Before we go on with our session, there are just a few more logistical things I would like to share with you. One is about the duties, the dishwashing, etc. We changed it a bit, because actually there were too many people, and the people in the kitchen don't merit us. So we did this, we got the groups in half, and now the first half of the group will do breakfast and lunch. The second half will do dinner. So not much short of that, but it gets less and less and less and less. But in the dining room on one of the walls, the doors are fixed. This is with all the groups, so every day you can see if you're in group 1 or group 2. So you should be breakfast and lunch or dinner. If you're not, do both. Don't think. I don't know, so I don't know. After this session, so we'll end at 4.30pm. We all go to the dining room again, or whatever you want to call it. There will be coffee empty, and I will hand out your keys to the rooms. So you can quietly check in the rooms, the people who come to the room. Also, that should be clear, I guess. And the last thing is that in the room here, as was said before, there are updates. A lot of books updated, new ones to read and know as well. There are CDs and tonne, which you buy now. No, you haven't signed yet. I don't think so. Also very beautiful. And there's a table with some more general books, second hand books also. And there are make magazines for the people of you who don't know me. That's organization in the Netherlands that initially like organized. It's coming to the Netherlands. The management of the make is even under their participants. If you want to have information about it, he is now on the cover. And there is a team over there as well. So if you have questions about the make, it's an organization that promotes courses in the Netherlands and knows where all the teachers are or the events. And there's a monthly event when every month another teacher will come and speak. Which will actually be immediately after this retreat on Sunday the 3rd. There will be another gathering in Amersfoort with Walser. This is the last, not the latest, the one from last magazine. So there's two magazines each year. They are there on the table and you can take one for free just to look at it. It's in Dutch, I'm sorry, it's not made for everyone. There's a very nice article. The piece of David is in it. It's translated in Dutch so it might be nice to look at it. Okay. You didn't even know that, did you? I simply translated it. I put it in Dutch and had it put in this magazine. Is this thing in it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If there are questions later, I want to pass this microphone. Can you pass it through? If you don't use it anymore, the green light goes off and we save battery. And then if you want to use it, you press on again. Very good.  We're good for keeping it simple. Okay. Well, this is the part on day one where we will be opening up to you and inviting you to share what's on your heart. It's like a prayer to the Holy Spirit. It's a prayer to the universe. It brings it up into awareness and we already had that once right before we closed this morning of a prayer really of what a movie dealing with jealousy. And that was beautiful. That's what we want you to do is bring it up to the surface. And it helps us too in selecting movies and shaping the way the whole retreat will go. So this is how you tailor the retreat to what would be most helpful for you. And you keep it practical.  And then we have so many different tools and we've used so many different exercises over the years and many, many seeming modalities to really address the core of what is going on in the mind. And really the Holy Spirit is in charge and that's the best kind of retreat is when you can just let it come from the Spirit to you. So also maybe one of you or a couple of you may want to talk about just how important this is and your experiences with tailoring it. Yeah, it's just important to work really helpful to share really exactly what the issues are. Because when we keep them hidden we hide them only to ourselves. We think that there are other people out there and it's scary maybe to share but it's really we keep ourselves from healing when we keep it to ourselves. It's just really helpful to open up and just stay. Also because nobody else is judging it the way you think they might do. It's just your own projection that would make it in judgment. So it's very safe. Also we always encourage everyone to only deal with their own minds and not pick someone else and think it's another person's problem. So whatever it is, whatever we hear and see and perceive is for us to deal. So that's how it's also very very safe and also shared. Yeah, I think what we really want to do like a start to open up on this pathway is I actually want to start to really fine tune to how I feel and what is the desire of my heart every moment. So I feel this is the opening of the retreat but it's also the opening of a way of start to listen to the heart and start to listen to the prayer. So this is a chance for everyone to go round one by one not necessarily talk about who you are in the past but really like what is coming up as a prayer to the spirit right now. As a prayer. I remember I had this way encounter with my brother years away, years back and she was very angry at me.  And that just made her pause and she's like I want it changed from how everything is wrong to okay this is the desire this is the desire this is my heart. So this is very, very helpful and we want to give everybody the opportunity as a beginning to get in touch and set a prayer for the rest of the time here. We're really going to try to make a circle. Yeah. It was so beautiful on the way here. She was mentioning this parable about a pilot in Australia and we had this retreat where we were seeing, we were a lot of people and we were sitting in a circle and that was almost as many people as here the same kind of amount. So we just had this big circle going so that everyone can see each other and even though you're in such a big group so to speak don't let yourself hold your back from even deeper things that you feel like you might not even have shared with anyone else maybe not even your course group because that's what happened in that example of what Jenny she brought up this parable of this great hymn that was going on at that retreat and it was this participant coming in just some days later came to the retreat in such a group like this and even though it was that big he actually tore out his heart he was saying something that he had not even told his course group and he felt so comfortable within this big group that he could even do it within the context of everyone because he was like I don't know if I'm going to say it but I don't know if I'm going to say it but everyone was like yeah say it say it say it you know I don't know like just supporting him so that's what I kept on feeling that we could just try it out might not work I don't know but I just really wanted to see if we could all see each other you know so that everyone can just connect in another way than you know looking at your backs or just like twisting and turning around to the chair and such so if we could all just try that we just all get out and put your chair to the side of the room I think If you have the slightest little bit of the space Yeah, do you think? Okay, so we have two spare seats Still there? It's very kind of training for you If you guys sit in the middle and we make the circle the bigger than I've done it with it because we only have three more to squeeze in so if we make the circle Circle out here Out here If you guys go in the middle then we can fix it But then we see everybody So it's better if we make a row there Maybe this in the front Yeah, you're not Yeah, those can go in We don't mind We don't mind It's such a good group It is You talk a few in the middle Yeah For those that would like to Yeah, some of them Because some of them can go in the middle I think it's you Yes, she says yes Yes, it's you She says yes She's not tying the way So it's this then That's all the way out I think we're just We're going to pass the microphone around The room It's a big room So you can After you speak Just speak to the microphone So everybody can hear you Then when you finish Just pass it on Maybe raise your hand Or maybe you want to go along By one order Yeah We're just We're going to do it within our time Yeah Yeah, so we guys It's very, very focused about what you feel To share from your heart And try not to go into too many details Or stories Very focused and concise Exactly what you want Feeling where? The publics The publics, yeah You know, it's trying The needs feel special And it's also connected To the jealousy thing that came up for me Because I always feel Either better Or bigger than someone Or smaller than less And I've also been Feeling that in arguments That aren't just discussions Or being wrong or being right I feel awful if I'm right I feel awful if I'm wrong So it's just I can try to find the middle And feel equal And feel peaceful Should you say your name? Yeah My name is Vava And I'm in Denmark Well I don't even know what to say The topic Probably about unworkiness That is a big topic for me And Trust in guidance I've been practicing a lot And I'm just letting go Of trying to figure things out Just following spirit And yeah And This was the first time I traveled on my own yesterday It was huge for me I tried to plan Figure out how to get here And my plan was laid And everything went differently And I just followed guidance And asked everyone On my way for help And everything went so smoothly I was just so happy To come here And Yeah I just want to see what happens I Yeah Just going to be open Thanks And my name is Magan I'm from Holland, Amsterdam I guess what I would like to look at is To relax now Is that what you need? I've been studying the course for 15 years maybe And I'm feeling more and more Expansion But my Theme, if you can call it like that Now is to To relax in there To let it ground Because it's there Maybe like a contradiction There's an enormous feeling of expansion But there's some anxiety Underneath it So what I would like to Maybe Mirror with someone Is grounding that With inner guidance For my Question This thing is What is a human condition? No known sun level And I know What is a body When I have to go To the toilet I go But when there's something With my clothes It isn't body So the I want more clarity About the human condition And all this mind And Either you Have a talk in Ireland About your underpants Who's too near That's human condition And you say it's mind So that's I want to explore My name is Stéphane And yeah I'm a finance student For electronic ESPs Of the course And I still struggle With a lot of resistance And pretentious Really, and my topic Would be like Rejection or turning away from the world But It's probably more of my life Really I really need to open up more And think about this opportunity I think outside of this place I thought you were a problem With you And also So maybe This also reflects In my doubt and memory I'd like to And see what's underneath it Who'd like to know, my name is Korsua I'm very pleased to be here And I have to thank that To my wife Alison And What I'm looking for Is In a piece What I see I'm working in a company Which is doing economically Not too well So there's a lot of struggle And fights At least that's how I perceive it You don't have to fight To keep your job To To survive I would say And then at the end You don't trust people anymore They might come up with proposals And You start to question everything You see everywhere Something bad In what is being proposed Maybe it's right, maybe it's not But at the end of the day You don't have any In a piece And you keep on looking for What is the right thing And it's not right I can feel it's not right But what's wrong I hope to find some answers To those questions Hi Alison I will say my problem here Is Lack of self-esteem Feelings of unworthyness And To be honest speaking like this In front of good people Is that So perhaps overcoming those issues Would be really helpful for me This week And else from home I'm sitting in the course for eight years now This carries me to the next meeting And every I feel that Of course America is good for me But every morning I have to reset myself It disappears But The feeling of Then it's alright I reset myself and then During the morning it's okay again And Maybe This requires help My name is Sirius I'm from The Hague Yesterday I did not know That I would be here today Now So my alarm went off About A few hours later I was thinking I didn't know why But yeah I knew But I did not decide Oh yeah I need to go there I packed my bags and Could make some agenda Changes etc So Well What is keeping me in my mind Is the question What is wisdom After all Is that for everybody Is it a certain thing Can I get back How we're supposed to be here So that is my issue Thank you Hello When I think And I say my name And you say I'm the son of a god Of course I'm very grateful to Meet you here And I'm so grateful Your one light of your blessing But my question I know the experience to be one With God is so wonderful But I also know a constant Experience of fear in my life That's what happens when you say You're the son of God You have the many in the world Move Like Lucy the movie Lucy Move the people So Beside the experience To be one with God I've always and constantly Fear About death and illness And I know it is only a body And I know it's not real And all I come to A blameless consciousness By forgiveness and forgiveness Over and over again And still I always fear A sense of fear About death Does make me a beautiful movie So that I Can't lose this And I can be concerned With my wish Thank you Hello my name is Christian I come from Germany And I Worked a course for two years I studied for Many many years Sanctuism And came to the course To Because I had a clinic of neck That my heart Was really involved in Touch with my life And to open the movie And The course was Yes It reached me Reached me for the first time And I read it And I really trust In this In this Mighty God Who helps me get my chance And it always gets lost And Sometimes I fear I try to use Spiritual ways To make my own thing To use it And to be But not really to Serena and To get in the main touch Next year, five years My name is Rosalia Well For me it's about the question The fear of love Because I see a blockage And Well it's only my wish to open the door That's it And From then to then I'm studying the course About the wealthiest Well I have the difficulties To speak out for myself To Explain In words what's Going on Well, I guess I know I'm sure it's about Four What can I say more That's an issue Yeah Talking about jealousy I'm a little bit jealous About all those people Who are speaking up Very easily Seems to me Well That's it for now I'm Helen Mr. Van And I'm studying the course Of the first few years now And I would like To Serest more Just Sometimes I give things all the spirit But then find myself Picking it up again And working it out So it happens often So I really want to come there Just like you know I'm thinking about the staff I'm thinking I'm not there I would like to have that And besides also right now In my life I've been there So much to that And because of that I don't only do the course I do all kind of things Which has to do with awakening Different path And just I can't sit still on my own at home There's not the opportunity In Amsterdam to do the course Every day So now over two weeks I'm going to Moji I know it's different But I can look past All those forms I don't look at things that are different But I just look at God And I look on that But I'm really missing that I want it every day And my kindness and trust But now Today I have some of these Talking In Mexico Because I've got a few hundred times already And I said There's something in Mexico And then I could feel the fear You see I didn't even Clarity with that And the trust It could become A little bit easier That's Because three years come up Thank you Hello I'm from France And I'm here To meet Those people that I So on YouTube And you all And to hear All the All the The miracles you Have experienced And to share this joy To you And So thank you for The one I The opportunity to Speak to So I'm very happy to be here And to see all these Smiles My name is Moth And I'm here for One of these I'm a heavy student Of course And I really feel at home With what I've been doing since several years now In this course I really feel at home there And the most important message From the course from here Is that I'm at home Already So that's really A reassuring thing for me To experience And I think I began To deepen the experience even more And So I'm really happy with that But I'm in A sense of Opening my heart more A few more connectedness With all my brothers and sisters And so that's one of the reasons I'm so heavy over here Thank you very much There's always Always A form of this connectedness In me also But I want to overcome this And I want to Make factors Which will hold me from Really opening my heart From the table And Keep it going This week Thank you My name is Kenneth And I've come here to My prayer is to Have some identity But I'm still believed I'm this person So my deep prayer is to Really push that And to be directly Shined Really, we already are So that's more Yeah, that's more deep prayer But it's my place Thank you My name is Ametha And I'm also really, really I'm from Germany And I Was with the course Quite a long time But I stuck in the tree And this was what they took And then I Came in again And now I came here because Last weekend I was in Vienna And there was a German speaking Conference on the course And people told That he was I'm very happy to be And I took it together So, thank you Thank you Hello Thank you And thank you And I've been studying With the course For quite some years But I've been Studying completely on my own So it's the first time I'm together with people Who are at the same interest So it's very exciting This summer I was A kind of heritage For five weeks in Norway Where I Was try fishing To have some food And reading the course And contemplating All the things During these five weeks I've reached a clear And clear to me that Well, now I just want to Give me up to this And Experience Who I am But I feel like I don't have Practical tools at all So I hope You'll come up I'm scared But not on the right place And go therapy room here With me My name is Helen And I'm grateful To be here I think the biggest desire Is to feel the oneness The unity with everybody On the other hand I feel scared about it If I really contract with Some person Sometimes I feel I have to run away So that's quite Two different things Another thing that's difficult for me Is to How to Go To go with Physical pain Now I understand Emotional pain But I feel a little physical pain In my mother Sometimes with myself Or with my daughter And How to How to How to be cooperating with it I'm in this house I'm very Grateful to be here And I got one of the books So I'm going to This And Leaving the life For I face the things With all of you The topic from the Everything topics Is to I have so much experience With being so happy And then I lose it again And again It's like The other elf's talk Is saying It's It's like When you do forget it Malaysia What's the word? Malaysia You said it Like Being happy At the morning it's hard And then finding The connection again Feeling the love again Getting clear about things And then the coach is fake Next morning All gone But here it's like That is really I got so happy And then so much downfalls And now I have every day I'm happy during the day And even when it's I'm lost everything So that's why I went with Malaysia Yeah So And that's one thing To change my direction in life Somewhere Beautiful house But I really want to go there Go away there And To trust I can count it Can I do the script? That's it I'm from Germany And I think I've been a student only for Two weeks And I'm lucky to be here And my topic is The tricky ego And I always I look for a few weeks And this time Life is so easy It's in all things I read And then I think It's not real And I think It's must-needle And I don't trust I don't trust And this is The tricky ego I think all the time No, in the moment I think It's okay that you But then I think It can't happen That's my topic I'm Ina I'm from Poland I think Since 2000 Sometimes Every day And I'm very happy It's cause of miracles I really want to I'm happy And sometimes I have the idea I'm losing it I don't want to lose it But it's just It's This Collection I really would like to Feel at home with myself And with others And with Robert And That's for you But that's also For you My name is Christian I don't really have Bobby I must be here And maybe I'll find out What my topic is The piece I'm Where I'm busy with is Believing Where to work Where to walk Practical How can I contact with that But that's It's difficult If you know something about that My name is Pierre I'm from Amsterdam For this weekend My deepest Desire is To experience the whole Since Since I'm about 20 I know that It's possible to do miracles By simply Connecting your heart Opening up your heart And by looking at someone From the other instant That's when When you can perform miracles I think I was born With this desire to perform miracles So I I have this Very strong intention To do that In order to To achieve that I'm jumping on Actually I'm working very hard on achieving This whole instance Now I remember from the course somewhere Where he says You perform miracles With this whole instance For which you do not prepare So if you could If you could clarify a little bit About that Then I can Jump into the world And I would love to Be a very Spectacular miracle worker That's the only The sensible thing to do I can do it No need to worry, I'm never happy for that No My name is Mardie I'm from Lehe And I'm a Very happy student of the course In miracles And My biggest desire is to be The most people who are Also inspired By the course of miracles And I I think something like this Always gives me a big impulse And I don't have any topics I'm In I'm quite old but I'm This period in which I With the course of miracles Are my happiest years And As if probably Just disappeared So I'm here for Joining and enjoying My name is Ellen I think I have several colleagues But I think basically It's the confusion Between The Stagiarism from the eco perspective And the Stagiarism from the Holy Spirit perspective And how that I know Usually in which perspective I am But Especially when I'm on my own People like you are into this Study Then it's okay But as soon as you are with people You are not Then I feel like I'm drawn into The other perspective How do you deal with that When you write Ellen What's also about Ellen just said When there's physical pain And then especially It's physical pain with Close relatives Like my children Or my father Then it's difficult for me To Maintain grounded In The right view And that's what I would like To ground Into the right perspective And not get lost into The ego perspective But for me it was especially Triggered on physical pain With close relatives That's why it's because it's physical You see So I hope I get more clarity My name is Jan And Actually I'm For the truth for a long time Over 45 years And But then Some sorrow really hit me And My topic actually is Discernment When afterwards It's easy After the experience It's always easier To Find out This was really my other self But in the moment I'm sometimes losing And what this is I think about discernment Which voices I am hearing now I would like to Everybody in view Can tell me something about that It's very welcome That's my main thing Thank you My name is Reina I'm A lot of resistance to come here But Something's wrong with me to come Well I know a lot of concepts But My big wish is That I get in touch with them That I feel them Instead of knowing That's my big wish It feels like my greatest So many times It's like An amazing experience At the moment I'm so grateful Continuity I feel like I feel like I have the fear of Being with the home spirit all the time I feel like something about death At the moment I see myself Looking to What I thought Gave me safety And I feel like I'm sometimes like running around Or just storming out And just don't want to be Impressive Yeah It just feels very important For some reason I hope I can be open for a shift That may happen in the future I'm a half a month I'm grateful to be here And my desire is To feel more connected To my source I'm half Half I'm half I'm half I'm half I'm half I'm half I'm half I'm half I'm half I'm searching for myself For my whole life I think I've found A lot And God has found me But I I'm not in charge so much And I Lose the contact And I heard that's the topic of Who lose Who have the desire To have contacts Continuously And on the And so my Deep desire Is to have Too long for longing That's That's the question That's not a special topic There are all topics Take me out Take me out of that I'm longing For to stay in that Close My name is Marca From moment I want to say thank you For bringing us here Again Such a beautiful place Such beautiful people My topic is To Find deeper understanding About how we relationship I observe with myself The more I desire For a whole new relationship The more special it gets Seemingly Hello everybody My name is Sam Fine to see you back again Thank you for coming Yes, I've grown into A happy learner of course By years My first teacher was A master of art Of course to me he was A young boy in the 90's And then In my library For a time I knew what it was And then I thought again So it lasted about 5-6 years I'm delving quite deep Into there And kind of hoping to be one of my masters Like George The last master I'm very happy And now I'm there There comes some topics of course And I see Being from very practical profession I've tried to Not to be too theoretical Or theoretical But to see Very practical A dolphin lives in the water Mates in the water is heavy We have to jump out of the water Take a breath Look above the water Look above the battlefield And jump again And I think that's the answer Many things that we can't permanently Stay up there We have to dive up and down And the one day We come back Forever on the shore The problem is Being very good learner And very thankful for all the teachings Is to become one with anger You know in Dutch We Dutch, I was Dutch educated Coming from easier though We learned a very nice Dutch curse Hot on man It's very funny You don't find it in English You don't find it in German It's a soft curse If you are If you have bad luck Or if you are very stupid And most of them bring something very stupid It's very peaceful It's not a little curse Beautiful, like you might have often seen And I jam my finger in the door And I said This is anger The anger which is Of course How can I get going with that It's anger How can I get going with that It pops out Of the very Unborn occasions Very uncomfortable with some traps The second topic is Some kind of logic Indulging one-on-one Of course You come to the other volumes Of course in five Of course And being still Active in the medical field With some urge To change all my mental thinking Into that way Of being And that's okay I'm present But I think very lonely Because my colleagues still understand It's very hard to To talk this colleagues about that The only way to see mission To view people even very, very gently The doctors, friends They say, oh no, no, no It's some kind of loneliness Maybe you can Recognize that on your Your purpose How to cope with that Thank you My name is Mel I grew up in the Dutch spinal health Yes, I don't know if you know What it is But there are people Who make it very Seriously And they are fan sure That you have to work hard And that's between The question That is That I have to work hard for it Of the logic Okay I'm very interested That it is still Here I know it is an illusion, but still I do it It makes a blur It makes it black It makes it heavy So, probably this read I will see That it is not true My name is Ernestine Of course has been my inspiration For a long time Now And long periods of time And I feel it completely free Completely at ease Completely in peace And then I heard the topic Around this room And Francis mentioned it Also earlier Then all of a sudden I made a noise Then my personality My ego just takes off And I want to get More Grateful when he thinks Happen So that I can Choose to let it go And that's what I find Yeah, that's what I find Is my wish to Feel this freedom To really surrender All the time There is a section Of the course that says I need to do nothing And I understand that very well That I notice that There are times that I do A lot of things And about this Is really my Not only for this week That has been for the last Year or so But I notice that I like to keep The ropes in hand Like I say in Holland And I practice in Holland And it's difficult to let go Hello I'm Bastian I came to a course In a way by accident I awakened by accident I was super depressed With the suicidal And at one point I didn't need to suffer anymore And then I had A union with Christ Which was the most beautiful thing That I've ever seen in my life And Then But then I had People called the Kundalini crisis Like I had a Kundalini awakening So I'm managing all the things Go to your mouth and say You want to do me But then my body was shaking For one year and everything Salted into vibration And everything went upside down And I was still very In addictions I was still very screwed up But that's the way I went to the course Because I was looking What has happened there And at some point I ended up at the course It explained Very well So Right now I'm at a point That I got a lot of physical pain Back pain And Some mental problems I would say And my biggest wish In my deepest prayer Is There's a thing in the course that says Stop being sick And withhold So I should throw up or something And Because sometimes Yeah The course says That your touch gives people And I've experienced that That I've touched people And then they had the luscious of life Going through my body And it was like this grace That I've experienced Was passed on to others And it was so beautiful To share When this grace Plucks everyone And it's shared with everyone And it's such a unified goal And community And I Would be so Happy to Give up my suffering And Share salvation And going there I face this fear of that It's like The past couple of months Whenever I go into meditation It's like Either they come up With death or something It's like we're living death experiences Or Dying from sickness I've got a lot of experience dying from sickness It's always Death comes up And I'm very much afraid And I have a lot of Persistence coming here Because I feel like I'm dying I'm very I'm So the problem is that I It's very difficult for me To speak English So, but that's how I'm feeling Most of the problems I've heard I recognize But I think Relationships Are very difficult for me And I Allow myself What? Allow myself Allow myself Allow myself to Allow myself Allow myself To To get into Friendships and relationships And are good for me Yes I will say My topic is That I want to do everything So perfect That I would not be at all I quit I was a performer A clown And you know A clown is the master of Failures But there was so much Sensual in my head That I wasn't funny at all And now My Biggest wish For this moment Is that I may Blunder I may make failures I don't have to do Anything perfect Here And I'll make a spell and I don't know Who deserves it Who deserves it We have to do Goods and Goodbye It was so hard It was so Fault That touched me so much Your Yeah So Being natural But it's hard for me Because there's very much center And perfect She lives in this family And I don't want to think Yeah No My name is Debbie I'm a surrender to Unconditional love I've held it in I have to stay in there When I'm with my folks There's none as well Just a lot from Unconditional life I think I said about Jersey I've always been Ladies changing But I've always been afraid That I would be Dormant father I just heard that in English It's said to be found out You tell this center thing And all these ugly things Of me coming up And allowing myself To take the risk And to let things out And experiencing That only love is there And lately I I've felt That I'm actually not Afraid to Be found out But I'm afraid that there's no button There's no ground That I keep on falling And when this was happening Last week I got a print From That it's perfectly Found in National And I could keep off But then I felt so scared And I Like this And I was very much to As to to The role there is to Call into this form And just surrender When I wrote it down I'm not afraid There's no drama And yeah I don't need this identity Perspective But still And when I was writing Up here I heard I happen to be able to sleep Aloud now It's been not so long ago That I didn't even dare to say my name When we were in small groups And Love has been offering me So much opportunities To feel that it's safe That you're not the enemies I am I love you Yeah Yeah All these dream figures But then it gets That I have this perspective From a deadly element Yeah I got a print But I also lived in France Since 3 years In a very Wonderful It's like a little paradise We see the stars the Milky Way We Listen to the silence I feel it's going back To Who I am really are But But I must be the slowest Student of the court in New York Of course because I'm ashamed for a long time I think 22 years ago I started and in the beginning It was as if I was a child And I was lifted up And I was Often I was in a total This Glory and I knew I recognized everything I knew who I really was And After 14 years Something happened in my life And The story is that I was Great I let myself Completely Fall down After that I blamed myself And I didn't feel worthy Of God anymore I couldn't feel my own worthiness Anymore And Just recently I started again With the court in New York Now It's as if I Walking the path But from the other Way as if I started out And I was already there Everything was already there I had An experience I really experienced I watched everything And I had a lot of these experiences Even before I started with the court in New York I didn't know what it was I didn't know nothing about spirituality And Only after that I began to breathe My work And now it's as if I'm further away From that Divine experience than ever It's as if I have to start All over again And it's quite hard Not to blame myself for that And say that I must have done Something wrong I feel as if I'm confused And then I found a passage Which I never thought And it's just talking about that That everything is Turned around That we're going backwards Yeah, I don't know It's quite a cool game And I was happy to breathe Because now I feel Going up and down Sometimes I'm in so much of this I can walk with my dog And I Let myself fall On the ground and I feel The connection Through the urges and everything And I'm nothing Crying about it After a few days My husband fells And I'm so angry I'm so impatient I'm so frustrated And it's as if All the anger I thought I had left behind And it's worse Than ever I really want to Really hope I am able to Transform the anger And the impatient It's as if There's a dark spot If there's a white wall and you look at the dark spot All you can look at Is the dark spot You don't see the white wall We can't see Why would you say what But so help me, please Help others I am on the lease An announcement came along That this retreat would be here So I felt I should be here Something would be ok Something important for me But I don't know What it would be And then a few days ago So suddenly I felt such a deep sadness in my stomach, in my belly and I remember I had it before and sometimes when I find that other friends read the course or so I can get me out of this but sometimes it can remain such a long time It's just a kind of very strange feeling, a feeling of being in love but it is not love it is a horrible feeling, you know? And of course the fingers and the sides, I take your back slide but they're not real, they are dark and then a few days ago I started the game and I thought well I just stay with it I want to experience it, I just want to know what is it instead of getting out of it again and I don't know, I only feel a very deep sadness and I think it is a sadness of separation that's all I can think of I believe I should learn to accept that there is also darkness in me and there is also this sadness in me and that's why I wanted to stay with it but it didn't make me happy of course I don't know what to do with it yet I think I should learn to be in peace with everything which comes from it so in such a feeling I should learn to accept it and should stay with it and not just fly away from it by doing things as if I mean a lie or something I think it is there, I believe but maybe I'm on the wrong path in this way, I don't know because then I get also all kinds of feelings or ideas and thoughts of I should separate from my husband and I should go another way and you know it helps me also as if there should be a turn in my life it should be a different way also I don't know, it is an open question from this screen I want a little more love, more peace and happiness and the whole spirit is going to help for everything Thank you My name is Ingrid I recognize a lot of your story to have the need to be special at least for some people and most important and in the meantime I feel really the wish to feel who I really am and to not depend on other people to be worthy or to be existing so my deep wish is to experience who I really am my spiritual path, I think it starts the first thing I can remember is the deep wish to go home I'm not going to be studying the course, I don't know at a certain point in my realization that's not true, because if I would really 100% wish to be home and the course is yet to join home but I experienced something else it's only about finding out that what am I doing why do I choose, obviously I choose a different experience and what's being my red line through all my life is not being good enough so my death was reading my mirror he showed me Mary Kay that I wasn't good enough but of course it's what I believe about myself I came everywhere at every job, every day, every situation I came into was again this era, you're not good enough I was the same as feeling unworthy of love I believe there are some people, the happy people mysterious people that exist in this world that I really have become successful and everything but I'm a part of it and I don't know how to become like them I'm like a lesser kind of person so I guess it's really also this guilt that the course talks about that's hidden so far away, so deep the guilt toward separation but it's like a concept to me, it's like a page so a lot of things that the course talks about that I've really experienced, I've seen through this guilt so what am I guilty of? I guess it must be there otherwise I'm still investing and believing that I guess I would not be here I would be here my wish should be to stop to stop doing that, stop believing I'm not good enough I'm not patient with all the respect but I really feel this, I have no patience to listen I try to listen and it's not personal I really burst out I really hope this is the worst part of it basically, I cannot believe what I have been doing you've been in a similar situation I can't say anything my name is Peggy and what I want for this week and I pray for this is to open my heart and for the love of God and also to learn to forgive more and more and to trust even more and more how we stand because if I do that, I know that my life is very happy thank you my name is Miriam I felt stranger since I was born or at least since I was conscious that I was here I felt stranger, what am I doing here I do not understand this world I would just pretend as if I'm here and one day it's all over I can get back home I want to go home I don't know where it is but I want to go home and I'm sure it's not here so my whole life has been a question mark what am I doing here and I've been raising Christianity but had many many questions about things that I was learning because I was not very much on things about the truth in it the way it was presented to me so I started my own quest and learned a lot a lot a lot a lot 20 years ago I tried the course for the first time I didn't make it very far because I felt the resonance in the truth and the importance for me but I wasn't able to take it in or to understand it fully to make it my own so I traveled along with a lot of other things and since the end of last year I remembered the course of the whole day but I'll pick it up again and see what it says now and now all the fossil pieces fell into place I recognize it all and that's oh my goodness oh is that it I don't know what it says it says so there's no like that I'm doing the ego one way take it home I don't know what it says ego whatever it says it's all about how whatever I don't care I don't care I don't care I have no choice there is no choice there is no choice left I have to do this because I know that this is my way home for good it has to be I'm so nice I told you this morning since many many years I've longed so much to live in God's providence and I've read several books about people like what is a bone maybe some of you don't know her name she has lived in a Christian perspective but nevertheless she was met of course by the Holy Spirit and she was guided through all and I could feel this longing when I was reading her books so deeply so deeply and this is what I want I don't care I don't want this and then after I started course again I found David and he is living I want that so all who is living this and he can show me and guide and now I need what I need most I feel is communication communication with as long as Holy Spirit is not speaking so clearly to me as if you and I are speaking I need open communication to bring it all up to clear the way that probably is not a five days Hello I'm Marcia and I'm so happy you're here but you don't have to travel around the country to follow your right to a course and that you've been provided in your case thank you so much and I'm afraid I'm so afraid to talk I'm afraid of people I live my life but inside I'm afraid very much but the course is helping me a lot I'm with the right people I feel at home so that's a very nice experience for me and when I heard from Chris that I was inside this course there was really a wave of joy coming into my body in the night so I know that I'm on the right spot now thank you I'm Sylvia what I've learned in my life is be careful what you wish for and I realize that I'm afraid to which course came in my life three and a half years ago it took me three years to do all the lessons because there was so much resistance but still the first moment I looked into the book I realized this is the answer you know what there's so much resistance in me but I'm so scared to look my fear because my prayer to have courage to look fear in the eye is that how you say it and to bring it to light because now my compulsive addictive behavior comes up and I'm just too afraid to look in the eye I want to surrender to really do the course and not just I'm in a lot of groups and I do my best I work hard but that's not it I want to live it but I'm scared and there are moments in a day or in a week that I think oh my god yeah this is it and the moment I think it I'm going to eat or I'm going to whatever but as long as I'm not doing this I'm so afraid for how to overcome it because if I ask the Holy Spirit but somehow I think I take the wrong way or so you know I ask the Holy Spirit and my ego answers something like that so I really want to learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit to really listen and to hear it to act on his my name is Miranna I have a lot a lot of topics they all come by and it's I I hesitated about going to this retreat about four weeks ago because I thought I wasn't worth it so much money spending but I did it I'm here but the ego wasn't satisfied I brought up a lot of topics we talked about Jamie this morning that I wasn't allowed to be here because of several things and the the only thing I wanted when I heard about this retreat was being in the presence of people not judging me for my thinking, my behavior for my being I'm so tired I'm so tired of people pleasing that's what I do and I keep going through my head I'm so tired of keeping my customers satisfied that's my ego thing of my customers I really am tired and I'm so longing for giving and receiving love that I'm worth it that it's for me for everyone I think we can share the oneness so I'm so looking forward to being here with all of you and it's so funny because there's also thinking in my head there's no place for me well, not in a circle but obviously in the middle so I'm so grateful well, there's enough play I'm really looking forward to giving and receiving that's my desire Hello, I am Ena Borg I'm a student a couple of months now almost a year a lot of topics oneness deep sense of oneness and popping up every time and also what's new for me the last few months is a kind of now I feel it's more stronger yet there's popping up a kind of problem of myself instead of unworthiness because the place where unworthiness always was there is a couple of months of kind of softness and loving love unworthiness is popping up but still there is the softness and the love unworthiness now is popping up in the love there's no separation so I feel a little bit proud of what I've reached and there is one big theme for me and that's always for years and that's sex and sex with my husband and sex my female sexuality and a year ago suddenly it came to me I was frozen with sex everything was possible for years I was like a goddess the man said but there was the feeling of I felt the separateness of being the longing I know the longing of coming home and then it was really this I felt a kind of separateness with love love in sexuality and loving in I thought I am natural so I'm doing this from fear and get something and and then suddenly I stopped with I go home and say to my husband what was that no sex there's something wrong yeah and the last year it's finding out to stay with the softness and the love and and connect it with my husband and don't lose the feeling only want to connect like this and then my husband really really wanted to leave me God's sexuality but I stayed in in the trust like how it feels you know it feels so right softness and the love and yes I wanted him to stay but if he won't stay then okay don't stay this this is how and I hear all the people talking and I feel a kind of proud that yeah I really trust this feeling here and I want to deepen it and deepen it with this kind of feeling softness and love everything I do everything with everybody but the sex is yes it's an adventure for me it's an adventure the openness to dive in there to explore and at the same time my husband is getting my name is Parina my biggest wish to myself to help I think I have to do it too long Jesus I think that's my greatest my greatest passion well this is important and because we want to keep nothing hidden we want to bear our soul from all of the sheriff I to relate to Pierre I want to be a spectacular miracle worker I have to say Pierre one time I went down to South America and I was in Colombia but I was out of the Roy and this woman came up to me and she just smiled at me and she looked into my eyes I don't speak Spanish but she just looked into my eyes and she went absolutely spectacular wow and that reminded me wow we are being called by Jesus in the Holy Spirit to be miracle workers that soft feeling that you were talking about there that feeling got touched upon there's a calling happening we are being called out of the world we are you might say a generation that are being called and in the Bible the Jewish people were fond of calling themselves the chosen people Jesus really corrects that and of course the miracles he says all are called few choose to listen so we are definitely clearly being called not only to be miracle workers but to be spectacular miracle workers I think you've probably been put a smile on Jesus to say to the air he probably was like there that's what I need is spectacular miracle workers a whole fleet of spectacular miracle workers and I have to say what I've seen the last 30 years of the course and I'd say I've been traveling around for 25 years for me the last quarter of the century it's just been spectacular miracles I've just witnessed amazing amazing miracles and all the feelings that go with that all the joy, the glee the childlike sense of wonder the amazement the the humbleness the senses of freedom huge vast freedom and mystical experiences revelatory experiences all of that the more experiences you have the more there's something in your heart because mm-hmm yep I knew that this was what my life was for mm-hmm and if we pause for a minute think back with Jesus because there's always these Jesus movies that come out we're still waiting for one of these spectacular miracles no sacrifice no penance no no suffering you know on the cross we want to see a transcendent Jesus on the cross in one of his books he says actually uh... J.M. he says actually when I was on the cross when I was looking I was laughing I was really laughing because there is only happiness and the rest he took for granted and he had chosen for this crucifixion certainly mm-hmm in fact it's really nothing but right after Jesus they always saw Jesus kind of on another mount nearby laughing at the whole thing so that laughter was there but there's actually a movie that just came out recently called The Young Messiah which shows a very young Jesus that's still with miracles going on around him and his parents and others really astonished early on and and yet if you think of it that even with a young Jesus he had this inkling this feeling inside like all of us have had there was some kind of a destiny for his life that was beyond what his parents or the world could say we all have that something stirring in us right now just going mm-hmm we're feeling the same thing that the younger Jesus was feeling he didn't know what form would play out he didn't have any idea if it would play out 37 years and all those scenes that were recorded in the Bible and all the miracles he didn't, he couldn't see any of that but he could feel what we're feeling now of your feeling I just came from England there was a woman there who said word for word the same word that you said, Ronnie was there she said I want that you know it was very clearly like a statement it was a declaration and I'll do whatever it takes for that it was a very strong declaration and I think we could say that Jesus as he moved along through his earth light he had this very strong sense of destiny but he couldn't really talk much about it and we can't we haven't been able to talk much about that part we're just here some of us just beginning to expose and express our fears and doubts our worthiness issues our struggles or the idea that it's going to be work it's going to take so much hard work we're just getting to the point where we're starting to put on the table everything we believe is blocking us from our destiny this fast destiny that Jesus is going to do and I have to say for all of us here too if you went back to our childhoods or even to you know our teen years or even maybe our years when we were in our 20s none of us could have predicted in the faintest way the ways that our lives have been playing out for example over this last decade or for me for this last two and a half decades I would never in a million years have been able to predict what has gone on and I think that's important for all of us to know that we have to let go of our thoughts of the future how our lives will look how the form is going to go we were saying we were so you're getting happier and happier and you don't pay as much attention to the form of it we all have to be willing to go in that direction because if we're going to give our mind under the control of Jesus if we're going to give Holy Spirit the invitation you know okay here it is I give you everything it's yours now I am here to serve a greater plan I am here to be used I want to be used for the greater good of the whole I want to be used for the good of everyone when we honestly make that prayer we are literally letting go of the future and there's even a work request and I place the future in the hands of God that that's how we let go of the past we need to let go of the past but we also need to let go of the future because the future is just the projection of the past just the ego telling us what could come in the future and it's also how the ego descends against the Holy and it always is trying to say look what happens and it could get worse whether it's sickness pain suffering it will project that into the future and it will get your mind gyrating in busyness to guard against those future consequences we have to be honest that we've been tricked in the past we've been bamboozled we've had the wool pull over our eyes where we got so worried and concerned about the future that we invested in doing meaningless things to protect against future consequences that had not even arrived yet and of course it's telling us they aren't even there you're acting and reacting and putting a lot of energy into something that's not even there it's just an imagined future some of us like psychology for example and we learned psychology about defense mechanisms we learned about repression and suppression we learned about denial we learned about sublimation substitution we learned about a lot of defense mechanisms and then we get Jesus Christ that he comes and he says the past is gone the future is but imagined these concerns are but defenses against present change of focus we didn't learn that from Freud the past is a defense we didn't learn that from mom and dad the future is a defense a defense mechanism how many of us were taught to be ambitious to plan for the future we weren't told that was we were defending against the holy instant you see that's why we need the way show that's exactly why we need the master we need someone who's transcended time and space to instruct us our parents were just put there by the ego and so were our neighbors and so was everybody else Jesus says the ego is called the world ooh we never heard that we heard that of me weird story of birth and conception but nobody told us that the ego people the world the ego put all the bodies out there all the stars and the plants everything of time and space is a projection from the ego made for one reason to keep you asleep and guilty and full of amnesia that's why this cause was this way everybody says well the world's not all so bad oh Jesus tells us something in the court he says in the workbook the world was made as an attack on God a place where God can enter not hmm haven't even heard those words when they did the Dante or the great non-dualistic teachings on the on the planet for many centuries Jesus really wants us to escape Henry III he's going to tell us the ego did it's all still a metaphor because remember separation never happened we can't lose track of that but he's telling us that for one reason because he's saying you have to put your focus in another direction in order to escape you have to allow yourself your mind to be used as a miracle worker so that you can get happier and happier and happier because the world is not escaped through death the world is escaped through miracles and happiness he tells us we have to experience the happy dream before the dream disappears you don't escape from nightmares with pain and suffering and hurt you escape from nightmares with happy dreams where the world becomes so clear and so happy and so unified that you can barely keep your feet on the earth you feel you want to fly like Superman remember Barbara Streisand's song Superman remember that one baby I can fly like the bird it's a beautiful song if you've never heard of Barbara Streisand sing Superman you have to go home tonight get on your iTunes and download Superman for Barbara Streisand when you touch me with your eyes ah I am not a bird and I am not a plane I'm Superman when you love music it's easy I can do most anything watch you turn around one wing up and one wing down I never thought I could fall in love for good I'm Superman you hear Streisand sing Superman and you go that sounds pretty good I think I'd like to fly she'll get you to move for flying but that would be a happy dream right if you could fly like a bird we'll say like a hummingbird you could really control where you fly they can just hover they can go fast they can go slow slow motion they really have a good power that's kind of a symbol of what you want to do instead of being like stuck on earth like an earthbound that's just a symbol when we have flying dreams we like it because we feel more free you've got something no I've got a distraction is it time? yeah that's the end of the songs for tonight but that's really why we're doing what we're doing we're doing it because we're being called as miracle workers spectacular miracle workers and there's a lot there for us to help us and so we're going to talk about that in this video and now as you were saying sounds fantastic but then when you put that in the daily life for example everybody takes all the insurances which is planning for the future something might happen or in the business world I mean you're making big budgets business plans three years, five years the whole time you're planning and so on which is completely contradictory with what you're saying actually I want to go for our parents so how do we put that all together yes well that's what I'm going to talk about this week because I I've had a few lunches with Judy sketch Judy is the publisher of A Course in Miracles and she's 88 years old and her and her husband have been working on publishing, translating the course for decades and she says with her white hair and her beautiful smile and sparkly eyes that they never have had a business plan their business plan is praying and listening to the Holy Spirit and she says a little twinkle on your eye and she's talking about it and I said me too I can totally relate that's good I want you to bring up those questions because what we will talk about will seem to invert a lot of our programming and conditioning is going to go the opposite of what we have believed and Jesus says this world is backwards and upside down and so when he tells us the world is backwards and upside down we should be ready to hear what he's got to say because we need to know a new way the old way is not working the world certainly shows that fighting companies, layoffs it's a breaking down ok so it's time soon you will get your keys from Chris and then you can start to settle in and we will come back for a spectacular movie for night at seven ok


These power lines are kept high and away from us because they are dangerous. Most of us in construction recognize that. Yet, it's the power lines that we work with every day that are just as dangerous. In fact, each year hundreds of construction workers die from power line contacts. It's a tragedy that you can prevent. First, you must be trained in the risks and how to prevent them. Many accidents occur because managers overestimate the ability of crane operators to determine the clearance distance available. Once management has been trained to spot hazards, the task of creating a safe worksite begins. A safe worksite is important for many reasons. Besides the obvious cost of the pain and anguish of the victims and their families, there is the cost of profits that are lost forever. Direct losses can come from increased medical and indemnity payments and liability lawsuits. The more accidents you have, the worse your safety record is. And the higher your workers' comp rates will be. And realize that contractors have been sued by subcontractors, engineers and owners as well. Accidents also cost you indirectly. You might see work delays, reduced crew efficiency. Increased overtime and additional costs for cleanup, repair and equipment replacement. But whether direct or indirect, these are losses you don't have to see and costs you don't have to pay. But that means doing something about the power line hazards on job sites. It starts with training. The training program should include such things as identification of high risk activities and equipment. Ways to eliminate or reduce these risks. OSHA requirements, job site specific requirements and hazards. Emergency plan development and emergency response. Both managers and workers need to be trained in these areas. Worker training should emphasize recognition and avoidance of job site hazards. Site specific procedures and emergency response to different types of energized contacts. Management training should focus on planning work and inspecting the work site to recognize power line hazards before mobilizing workers. This will allow for a site safety plan which will eliminate or control the risks. Training is important because while we all should know that power lines can kill, too often they're not taken seriously. Also, some people have the misconception that the black coating on some lines is insulation designed to protect anyone contacting the line. That's dead wrong. Each construction site should have a written plan. It also needs a site survey, ideally several weeks before the project begins. Ask yourself, where are the power lines on the job site? It's your job to find all the overhead and underground power lines that could place your workers and company at risk. Then think about the type of work you or your employees will be doing. Will you have high-reaching equipment like cranes, drilling rigs, or concrete pumpers on the job site? Will your workers be using ladders or long-handled tools around power lines? These are questions you need to answer. Also, be aware of power lines around the site and whether any lines will go over service roads. Pay close attention to trucks, particularly dump trucks. If the truck bed isn't down when the worker drives away, it can easily contact the overhead lines. And if you'll be digging, find out how much notice the local one-call system or utility needs to locate and mark the lines. Now that you know where the hazards are, how are you going to get rid of or control them? You can eliminate the risk of contacts by asking the local utility to de-energize or move the lines. Shielding is another method of worker protection. Even though shielding won't eliminate the hazard, it can reduce it. But the minimum clearance distance still must be maintained. All of these methods require pre-planning. For example, scheduling utility crews can sometimes take a couple of days' notice or even weeks if a line must be moved. Other options are moving or changing the work activity or using shorter tools and materials. Your first choice in preventing power line contacts should be to eliminate the hazard. But this isn't always possible. In these cases, you'll need to do some things to at least reduce the possibility of a contact. Your options may include using an observer when doing lifts with a crane, using insulated sleeves or other barrier protection installed by the power company, using flagged warning lines or protective technologies. You might also use non-conductive tools or materials or restrict access to high-risk areas to train the personnel only. The trained manager, having looked over the site, is now ready to prepare a job site plan. The plan will list the power line exposures and detail how each will be addressed. An integral part of this site plan is the emergency plan. The emergency plan should describe how the company will respond to power line contacts. The plan should include phone numbers for the power utility, local emergency medical services, and hospital. These will be posted at the site and available at all times when work is done. Emergency response training of workers and management should include CPR training and information about approaching and assisting a person still in contact with an energized line or equipment in contact with the line. In the tragic event that the plan has to be used, you'll want to investigate thoroughly. This goes for near misses as well. You should look for the underlying causes of any accident or near miss because they will point to weak areas in your program. By addressing the root causes of any mishap, you can prevent occurrences in the future. Also, following an accident, you should stay involved with the injured worker, the hospital, and your insurance carrier. This way you can work to help the employees return to work and a normal life. Too often injured workers are lost in the world of doctors, physical therapists, lab technicians, insurance claims adjusters, and so on. By keeping in touch with the worker and their family, you can help them through a difficult and often frightening time. Contractors that help injured employees in this way build loyalty in the workforce and reduce insurance and litigation costs. Unfortunately, power line contacts produce too many fatalities. Power lines kill. Because of this, they can result in significant losses. Remember, a power line injury or death means much more than just lost profits. You can avoid these losses by making your job site safer and by developing an effective site safety plan with an effective emergency plan component as part of your job site plan. With a well-developed emergency plan in hand, you can work to avoid ever having to use it. Then you won't ever have to tell a family member that their loved one is never coming home again.


Everybody, my name is Mark Schlauve. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. And today we are going to talk about investments coming from Japan, the history, a brief history, if there is such a thing, of Japanese investment in the United States and in Hawaii. And my guest, very knowledgeable attorney, Alan Fujimoto, a good friend of mine who I've known for many, many years. He was born and raised in Japan, speaks Japanese fluently and in his practice has had a lot of experience helping Japanese investors in the United States make investments, work through them, work out of them. And I've asked him to come today to talk a little bit about his own experience, his own background, and also his experience with Japanese investment in the United States and especially in Hawaii, so that we can get a basic understanding of what happened in the past. Alan, welcome. It's very good to see you. Good to be here, Mark. Good to always be with you and talk a little bit. And Alan and I have talked for years about things Japanese and Japanese investment. Alan, you were born in Japan, raised there. How did you get here? How did you get to Hawaii? Well, first, my father is originally from Hawaii. He was in the 442nd in Italy and after that he joined the Army Civil Service and was stationed in Japan where he met my mother, a Japanese, and I was born and raised in Japan, but I did attend international schools and the Department of Defense High School on the basis there, so my primary language is English. I picked up the Japanese on my own, of course, to be able to communicate with my mother and my Japanese friends out there and to reading and writing to read the Japanese comic books and the newspapers. That's how I became fluent in Japanese. I see. And I know from my own experience knowing you all these years that you've been very involved in Japanese investment, but how did you get to be involved here in Hawaii as a lawyer? How did that come about? Okay, well, after graduating from high school in Japan, I came here to attend the university and after that I went to law school in California and even while I was at law school, my thinking was it's best for me to be able to utilize the Japanese language ability that I have and to deal with the Japanese investors coming into Hawaii. So that's where my primary interest was. And after graduating from law school from UC Davis, I came back to Hawaii. Well, actually, I clerked at the Hawaii Supreme Court for one year with Justice Yoshime Hayashi, but I already had lined up a job with a very small firm called Kashiwa Kashiwa and Kato. I knew them well. And Genro Kashiwa, the founder of that firm, was a go-getter in terms of the Japanese, early Japanese investors, and they had a good range of Japanese clientele. So I thought it was a perfect fit for me, so I joined the firm. And then a couple of weeks after I joined the firm, the partners there told me, OK, we're going to be merging with Goodsill. So I was with the Kashiwa firm for all of five or six months, and I joined Goodsill back in 85, and I've been with Goodsill since. OK. All right. Well, you know, your dad being with 442nd, I mean, that could be another program. Oh, absolutely.  So he went to Japan, and then that's where you grew up, but you learned the background and the culture there and came here and joined a law firm. And obviously, the Kashiwa firm, very well known in those days for early investment. Now, tell us about the early investment. What was that? I mean, what was happening with Japanese? I mean, we know that Admiral Matthew Perry went to Japan and said, we want trade with you. That was 160 years ago or so. And he wanted to open up the US and Japan to trade. Well, so what happened? Well, it's not too far-fetched to talk about Admiral Perry, because actually the Japanese from way back when have always been enterprising and looking for places where they can invest beyond the confines of the Japanese islands. So even back then, they were looking to Korea, China, and elsewhere. But in the period right after World War II, the Japanese economy, of course, was in tatters and they were trying to rebuild. And in the mid-50s, I believe it was, things started moving forward. And for example, that's exactly when the airline industry started to take off. And Japan came up with a semi-government entity. Japan Airlines was a semi-government entity at the time, and they started developing overseas routes. And tourism outside of Japan became a reality. And Hawaii was actually a very favorite destination. I remember when growing up in Japan, I watched the Japanese quiz programs. And the big prize would be a trip to Hawaii. I remember seeing that. So tourism was growing. And Japanese started going overseas. A lot of them came to Hawaii. And once the visitors start moving, then all the business people notice that and say, well, maybe there's some business opportunity here. So it took a while for that industry to grow. But then in the early 60s, there were some enterprising business people who took advantage and said, well, this is an opportunity. Maybe we should look into this and started investing in Hawaii. And one of the earliest was you probably know Kenji Osanwa, who was the owner of Kokusai Kogyo in Japan. And they were in the tourism, transportation, and other real estate and other businesses in Japan and said, OK. And I understand he initially purchased the Princess Kailani Hotel. Here in Hawaii? Yes. And went on to acquire the Moana Surfrider, the Royal Hawaiian, Sheraton Waikiki, and the Sheraton Maui. And he had the foresight to take advantage of the growing tourism industry where the Japanese were coming to Hawaii. That was really the start of the most, I guess, post-war investment of the Japanese into Hawaii. And Kenji Osanwa, the name's well known to us in Hawaii because we've heard it. Was he making investments only in Hawaii or was he making investments in the mainland United States? And where was he getting his money? And how was the reaction to him? We're just a little bit past World War II. And now we have Japanese coming into the United States and making investment. What do you know about that background? OK. Well, I wasn't around, so I can't really be sure what the reaction might have been. But Kenji Osanwa was not looking only at Hawaii. He did, in fact, after Hawaii. Also did invest in San Francisco with the Palace Hotel and also in Florida. So he wasn't looking only at Hawaii. And Kenji Osanwa's business, as I said, was in the travel transportation business in Japan. And with the growing income of the Japanese in the 50s and 60s, people started spending more money on travel and transportation and so forth. And he did make a lot of money there, which he did invest overseas. One thing about the Japanese is that once they start to realize that there may be limitations to what they can do in Japan, they do start looking overseas. That's been a characteristic of them over the years. And Osanwa had the foresight to look to Hawaii and elsewhere. And he was developing his own business in Japan. And that's where he made his money, I guess. Did he have to borrow money? Did he make this investment with his savings? How did he go out there and start buying hotels, which cost substantial amounts of dollars? Of course there was borrowing, too. But the reality of it is also that getting money out of Japan initially was very difficult, as it is currently for China and Korea. When a country is redeveloping, the government doesn't want the money sourced outside of the country. They want the investment to be in the country so the country can continue to prosper and develop. But Kenji Osano somehow managed to get the banks involved. And of course with his cash as well, he managed to get the funds to invest overseas. So he found a way to do it because he could see that this was a good investment. What was the result of his investments? Where did they go? What happened to Kenji Osano? Well, Kenji Osano, you may know, was involved in a bribery scandal later on, back in the late 80s, as I recall, with one of the principles of the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan. A legislator that was pretty powerful. Both of them got indicted by the Japan authorities and they ended up with a lot of problems. But the investments did well, and the Kokusai Kogyo people, after some bumps along the way, still own most of the properties that they acquired, at least all of the properties in Hawaii that they acquired, and they're doing well. And of course, the initial investment by Osano spurred other investors to come to Hawaii after that. So like who else was coming? Of course, with the travel industry, you had people like JTB, JALPAC, the travel agency's coming into Hawaii, the wedding industry. Yes, we see them downtown all the time now, yeah. Like Watabe came in the 70s, JTB and those other folks came in the 70s. So that spurred quite a bit of investment from Japan in the 70s. And this is not just Hawaii, this is mainly the United States too, or is it mostly Hawaii that we're seeing it? Initially, for the 70s, I think much of it was in Hawaii. I don't recall that there was much interest at that time on the mainland at the time, so initially it was primarily in Hawaii. Okay, and that was in the 60s and 70s when that started happening, and a lot of it had to do with sort of a Japanese affinity for Hawaii too. Absolutely. What's that about? I mean, I see it, and the Japanese seem to love Hawaii. They do. And is it a cultural thing, because we've had so much Japanese influence here, or what do you think that is, that brings people which investment then follows? So what's that formula? Part of it may have to do with the fact that there is a large Japanese-American population here, and when you go to stores in Waikiki, you have these employees who speak Japanese, and it's not like it started recently. Even back in the 60s and 70s, we had people who were, well, if not fluent, at least can speak some Japanese and deal with Japanese tourists. So I'm sure that had something to do with that. So there's sort of a receptive climate here, a friendliness in Hawaii that brought money. I mean, the two things are interconnected, although you don't always think that's the way it should be. And the mainland United States kind of followed after that. Is that correct? The mainland was a little after that. I don't know if you want to start talking about the bubble yet. Well, we're going to talk about that in a minute, because we're going to take a break right now. And then we'll get back and talk about when you actually started into practice and what happened. All right, thank you. My name is Steven Phillip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and I'm the host of Shrink RAP Hawaii, where I talk to other shrinks. Did you ever want to get your head shrunk? Well, this is the best place to come to pick one. In doing this, we must have 60 shows with a whole bunch of shrinks that you can look at. I'm here on Tuesdays at 3 o'clock every other Tuesday. I hope you are too. Aloha. We are back with Alan Fujimoto talking about a brief history. A Japanese investment in the United States, especially with respect to Hawaii. Alan, you became a lawyer in 1985, I believe. That was about the time of what they called the Japanese bubble. What was that? Tell us about that. Officially, I did a little checking. The official records say that the Japanese bubble period was between 1986 and 1992. What led to that, basically, before that was that the real estate prices in Japan started jumping in the mid or the early to mid-80s. Land prices became really exorbitant in Japan, particularly in the metropolitan areas. Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, places like that. People could not afford real property. At the same time, the restrictions on the yen were lifted by the Japanese government. Back in the early 80s, 240 yen to the dollar started going up. In the mid-80s, it was already down to 130 yen to the dollar. The yen is becoming more valuable? Yes. It's probably a combination of things like that. The Japanese looked at it and said, hey, we can't afford these high prices for Japanese property. What about overseas? Sure enough, land prices were pretty stable at the time in the U.S. People noticed that and started looking into the U.S. responsibilities. The bank, the amazing thing about the banks at this time, was that the properties that these companies owned in Japan were valued so high that a lot of the banks said, well, we'll just keep the Japanese property as collateral. The value is so high, why don't you borrow our money based on the collateral in Japan and you can buy properties in the U.S. and we won't even mortgage those U.S. properties. Wow. The Japanese properties should be fine. Crazy when you think about it. When you think back, yes. Those are the things they were doing. So there was plenty of money available from the banks. So why wouldn't these companies interested look for properties in the U.S.? They couldn't afford more properties in Japan because they were so expensive, but there were cheap properties available in the U.S. So that's how they ended up coming to Hawaii. A lot of companies you'd never heard of before started coming to Hawaii, buying up hotels, office properties, golf courses, resorts. And this wasn't restricted to Hawaii. It went all the way to the mainland and you might remember the resentment people had when the Japanese bought out Rockefeller Center in New York. Oh, okay. Yes, I remember that very distinctly. Tell us a little bit about that and what your thoughts are about that, too. Well, I mean, they had the money. The banks were willing to lend them the money. So these companies that never invested in the U.S. had all this money to spend. And people were buying up properties in Hawaii. They said, okay, well, move on to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago. Well, New York's available, too. Why not? So they bought out these prime office buildings in New York as well. And they had the money. They thought nothing of it. And they ended up as landowners in the United States. And a lot of the funds were for loans that were based on mortgages on the Japan property, not necessarily the United States property, as I understand it. And did anybody think about that at the time? I mean, they didn't call it the bubble at that period. What were they thinking? I guess they didn't think. They just figured they had money. Apparently not, yeah. And all these circumstances with the yen becoming more valuable kind of coalesced. What happened? What happened? Of course, I mean, this wouldn't last. What happened was the property valleys in Japan started to go down. Then the banks started saying, oops. Well, I mean, we're covering all of these acquisitions in the U.S. based on the real property valleys in Japan. If these valleys in Japan drop, that might be a problem. And sure enough, it was. The loans started going bad. Primarily back in the early 90s, I guess people started realizing this effect. And the banks were in trouble. And they had to figure out, well, what should we do about the situation? And what did they do? And also during this period of time, what were you doing? By the way, what was your role as a Japanese speaking attorney in Hawaii, American attorney who knew the customs and practices of Japan? What was your role? The interesting thing is that I mentioned, sorry, practicing 85 just as the bubble was starting. So it kept me very busy, kept a lot of attorneys busy in Hawaii and across the U.S. The thing about the Japanese is that the Japanese practice in real estate acquisitions is quite different from that in the U.S. When the Japanese buy commercial buildings, resort properties, the contract they use is generally like two or three pages with very little detail. Just some language that says if there should be any dispute, we'll cooperate and resolve these disputes. That would never work in the U.S. And so they came to Hawaii to buy these properties and we'll prepare these purchasing sale agreements that are 60, 70 pages long and they'll look at it and say, what the hell is this? Right. And you'd have to explain it to them. Yes. And the thing is the documents, some of the more sophisticated people would have the documents translated either by Japan attorneys or people, translators in Japan because there were very few translators in Hawaii available at the time, as I recall. So getting these 60, 70 page agreements in place was quite demanding, not to mention that the deeds and assignment documents had to come along with that and there'd be several more documents like that. So when you sit at the closing table for people to sign documents, you have all these documents laid out on the table for the president of the company to sign and they were quite stunned at what they were getting involved in. Not the custom in Japan. So you'd have to sort of walk them through it and explain what to do. And the other thing is there would be no, in Japan there are no escrows, which is quite familiar for Americans doing real estate transactions. So we had to explain what an escrow is and how transactions were closed because I understand in Japan if you're dealing with some of the smaller transactions they would actually bring suitcases of cash on the table exchanging with what they call the kendisho which is sort of equivalent to the deed but that evidences ownership of the property. So you exchange the money and the deed at the table, which is something we would never do here as well. So the bubble burst and things went south. Is that right? They did. And investment stopped for a while. What happened? When the bubble burst and the banks were in trouble, of course they tried to resolve the issues themselves but it really wasn't possible. They didn't want to write off all of these loans that they made. Then the Japanese government got involved in the 90s after the bubble burst. They set up a government entity called the Resolution and Collection Corporation to assist these banks in collecting these bad debts. The RCC, as we referred to them, would take these properties under their wing and would get the parties together to resolve how the bad debts, if they could be collected, would be collected. Of course it wasn't possible to get a dollar for a dollar so they tried to do their best. That's when they started mortgaging the Hawaii and U.S. properties. Eventually the U.S. properties would be sold off. A lot of the people, the Japan companies that came in during the bubble, ended up losing all of their properties and some of their properties in Japan, if not all. A lot of the Japan properties would be reorganized and so forth. It was a bad situation for all of the Japanese involved. We only got about a couple minutes left. What's the current status? What do things look like now for Japanese investment in Hawaii specifically? How are things going? After the bubble burst there was a period where there were very little in the way of investments from Japan but things started coming back again because the Japanese continued to love Hawaii. They're looking at investments in the 2000s again but the layman shock was another little bump along the way. Even after that now the Japanese are coming back and I'm keeping busy with helping newer investors, the newer companies who are coming in who again feel that Japan is not big enough for them so they need to go overseas. A lot have gone to China and Southeast Asia but a lot of them still feel the U.S. Hawaii is a safe place to invest. I want to thank you and I want to invite you back sometime so we can talk about the future, not just the past. Thank you very much.


Welcome everybody! My name is Sally Stockwell and I am happy to have you here with us today to learn about forestry for Maine birds. This is a program that is all about helping landowners, loggers, and foresters manage woodlots in ways that benefit birds and other wildlife. So we're going to walk you through the basics of what forestry for Maine birds is and how you can take the information and apply it to your own woodland. And I have my wonderful partners here with me today, Amanda Mahaffey from the Forest Stewards Guild and Andy Schultz from the Maine Forest Service. And I think I neglected say I'm Sally Stockwell Director of Conservation at Maine Audubon. So this is a wonderful partnership program that we've been working on together for a number of years and we're going to create a series of mini videos that kind of walk you through the essence of a typical workshop. So what is forestry for Maine birds? Well it's it's designed to help breeding birds in Maine with create better habitat for breeding birds. Why are these birds important? Well if you look at this poster over here, you'll see that we have a variety of forest types here in Maine. We have coniferous forests which are sometimes called softwood forest, mixed forests that have both hardwoods and softwoods together, and then deciduous forests that are predominantly otherwise called hardwood forests. And each one of those forest types offers different places for birds to breed, to nest, to raise their young, and to hide from predators. So for example in the coniferous forest you might find black bernian warblers way at the top of a coniferous tree singing their hearts out. You'll notice how brightly beautiful their breast is, and they have a really thin, wispy song that rises up. Kind of like that. And then on the trunk of the tree you might find a blackbath woodpecker. They like old trees that flake off, the bark flakes off, they look for insects under those flakes. Down on the forest floor you might find a Canada warbler. Canada warblers, their populations are declining dramatically, and they like shrubby areas right next to water. And then if you move into the mixed woods where you have both hardwoods and softwoods, you might find a instead of the blackback woodpecker of yellow-bellied sap sucker. That's a type of woodpecker that feeds the drill's holes in trees, and the sap runs, and then they collect the insects that are attracted to that sap. In the middle of the forest you might find Magnolia warblers. They like sort of small evergreen trees, somewhat densely packed together, and they flit around in those forests. Down towards the shrubby area in the understory you might find black-throated blue warblers. They are particularly fond of hobblebush, which is this flowering shrub right there. It's dense enough they can hide in there, they can nest in there. And then if you look in the center of the poster you'll see there's a little opening in the canopy. That opening or gap is a place where you have species like eastern wood peewees or chestnut-sided warblers that will gather in that gap. The peewees will perch on a tree at the edge of the gap and then fly out into the gap to feed on the insect right in that gap. And then if you keep going over into the deciduous or hardwood forest that's where we find species like woodthrush, hermitthrush. The woodthrush likes a really dense canopy over tall dense canopy, pretty good fill in in the central part of the forest as well, and then they nest and breed in that middle story, but they often feed on the forest floor. They'll kick up the leaves on the forest floor and look for insects on that forest floor. And then in the very tops of the big oak trees you often find scarlet tannagers and in fact we have one that's singing right up here behind us. It's not going to sing right now of course, but it has been singing since we arrived. Maine is often referred to as the baby bird factory for the eastern United States. You can see why when you look at this map that National Audubon created of the last best forested acres in all up and down the eastern seaboard. And you'll notice right away that the largest green area occurs right here in Maine. So we have both an opportunity and a responsibility to create good breeding habitat for these different species because if there are no more baby birds, no matter what other threats these species face, their populations will continue to plummet. And we want to try to reverse that if we can. And we need your help. So please join us. Thanks. So our forests here in Maine are extensive. Excuse me. They we have over 17 million acres of forest land here in Maine. We have a wide variety of different types of forests. And that's why we attract so many birds back to breed in these forests. The other thing that our forests provide these birds are lots of insects. So there's amazing stories about how far away our breeding birds come from. On the far right of the poster, if you see the yellow lines, we have species like American Woodcock that come here to breed in the summer, but they live in the southern part of the U.S. during the winter. They move slowly back up to Maine over the course of the spring before they arrive in time for the soil is is thawed and they can find earthworms and other insects in the ground that they feed on. Then we have things like the Scarlet Tanager, species like the Scarlet Tanager, that breeds down in that breeds here in Maine, but then spends the winter down in Central and South America. And my favorite, though, is the Black Pole Warbler because Black Pole Warblers winter down in South America. In the spring, they work their way slowly up through Central America, Mexico, the U.S., and up into Canada, where they will breed in the Alaska, across the Canadian Arctic, and in far northern Maine. But then in the fall, all of those Black Pole Warblers congregate on the coast of Maine. They feed extensively to gain a lot of weight before they then jump off the Atlantic and fly all the way nonstop down to their wintering areas, 88 hours, almost 2,000 miles in one flight. It's truly amazing. So we have this wealth of species that returns every year here in Maine, and yet many of these species are struggling. They are of conservation concern. Their populations have been declining over the last 40 years. In some cases, they've declined 50, 60% of their populations. And we know from recent analysis of the breeding bird survey data that we've lost about a quarter to a third of all our birds compared to 40 years ago. And so we have this wonderful opportunity and responsibility here in Maine to try to create better habitat for these birds to come back and breed successfully. And we can do this along with other landowner and forester goals for how to manage their property. So that's what the Forestry for Maine birds program is all about. And we have, I'm going to pause there and then invite you back for the next step of our video series where Amanda is going to talk about what specific features in the forest these birds are looking for and how you can try to identify them yourself.


hahahaha The Black Viking is back and ready to react What's happening Madness Sikes?  Thug Bible This isn't the corner of the video. All right, let's check this out Yo, please Hello, sir. Can you let me out of here? No one's gonna kill me.  Are you gonna ride or not?  They went inside. They're not gonna be out for a while If you just open wherever Why you running?   Yeah, which way you running? He's like, okay So would y'all have done it? Would y'all have done it? That's all I want to know. Would y'all have done it?  I'm a black man I'm seeing you talking to this white kid asking me to help him I'd be like, look man.