September 12, 2004

A Loki (Rose) by Any Other Name

Hokule'a, the Star of Gladness in Hawaiian... for those of us more familiar with the Greek names for the stars this is the star Arcturus..

First I want to thank each and everyone of you for the emails and the kind words concerning Lux Aeterna. As the week wore on I was so glad to be a part of the tributes to those that have given so much, and for those that we lost on 9-11. I dont believe that the media wanted to dwell on this, but conjured up other things for us to think about this week. I was very pleased at the over all response and again thank you.

Second, I am unleashing another blog into the Blogosphere. Does anyone know what the limit is to having blogs? I am finding that blogs are like cats the more you have within some reason the better that things are... Anyway with this release comes a change that I have wanted to make for a while.

Names are very important to me. I have an unusual given name and felt it was so important to preserve the family name that I didnt drop it in favor of my husbands name (after all this is who I am) Both the name of my first blog and the blog handle that I have been using are somewhat accidental. My Wide Blue Seas is actually my Ebay handle, it too being somewhat of a sidestep as I wanted our corporate name Wide Blue Seas. So I want to do a blog and I had just been shopping on Ebay...sort of a no brainer, but it has turned out beautifully.

Dancing Rain Girl is my handle on game sites, most of which, like Neopets, I no longer have time or computer speed (Im on dial up) to do ... I am no longer involved in Middle eastern Dance for many reasons mostly being that it is no fun to dance alone and I dont look very good in coconuts and a grass skirt so I dont think I will be taking up hula...( just kidding, I know that I could wear a muumuu and I look pretty good in those...my friends at the Credit Union said that I moved to Hawaii so I could wear a muumuu to work everyday... Yah Buddy!)Hey the name sort of fits but I have come to love a Hawaiian name and I thought that the time was right as my 1 year of blogging birthday is comming up to go ahead and change it.

I first heard of the Hokule'a back on the mainland. this is a huge replica of the Voyaging Canoes that the Tahitians used to cross the trackless seas in their quest for new lands to settle. The navagation skills used to do this were astounding and really only in the last few years have we begun to understand how they managed to navagate without a sextent or charts. It is said that there were legends of fixed stars and one shone over the fabled islands were the gods and goddesses dwell. The Tahitians set out north east from Tahiti around 900 AD and as they crossed the equator they saw the star Arcturus grow higher and high each night... They took notice of the wind and water and found that land was many days away but comming closer. Eventually they landed on the Big Island, the star Arcturus high in the sky. They named it " Hokule'a" The Star of Gladness, for had they not found land soon they would have surely perished in the vast ocean. The Hawaiian Island are the furthest islands away from other bodies of land on earth. When I say I am 2700 miles from anywhere, I mean it.

To prove the theory of this chartless navagation, the Voyaging canoe Hokule'a was built and it now serves as a training vessel for young people to learn the ways of the sea. It has logged over 100,000 nautical miles in her years of service. More than one young person has been rescued for a life of crime by this program and the ship its self is a source of pride for the Native Hawaiian crew that sails her.

As I walk out on clear nights I have searched for the Star of Gladness and found her. To see the stars here is a high point in my Hawaii experience. The clean air here was one of the major reasons that we came to this place and have gone through all that we have to be here.

I realized that if we are to stay here we need to stop fighting the culture so hard and take some in. We would NEVER want this place to be what we left but I think I have not been as good a steward of what has been given to me here...I gave my kitties Hawaiian names, Now I think I shall give myself one.

Hokule'a... the Happy Star...

and the blog...you can find it here. Follow the star... I hope to start by loading some of my previously written original poems and stores on here, then go on to write more...

We are doing ok. I will be catching you up on all of the news in the next post.