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Marriage Licence Stats for 2009

The State Department of Health has released the statistics for marriage licenses issued for 2009. Not surprisingly, the numbers are down over 1000 marriages from 2008 in Maui, and way down from the hay-days of the early 2000's. Our hope is that these numbers will not continue to drop in 2010... hopefully the numbers will level out or increase. As 2009 was the worst economic year for weddings here in Hawaii, we have to ask ourselves if the Hawaii Visitors Bureau is doing all that they can to try to increase visitors to Hawaii. Yes, sure Hawaii can be expensive, but there are plenty of deals out there as well. Hawaii doesn't need to be looked at as "only for the rich", it's still affordable if you know where to look. Days of spending $750 a night on a hotel room are gone. Instead look for deals with small condominiums, bed & breakfasts and cheaper hotels.

One package that we offer, which is a great value, is our Gold Coast Luxury Wedding. When you are bringing guests, this package can be as little as $192.59 pp per day and that includes the wedding for the bride & groom. I've stayed at the Ritz Carlton and paid $750/ night for a regular hotel room, that's $375 each day for 2 adults. I would much rather been staying at the Luxury 3 bedroom villas right on the beach in sunny South Maui (it rain's a lot in Kapalua where the Ritz Carlton is located). Wedding couples who are planning to bring between 4 and 24 guests and are looking for a value would we well advised about this package, see http://www.hawaiianislandweddings.com/maui_weddings/villas.html for more information.

The Decision is In... The Federal Court has informed the attorney representing the wedding industry of his decision regarding beach permit requirements. Sadly, his decision was in favor of the state. We haven't seen the ruling yet (we should have it tomorrow) but will post it on our website as soon as it's available. More details will follow as soon as we receive them. In the meantime, a heartfelt thanks to associations and individual companies on Kauai, Oahu and here on Maui, for their active participation in this effort. And...it isn't over yet. Again, more details will be provided as soon they are available. Thanks and Aloha... For info, email: info@mweventpro.com. Maui Wedding and Event Professionals | info@mweventpro.com | Kihei, HI 96753

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Better Late Than Never

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER - A Love Story. For 60 years Shirley & Robert didn't know they were neighbors, living only a quarter mile from each other in quite rural Oshkosh Wisconsin. They married, had families, and lived their lives. It wasn't until after all the children had moved away, and Shirley's husband passed, that Robert & Shirley met, just 1 1/2 years ago. Shirley & Robert were married on Valentine's Day 2010 at Makena Surf Beach... Congratulations to both of you, we wish you all the happiness that life has to offer!

Gold Coast Luxury Wedding & Honeymoon

Our Gold Coast Luxury Wedding package includes everything you want for your intimate beachside wedding all together; spectacular beachfront accommodations for the two of you and up to 22 guests, and a romantic private beach front wedding. Sleeps from 2-24 guests or more in the beautiful luxury beach front property. The package includes 5, 6 or 7 nights stay in from one to four individual units, each featuring 3 bedrooms and centered around a spacious courtyard with pool. Your wedding takes place directly on the grass or beach fronting the property.

Amenities include:

• Minister of your choice
  
• Marriage License Arrangements
  
• On-site Coordinator
  
• Decorative Wedding Certificate
  
• Witnesses if needed
  
• Non alcoholic Toast
  
• Personalized Champagne Glasses
  
• Traditional Hawaiian Leis
  
• Clutch Style Bridal Bouquet
  
• Haku Head Lei or Hair Flowers
  
• Musician Singer/Guitarist
  
• Professional Photography
  
• 28- 4x6 inch photographs
  
• White Wedding Album
  
• Maui Beach Location*
  
• Optional Fee Sites
  
• Add any of these additional services

• Maui Map

  * Beach Wedding Permit Required

  See details at http://www.hawaiianislandweddings.com/maui_weddings/villas.html

Blue Moon

Rare New Year's Eve 'blue moon' to ring in 2010

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By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer – Tue Dec 29, 7:03 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve. Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue — the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor.

A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.

"If you're in Times Square, you'll see the full moon right above you. It's going to be that brilliant," said Jack Horkheimer, director emeritus of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium and host of a weekly astronomy TV show.

The New Year's Eve blue moon will be visible in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. For partygoers in Australia and Asia, the full moon does not show up until New Year's Day, making January a blue moon month for them.

However, the Eastern Hemisphere can celebrate with a partial lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve when part of the moon enters the Earth's shadow. The eclipse will not be visible in the Americas.

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, and most years have 12. On average, an extra full moon in a month — a blue moon — occurs every 2.5 years. The last time there was a lunar double take was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't come again until 2028.

Blue moons have no astronomical significance, said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

"`Blue moon' is just a name in the same sense as a `hunter's moon' or a `harvest moon,'" Laughlin said in an e-mail.

The popular definition of blue moon came about after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misinterpreted the Maine Farmer's Almanac and labeled a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. In fact, the almanac defined a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full moons, not the usual three.

Though Sky & Telescope corrected the error decades later, the definition caught on. For purists, however, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a blue moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.

In a tongue-in-cheek essay posted on the magazine's Web site this week, senior contributing editor Kelly Beatty wrote: "If skies are clear when I'm out celebrating, I'll take a peek at that brilliant orb as it rises over the Boston skyline to see if it's an icy shade of blue. Or maybe I'll just howl."

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Lei Etiquette

Here we have listed some items you should know about leis in
Hawaii and the exchanging of leis.

Reprinted from Hawaiian Island Weddings - Lei Etiquette http://www.hawaiianislandweddings.com/leietiquette.html

The proper way to wear a closed lei is on the shoulders where it is draped half in front and half down the back. Open leis are worn with the middle of the lei hanging in the middle of the neck and the open ends evenly down the front.

You do not need a special occasion to wear a lei. A lei can be worn anytime by anyone.

It is acceptable to purchase or make a lei for yourself.

When giving a lei as a gift it is customary to give the lei recipient a kiss on each cheek when adorning them in their lei.

It is acceptable to wear more than one lei at a time. This is common for a birthday and a graduation celebration.

Leis made with leaves from a ti (pronounced tee) plant are considered to bring good luck and ward off evil spirits.

DO NOT refuse a lei when offered one. This is considered to be disrespectful.

DO NOT wear a lei you intend to give to someone else. This is considered to be bad luck.

DO NOT give a pregnant woman a closed lei, it is believed to bring bad luck and symbolize the umbilical cord around the baby's neck. Only give a pregnant woman an open ended lei. We will create any closed lei as an open ended lei upon request.

Bows are often added to closed leis and can be worn a few ways:
- They can be worn in the back like a clasp on a necklace.
- They are usually worn to the side. If worn to the side it should be on the right side if single and on the left if married or spoken for.

Leis can be worn more than once. Fresh leis should be kept in a plastic bag in the refrigerator between uses to keep it fresh. It can be lightly misted to keep it hydrated.

Leis can be incorporated into a wedding ceremony to symbolize the uniting of the couple and/or their friends and families.

Leis can also be incorporated into a Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah ceremony to recognize the guest of honor as well as their family.

It is appropriate to incorporate leis in a funeral ceremony or Memorial Service. This is something that is done at funerals in the Hawaiian Islands and in other Polynesian cultures as a symbolic way to say Aloha, goodbye, to a loved one. Any lei is appropriate to use because all leis symbolize love, respect and appreciation.

A lei may also be symbolic of a special experience and place you shared with your loved one that you will always cherish.

Kumu

Though he didn't set out to become an expert on Hawaiian culture, Keli'i Tau'a may be the most revered teacher of hula and chant you never heard of.

STORY BY ILIMA LOOMIS

This article appears in the September-October 2009 issue of Maui Magazine

It wasn’t until young Keli‘i Tau‘a’s feet hit the water that he remembered he’d never learned to swim.

The thirteen-year-old student at Kamehameha Schools in Honolulu had been raised in Kula, far from the ocean, but when, on a Saturday excursion to Waikiki Beach, his mates ran to the end of the concrete- and-stone breakwater and jumped off, he leaped too.

“Any human being does the natural thing—the dog paddle,” he chuckles. “But I was struggling. I let myself sink and thought, ‘Well, this is it,’ then I kicked myself up and started going again. When I looked ahead and saw all the tourists on the shore, I thought, ‘Man, I got a long way to go.’”

It wasn’t the last time Tau‘a would dive into something without knowing how deep it would be.

Today the sixty-six-year-old Ha‘iku resident is an acknowledged master of Hawaiian music and chant, and an expert in traditional ceremonies. Some of the Islands’ most respected cultural leaders consider him a mentor.

Because of his knowledge of ancient protocols, Tau‘a’s been called on to bless everything from new canoes to a jetliner. He’s led his hula halau, Maui Nui o Kama, for thirty-six years, and taught Hawaiian language and culture at Maui Community College for more than a decade. One of the most prolific Hawaiian-language songwriters living today, he has recorded more than a dozen albums of Hawaiian music and chant, collaborating with Hawaiian music greats like Roland Cazimero and Gabby Pahinui.

But while Tau‘a is revered by students of Hawaiian culture, many people outside that community don’t even recognize his name.

“He just flies under the radar,” says Clifford Nae‘ole, cultural advisor to the Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua.

Nae‘ole learned hula from Tau‘a, and says that, as a teacher, Tau‘a was strict, exacting and old school. “What mattered to him was the culture, the protocol. We would practice in the morning, early, before the sun came up sometimes. Sometimes we’d practice late at night. He was saying, ‘How much do you want this? Show me what you want, and that’s what you will receive.’”

Nae‘ole says Tau‘a’s humility, a product of the Hawaiian spiritual traditions he follows, and his intense devotion to studying and teaching rather than self-promotion, are some of the reasons he isn’t better known in the wider community.

That may be changing. Tau‘a recently returned to the recording studio after more than a decade. He released a lyrical album, Cloud Warriors, in 2008, and a new album of chant, E Ala Hawai‘i, earlier this year. An album of songs inspired by the voyaging canoe Hokule‘a is planned for release in September. And last April, at the Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua’s Celebration of the Arts, Tau‘a received Na Mahana Award of Excellence in recognition of his lifetime of dedication to Hawaiian culture.

We would practice in the morning, early, before the sun came up sometimes. Sometimes we’d practice late at night. He was saying, ‘How much do you want this? Show me what you want, and that’s what you will receive.’”
“Kumu’s teaching is the spiritual connection,” says Kimokeo Kapa- hulehua, himself a tireless advocate for Hawaiian culture. “Kumu teaches us that we must be spiritually connected before we can be physically connected. This gift, this mana [power], is what makes it possible to feel the power of the paddle, the canoe, the spear for fishing, the hula. Nainoa Thompson, the navigator of the Hokule‘a, told me, ‘I am the navigator. I set the physical path. Kumu Keli‘i Tau‘a delivers the spiritual guidance.”

Tau‘a acknowledges he’s never sought the spotlight. In fact, he says he never had an interest in learning hula, chant or Hawaiian spiritual practices, until his elders gently nudged him in that direction.

“Today’s youngsters don’t really recognize the value of kupuna [elders], who can guide and help them,” he says. “My success is due to the mentoring of those people.”

Tau‘a was teaching classes in Hawaiian language and history at Waimanalo Intermediate School on O‘ahu in the early 1970s when the principal of the school took him aside and showed him a flier for a training program with the master Maiki Aiu Lake to become a kumu hula, or hula teacher—and suggested Tau‘a sign up. The Hawaiian renaissance was blooming, and the principal wanted more cultural activities on campus.

Tau‘a was taken aback. He enjoyed teaching ‘ukulele and island history, and had been playing and singing Hawaiian music in clubs at night to supplement his modest teacher’s paycheck, but Tau‘a hadn’t considered becoming a serious student of Hawaiian culture. And he’d never danced hula.

“I thought of myself as a macho person,” he said. “At that time, dancing wasn’t cool [for men].”

But something about the class piqued his interest. Tau‘a had grown up in Kula in the 1940s, where his father followed the Hawaiian moon calendar for fishing and farming, and many other ancient traditions were still a part of daily life. And Tau‘a had become concerned, watching his students grow up more familiar with rock-and-roll than the music of their heritage. He signed up.

Tau‘a said later that the hula class was one of the hardest things he’d ever done; at the end of each session, his legs were often so weak he could barely make it down the stairs from the second-floor studio.

After graduating from the program as a kumu hula, Tau‘a went on to study chant with masters like Kaui Zuttermeister and Ka‘upena Wong. He recorded some of the Islands’ first chant albums, and his skill led Hawaiian music legend Gabby Pahinui to ask Tau‘a to collaborate on two of his records. Tau‘a was humbled to be asked.

“I said, ‘Who am I?’ But [Pahinui] wanted the language, he wanted the chanting.”

While he’d already recorded several albums of original songs, Tau‘a said there was an intense purity about chant that attracted him.

“With chanting, you don’t need any accompaniment. It’s you centering yourself. [I loved] that you could produce a feeling, a message, a language that is one-of-a-kind.”

After recording more than a dozen albums in the 1970s and ’80s, Tau‘a moved back to Maui and retired from music. A painful divorce had made him realize the strain his performing schedule put on his family life. He settled into a quiet routine, teaching language and culture at Maui Community College’s language institute and adult education program.

It was in the classroom that an eager student asked him to dust off his old recordings, and offered to help him copy his earlier albums from vinyl to CD. A friendship struck over the turntable blossomed, and Keli‘i and Chelsea Ann Tau‘a married in 2006.

Tau‘a says that if he has become a master of chant and other Hawaiian arts, it’s only because of the knowledge he received from his elders. He acknowledges that it’s both strange and rewarding to now find himself a magnet for students wishing to study Hawaiian arts with a master.

While recording his latest album of chants, Tau‘a wasn’t satisfied with one of the tracks, and sat back in the Wailuku studio in frustration.

“I said, ‘I don’t know if the kupunas are going to accept that.’”

The producer sought to reassure him.

“He said, ‘Kumu, you have to realize—you’re the kupuna now!” Tau‘a recalls. “I thought that was hilarious.”