Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Maui Wowee!

Adventure time on the Valley Isle (click pics to embiggen slide show):

Old Japanese cemetery—but why on a sand dune?

Sunset in Lahaina

Hiking in the West Maui mountains: Waihee Ridge Trail. Yes, it's a sheer drop on either side

The footing was, to say the least, tricky

You can't be afraid to get your feet wet or use your hands to scramble

But, wowee! Worth it it was: OVER the rainbow, volcano, + ocean. Yes, OVER the rainbow

Then turn 180º for this paradisal view as the clouds lifted: We counted 14 waterfalls from this vantage, many over 1000'. Magical Maui!

Post-hike. Sore feet.

View on the Hana Road

Muddy Bamboo Forest hike past Hana

Can't even see the top!

Don't like wet hiking? Try a caldera in an extinct volcano above the clouds

Silver Sword—a plant unique to Haleakala at 10,000' 

Selfie with trail across the volcano visible. Approx. 11 miles across (for scale)

!!!!!!

That's all uphill on the way back

A rainbow 'round the sun!

"Slow down, Daddy. There's a turn up ahead you don't want to miss!" "Doesn't anyone want to play 'Thelma & Louise?'"

"Y'know, I think that's where all our information is stored now." "Really, Daddy? Really?"

Maui sunset from our friends' lanai in Kula at 3000'

Does your Thai restaurant menu look like this? It should!

Being v. Becoming, Pt. 2(b): The River Twice—Πάντα ῥεῖ

• To god all things are beautiful and good and just; but men suppose some things to be just and others unjust.
• To those who are awake the world-order is one, common to all; but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own.
• They are estranged from that with which they have most constant intercourse.
• ...though the truth is available to all, the many live as though their opinions were meaningful and true.

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• Life is a child moving pieces in a game. The kingship is in the hands of a child.
• Human opinions are as children's toys.
• Pride [hubris] needs putting out, even more than a house on fire.

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• Rhetoric is the prince of liars.
• A stupid person tends to become all worked up over every statement [he hears].
• The dogs bark at everyone they do not recognize.

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• Thinking is common to all.
• It is common to all men to know themselves and to act with moderation.
• Moderation is the greatest virtue, and wisdom is to speak the truth and to act according to nature, giving heed to it.

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• How can one hide himself before that which always exists and is available to all?
• Nature loves to hide.
• The hidden harmony is stronger than the apparent.

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• Those things of which there is sight, hearing, understanding I esteem most.
• [Though] Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men if they have souls that do not grasp the deeper meaning.
• ...in sleep the channels of perception are shut, and the intelligence in us is severed from its kinship with the environment. ... When it is separated in this way, the mind loses the power of remembering which it formerly had, but in the waking state it once more flows forth through the channels of perception as through so many openings, and making contact with the environment recovers the power of reasoning.

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Πάντα ῥεῖ (panta rhei): "everything flows" 

Changing, it rests.

The Same River? The Same Man?

3...

2...

1!

In Kula

"Strap in, kids. Let's see how fast I can take this curve."

Orbs Over the Abyss

"Wheeeeee!"

Down to Earth: Finding solid footing

Big Bamboo. "Dark enough for ya'?"

Being v. Becoming, Pt. 2(a): The River Once—Πάντα ῥεῖ

• Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed.
• But a knowledge of many things does not teach one to have intelligence...
• Wisdom is one thing: to understand the thought which steers all things through all things.
• It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things.

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• This world-order, the same for all, no god made or any man, but it always was and is and will be an ever-living fire, kindling by measure and going out by measure.
• Before you play with fire, whether it be to kindle or extinguish it, put out first the flames of presumption, which overestimates itself and takes poor measure because it forgets the way the world unfolds before you.
• Man, too, is kindled and put out like a light in the nighttime.

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• All things come into being through opposition, and all are in flux like a river.
• Sea water is very pure and very impure; drinkable and healthful for fishes, but undrinkable and destructive to men.

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• Πάντα ῥεῖ (panta rhei): "everything flows" 
• Upon those who step into the same rivers flow other and yet other waters.
• No man ever steps in the same river twice, for neither is it the same river nor is he the same man.

River Stepping: ʻĪao Stream, Maui

[as often with pics: Click to embiggen, Scroll-over for hover text]
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Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Heraclitus

An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy: The Chief Fragments and Ancient Testimony, with Connecting Commentary, ed. John Mansley Robinson (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1968)

M. Heidegger, Early Greek Thinking (Harper & Row, 1975)