Kīlauea Update, Thursday, June 21, 2018, Ka māuikiʻikiʻi o ke kauwela

Ka māuikiʻikiʻi o ke kauwela.  The Summer Solstice.  

Iʻd often go beach, or go walk, or be outside and pay attention someplace unpeopled, as is often my wont.  This sunrise, Iʻll be glancing outside, then going Hilo.

But yesterday, yesterday...

A field trip to a nearby ranch to visit, observe, learn, and share with the kahu of the lands, a hardworking couple who are deeply appreciated for their works.  We went to a place Iʻd never been.  Some friends, especially malihini from the continent, sometimes ask:  Donʻt you ever get bored, living on that little rock in the ocean?  I pricklebristle and then reply, How can I get bored?  There are SOOO many places I havenʻt been yet.  And of course, "Place", in my mind, isnʻt The State, The Island, The District, The Ahupuaʻa, The Town... Itʻs the bay, the cove, the puʻu, the stream, the pond, the small portion of lava flow, the kīpuka, the tree... Itʻs the little things that matter.  The unexpected, the surprising.  The Oh!!!  Look at this!  Or wooowww... catch the scent of ʻaiea wafting oʻer the lavalands...(nānā, hk).

And yesterday, the unexpected and surprising thing was my reaction to a simple, but deeply felt and firmly believed quiet statement from the kahu:

I am honored to be chosen to be here...

And of course they werenʻt talking about the field trip.  They were talking about place and livelihood and kuleana
[a wakeup shake!!!]
and most importantly, that often unspoken aloha ʻāina for their ʻāina aloha.

And, going with the flow, I started sharing about my feelings about the topic, and out of nowhere I got choked up.  Pause.  Breathe.  Wait.  Look at ground.  Try talk.  Look at ground some more while breathing deeply.  Sip water.  Breathe.  Hemo glasses.  Wipe eyes.

The images of ʻāina aloha lost were flashing through my mind, all the way back to 1987, when, giving an orientation talk onstage in the Kīlauea Visitor Center, I nearly lost it when talking about the pond at Punaluʻu, or Queenʻs Bath as we called it then.

I was honored to be there, and watched and filmed as it was being filled with pele.  Everyone else left shortly after the photo below was taken by Jim Griggs of HVO, March 31, 1987.  Third from left in yellow shirt, video camera on shoulder, I stayed all night, mostly alone, though f/z checked in occasionally.

And by morning, Pele had had enough to drink, the loko (pond) emptied of water and filled with pele.  Sound familiar?

On stage, a few weeks later, I was taken by surprise, as I was yesterday, by the raw emotion of...all of it...

Beloved and cherished places gone, buried, save for memories, replaced by the beautiful intricacies of the handiwork of Pelehonuamea.  While in the midst of An Event, we kick kick kick, treading water to stay afloat, then when The Crisis passes, we tentatively breathe, assess, and try to move on.  That moving on involves grieving for loss.  And itʻs not like we say, OK, itʻs 1030 on Tuesday, time to grieve.  Itʻs a process, of course...  

And yesterday, at the ranch, I began my grieving process.

Our wake-up call, as noted above:

This Summer Solstice morning, Pelehonuamea continues to work.  ʻŌlaʻi are frequent, lehu emissions thin, Māwae ʻEwalu fountains, and the newshore steams.

My main thing, the last five years, was walking, several times a week, from the Devastation Trail Parking Lot, on the closed-to-traffic portion of Crater Rim Drive, to Keanakākoʻi.  Most of the time with eb, but once in awhile Iʻd holosolo.  After one of those once-in-awhiles, I wrote something.  And Iʻll simply leave you with this...with the hope of returning...some day...

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC