Still Homies

Paint on Anyway

Recently as I walked to work, I couldn’t help but notice a Gentlemen speaking with a City & County of Honolulu worker, who was cleaning the area.

Pow Wow Hawaii 2014 was going on in my neighborhood, the developing Kaka’ako area of Oahu, and there were a number of artists from around the world throwing up murals all around.

I walk as much as I can, for some reason, I’ve always preferred this method of commuting. Having lived in neighborhoods throughout the area affectionately known as ‘Town” since leaving my own hometown of Hilo, I’ve enjoyed quite a few strolls time and time again.

There have also been a share of unenjoyable saunters.

One thing, I have seen a great deal of, that pulls at me, are the Homeless that I encounter. A mentor once told me that I was one step from being in their shoes and I believe that statement is more true for all of us than we can imagine.

I have moved often, in part because of changing levels of rents, jobs, and relationships. One of the most intense moves found me without my home as it coincided with a break-up and a lay-off. While I was fortunate not to spend a night in the street, I slept on couches, floors, borrowed rooms, rented spaces, a hostel, and I even made my way to a shady neighborhood in New Orleans filled with other Lost Souls.

As I saw the conversation in front me this morning take place along with the creation of art on the walls nearby, a bright picture of the green, lush mountains here in Hawaii caught my eye. There were about a dozen of them pieced together by a Homeless man, providing his bedding, a roof for his dwelling, some covering for his chair, you name it, he thought of it. The irony of it clutched at me because Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie’s name was written all over the building material along with the phrase “New Beginning.”

The Gentlemen finished his conversation with the City and County worker and walked over to the “New Beginning” home.

“Eh, Bradah, we have to move everything out of here by 7:00 in the morning so she can cut the grass…” He moved on to the neighboring dwelling to the left of the “New Beginning” home.

“They said we have to move everything over by 7:00.”

The Gentlemen turned Messenger continued and I walked along struck by it all. Earlier in the week at work, our Director of Finance told our team in a meeting that we only had enough cash on hand to cover the next payroll, and after that became dot dot dot…

I do not wish to live in Fear at this point in my Life.

That is not to say as a Human+Being I will never feel because feeling it all is a part of the Journey. But I am striving to be conscious and experiencing the conversation and the thought of people without much to begin with having to move so grass could be cut made my Heart cry.

For many years, I’ve discussed not understanding why people lack compassion and care for others while being just as cold myself. The duality that we work with in our experience of consciousness is both Light and Dark.

It is why Dreams both inspire and haunt.

As of this writing Pow Wow Hawaii 2014 is technically over though I did see a few artists continue to work after the end-date as some murals were not completed.

That’s a bit like life isn’t it? Some things are finished within a timeframe, others have their own expiration point.

It makes me wonder if homelessness will ever expire?

Or are the utopian ideals laced throughout the spiritual books and science-fiction novels just a mark to strive for, though we shall never reach it in this Life?

I often ponder about a great many things such as this. I know more questions will find me than I find answers. I suppose that’s okay.

“All’s I know” is that Life will be what it is. I just have to find the way to keep on walking through it all, whether a project is complete, incomplete, whether people around me are suffering or partying. For I can only control my own response to the observations, the experiences of the patterns of consciousness that swirl every which way around.

Graffiti can be both beautiful or ugly right? As I continue to walk, I’m working on appreciating the contrast of both, for somewhere in that middle area, there is harmony.

Anyone feel me?