. You find yourself holding your breath because you can’t bear the lethal cocktail of body odour and cheap perfume, wishing that you could magically transport yourself to that swim-up bar in the Caribbean you’re gazing at in the newspaper..“Tropicana drinks are free…”

Mindful: Being mindful of the people around you and recognising that they too might be feeling the same discomfort; mindful of the environment as a whole and your resistance to it; mindful of trying to fast forward to dreamt up situations, of escaping the present moment; mindful of the journey and how it feels – is the ride bumpy or is it comfortable and smooth?

4. Being Mindful while Washing Up

Unmindful: You approach the sink with a heavy heart and set about frantically washing the dishes, trying to get the whole thing over with in as little time as possible. You select the pieces of cutlery you know will cause the least amount of bother (the sieve and that greasy pan come last, obviously!) You find yourself day-dreaming out of the window half aware of that sharp knife lurking at the bottom of the sink. You catch sight of your cat purring smugly from the comfort of the sofa. Wouldn’t it be great to be the cat…

Mindful: Becoming aware of the sensations as soon as your hands hit the warm and soapy water; mindful of how you clean the dishes, taking your time to make sure each one of them is thoroughly cleaned; mindful of what’s going on around you without getting wrapped up in the storylines; mindful of the satisfaction of a job well done.

5. Being Mindful in the Queue

Unmindful: You stand twitching, full of impatience in the queue. You look at your phone and scan aimlessly through old emails and texts, searching for something, anything that might distract you from the boredom of waiting. You sigh loudly when you notice someone fumbling with their purse at the cashier desk. Can’t these people be more prepared? You feel around your bag getting everything out and ready, and realise that you’ve left your credit card on your desk after paying for that concert ticket…

Mindful: You set off mindful and quietly prepared for what you’ll need; mindful of how your mood changes when you first catch a glimpse of the queue for the bank; mindful of how you stand, your breath and where any tensions are as you scan through your body; mindful of the tendency to distract yourself from the present moment; and mindful of how you interact with the people around you.

Be The Change …
Experiment with bringing the art of mindfulness into ordinary activities this week.

Na Hula | Learn The Hula!

Hi guys!

In this video, I’m teaching my sister a choreographed hula dance to “He Mele No Lilo” from the Lilo and Stitch movie by Chris Sanders. It is by no means an accurate representation to the beautiful traditional Hawaiian dance and is not meant to offend anyone. This is simply a breakdown of various body part moves.

Please visit my website to learn how to put everything together in one beautiful dance for big birthday parties + other fun events!

Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoy this video!

I’d love to hear from you! Please “Like” my video, comment below, + share with all of your family + friends! 🏝👙🌞⠀

*⠀ 👉🏼 http://www.jessicayoungfit.com 👈🏼⠀ *⠀

Reiki | What Is Shinto?

Hosted by filmmaker Yujiro Seki, Carving the Divine TV is a series of Q&A sessions with Buddhist scholars and practitioners. These Q&A sessions explore the basic concepts of Buddhism and the history of Buddhism so that when viewers finally watch Carving the Divine they will get the maximum value of the documentary.

Today, we have the honor and privilege of welcoming Negi/ Senior Shinto Priest of Tsubaki America Shrine, Rev. Lawrence Koichi Barrish to talk about the basic foundation of Shinto idea and tradition.  To gain a deeper understanding of Japanese Buddhism, it is indispensable to get to know Shinto.  Besides that, Shinto is an amazing Japanese spiritual tradition which by itself is worth your time to learn about!   Please come and join our discussion about Shinto.  I assure you that it will open up your mind and teach you something very different yet inspiring!

We will be asking important questions such as:

What is the belief history of Shinto? Is there any particular founder?

What is the relationship between Shinto and Buddhism?

What is Shinbutsu-shūgō?

What is Kami?

What are the examples of Kami?

Is Buddha Kami?

How can we venerate/worship Kami?

How are Shinto activities in the US?  Is it becoming more popular?

In 1992 Koichi Barrish, an instructor of Aiki-do founded Tsubaki Kannagara Jinja to enshrine the spirit of Sarutahiko-no-O-Kami and the spirit of Morihei Ueshiba No Mikoto (the Kami). Indeed, Koichi Barrish Sensei is no doubt a rare person who has been really trying to overcome the difficulties of understanding the true meaning of Shinto, to continue day and night Gyo (ascetic practice) and Misogi, and who has finally become a Shinto priest – as an American he is the first in Shinto history. Please follow Barrish Sensei and you all can be able to become persons of self-perfection, making your family happier and serving for the benefit of other people and society and for world peace. In Shinto we can have new days that are fulfilling (kokonotari). If you live this way you can fill up energy in each corner of your being. —— written in 1997 by the late Yamamoto Yukitaka Sendai Guji 96 Generation High Priest of Tsubaki Okami Yashiro

“What is Shinto?” – With Rev. Lawrence Koichi Barrish #carvingthedivine 

Hauʻōli aloha Pō’alīma

Hauʻōli aloha Pō’alīma ʻi na mea a pau ʻo ʻōukōu. Makōu ʻūa’ōlelo hānā pela ke hoīke nei ʻi kekāhi lēʻalēʻa. Nanea kō ʻōukōu. ʻI manā’olana ʻia ʻōukōu a pau ʻi kā mea hopenapule. ‘O kā maluhīa nō me ‘oe.
 
Happy aloha Friday to all of you! We are done working so lets have some fun. I wish everyone a wonderful weekend. Peace be with you.

Hau’ōli aloha Pō’ahā

Maikā’i kākahiāka ʻi nā mea a pau ʻia ʻōukōu maikāʻi pōe kānāka. Kona kupanaha Pō’ahā. E aloha ʻōukōu makemake e ʻike ʻi loko ʻo ke ʻāʻo nei. ʻI kā pōmaikā’i ʻo kā lā. ‘Ō kā maluhīa nō me ‘oe.

Good morning to all you beautiful people. It’s wonderful Wednesday. Be the aloha you wish to see in the world. Have a blessed day. Peace be with you.

Hau’ōli aloha Pōʻalūa

Aloha Pōʻalūa kākōu a me aloha kākahiāka. Mohala i kā wai kā maka ʻo kā pūa.  Hoihoi keīa nani lā nā hōaloha.  ʻŌ kā maluhīa nō me ‘oe.

Hello Tuesday, everyone, and a good morning. Unfolded by the water are the faces of the flower … As water gives life to the pua (flower), water gives life to us.  Enjoy this beautiful day, friends.  Peace be with you.

Martial Arts | the Kung Fu Shaolin Way

For 1,500 years, Shaolin Kung Fu has been the most famous of the Chinese martial arts. Learn all about it in our documentary series, The Kung Fu Shaolin.

To master the secret of martial arts has been the lifelong pursuit of kung fu masters. Check out this episode of the documentary series, The Kung Fu Shaolin, to find out more.

For 1,500 years, Shaolin Kung Fu has been one of the most famous Chinese martial arts. To learn more about it, check out the third episode of our special documentary series, The Kung Fu Shaolin.#kungfu #shaolin

From boxing to acting, the kung fu masters have been striving and shining in different careers in real life. Check out the fourth episode of the documentary series, The Kung Fu Shaolin, to find out more.

As the Shaolin Kung Fu spreads out around the world, it has found its own way of telling itself, not only the techniques but also the spirit. Check out this episode of the documentary series, The Kung Fu Shaolin, to find out more.

A Pedagogy of Gaia: “How Lammas Changed My Life” by Bart Everson

NaturalisticPaganism's avatarNaturalistic Paganism

What can we learn, and how can we teach, from the cycles of the Earth — both the cycles within us, and the cycles in which we find ourselves?

A Subtropical “Fern Dolly”

The Dog Days of Summer

Do you know that time in late summer, when the air seems heavy and full, and the heat gets hotter, and everything seems to slide from ripe to overripe? It’s that sultry, sticky time sometimes called the Dog Days, after Sirius the Dog Star.

It’s my favorite time of year. Most of the people here in New Orleans think I’m crazy. Maybe I am. Then again, I work in an office which is maintained at such a bone-chilling temperature that some of my co-workers resort to using space heaters in August.

After the summer solstice, our hemisphere’s axial tilt to the sun diminishes each day. Slowly the days are growing shorter, the…

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Energy Update | Matt Kahn, for Week of July 26-August 2, 2020

Although many can view the current state of the planet as apocalyptic signs, it’s important to know that an apocalypse is actually the process of ascension merely viewed through the lens of an unraveling ego structure. To help you through this process, let’s explore the gifts and opportunities the Universe is ushering in, on all of our behalf, to move awareness beyond the surreal intensity of a rapidly-changing world. At this time, the Universe is expanding the collective consciousness by helping evolving beings such as yourself to become aware of and to continue the process of unraveling core limiting beliefs out of your cellular memory.

This means, in spite of the things you intend to manifest, the Universe is helping you acknowledge your most core limiting beliefs by putting you in circumstances and guiding you through a series of outcomes to help you notice the most limiting ideas you conclude about yourself, life, or your place in the cosmos. To help you move through this process with utmost grace, you can ask yourself the following questions:

  • When something uncomfortable, inconvenient, or unexpected happens, what reason do you give for why it occurs?
  • Is your knee-jerk reaction wondering what you did wrong to bring this about?
  • Do you hope to find the lesson as quickly as possible, so to move beyond the perception of punishment?
  • Do you do inner work so intensely, as a way of trying to get into a better standing with a Source that only loves and adores you exactly as you are?
  • Do you overly-spiritualize the perfection of divine timing by assigning blame to your ego’s behavior, a belief that your vibration must be low as a result of such outcomes, or merely holding the notion that you must not be worthy of all you wish to have?

These can be some rather bold questions, but it remains imperative to ask them in order to help you see through the veil of concepts you may be unknowingly and so innocently using to stay asleep in a dream of reward and punishment. As you continue to wake up, you begin to explore a Universe that is all reward with no punishments outside of the limiting and often heart-breaking conclusions we tend to draw in response to the unfolding journey of time. As part of the human condition, human beings often draw conclusions in response to outcomes as a way of maintaining some semblance of control. The belief tends to be: if I can understand why something is happening, I will be able to know what I can do to move through it or even transform it into greater circumstances for myself and others. As always, there is always a kernel of truth hidden within the beliefs of our deepest distortions of reality. It is true, if you could understand why something is happening, you will be able to know what you can do to move through it or even transform it into greater circumstances for yourself and others. And yet, you don’t have to be blamed as the negative cause of any particular outcome, as if you must be guilty of some form of wrong-doing just because things aren’t going the way you had hoped or envisioned.

As the Universe helps you address your most limiting beliefs you have about yourself, others, the world, and reality as a whole– mainly focusing on the limiting beliefs you have about you– it assists in the further expansion of your awakening consciousness by being able to honor the often illusive and mysterious process of transmutation.

Transmutation acts as a sacred fire burning up all that no longer serves you each and every time you are emotionally triggered or turned against yourself in response to an outcome or anyone else’s behavior.

The more you know that life will become whatever series of circumstances is needed to help you examine the limiting beliefs you hold to be true about yourself, the easier it is to let go of needing things to be any particular way in order to discover the happiness, wholeness, inspiration, and joy that you seek. It also helps you uplevel your understanding of co-creation beyond the limits of the ego’s understanding. Co-creation is real, but you are not solely in charge of what comes or goes. Since co-creation references a collaboration, it helps you understand that your partnership with the Universe allows any degree of circumstance to manifest, not because of the insistence of personal will, but through the grace of divine timing that is doing everything in its infinite power to help you become the heart-centered, embodied, and fully integrated consciously divine human you were born to be. As more space is cleared to allow such an embodied and integrated presence of your soul to move deeper into your physical body, you come to realize the true fulfillment you have been searching for comes from being aligned with spirit more often than not, and not necessarily dependent upon what you have, don’t have, want, or resent others for having.

This is why the Universe creates personal and collective head-scratching scenarios, where specific versions of you, along with other characters, show up to behave in ways that allow you to watch the limiting beliefs that may arise in response. Because the addressing of core limiting beliefs is so front and center for so many right now, the key at this time is being more compassionate with yourself than ever before. Let yourself off the hook by allowing yourself to enter a reality where things don’t happen because of anything you do or don’t do.

Because the unraveling of limiting core beliefs is escorting you beyond the confines of psychological imprisonment, it is very common right now to have a rebellious nature when it comes to self-imposed rules and rigidity. For example, if you are on a cleanse, don’t be surprised by the desire or likelihood of cheating, just to know you have the right to do as you wish and be as you may. The unraveling of limiting core beliefs also amplifies the tendency of emotional eating, in attempt to seek surrogate forms of comfort, as the beliefs that once offered comfort are seen to have overstayed their welcome. There is no doubt that as all the pieces of self are put back together throughout your journey of awakening, there will be a remarkable difference in your alignment of choices, but this process is not something your ego can micro-manage or control.

At this critical time of inner alchemical transmutation, the essential spiritual practices are those rooted in self-love and self-discovery.

It is a time where you are truly needed as the one who can deliver the light of Source energy into your being by how authentically and more often you dare to love yourself, while accepting that everything happens to usher in a new version of you and a newly-transformed reality and not because of anything you did ‘wrong’ in any way.

During this phase of transmutation, it is natural to have rampant cravings, feel stir-crazy, confused, mesmerized, or dismayed by life’s growing list of uncertainties, an increase in physical or emotional pain– including pain in your head, as well as electrical surges and shocks along major meridian points. Such symptoms, while representing evidence of transmutation in progress, also act as reminders to be gentle with yourself as you move beyond the threshold of this evolutionary process.

As the pace of life slows to give you a more direct view into the inner-workings of a conditioned past, you are able to cut the cords to each and every anchor and set sail along our most miraculous voyage into new seas of discovery.

With less pressure and rigidity overwhelming an already overwhelming time in Earth’s history, the signs of a newly-awakening world begin to surface in the beauty of your everyday life.

From my heart to yours, thank you for being here, staying the course, and being such an instrumental catalyst in ensuring that the vibration of love is channeled into your heart and reality, no matter how shameful, unworthy, or disconnected any belief suggests you to be. On behalf of the Universe, thank you for being you exactly as you are.

May the Universe show you exactly how, no matter the circumstances in view, love always has the final word. Love always wins.

 

Hauʻōli aloha Pō’alīma

Hauʻōli aloha Pō’alīma ī nā mea ā pau ʻo ʻōukōu. Makōu ʻūa ‘ōlelo hana pela ke hoike nei ī kekāhi lēʻalēʻa. Nanea kō ʻōukōu. Hauʻōli me kā ‘ōhana a me nā hōa aloha. Hā’awi ʻĀkūa māhālo kō ʻōukōu ʻūʻūku kine hōʻopōmaikā’i ā pau nō. ʻŌ kā maluhīa nō me ʻoe.

Happy aloha Friday to all of you! We are done working so let’s have some fun. Enjoy your weekend with family and friends. Give God thanks for all your small kine blessings. Peace be with you.

Bodies, Sexuality, Strength, and Badass Sorcery

Isidora's avatarIsiopolis

I rarely post anything political on this blog. That’s not what it’s for. But sometimes—like when your city has been invaded by goon squads kidnapping citizens—it’s hard to write about anything else. And so, for a lead-in to today’s post about ancient Egyptian sexuality and Isis, I am proud to introduce you to “Naked Athena.”

THIS. This is why I love this city. This is the power of a vulnerable, naked human body. This is the power of Art.

Portland protestor calls out police in a stunning display of what one Twitter poster called “badass sorcery.” Damn right, it was. In confusion, the cops actually backed off after this. See more here.

Now, here’s another photo of the same kind of vulnerable power:

This is Ieshia Evans. Learn more about Evans and that protest here. (Photo info: A demonstrator protesting the shooting death of Alton Sterling is detained…

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Hau’ōli Aloha Lāʻpūle

Hau’ōli Aloha Lāʻpūle ka pōʻe ʻapau. Nō ko ʻianei manāʻo ʻia ʻōukōu a pau i kā ʻĀiwa lā ʻe hele aku, ʻāe hana hou ‘aoʻao me ko ʻōukōu aloha keiki. Noho malaria kōʻu mau makamaka a me ʻŌhana.

Happy aloha Sunday, everyone. Wishing you all a fantastic day. Go out and create new cherished memories with loved ones. Stay safe, my friends and family.