Day Ten A collage of my United States of America
78 and counting…10 Day Travel Photo Challenge, final day!
Category Archives: Hawaii
78 and counting…10 Day Travel Photo Challenge
Day Four THE BIG ISLAND OF HAWAII
Have You Found Your Place?
Not to get all philosophical or anything heavy like that, but I would like to ask you one simple question.
Have you found your place? A place that fits you as securely and tightly and perfectly as that small round stone in the larger lava rock pictured above.
Not necessarily your place in life….you might call it your place in the universe; a place where you can go to feel whole. The place that feeds your soul, yes, with healthy soul food. The place that feeds your imagination, your sense of wonder, your artistic visions, your comfort, your need for adventure, your peaceful spiritual wanderings and your core beliefs about wanting what the good life here on Planet Earth has to offer.
If you have discovered the place or places that can do this for you then you are indeed fortunate to be blessed with a sanctuary. A priceless place of renewal and safety where you can go for spiritual reward. Hopefully you can visit it often – and maybe it is a place in your own backyard….I hope it is close enough so that you can be there as often as you might like. Perhaps you have a selection of places; a handful would be awesome.
Here are mine:
- The Big Sur coastline of California, ending with a visit to NEPENTHE, perched at the top of the world, where you know. You just know things… For new awakenings.
- The Big Island of Hawaii, on a selection of beaches along the Kona coast of my Specific Ocean. The vastness of it all. The sanctuary of the waves.
- The Rocky Mountains, and a particular weekend retreat of renewal and refuge from the hectic life, located in the Conifer-Evergreen woods and canyons, elevation about 8300 ft. for the height and breadth and depth of it all.
- St. Paul’s Cathedral in London for the enormous sense of time and faith it offers. Dust particles dancing in the sunlight, high up; having been there for centuries.
- Santa Croce in Rome, housing the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo and other remarkable men, for respect of those who knew so much about life.
- Angkor Wat in Siem Reap Cambodia for its sense of wonder and mystery. How could it have been undiscovered for so long? What was life there like?
- The Buddha Tooth Temple in Singapore because it is one of the most fascinating peaceful places I have ever been.
I love to talk to people who have found their places. They are usually people anchored in knowing. They see things differently; more deeply. They are not necessarily religious, but they are wise in the ways of the universe. They know their way around and they know how to find serenity when they need it.
I hope you are one of those who knows.
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Since I’ve Been Gone
 The BIG ISLAND
I thank all of you who have recently discovered this Blog in my absence and you loyal followers who have continued to read, substituting my Archives for the regular Blog entries, since I have been gone…..it is very gratifying to know that the Blog lives and breathes without my assistance. It did not even need life support, almost having more views than when I was home and writing more often. Hmmm…that makes me wonder.
I have been in Hawaii, on the Big Island, specifically 1000 feet above Kona on the west coast, for about six weeks. I will not rub it in; simply put I had a spectacular time. As with any extended vacation, one’s life changes, adapts and settles down to a new routine even within just 6 short weeks, and soon you realize you do not care anymore what happens beyond your days and nights in the paradise that has become your temporary norm. You hear all the news back home – the political crap and every other ridiculous media report back where your people are, but you pay it little attention and it sort of slides off of your consciousness like jello off a plate.
The more profound issues stay with you however and you gain greater clarity about them, including a dearly beloved family member who is battling cancer. With the sunsets and sea you do gain a degree of calm…just a bit more enlightenment…and your faith renews. Then just as you nestle deeply into that faith, really deeply, and you are sleeping every night  like a well-fed baby, hoping and believing again that all is actually going to be well in the world it is time to fly home on the red-eye and you are rather miserable to be returning to reality. You attempt to carry the good vibes with you. You want to believe. You want your faith to stay strong, back where it is still winter.
I have so many stories to tell. Wish we could sit and have a glass of wine and talk. Some are X rated and hilarious and there were other happenings I will never ever forget, standing out from everything else and those will be flashing memories in my mind like bright lights at a dive bar at 1 am for years to come. Crazy funny stuff, a scary thing or two (like nearly tripping over the huge, black coarse-haired, sharp-tusked, bloody, totally severed head of a wild pig on my happy little mindless walk one morning) to important spiritual stuff and everything in between. I am in love with the island and in love with the important reason I go there.
We went to new beaches I had never before seen in my past five years, painting on a different one every Friday morning with the West Hawaii Plein Air Painters, organized by http://Richard Rochkovsky.com and then some afternoons from 3-6 pm with the sunset painters group of Peter and Lily Jefferson. Every beach has a personality; gorgeous & benevolent, rocky & dramatic, and the black sand beaches are especially startling next to Prussian Blue and emerald green water. Giant, cruise-ship sized waves (those beautiful burly thugs come roaring in this time every spring) once again crashed the coast on several of the islands including parts of the Kona coast and we were spectators to a Mother Nature show that never disappoints.
And now I am home again to the west Denver area, literally just at the base of the Rocky Mountains, only about 5 minutes from my favorite canyon and it is snowing cottonballs outside my windows and although it is magical, I long for sea breezes and salt air. I do have the perfect combo of a mountain and sea life. When I am here or there, I love the scenery I am sitting in, I soak it up, and either parting is bittersweet.
Thanks to all the new friends I met this trip! You were so hospitable and fun! See you again, same time next year. I am thankful for such a lovely visit!
Jo Ann Brown-Scott, Author and Artist
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My Big Island Favorites and “The Whistler”, 2015
Photos taken on my recent month-long stay on the Big Island of Hawaii – my 4th annual trip in what has become a welcome rest from the Colorado snow, although I do love snow. As you probably know by now, in my paintings or my photos, I am all about pattern, texture and color…as you can see.
We painted plein air, we painted in studio, we took day trips both north to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Waimea and down south of the Captain Cook area to a black sand beach where we were told about one particular whale who has become a local favorite, and a legend I predict. This whale is a female (because they see her every year with her newest baby) whose blow-hole is damaged or deformed somewhat, so when she blows she whistles a loud haunting whistle that everyone on shore can here. Each year they look forward to the return of “The Whistler” and watch her playing just off shore of this black sand beach in the evening hours. I took the sunset pictures you see here at that very location. They also tell me that the whales breech here daily in February/March making loud smacking sounds when their tales hit the water – loud enough in the morning hours to wake you from a sound sleep. They are swimming north on their yearly migration, headed through the Maui Channel onward to Alaska, and this beach is a resting place to stop and play. We also saw whales in Kona harbor, purposely, I believe, putting on quite a show for everyone lined up on the pier one evening. Is it possible….can you imagine….that this human-being/whale connection is somehow bigger than we all imagine? They know that in certain areas of the planet we are appreciative and friendly, desperately wanting to know them better and wishing them no harm, while in other foreboding seas they might be cold bloodedly slaughtered.
All animals who migrate, including whales, sea turtles and sharks, migrate for just three simple reasons –Â mating and birthing, abundant feeding and a climate that is tolerable. Those three conditions rule their travels.
I do believe that the same three conditions rule the travels of human beings! Think about it.
Yes I was gone…thanks for noticing!
Magoon Beach, February 2015
But I am back again and renewed. The Big Island of Hawaii has become my February retreat and it suits me better and better every year. I always find something unique there, but the familiar dance I do with the island and the people I visit is both predictable and unique. This time I was exhausted, pleasantly so, when I got home but the reason for that is for another time. Let me just say that there is a kind of exhaustion that is so satisfying that it reminds you that you are indeed still very much alive and kickin’. We got a lot done, a lot accomplished this time, and the rewards of our efforts were abundant. Not trying to be mysterious here, just honoring the privacy of the people I visit.
My Friday mornings were spent with a group of people who all paint plein air. Look that up if you need to, but we visited a different beach every week and we painted our butts off for over 3 hours and then there was a formal critique of everyone’s work. Painting outside is not something I am used to, being a painter of abstract art and working on fairly large canvases with acrylic using a mixed media technique. Mine is a technique best done in studio where abundant space is available, in comfortable surroundings with running water and consistently good light, perhaps some music and being able to stop for lunch. Plein air is done outdoors – bringing constantly changing light and weather conditions. We painted one morning in a gale coming in from the western Pacific and it was a comedic struggle to hold everything down. On most Friday mornings we painted for 3.5 hours and dealt with ants, curious birds, sand in our paint, salt spray, flying debris and the ever present tourists who always sneak up on you so as not to disturb you and then proceed to disturb you with the most outrageous explanations of why they are not an artist themselves.
The water changes color depending on the clouds, the weather and even the wind, so just as you begin to capture the intense bottle green in the under belly of a gigantic wave, everything changes and you can no longer see that color because perhaps the sun has been hidden by clouds. My favorite beach to paint, by far, was a sweet sweep of a beach called Magoon by the older locals where the water was so gorgeously marbled with bottle green and cerulean blue that you could not miss doing something wonderful with it. The water was clear as a bell, gently washing waves fringed with white foam across sand that sometimes turned lavender in the morning light. There were palm trees on shore, permanently curved against the breezes and many shady places to sit while painting – you cannot bare to sit in the sun for over 3 hours and paint. They would soon carry you off on a stretcher.
Using watercolors which I have not used in decades I sometimes painted a realistic scene and also painted the same scene in an abstract style of flowing shades of blue and green feathering across the paper. It was lots of fun, but to tell you the truth it is difficult to paint with all that luscious water around, and so I would quit a bit early and play in the surf collecting interesting shells and sea glass while most everyone else stuck to the task at hand.
For your viewing pleasure I am including pictures of Magoon Beach and then later in another post, 2 of the abstract paintings that I did in studio while there in Hawaii. The plein air paintings I did in watercolor will also come in a different post where I can expound upon them and compare the realistic with the abstract.
Glad to be back in the swing of things here but missing the island already – so much to show and tell you about it all, but for now I will just say…
Aloha – be kind to each other, relax and feel the love!
The Creative Epiphany – Sitting Around at Sunset on the Big Island
 
A selection of sunsets for your viewing pleasure, Kona HI
So during my recent stay on the Big Island, drinking sunset wine on the western deck at 1000 ft elevation, with the Specific Ocean spread out before us like glass, and well into the prime time viewing portion of a dazzling, colorful display in shades of pewter, silver, steel blue and iridescent gold underneath the warm colors of sister sun…we are feeling no pain and talking about birds.
Birds are plentiful there – squawking and screeching and calling to eachother for answers to the big bird questions. It begins about 4:30 or 5 am and continues with different groups and choruses all day long until dusk. Since lots of chickens roam the island in the epitome of the much sought after free-range chicken life, you are liable to have roosters nearby who of course signal the dawn in big COCKA DOODLE DAMN DOOOOO (I am awake now and so are you) announcements every single morning – the good news is the free-range part because eventually they move on to greener pastures and bigger bugs to eat.
And there are crows. Remember that all these birds first breezed into the island at some point in a very ancient time, either purposely or riding involuntarily on the prevailing winds or perhaps a storm that they could not get out of, like being in a giant washing machine headed somewhere. I am fascinated – glued – to James Michener’s thick, almost 1000 page classic book “Hawaii”. I got it when I came back to the mainland and can’t put it down. Well sometimes I have to put it down because it weighs too much to carry around all day. At the time of the Roman Empire and Christ the islands were still being formed by volcanic activity and did not yet exist as a habitable location….they were forming, becoming a potential paradise, but still without edible food and clear water. The Big Island of Hawaii and her smaller sisters had not even come close to being discovered or habituated by a human person. Think about that, and think about the first people arriving and how amazed they were….but I digress.
Birds are usually found in groups which are not always called flocks, and while sitting on the deck we googled bird info and the names of various bird groups. Here is what we found, and we could not stop reading, while opening another bottle of wine.
A bunch of Crows is actually called a MURDER. Then we also have : Teams of Ducks. A Mob of Emus. An Ostentation of Peacocks! A Pitying of Turtledoves…. A Cast of Hawks. A Wedge of Geese (while they are flying). A Siege of Cranes. A Herd od Swans. A Charm of Hummingbirds. A Company of Parrots. A Conspiracy of Ravens. An Exaltation of Larks. A Parliament of Owls. A Tiding of Magpies. A Scold of Jays.
Well it got funnier and funnier. You had to be there ( we wish for you that you were…). We also made up some of our own – well of course we did. It was sunset in paradise and we had the time.
There are many more to be found if you follow this link to the Palomar Audubon Society page: http://palomaraudubon.org/collective.html
Open a bottle of wine and watch the sunset wherever you are.
the creative epiphany 