Beginning to feel the bittersweet pangs of leaving this island...my geographic home for many years...where I came of age, and bore my children, and eventually found my spirit through the Spirit of this aina. And this was my heart-home throughout all the years I was away from her...her memories and the culture I had adopted as my own, offered me grounding no matter where on earth I was. This morning I find myself listening more intently to the sound of pulsing waves on the Waimanalo shore, intentionally committing them to memory. In paying attention to the intensity of my emotions it dawns on me that I have begun to say goodbye. Memories are flooding my being...provoked by the book laying open by my side on the bed. I am reading Hawaiki Rising by Sam Low. It recounts an era I lived...the Hawaiian Renaissance...the building and first sailings of Hokulea, the rebirth of Hawaiian music, dance, language, and ceremony. So many familiar names and events unleashed from memory banks, most of which had not been opened in a fair while. Nostalgic, sweet, sadly missed...I realize how much of who I am today was shaped in those days. I am feeling blessed to have experienced it all. It is with sadness and joy, excitement and curiosity I move into this next...feeling like the last...phase of my life. I have had the pleasure of living a good deal of my life along Hawaiian beaches. And a good number of years on the mainland nestled within glorious mountain ranges in the Pacific Northwest, and even within the marshes of coastal Georgia. And now Pele has called me to the volcanic plains of Puna, between mountain and sea, where I will soon see what she has in store for me.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 22:20:05 +0000
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