Archive for the ‘Bob Toledo's Articles’ Category

Hawaiian Facts

March 20, 2009

HAWAIIAN FACTS

7The state of Hawaii, with its natural beauty, is one of the most breath taking scenic places in the world. A fifteen hundred mile long chain consisting of 132 islands reefs and shoals stretching from the southeast to the northwest. However, 99.9% of the land area is on a fairly close group of eight major islands. It has a population of about one million people with 80% of them living on Oahu.

OAHU is the third largest island of the Hawaiian chain. Known as the gathering place because it once served as a meeting place for the Hawaiian island chiefs.

Oahu is also famous for some of the best surfing in the world on its north shore with 30ft plus winter waves.

An island formed by the merging lava of two great volcanoes the koolau, whose mountains overlook Honolulu and Waikiki and the waiawae, which looms in the distance. Extinct for centuries, time and erosion have sculpted them into a series of giant palis (cliffs), magnificent bays (including Pearl Harbor) and meandering beaches.

MAUI is known as the valley island and the second largest island in the chain. It is believed it is named after the Sharman hero of legend, Maui kupua. Its largest volcano, haleakala, last erupted in 1790. The town of lahaina served as Hawaii’s capital for the first decades of the nineteeth century.

Today, lahaina is a modern tourist mecca. Maui plays host to visitors drawn by the awesome beauty of haleakala national park, hana’s glorious tropical rainforest with its waterfalls and natural pools, and a coastal string of beaches and resorts. The perfect blend of the old Hawaii and the new.

KAUAI, the garden island, eastern most and oldest of the major Hawaiian island, it is considered by Hawaiians as the most spiritual place in the islands. It is famous for its magnificent natural beauty, including the fern grotto and the na pali coast. Nature showed no restraint in creating kauai, carving great canyons, valleys, mountains and sea cliffs from the long extinct volcano called waialeale.

Today Waialeale’s usually cloud banked summit is considered the wettest spot on earth, averaging between 450-650 inches annually. Legendary films such as South Pacific, Blue Hawaii and Jurassic Park were filmed on the island. No place in Hawaii outdoes Kauai.

MOLOKAI, Was once known as the “Lonely Island”, because sufferers of leprosy were segregated by the natural isolation of the kalaupapa peninsula, Today the island is known as “The Friendly Island”. Molokai is famous for its mule rides down beautiful cliff trails, Its many temples, And its low level of development.

LANAI, is the sixth largest of Hawaii’s main islands, Lanai gets its nickname, The Pineapple Island, From this tropical fruit. Just about all of Lanai’s 2,400 residents lived in the town of Lanai City. Lanai invites the adventurous to set out and explore its up country forest and isolated beaches. The pineapples are gone now and resort development has taken their place.

HIIHAU, is the seventh largest island, And it is called The Forbidden Island. The whole island is 70 square miles and is a private ranch, Owned by the Robinson Family. People are under the impression that the Hawaiian’s there live in the old ways. Actually, What that means is that they live in a village like the plantation era of the 1800.s.

The island is famous for a particular kind of shell necklace made there. The population of the village is about 200. Hawaiian is the first language.

KAHOOLAWE, is the smallest Major Island, Only 45 square miles. After Pearl Harbor, The navy took it over for bombing practice and still won’t give it back. The name kahoolawe means “The one that was taken away” The old name of the island was Kanaloa.

HAWAII, Known as the big island because it is more than twice as big as all the other islands combined and still growing. It is the youngest island in the chain with five large volcanoes, Two of which are still active, Mauna Loa(Tallest Mountain in the world, Measuring from the sea bottom)and Kilauea(Legendary home of Pele).

The three inactive Volcanoes are, Mauna Kea(Where it snows sometimes) and Kohala(In the north) have not erupted in historical times. Hualalai, Overlooking Kona on the west coast, Last erupted in the 1800,s

The big island is an island of Volcanic drama, Great natural diversity and powerful links to the Polynesian past. Most heavily populated of the islands in ancient times, The big island’s rebuilt Heiaus(Temples) today provide unique insights into the Hawaii of myth and legend.

The island is also famous for its orchids, coffee, and macadamia nuts, Dramatically eroded valleys and towering sea cliffs. It’s a combination that makes the big island impressive in more than just size.

A new Volcano is erupting underwater about twenty miles of the southern coast of the big island. It is the beginning of a new island called LOIHI.

Bob Toledo

Aloha, A Way Of Life

March 20, 2009

Aloha-A Way Of Life

10Aloha is a Hawaiian word meaning love, friendship, compassion and charity, as well as in it’s roots “the joyful sharing of loving energy in the present moment”. for this reason the Hawaiians also use the word for happy greetings and farewells. In Hawaii of old aloha meant “god in us”

Aloha is a way to join the people of the world together in a “spirit of aloha” to bring about physical, emotional, mental, environmental, social and spiritual harmony based on the wisdom found in Hawaiian philosophy and culture.

Each of us can improve our world by our individual and collective actions, we all have that responsibility. If we act with courtesy and caring, the higher self (Kane) in us will be strengthened

You don’t have to be a politician or the president of a company or a famous doctor to make everyone’s life better. The smallest things make the biggest difference. Respect your elders and children, leave places better than you found them, hold the door, hold the elevator, plant something, drive with courtesy, return your shopping cart, get out and enjoy nature, pick up litter, share with your neighbors, create smiles.

Remember-we all come from one source.

While the mind of man has invented thousands and millions of laws, god has only one law. Love one another. Use this law as your guide, and all else will fall into place.

People that practice aloha know that it is a state of mind that anyone can achieve, native Hawaiian or not

Live from the inside out—live aloha.

Bob Toledo

Hawaiian Rules

March 20, 2009

HAWAIIAN RULES

2

NEVER JUDGE A DAY BY THE WEATHER

THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE AREN’T THINGS

TELL THE TRUTH-THERE’S LESS TO REMEMBER

SPEAK SOFTLY AND WEAR A LOUD SHIRT

GOALS ARE DECEPTIVE-THE UNAIMED ARROW NEVER MISSES

HE WHO DIES WITH THE MOST TOYS-STILL DIES

AGE IS RELATIVE-WHEN YOU’RE OVER THE HILL, YOU PICK UP SPEED

THERE ARE 2 WAYS TO BE RICH-MAKE MORE OR DESIRE LESS

BEAUTY IS INTERNAL-LOOKS MEAN NOTHING

NO RAIN-NO RAINBOWS

What I’ve Learned From EST

March 20, 2009

WHAT I’VE LEARNED FROM
e s t

Please take responsibility for reading this and understanding it and making it your own.

5Responsibility starts with the willingness to acknowledge that you are cause in a matter. It starts with the willingness to deal with a situation from and with the point of view whether at the moment realized or not, that you are the source of what you are, what you do and what you have.

This point of view extends to include even what is done to you, and ultimately what another does to another.

Responsibility is not fault, praise, blame, shame or guilt.

All there include judgments and evaluations of good and bad, right and wrong or better and worse. They are not responsibility as they are all beyond a simple acknowledgement that you are cause in your own experience………

Hawaii-1975

It’s Happening

March 20, 2009

I wrote this in 1968 the day Robert Kennedy was shot. It was not meant to be negative, Only my way of reacting to the days events. I think we have come along way since then, or have we? Maybe we have some work to do. Let us begin now.

“IT’S HAPPENING”

Stop and think for a minute, I think we all should
“I’d change it”, they say, if only I could
The hate, the turmoil, the despair and the grief
Maybe someday, if we’re lucky, we’ll all get relief.

People say, “Look at the weird one with the beard. “
But maybe the “Weird one’s” got the right idea
I laugh at the excuses that people are using.
They are afraid to look past their wall of illusion.

Everyone’s trying to reach out into space
While we can’t get along with another race
Men go to war to fight for freedom, it’s true
We fight one battle, the black man fight two.

There was a man in politics to help us come out.
He was young, ambitious, strong and stout
“If we all work together, we’ll change it” he cries.
A bullet is shot. This good man dies.

The world we live in is turned upside down
Someday we should get together and turn it around
Our “great society” will be good to you
Just don’t be negro, Catholic or Jew.

Some people pray, others just hope.
While “Our American Dream” turns into a joke
All around us, everyday,
While people talk and children play —

It’s Happening.

Bob Toledo
1968

For What It’s Worth

March 20, 2009

This was written by me in 1962 on Cape Cod, Mass. It was a warm summer afternoon on Old Silver Beach in Falmouth. I started writing this, not knowing why or where it was coming from. I Don’t think these words came to me, But rather came thru me. After it was completed, I realized that I was writing about myself. I have not share this with anyone in the past 45 years. Now I feel it is time to share it with you. I call this writing:

“For What It’s Worth”

3I don’t like what you seem to becoming. You must always stay “you”. You say you don’t care. Nonchalance is both good and unusual but don’t jump the thin line that separates it from apathy. This is truly an I-don’t-care attitude that can and will destroy both society as well as the person. This would be such a waste when all it takes to overcome is a little thought.

“Know yourself”. Once this is done, everything else comes calmly, freely and as a matter of course in knowing oneself there must be first of all, honesty.Complete honesty. If you don’t like what you see change it, to suit yourself and no one else.

Next there must be self-love, for if we do not first love ourselves then we can not give a meaningful love or receive the same from others. Now, in this process we must always keep this first basic honesty. Never try to become as you think others want you. It doesn’t satisfy, but takes precedence over, and therefore destroys, anything you may have accomplished. Then comes caring. To care… those words are so important in every aspect of living. “To plant a seed in the earth is to be a mother. To feed a bird on a snowy day is to be a host to God.”

After feeling must come thought and action for without them everything so far accomplished will stagnate. Stagnation is one of the greatest evils of man for it is nothing. Even death is a more complete action for it is a definite end. Stagnation is wandering aimlessly. Becoming foul form lack of action.

Lastly, I think, comes pride. The respect for oneself to do and to be the best. This is the very quality of living. Never mistake it for vanity for this is futile and gets us no where, whereas, pride is a dignity and respect for oneself and one’s achievements. After this you can say, not, “I don’t care” but “I don’t care what anyone else thinks,” for you are now what you want, doing your best for yourself and others whether they know it or not.

This is truly being an individual. Anything less is a facade; anything more is superficial.

Does all this seem familiar? It should. It is the way we all are born and it is what we let ourselves and others destroy with apathy.

Bob Toledo

Cape Cod, MA.

1962