Lotus flowers bloom once a year for just a few short weeks and this image was captured while visiting Waimea Botanical Gardens on Oahu.  When walking in to the gardens we asked the woman at the counter if there was anything that absolutely should not be missed.  As her eyes welled up with tears and she said "The Lotus." And she was right, they are absolutely spectacular!

Chinese poets also use lotus flowers to inspire people to continue striving through difficulties and to show their best part to the outside world, no matter how bad the circumstances may be. This is understood as being just like the lotus flower, bringing beauty and light from the murky darkness at the bottom of the pond.

This image is a composition of photos taken on Oahu combined with a very old print made from a woodblock duck carving by Andō Hiroshige (1797-1858).

This image was captured on Waikiki beach.  For several nights I sat on the beach at sunset and was entertained by the same group of boys storming the beach at 6:30 every night for a sunset surf session. They would stand on the end of this little jetty and wait for a wave to come that was big enough to carry them off.  I can still hear the hoots and hollers in my mind from the shear joy of jumping into that first wave.

The Byodo-In (平等院) Temple is a non-denominational Buddhist temple located at the Valley of the Temples. It is build without nails and is absolutely breathtaking,  It  is a replica of a 900-year-old Buddhist place of worship at Uji in Kyoto prefecture of Japan. Inside the Byodo-In Temple is a nine-foot Lotus Buddha, made of wood but plated in gold.