Read our Monthly Magazine



Current eMagazine
Click here

Join our E-Mail List
Sign Up Here
Magazine Archives
View the Archives

Kona, Hawaii, March 1, 2020 – The sky is clear today, making it warmer than usual. I’m thankful for the low humidity, otherwise I’d break out in a sweat just fetching a glass of iced tea. There’s a slight breeze from the south, also helping to keep the temperature reasonable. I’m roughing it in the Sandwich Islands. No really, I am. We just finished our second workshop of the month here, and I really want to follow up on Adamus’ advice to Shaumbra: Relax into your Realization. Linda is waiting for me to join her in the pool, but alas the editor of the Shaumbra Magazine is eagerly (or impatiently?) awaiting my article. So, I’ll take a bit of a shortcut by quoting Mark Twain on Hawaii.

My apologies to Mr. Twain for using his book title for my article but, in a way, he’s family. According to Adamus, Samuel Clemens (pen name Mark Twain) was one of his lifetimes, so I assume it’s acceptable to use the title. Mark Twain in Hawaii – Roughing it in the Sandwich Islands is based on 25 articles Mark Twain wrote for the Sacramento Union newspaper about his four months in Hawaii in 1866.

Of the Hawaiian Islands Mark Twain wrote: “No alien land in all the world has any deep strong charm for me but that one, no other land could so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done.” How true this is. Aside from the obvious beauty of the island, and the fact that the islands have far more species of plants, birds and insects than comparable lands anywhere else on earth, there is a haunting quality to this place. Perhaps it’s because the islands were one of the portals we came through when we first journeyed to this planet, or because of the deep lingering reminders of Lemuria. It’s not a bad haunting, just the feeling that very ancient energies are still present on the islands.

Earlier today we finished a 4-day Ahmyo Retreat with a group of 36 Shaumbra from South Korea. It was fascinating to see Hawaii through their eyes as they experienced the lush foliage, the endless ocean and sky, and the mañana way of life.

Most of them had never been to the United States before, although some Hawaiian natives would argue that the island isn’t the US. The Big Island is open and spacious with a population of only 180,000 people. South Korea has 51 million people, in a land mass only ten times larger than the Big Island. Ninety-nine percent of South Korea’s population is of Korean ethnicity, whereas Hawaii is made up of cultures ranging from Polynesia, Asia, North and South America, Australia, Europe, Africa and just about everywhere around the world. Korea is modern and sophisticated. The Big Island is, well, really laid back. Nearly everything has to be shipped in, so you get used to waiting in Hawaii. And while waiting, why not just relax and watch the sunset with a Mai Tai rum drink?

Mark Twain also wrote, “We landed at Kailua (pronounced Ki-loo-ah), a little collection of native grass houses reposing under tall coconut trees – the sleepiest, quietest, Sunday-est looking place you can imagine. Ye weary ones that are sick of the labor and care… and sigh for a land where ye may fold your tired hands and slumber your lives peacefully away, pack up your carpet sacks and go to Kailua! A week there ought to cure the saddest of you.” He traveled around the Big Island on horseback, visiting the active volcano on the east side of the island and back to Kailua-Kona on the west side. The Volcano House hotel he stayed at during his visit to the volcano is still open for business today. The monkey pod tree he planted is still very much alive, catering to the tourists with their cameras.

Villa Ahmyo is located a few miles south of Kailua. We’re in the Kona District, where some of the world’s best coffee is grown. (Even the Colombian Shaumbra that visited here last year agreed that it was pretty good.) This part of the island is green and lush, compared to the drier and less-vegetated north end of the island. There are parts of the island that look like the moonscape due to the volcanic fields, but down here we’re living in a proverbial jungle. Our gardener is constantly cutting back the ever-growing foliage. We tend to get afternoon rains as the clouds come over the mountain peaks, but generally the skies clear up about an hour before sunset.

Mark Twain also explored the Waipi’o Valley, which is just as inaccessible today as in 1866, and rode up and down all of the Kona Coast, writing, “Kona to me will always be a happy memory.” According to Adamus, he traveled along the road right in front of Villa Ahmyo. It’s now a paved road, but back then it was a dirt road used for transporting coffee beans from the farms to the dryers in town. I love to imagine the sight of Mark Twain riding on horseback right in front of what is now Villa Ahmyo, perhaps even stopping for a moment to pick a banana or litchi fruit from the property.

One of his fondest memories of Hawaii appears to be the women, which he mentions over and over, most often when he happens upon them swimming or dancing what he called the “hula hula.” Of course, being Mark Twain, he was always a gentleman. “At noon I observed a bevy of nude native young ladies bathing in the sea, and went and sat down on their clothes to keep them from being stolen.”

Mark Twain’s observations about the island culture were amusing and witty. He noted, “Nearby is an interesting ruin (Pu’uhonua o Hōnaunau) – the meager remains of an ancient temple – a place where human sacrifices were offered up in those old bygone days...long, long before the missionaries braved a thousand privations to come and make [the natives] permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there; and showed the poor native how dreary a place perdition is and what unnecessarily liberal facilities there are for going to it; showed him how, in his ignorance, he had gone and fooled away all his kinsfolk to no purpose; showed him what rapture it is to work all day long for fifty cents to buy food for next day with, as compared with fishing for a pastime and lolling in the shade through eternal summer, and eating of the bounty that nobody labored to provide but Nature. How sad it is to think of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in this beautiful island and never knew there was a hell.

Linda and I have been here since early February and will stay through the end of April. It’s been a nice break for us, especially since Colorado is having one of its snowiest winters in a long time. We’ll host the March 7 and April 4 Shouds from the Shaumbra Pavilion, plus three more live workshops. Our tech team (Peter Orlando, Jean Tinder and Marc Ritter) is coming here in a few days to help with the Shouds, and we’ll also film Master’s Life 12 and the new Master’s Pause in the next few weeks. Belle, the Villa dog, has been with us day and night. She’s been a hit with the workshop attendees who just love taking selfies with her. She might just become one of the most photographed dogs in the world.

Just like Mark Twain, we’re roughing it in the Sandwich Islands. But don’t shed too many tears because we’re roughing it Ahmyo style. The days are filled with sunshine and soft breezes, and the nights are spent looking up into the star-filled skies from the hot tub. I can feel Adamus (and Mark Twain) looking down at us from the Ascended Masters Club with a big smile. Though Mark Twain traveled extensively around the world, he never forgot Hawaii. He called it “The loveliest stream of islands that lies anchored in any ocean.”


3 comments on "Roughing it in the Sandwich Islands"

  • Julia on April 5, 2020 11:48 PM said:
    Thank You, Geoffrey! You are great at communicating all the images and feelings, I energetically visited Hawaii with you with Linda, Belle and other Shambra. This is the Master's life-the enjoyment of life, the rest is irrelevant! Now I listen to jazz and enjoy music! My blessings!!!
  • Tambre on March 25, 2020 2:23 PM said:
    Mark Twain ... that is perfect. A new consciousness teacher of his time. My body is here, my heart there. Making me feel real sorry for you there ... you know with the hot tub and all .. lol Thank you from snowy Nevada!
  • Angela on March 9, 2020 2:25 PM said:
    One of these days, I will also take a selfie with Belle. Meanwhile, I hug my cat, close my eyes and I'm already there. But I also enjoy being here. Thank you, as we say in Chile: "la vidita" :-D!!! jajajaa ... Good for you! Good for us!

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.
More connections for you
  • Shaumbra Magazine
    March 2024
  • Shaumbra Magazine
    February 2024
  • Shaumbra Magazine
    January 2024
  • Shaumbra Magazine
    December 2023