Rainbows and Kittens, Lessons and Love

Dixie Maru Beach, West End, Moloka'i, where I spent many afternoons,
most of the time, the only one there.

Don't change Moloka'i, let Moloka'i change you.

* * *

You don't choose Moloka'i, Moloka'i chooses you.

I landed on Moloka'i almost ten years ago in the middle of one of the biggest wild fires they had had in decades. The smell of smoke was everywhere, helicopters were taking off and landing, dropping sea water on the flames, firefighters covered in soot crowded the isles in the tiny grocery store. It seemed that I hadn't simply landed on Mars, I had landed on Mars and it was on fire. 

Symbolically it was appropriate, given I was there because my own life had burnt to the ground. But I didn't know that it would be like an alien planet. I did know that there were no signal lights, no buildings taller than a palm tree, that two cars lined up at the four-way stop in town was considered rush hour traffic; that they have a tragic and also moving history marked by the leprosy (properly Hansen's Disease) colony on the remote and beautiful peninsula, Kalapaupa; plus the longest white sand beach in all of the islands, and the highest sea cliffs in the world. All in all the perfect sounding place for a save-your-life sequester. I assumed it would be a lot like Maui, my favorite place on earth, just smaller and calmer. How different could they be, after all, they are sister islands in the same county, separated by a mere seven-and-one-half-mile channel.

When I woke up on my first morning there I wondered how in the world I was going to get out of my three-month contract for the admittedly decent little place that I had arrived at disoriented and deeply disturbed the afternoon before. I couldn't fathom spending even two nights there much less ninety. It was dry and dusty, like an island desert, with red dirt everywhere, rumors of modern day nocturnal Menehune marches to the sea, and deer that barked at night. Plus the owner had not been truthful about its proximity to the ocean or the ability to hear the surf from the condo. As day broke an hour later, I found my way out of the sprawling complex on a small-o-odyssey to find the beach. I ambled down a small, half-paved road littered with dozens of flattened toads, past the shells of abandoned, rotting resort buildings, through a dead-brown golf course, around a drained, neglected swimming pool. When I arrived at the shore and plopped down on the damp sand, I wondered how I was ever going to heal my own grief in a place that was so barren, so broken itself, when suddenly materializing out of seemingly nowhere was a rainbow. And not just any rainbow, but the kind only imaginable in a magical fairytale land, fully saturated, full-on double arches anchored in the lava cliff at the edge of the beach, stretching up, and over, and then cascading like a colorful waterfall into the ocean far out in the middle of the sea.

And that in a nutshell is Moloka'i.

One minute you think you can't stay another second, the next, you know in your every cell that you are there because somehow it's the right place to be; and later, after she has grown on you in ways you could never imagine or see coming, you weep at the prospect of ever having to leave. When she welcomes you, it's a full-on embrace that will mark you forever. Time and again I was told that I didn't choose Moloka'i, that she chose me; she either welcomes you with open arms or she doesn't, and you'll know it. I heard of people getting off the plane and making a one-eighty right back onto it. She is strange and magical, homely and gorgeous, passionate and indifferent, weary and welcoming, acrimonious and loving, and yes, deeply healing. She is a loving but not so patient teacher, with an aloha spirit that will flat-out knock your socks off. She, born of the goddess Hina, is the real deal, and those who call her home will go to any length to protect who they are and what they have, and I heard time and again, in fact, it's memorialized in song: look what they've done to our sister Maui... . Hence, the hand painted signs as you drive from the airport, the toppled trees suddenly blocking certain roads that are being desecrated, their reputation as the island people voted most likely to give you the stink-eye as you drive cavalierly around their sacred home in your rental car.

(Which is why you rent a beat up old clunker, that loses water constantly then overheats and leaves you stranded on the side of the two-lane road at least once a week, waiting for it to cool so you can add the water you carry around in the trunk for that purpose. But that's okay, because first of all, this is serious island time, I mean what's the hurry, and second, never once, no matter what time of day or how remote an area, did a car pass me by without stopping to ask if I needed help, offer me their own drinking water for my radiator, or a ride somewhere~unless of course it was said tourists in a rental flying by.)

When I flew from Oakland to Honolulu and then on to Moloka'i, I was deep in mourning, and when I landed back in Oakland three months later, it enveloped me again as though I had never been away. But in between, for those ninety days (minus the first day of course) she gave me an unbelievable gift, a respite from the long journey of recovery from just too many losses in too short a period of time. She gave me sunshine and warm ocean water, fishes and turtles, a calm sea and a raging one, which I loved with equal passion. She offered exotic flowers and scents and insects and birds, especially the barn owl sitting on the rotting fence post, the only owl I've ever seen in the wild, especially the Lesser White Fronted Goose who appeared as if by magic on the beach one morning, apparently having been blown far off her migration course, especially the zebra dove whose haunting coo woke me each and every dawn without fail. Painted skies at sunrise and sunset, the full moon setting over the ocean as the sun rose on the other side of the small land. Words and images and music, Old Style; feral kitties needing food and water and care, and people. Incredible experiences with incredible, loving people who somehow recognized me, my need, my own aloha spirit, my own love for them and their island, caring for me and embracing me as their o'hana, bringing me so generously into their Moloka'i family.

My Daily Bread

Writing is an unfolding of what's going on inside me as I talk 
to myself on a pad of paper or a computer.
~Parker J. Palmer

For the first time in so long creativity is flowing out of me. Even more, many mornings I do indeed~ miraculously~wake up eager to get up and see what wants to be created. (On the other hand, sometimes I lay awake in the middle of the night wondering the same thing!) Even more, I am so in awe as new and completely unexpected things are showing up, taking my photos in fresh, long yearned for directions, and sky rocketing me out of the creative rut I've been in for so long.

It either happened by itself (which a former long-time spiritual teacher insists is true in all happenings, even if it seems as though we made it happen), or, it's a combination of intention, work, and possibly most importantly, stopping my compulsive consumption of hours and hours of political podcasts daily, a habit that developed since Trump became president. The thinking was that when there's a monster in the house, for peace of mind, it's good to know at all times where it is and what's it's up to. But what tracking the monster actually did over time was rob me of my precious time, precious life energy, and keep me every single day on the cusp of hopelessness and despair, many days, especially lately as the news keeps getting more and more dire, falling over into the dark abyss.

But while photo after photo is birthed, I can't seem to write. After a conversation yesterday, I'm seeing that even though I've given up podcasts, to make the art I make, I'm either on my laptop or my phone~and often moving at a fast pace between the two~which means that my device time has actually grown, and by a lot. It's well known that the internet and time on our devices wears new pathways in our brains. We become less able to focus and imagine and dive deep, less willing and able to just be, which is vital for the creative juices to ferment. And, those little red icon notifications on the social media platforms (I'm using Instagram for my photos) have been shown to provide dopamine hits to the brain. It's well calculated and works like a charm, like the lab rats to the sugar, we can't help coming back for more.

If creating photos is my joy, writing is my daily bread. As opposed to taking and editing photos, to write, I need access to deeper parts of myself, the river that runs at the core of my being. The quiet place that is home. The space where the mystery lives. The deep well where I find my most true self and also, what is real, what is most alive.

Right now I am submerged in the healing work of trauma, and some days it feels as though my entire world is shaking itself apart. One thing after another emerges, I never know when or why or what, or whether my four-year-old, my eight-year-old, my twelve-year old, or my adult self will show up longing to be seen and acknowledged and loved. It feels chaotic and I often feel powerless, survival itself feels threatened, and the fight or flight response is activated. All which make it harder than ever to remain present and simply be, near impossible to actually do the things that I know can always help me find true home again, and can help to fill the depleted well.

After a few days when they were quieter than I'm used to, the birds have been singing this morning. Right outside my window one seems most insistently trying to get my attention, and the moment he gets it and I start to write about him, he moves on. Creating again has made the daily despair but a distant memory. I cannot be more excited about all that I am learning and exploring creatively. It all feels gentle and soothing and healing; inspiring, invigorating, jubilant.

And also, I have to take care. I've seen how the compulsiveness in me, the need to distract from the pain and sorrow and uncertainty, can take something like this and run with it into unconsciousness. I feel it as it's happening. I feel the urge to pause mid sentence as I'm writing to check for those inane red icons (does anyone like me?!), to pull out my phone in the middle of a conversation, to mindlessly work on a photo while waiting to be called into the dentist (maybe actually not a bad thing given my anxiety about the dentist). And daily I sit down to write and find emptiness.

Tell Me...

Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it life?

~Mary Oliver

People who write say that being in the mood to write is a luxury. They say you just can't sit around and wait for the muse, because she/he/it may never~ever~come calling. They say to show up everyday, face the page, and just write. Hemingway said to write one true thing (or something to that effect). When I'm really stuck~which seems often right now~I always come back to that: write one true thing, a challenge I've come to see only if you're writing with someone else in mind.

There are so many true things today, but here's one that's fit for company: I want to write like Mary Oliver (don't we all?). Not simply the way she can convey so much with so few words, her gift for invoking the heart and the soul like she does, her capacity for such mind-blowing intimacy with a stone, a blade of grass, a moth, the whole wide world; how her words can liberate you from your dark cellar in an instant; one fragmented sentence and suddenly you can breathe again and light is spilling, I mean seriously pouring through the cracks.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Those two lines were a beacon that changed my life. From a poem about a grasshopper~seemingly anyway~though of course it's never that simple with Mary, not by a long shot; which is why we love her like we do.

And another~

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.... 

.... it was already late enough, and a wild night 

It's possible those poems actually saved my life. It's possible that those poems are why this morning so many years later I was able to go hiking with my daughter and her daughter, my precious, precious grand baby. Whom I've been wanting to write about for such a long time now but could not even begin to find the words to convey that truth; the truth of her, the truth of watching my daughter become a mother, the truth of my own wild heart journey of becoming her grammy. Letters strung together just so outrageously banal when talking about total mind-bending love, terrifying over the top love. Yes, of course I felt and feel that for my daughters as well. From the moment their beautiful beings slid so miraculously from between my legs: deep, abiding, unconditional love, the kind of love you would throw yourself in front of a bus for, that you are blissfully and wistfully ignorant of before that moment in time. But there is something unique about this, something that utterly defies words.

I think it's a time of life thing. I think it's that it's free from responsibility and laundry and cooking and decisions and the terror of making mistakes which of course, are always, always made. Even with the greatest of intentions. Small ones for sure and sometimes, ones that are not small at all, that even decades later you still cannot forgive yourself for. 

But here's one thing I can say. Being with her, holding her, talking with her, giggling with her, feeling her sweet little fingers wrapped tight around my one finger as we walk together; when we are nose to nose and cheek to cheek; when we are watching the hawk, the baby deer, the turkeys, the horses, the moon; rocking, reading books, blowing bubbles, running with our shadows, smelling peppercorn leaves, hugging trees; no matter what we are doing or not doing~not doing can be the best times with her ever~being with her instantly liberates me from anything and everything that is not the moment; that is not the preciousness of life, right here, right now. 

Being with her I breathe more deeply than I ever have in my life. Each breath bringing more softness, more tenderness, more heart than I ever knew I was capable of. And healing. How ironic and lovely and unexpectedly mystifying is it, that this beloved little one is helping my own little one to heal. And as I heal, I am more and more present, more and more alive, not just for her, but for my daughters, too, and for myself, too. I could never have imagined this, not in my wildest dreams~

Just write one true thing. Apparently the rest will take care of itself.

💗 

The Radiant Deep

Sometimes we lay our heads sideways on the water

to look up at the skies and just gaze. 

We ponder not so much in thought as in

feeling what is stirred within.

~The Dolphins

From Muriel Lindsay's 

"The Dolphin Letters"

Sometimes clouds can be total works of art. Like this one this morning that made me think instantly of an angel wing. Never mind the rest of it, which was this big marvelous swath of ethereal energy propelling itself upward, like a giant hand reaching out from the sun. It was mesmerizing, and I wanted to just keep walking, to get closer and closer to it.

It reminded me of swimming in the gulf stream, one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had. The way the sunlight hit the water and went so deep, rays and rays dancing and melting into each other in the unfathomable and mysterious depths of rich indigo blue. It was hypnotizing, and then, too, I just kept swimming to follow it, though the trick was it was everywhere. It was everywhere and it was just so tantalizingly out of reach. I was constantly hearing my name yelled from far away that I was too far from the boat and needed to turn around.

But the truth was, out there in the middle of the endless blue, nothing but water and sky, I didn't care. I would have followed that light anywhere. Not only was it stunning and completely otherworldly in and of itself, but in that glorious alternate universe there was simply nothing but sublime sensory experience: no monkey mind; no sticky thoughts, no fears or anxiety. No critical self talk or stories about lack or belonging; no heaviness or fogginess or limitations, no trauma in the body or psyche. Just a heart blown wide, and a body, mind, and spirit more at home, more present, more alive and in the fullness of its being than it had ever been before. Feeling, as the dolphins say, all that was stirred within.

That day was bookended by days with hours each in the water with dolphins, incredible experiences that could never quite be believed, moment after moment that leveled me, that melted and undid me, that filled me and everything around me with magic and joy on a trip that nearly imploded before it even got started. Days before the Gulf Stream swim I had walked on the boat exhausted by the journey across the continent and to Bimini, the smallest island in the Bahamas, but filled with excitement to be there again after nine years. Half an hour later I declared to anyone who might want to listen that I could not stay and walked off the boat. I just left. It was outrageous of course. For so many reasons, not the least of which was Bimini herself, tiny island, little ability to get around or communicate, nowhere to go or stay; still, it felt out of my hands, my body moving of its own volition.

It started with learning that my favorite crew member would not be there as promised. Sweet Tita, all smiles and morning hugs and light in her beautiful eyes, who saw me nine years before and understood and held my hand and walked me terrified through the surf; then held it still as we snorkeled back and forth parallel to the beach, as I began to get the rhythm of it; then held it again, the first time in the big, endless ocean; literally held me as I met my wild fear and watched it morph into something utterly unexpected; the greatest pleasure and the greatest freedom I have ever known. Few people have left their mark on me like she did and I could not wait to see her again, having planned my trip completely around when she would be there.

It went down hill from there. An awful, airless, tiny, cramped cabin shared with three other women, and a wall of energy put off by one member of the group that felt so negative I had no choice but to flee, only to wander, my own mini odyssey, until I finally got it that there was simply nowhere to go and I walked back aboard an hour later, sullen and embarrassed and pissed off, straight into the arms of Capt. Geoff, who had arrived while I was gone; big, totally dysfunctional teddy bear who with Tita and the dolphins had rocked my world nine years before, and promised, easily broken I now knew, to make it all okay.

An hour later we all boarded a stifling van for a local beach while Geoff put in supplies and got the boat ready. Totally out of my body, never had I felt less like I belonged anywhere, and I straggled behind the group, and slowly took off my shorts and t-shirt and walked into the warm, clear water, the salty lap of the Great Mother, where I lay on my back, and just like the dolphins, stared up at the endless sky, as She, in her profound wisdom, held, soothed, and prepared me for what would be the most remarkable, otherworldly five days of my life.


(So far ;) ~

* * * * * 

The new title of this blog, The Radiant Deep, came directly from that day swimming in the gulf, as well as the knowing that so far anyway, no matter how deep my dives have been, the light has always been there even if it felt out of reach, shining, waiting, while I gestated in the dark.