Kava in a coconut cup

Okay universe, I give up, I get that life is magical and that my  notion of a Newtonian sense of reality is simply, well, wrong.

Let’s re-wind to December and January.   Each Wednesday as the Hawaiian Sun was sinking over the sea, my friend Jenn would pick me up on her amazing scooter and we would breezily slide down the Red Road to Kalapana, the Kava Bar where Hawaiian men’s voices were raised to the Ukulele, where coconut shell cups of Kava were raised by our sun soaked hands, and where Jenn and I saw the  last rays of sun as it set over lava fields.   As  the sun sank into the waves and kava sank in our stomach’s Pele’s lava’s glow intensified and traversed the volcano toward the sea we sat by,  the very same volcano that had shut down the red road at the spot we now gathered at, some forty years prior.  We were literally sipping and sitting at the end of the red road running from two towns that had been covered by lava in the last fifty years, a twelve mile reprieve of lava flow, well at least for now…..

Those Wednesday nights at the Kava Bar were full of song, and talk, and beauty and soul. The Kava is the drink of the Shaman, the Kahuna of Hawaii even to this day.  It is not merely a beverage, it is a sacred rite and is credited for bringing one’s mental clarity and soulful presence into view.  It is the drink of reconciliation, communication, treaty making, and communing with community.   It is grown on three places on earth, one being the rainy side of Hawaii.

To commemorate these weekly kava adventures, my friend Jenn and I have committed to continue our Wednesday night  at the Kalapana Kava bar despite the fact we have flown back to our not so sun soaked spots back home.  We have committed to continuing our Wednesday nights at the Kava bar by talking over skype from our north American mainland perches from Vancouver, Canada to New Mexico communing: minus the kava, minus the lava, minus the tropical breeze….

Kava Bar Kalapana

Finca Vigia

Hemingway's writing tower

Hemingway with Fidel

My Heart Will Go On lyrics
Songwriters: Horner, James; Jennings, Will;

Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you
That is how I know you go on

Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on

Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you’re here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on

Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never let go till we’re gone

I awoke with the recognition that I had been back on the farm.   The horses, the donkeys, zebras, camels, goats, the peacocks, the endless people and buildings and barns.  The dream had been lengthy and epic and I awoke with the sense that I had just been walking  on wet kentucky farmland.

But my outstretched arms were grabbing at high altitude air.   My husband Henrique had been very much alive in the dream had been gone for several years now.   Had it been a visitation dream?  I wasn’t sure.  I walked downstairs and headed for the teapot, filling it with water and waiting for the sound of boiling water.

I read and wrote for a couple of hours and returned to the teapot for reinforcement and noticed two calls had come in the last hour unnoticed as the ringer was in the off position.   I listened to the message.   It was the sound of a kind woman, somehow in need of new dog training and exercise.   I rarely walked dogs, it had been the bedrock of my early days as a trainer, but agility, scent, and basic obedience work had superseded my repertoire.

I called the woman.  She had a large dog, a young jubilant dog in need of exercise and training.  She was flexible and easy to talk to.   I liked her and the sound of the dog.   We made arrangements for a training plan.  ”what is his name” I queried…..”Hemingway”, came the answer.

Pregnant pause.

It was yet another tilt your head back and laugh kind of days.   “Really, I love that name.” I finally responded.  My former husband knew Hemingway, in fact we had visited his former home in Cuba.  Finca Vigia was a beautiful building, a home constructed in 1886 just ten miles from Havanna proper.   Henrique had interviewed Hemingway here amidst his high tower where he stood and wrote due to an injury he has sustained on one of his elaborate hunting trips.

Monday will be the beginning of a five day journey with  another Hemingway.   My Hemingway is four legged but is up for an adventure and I am sure it will be an epic adventure minus the bullfights, the big guns, and Spanish American War scenery, but that will be fine.

I salute Hemingway and dear, dear Henrique who seems to hover nearby and smile over me in my dreams and in my days.

Hemingway reclining with a cohiba cigar a la Henrique

Hemingway

February 2, 2011 was ground hog’s day as well as a couple of other notable holidays I was soon to learn about.   I awoke, placed my Chanupah (native american ceremonial pipe)  in my car along with my dry-cleaning, athletic  bag, and books to study later in the day.  My Chanupah would be traveling with me to Death Valley for my upcoming Vision Quest in March.   It had become clogged and needed repair.    My all- wheel -drive car safely transported along the dirt roads that I live off, undulating, curving, and passing by juniper, pinion, mesas, adobe houses, and coyote fencing and blue mountain ridges in the distance.   Just as I pulled onto the macadam, my cell phone rang.   It was a  medicine woman I knew offering me sacred Kinnick-Kinnick (a mixture of Bear Berry, Mullen, Red willow bark, osha root, and yerba Santa) which is  used as a traditional ceremonial smoking mix.   I told her that I would love to have some sacred Kinnick-kinnick, and that it was funny that she had called as my Chanupah (sacred pipe) was in the car for me for a ride to a local Lakota Sundancer who I was hoping would help me to fix it.  The stem had become clogged.

The medicine woman urged me to come to her home so that she could fix it, and so I did noting that her timing was impeccable as I had not yet turned in the opposite direction.   I reached her home where she and another medicine woman was by chance as her schedule had changed last minute.    They both looked over my chanupah.  ”Ernest” as was the pipes name,  was dissected, cleaned, and clogged and prepared for smoking.

We held a sacred circle, sharing each others thoughts and observations.   I spoke of some challenges I was dealing with and these wise women gave me their love and instruction, and then we shared the chanupah, left hand outstretched, smoke billowing from the sacred chamber.  They suggested I relinquish all that does not serve me, to retain the lessons of life’s challenges, and to understand that I am a woman of authority.

We discussed the significance our spontaneous gathering on this the second of February, the mid point between the winter and spring soltices, a day of great significance and power.   The ancient celtic people celebrated this day with fire and festival and called this day  Brigid; the wicca held this day a day of initiation calling the day Imbolc. *

For their generosity I offered to take one of their dogs for a jog.  I went out into the cold with female dog jogging at my side. She was young and inexperienced, often running behind me, or switching sides with the leash pulling me in awkward motion.  Over time our dance improved and  a large red tailed hawk came and circled overhead staying with us for several minutes.    We continued down the dirt roads meandering by cholla,  desert grasses, desert jays, and heard the  high cawing ravens  under the blue and graying sky.   Within forty minutes we had finished our jog.   I had my iPhone and earphones plugged in, grateful for the distracting music for the remainder of our one mile walk.

I checked my emails.  There was one email from a lovely woman who had performed my marriage ceremony asking when I was available and if I was ever in her neighborhood.    I had been jogging and was now walking in her neighborhood.  I leaned my head back and laughed at the sky.

I continued on my walk with the dog  to the house.  Just before I reached the door, my iPhone chimed a new email.   It was from my ex.  He was  far, far away in the city of our honeymoon and had just been to a museum that we had visited some 9 years previously suddenly realizing he had been there before.   He said he was staying directly across the street.   I smiled at the synchronicity.

I thought of the intentions I had just sent to my vision quest leader:

*(Wickpedia states: Imbolc as one of four “fire festivals”, which make up half of the eight holidays (or “sabbats”), of the wheel of the year. Imbolc is defined as a cross-quarter day, midway between the winter solstice (Yule) and the spring equinox (Ostara). The precise astrological midpoint in the Northern hemisphere is when the sun reaches fifteen degrees of Aquarius. In the Southern hemisphere, if celebrated as the beginning of local Spring, the date is the midpoint of Leo. Sometimes the festival is referred to as “Brigid”.)

Waimea looking toward Sea

Facing Backwards, I see the past, our nation, lost our– sovereignty gone, our lands gone– all traded for the promise of progress what would they say….what can we say?  Facing the future I see hope, hope that we will survive hope that we will prosper hope that once again we will reap the blessings of they magical land for without hope i cannot live  Remember the past but do not dwell there: face the future where all our hopes stand.  Cry for the gods, cry for the people, cry for the land that was taken away and in yet you will find Hawaii    (from Israel “iz Kamakawiwio ‘ole—album Facing Future)

I awoke uncharacteristically early,at 5am, and couldn’t get back into sweep slumber.   I  turned on the television and watched a film entitled Princess Ka’iulani.

Princess Ka'iulani

The princess  was Hawaii’s last princess  who died in the aftermath of Hawaii’s  fall from Independence.   The film concludes that she died from a broken heart due to her country’s loss of sovereignty.    Others attribute her death to a cold she got while swimming on the big island of Hawaii followed  by taking a horse back ride in the mountains of Hawai’i Island during a rain storm.  She came down with pneumonia and died at the age of 23.

Her journey from Hawaii’s black shores to mountain ridges took me back to my last journey on the big Island of Hawaii– to Waimea –a ranching community in the  Kohala  Mountains of the Big Island some 2,600 feet above sea level.    Waimea is where some 10,000 Hawaiians once lived and farmed the land.  By 1820 their numbers had dwindled to a mere 2,000.     Waimea is where  I supposed the princess had taken her fateful horse ride.   Waimea’s tall  pine trees stand, with the verdant pastures, overlooking the ocean some sixty kilometers away.

It was new years day.  I  had stopped at mile marker 51 which seemed poetic as I had just reached  51  just two days previous.   There, in the rain, three noble horses trotted toward me, one, then another, the most timid coming up last accepting my outstretched hands.   I faced my past as I stroked their soft muzzles, thinking back to the green fescue fields of my horse farm in Kentucky.

New year’s day morning I had walked along the sacred shores of the Waipi’o Valley just an hours drive away.  Waipi’o Valley is  nestled at the end of route 240, cliffs look down upon the  Lo’i and Taro fields of the few family farms that remain there.   The history is obscured by the harrowing descent of the road best traversed on foot and by the tidal waves that washed away much of the evidence of its profound spiritual history.

My sneakers slid on the steep road from the early morning showers.  It was a long and precipitous walk, each step bringing me closer to the verdant valley floor bringing the horses, stream, black shores closer to me still.    Waipi’o has been called the Valley of the Kings. Waipi’o  was the home to the ancient royal Hawaiian chiefs as well as several heiau (temples) and pu’uhonua or place of refuge.  The tsunami of 1946 washed away most of the homes that stood there,  but surprisingly  the violent waves did not destroy the now well hidden temples.  The large expanse of black sand beach is where I imagined the princess had taken her last swim.

I walked for an hour passing grazing horses, poi and taro patches, trees, vines and flowers bursting forth in all directions.   As I reached the valley floor, I walked under the huge canopy of trees along the volcanic soil to the black beach.  A few local surfers had made the descent before me in their four wheel drive vehicles and were bringing in the new years day with grace, harmony, and waves.   A fire was burning surrounded by large lava rocks.     I sat and took in the surfers and the surf and gazed at the enormous waterfall in the distance, water cascading in torrents, down, down the cliffs of Hawi toward the green ground below.   Black and Green and Blue.

I continued to walk under the trees, on their dead balsam paths below the pines.   Signs and large volcanic rock marked sacred burial grounds that  hold  ancient  bones.

This hallowed area of Hawaii is the Hawaii  that Princess Ka’iulani sought to protect from the greedy and disruptive grasps of capitalism–a Hawaii where native peole farmed and still farm  their ancient Tarot while guarding  the pine groves, and sacred graves, waterfalls, and black pristine beaches.     In Waipi’o I saw  the past while I faced forward into the future of 2012……

The heart of the Waipi'o Valley

Jen on her scooter going down the Red Road sporting Pele t-shirt

A month ago I was milling about the Farmer’s Market in Kalapana.  It was a Wednesday night and the sun had set over the lava fields and the ocean that still roared in the not so far distance.  The lull of the ukelele and the Uncle’s band’s rising chorus did nothing to dispel the magic of the sultry breeze.   The kava juice I was sipping from a coconut shell was having its way with me and added to the allure of this most   festive if not magical night.   My friend Jen and I took to talking to an artist from Hollywood, a former scenic painter who had taken this bohemian end of the island and claimed it as his home.  He had some painted t-shirts for sale.  They proclaimed  Pele on their backside, with Nike on the front.  I liked his  t-shirts,  typically sported Nike official sports ware, but somewhere within resisted purchasing a custom made t-shirt emblazoned with Nike across its front.

And so I told the artist what my father had always said.  ”i’m not paying izod to advertise their shirts.  They should pay me!”  And so he avoided the alligator t-shirts.

“Nike is a Greek Goddess, just as Pele is the Hawaiian Goddess of the Volcano” the artist defended.   How had this bit of information eluded me all these years?  Nike is the Greek goddess of Victory.  Hmmmmmm.  I am half Greek, maybe that was why I leaned toward Nike ware………  And so my friend Jen and I now have matching Nike/Pele T-shirts, one which you can see on her scooter shot  (as seen above with the small letters PELE) as she speeds down the Kalapana highway (aka red road) keeping the Greek/Hawaain Goddess alive in my absence.

But even as my feet have left the Great Green island, so my spirit has remained.  Pele sends me her motivational goddess energy even here among the desert crags of New Mexico as only a molton  lava can… finding the little fissures and cracks in which to slide…

And so on  Friday, when  I misplaced my running/biking glasses and so I drove down to the sporting goods store.   I spoke with a saleswoman about sunglasses, running, swimming/biking, all those aerobic activities I enjoy.   She handed me her card.  She is a triathlete who coaches women and puts together training program.  I had been feeling the allure of returning to my sprint triathlon past.   No longer are the 1/2 marathon’s pulling me forward, too long, too hard on the body….but sprint triathlon’s are great cross training with a mere 3.1 mile run/12-15 mile bike, and 16 lengths in the pool.  Why not.

I told her I was interested in working with her.  And then she let it drop that she had just qualified for the Kona Ironman slated for October.   Wow.   I remembered seeing some of the iron men athletes biking in the aftermath of the competition when I made it to Kona for the first time last October.    I left the store, and headed home.  Once home, I made my way into the kitchen and there lying in plain sight were my misplaced sunglasses on the kitchen table.  I had spend one full half hour frantically searching for them before giving up and heading to the store.   Hmmmmm.   Was this the handiwork of the dynamic duo Pele and Nike?

On Saturday, during a break for a weekend seminar,  i made my way to the fashion TJMAX in search of an insulated lunch box. I didn’t find a lunch box but I did find   two horrible bags of “KONA coffee” (I failed to recognize it was chocolate macadamia nut flavored, ughhhh) and the perfect colored Yoga Mat.   When I hit the registers the label came into view.  Wai Lana Yoga and Pilate Mat.   I laughed audibly.  Wai Lana was the name my Hawaiian studies instructor at the retreat center in Hawaii.  The photo on the yoga mat featured Wai Lana as an Hawaiian Goddess standing on one leg stretching outward toward the Hawaiian Ocean with leas on ankles, headband, and dangling down from her neck.   I had to laugh, here was a Pele stylized Nike.  The perfect mat for me!

The next day I met with my new Kona bound triathlete coach.    She filmed me on the treadmill, pointed out some key flaws and some areas of strength, had me do some planks on the yoga balls, jump rope for the first time since grade school (its much harder now), and set out a month long training plan.   Since then I’ve biked and run.

No doubt, the five weeks at sea level have set me and my mitochrondia back from our previous 7000 feet above sea level fitness level.  Truth is, I’m at the bottom of the hill.   But then again, I’ve walked up an ever higher hill.  14,000 foot Mauna Kea, little over a month ago, I made the summitt up the nations highest volcano, climbing up through the clouds and up the peak.  It was a steady uphill climb which I was reminded of last week when my friend Patty sent me a photo of my ascent from a distance (see below).

So, being the Greek gal that I am, I embrace the Nike styled climb toward victory. I aspire to take flight and grow wings.   One step in front of the other, with the help of my friends here on land, and the Goddesses of Greece and Hawaii.   You don’t have to be the FTD man to hold flowers and take flight……………………you just have to have an affinity for the Goddess Nike and sport the leas of Madame Pele.

climbing mauna kea that's me second to last

wai lana pulling a pose

Nike, Greek Goddess of Victory, she's lost her head but not her nerve

I felt exposed as I sat in the faux velvet seats of the Stadium 14 theatre as the film “we bought a zoo” unfolded.   A man, played by the ever handsome  Matt Damon, grieving the loss of his wife along with two children despondent in their loss of their mother, buys a zoo where peacocks cry, dromedary camels graze, zebras sneeze, and fescue grows.    The man, one Benjamin Mee is a retired journalist, having spent a lifetime circling the globe, gathering one adventure after another as a spectator, buys a zoo and through resuscitating the fallen zoo, becomes a participant in his life of adventure, not simply a voyeur.   The zoo, called Rosemoor, closed for repairs, is in the process of rehabilitation for a greatly emphasize scheduled re-opening of July 7., 2007 (7/7/07)

“WE BOUGHT A ZOO” was my own personal cinematic  flashback.. I was back in the 1990′s feeling  my “farm”  feet squish in my paddock boots  as I walked down the gravel path toward my husband passing gazelles grazing, antelopes eating, bison migrating across fields of fescue.  Our zoo was  where goats and kids skidded by small children,   where John Deere tractors mingled with Fallow  and Sitka deer, where Massey Ferguson’s infringed upon Mating Grant Zebras and erratic Emu, where small children extended carrots and clapped.     It was Where magic gathered, where adults were reintroduced to the magic of Mary Poppins.   It was where I healed my aching heart.

In my minds’ eye, I am back in that time and place.   I see my  husband bent over some fencing, reaching into the utility box on the back of his Toyota pick up truck to pick up a pair of pliers.  He sees me and his face and coveralls are covered in mud and now his face in covered in a smile that is greeting me.

The petting zoo was my husbands pride and joy.    Identical to the Matt Damon character he created the zoo over the years to act as a form of entertainment for his children after returning to the farm after his many years as an international journalist.

And there was more, more bizarre synchronicity to follow.  July 7^th held great significance for me as well as my favorite grandfather had shot and killed himself on 7/7/87.   Within five years, I found myself living on my new husband’s farm with a large exotic animal zoo a Benjamin Mee stylized former international correspondent.     The zoo,  the farm was my salvation.  It rescued me from my grief and deep sadness over the loss of my grandfather.  So too, I watched Benjamin Mee and his family heal at the hands of his menagerie of exotic animals, lost in the task of the caring for the animals, deeply entrenched in  cycle of life.  There is great power in taking care of the lives of others… we can get  got lost in the chasm of care that animals can evoke in us.  Ben Mee and his two children are resuscitated and restored  with the re-opening of the zoo having found a new raison d’être, and their zoo opened on July 7, 2007…….

And the name of the zoo in the film was Rosemoor, like the Rose in the name of the road our zoo lay on.

The zoo depicted in the film exists in real life not in the United States, as one would assume but rather under the heading of Dartmoor Wildlife Park bordering the Dartmoor National Park in Devonshire England.     Hello again to  magical serendipity!  I spent two weeks in Dartmoor at age 16 (7/7/77)  as part of my summer in England as having achieved a post in  the Experiment in International Living.  I lived in the suburbs of Plymouth England (Oreston) with a British family comprised of a mother, father, son and daughter and a slippery little ferret who lived in a hutch in the small back yard.  I lived   just seven miles from Dartmoor Wildlife Park.    As part of the program our American group stayed in Dartmoor at John Earls’ expedition center.   There we kayaked by the Queens royal swans (who can be quite menacing), trekked across the moors, passing  Dartmoor ponies,  we waddled through muddy underground caves,  and we repelled on rock cliffs,  and meandered by cow pies.

I left the film feeling exhilarated on one level and utterly perplexed and overwhelmed on another.   How could such a remarkable set of coincidences exist in the rational world in which I thought I lived?  What was reality?  How could this be, what did it mean?  Just what would Jung have to say about THIS level of synchronicity?    It felt wondrous and menacing all at once.

In the midst of my quandary, I   received a delightful email from my sister with a message accompany by a photo of the Bactarin Camel  (as seen below).  The message read: ”

I have had a whirlwind return from living in the lush jungle near the lava flow on the wild side of the big isle of Hawaii where watery waves crash, dolphins frolic, innumerable stand of ferns, orchids, wild fruits, and trees sway to tropical breezes, where rainbows greet storms passing, frogs are the metronomes of the night, and where the cell phones lie unanswered, where Pele goddess of lava is queen, where manifestation is profound, speedy, and ever present and where the vibrations of water molecules are breathed yogic ally by the oceans lungs, in waves, in movements.

My yoga instructor reminds me to breath in, breath out.  follow the breath.  I close my eyes and I see and hear the ocean.   The waves must be the breath of the ocean, the breath that i borrowed to clear, heal, and center myself in a lush water land of Hawaii.

On the large green isle, I meditated and jogged and swam and did yoga daily.   I spent long stretches of time alone and in silence.  I had time to be and to contemplate.  I bicycled or walked the 1-5 mile distances I needed to on an old Wal-Mart Bike that the sea air had tarnished.

I came home in a heap and sprang into school, leaving my morning mediation and yoga on the shelf and I transitioned into classes, and meetings, and phone calls, and driving, where I was involuntarily thrust into groups and attachments with people I do not know in most unnatural ways, had my quiet solitary time stolen, as well as being confronted with some serious boundary issues with acquaintances that required me to take action.  In this abrupt transition, I had forgotten to pray and to meditate and ask my higher power for help.

And so I am learning to conjure up the images of the water in this high desert land lashing me with high desert lessons devoid of the flow and harmony of more languid lands.   I listen to my Dr Jeffrey Thompson “ocean waves CD” with alpha waves, I listen to Israel  IZ Kamakawiwo’ole’ music, I  got rid of texting on my cell phone, yesterday I descended into the blue chlorine waters of the Olympic size pool, and swam for a half hour.   I descended into the land of the unconscious with my therapist, asked her for help in remembering my dreams.  She gave me a dream recognition recipe:  Place a glass of water by your bedside.  Take a sip, and consider remembering the dream upon finishing the glass of water upon rising.  Water, the cure.

In the midst of this transition back from the watery world of Hawaii I have been handed the   the challenge of working in groups.  I am attending group mee ings, have been assigned group assignments, and have found this a daunting challenge to my fierce sense of independence and revived life as a single woman.

Our group has emailed, and spoken twice in person.  In all It’s taken over two and a half weeks to build a consensus.  It’s not what I had hoped for, but, I really had hoped for a consensus more than a specific subject.   The healing modalities or lineages is the chosen subject.   I have been relegated to looking into Emotos study of water, his body of work on water……his leading edge lineage of water as a healing modality.

Emotos’ water…the modern day healing modality of the hidden messages in Water.

And then I had to laugh……….because here in the high arid  and sometimes annoying world of New Mexico; I have inadvertently found the water that I so miss!  May I find the hidden Messages in Water that Masaru Emoto guards.

In Hawaii I learned about the ancient and contemporary Hawaiian Culture and how historically,  their commitment to their Tribe brought them to their new-found home of Hawaii located thousand of miles away in the unknown waters of the Pacific.  Hawaii is defined as an  archipelago  or group of islands.

This traveling  feat required a committed  group.   The Hawaiins commitment to their tribe ultimately lead to their survival as a people.  Hawaiian culture is predicated on an adherence to working in harmony, balance, and grace.  The group of Hula dancers is a dance which is characterized by  fluidity, grace, sychchronization, and harmony just as the many paddles entering the water of the powered by outrigger canoeists.  As a summer canoeist for seven years in my youth, I know what it is to move in harmony, move as a team, to move as one. 

While on the Big Isle of Hawaii, I attended a four hour lecture on the state of the honey bee in Pahoa on my 51st birthday.

The drones, worker bees, and  the Queen, all work selflessly tougher in a well choreographed dance of union.   The highly social Dolphins that I swam with lead a similar existence.  The group protects and enhances the life of the group.

And yet, in my own life I recognize that I have often side-stepped the “group”.  I’ve never been a person who really gets revved up at the idea of joining a group.   Carl Jung recognized that  the group (vs the individual) was often unpredictable and potentially cruel and or violent and functioned at the level of its lowest functioning member, it’s lowest common denominator.    Look at the wars human groups have started!  Look at all the riot gear police wear when an angry mob gathers.   Jung was no fool, and neither am I, but dealing with Groups is my 10 week personal assignment as I move into the early months of 2012.

I am taking two classes towards my masters that are requiring that I participate in group dynamics and group assignments.  One professor chose groups of three and called these working groups “tribes”.   I felt my initial resistance.  My ego/individual self wanted no part in having its personal freedom put to question.  I need to lean into this fear, let go of the reigns, and have faith that I should take it as it comes.  People are unpredictable, sometimes lazy, sometimes passive aggressive.  But I have my recent experience in the Honolulu  airport to reflect upon.(see previous posting).    I could have lost my mind in the airport getting upset and angry when my flight was cancelled at three in the morning having waited on the plane on the runway for three hours, but I didn’t.  My composure prevented me from the suffering I witnessed surrounding me.  The universe rose up to meet me, providing me all that I needed in each moment.

Last night I joined a meditation group.  The theme of the evening was to let go of control, prayer, set intentions and let go of the wheel so that the universe can deliver.  It’s the message I need to focus on and remember as I fold into the group and quiet the individual.    The more I stay centered through the power of meditation, the less reactive I will be when the group does not meet my ego’s expectations.

The message for 2012 is stay connected.   I need to take time out to meditate, set my intentions and have faith that all I need will be arranged by the most consummate of all concierges in the proverbial sky…………..

“Look at that sea, girls-all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen.  We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and rope of diamonds.”  Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables.

What’s left of the sea lays in  creases of my suitcases, my hiking boots, and in the regions of my mind and my soul, making me more buoyant in the shifting tides in this thing we call life. For my journey back from Hawaii took a day longer than I had anticipated.  I left the damp and cool Hilo airport without a hitch, boarded my next flight in Honolulu for a red-eye scheduled to fly directly to Phoenix.   I covered my eyes with an eye mask, my noise cancelling headphones  set in place, I was asleep minutes before our takeoff was to occur at midnight.

I awoke at 3am having learned the plane had not left and was now cancelled.  The din of the crowd  spelled anxiety.   People were frantically reaching for cell phones, many had already de-planed agitated.  Complaining surrounded me.    I, thanks to a month near the sea , took the change in plans all in-stride and viewed the change as an opportunity to have another day in Hawaii all expenses paid!

We ambled to baggage claim.  All around me people were struggling to make plane reservations, many complaining of being on hold.  I opted for a comfortable seat near the baggage carousel. The man next to me made mention he was going to make reservations by cell phone, I said I would wait until I got checked in at the hotel as my cell phone had lived comfortably back at my home for the month!

He placed his call and made reservations.  I thought to myself how wonderful it would be if he magically offered me the phone and the reservations person he was speaking with would also quite magically entertain such an expedited plan.  Magic!  He turned to me, while still on the phone asked me if I would like to speak with the reservations woman he had on line, asked her to help me, and literally in seconds I had a new flight scheduled for 10:30 the next night. Countless from our flight are still stranded in Honolulu as I write.  I thanked the man handing back his phone and asked him where he was from.  Maryland came his response, but he had lived in Santa Fe for five years preiviously working as a nurse at the Indian Hospital there.

What has this to do with the sea, the ocean?    The sea has a rhythm and grace and her share of moods.   The spirit of Aloha teaches one to mold and meld in harmony.    Go with the flow of intuition says the ocean.

Back on the big Island I made a close friendship with a woman named Jennifer who hails from Vancouver.  We are roughly the same age, both single, both adventurous and athletic.   Jenn taught me about the sea.

Jenn has a scooter that transports her from work to the beach in a matter of minutes, and she was kind enough to transport me to the black sands of Kehena beach on more one occasion.    She told me to never turn my back on the ocean as she can hit you from behind (with great force to which I can attest), to ask permission to enter her, and she will treat you deservedly.

On my last day at Kehena beach, Jenn had me write in the sand all things that I wished to let go of.   I asked the Sea to set adrift my judgemental nature, my impatience, occasional anxiety, anger, grudges, and typically “proactive” pushy east coast ways.   For every deserving requests, the waves came and washed away the words written in the sand.   Those she didn’t acknowledge were re-worked.

Finished swimming, we sat on Kehena beaches’ huge Volcanic rocks sunning ourselves.  A familiar woman came by and spoke with us.   She spoke about the dolphin she had removed a fishing hook and net from the week previously.  I had spoken with a man who had aided her.  She was known as the “dolphin lady” of Kehena Beach     ( see:  http://foxandpup.com/MY_DOG/DOLPHINS.html     )The dolphin lady swims, plays, and learns from dolphins.  She told about how her closest dolphin friend had brought whales to her side.  She spoke of the amazing bond between dolphins and humans and dogs as well.    As the dolphin lady  left the clouds obscured the suns rays, and Jenn and I took the scooter back to my lodgings.   I made our last cups of coffee from the fine Kona coffee and filters she had brought me for Christmas.  I plugged in an electric kettle, stabbed my filter with a chopstick, suspending it in the cup, just a part of the “jungle existence” I had come to love.

We spoke of next winter, meeting here in the heart of Pele country (volcano goddess who lives there on the shores of live lava flows even today) next winter break.   We spoke of a million things and she drove me to my final yoga class before heading to the airport.

At four am, squared away in my voucher powered Honolulu high-rise hotel room, I chose the pay per view movie:  A dolphin’s tale.   In the film, a young  depressed boy finds a beached dolphin with a fishing net and hook.   He removes the hook and a emergency vet and ambulance come and take the dolphin away.   Ultimately, the dolphins tail  must be removed due to infection leaving it with no means of transport.   In the end, the dolphin is given a prosthetic tail, the young boy has developed a close relationship with the dolphin, and has joy and meaning restored to his life.   It’s a true story.   The drama sent me into dreamtime and when I awoke, I picked up my complementary copy of the Honolulu Star Newspaper.   The headlines squawked ” Whale pair makes rare harbor visit.”   I downed my Kona coffee, put on my running clothes and jogged out to the Honolulu Oceanfront, passing  by  pedestrians, bikers, homeless, and  a flurry of Japanese shoppers until I reached the shoreline with an unobstructed view of the sea and all that humanity had done to displace mother natures sultry Polynesian seafront.   In recent days I had been listening to the songs of Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwo.  Israel sing about Hawaii’s white sandy beaches, and here they were.   I felt the hint of homesickness for the black rough lava filled shores of the jungles of the big isle, so far from Wakiki’s shopping district, my recent home of free dolphins, free hippies, free coqui frogs, and the  new-found “free-me” I found there.

Now back home from my delayed flight to the main land I check my email.   There is a letter from my vision quest leader offering an equipment list for our visionquest slated for this March in Death Valley.   Life, its waves, it journeys, are ever changing and ever press forward.

I’ve unpacked my suitcase, the snow is falling gently upon the high desert landscape I see through the pinion and juniper trees outside the window.  I have unfurled the newspapers that hold the various shells I collected, mostly the cowry.   I rub my fingers along the rough ridges, hoping for a Hawaiian Genie to materialize and take me back to her sweet shores.  Here in the high desert of Santa Fe’s January winter, I cling to the lessons I’ve learned by the sea.   Stay in the moment, watch for the waves, go with the flow, don’t fight, let go, keep your heart open, feel the water flow, let it flow, let it flow, let it flow……….

We learned the Sea,

Lyrics, Dar Williams

I am the captain and I have been told
That tomorrow we land and my ship has been sold
Now losing this boat is worth scarce a mention
I think of the crew, most of all the first ensign
For all we learned the sea

Guiding a ship, it takes more than your skill
It’s the compass inside it’s the strength of your will
The first ensign watched as tempests all tried me
I sang in the wind as if God were beside me
For all we learned the sea

You take the wheel one more time like I showed you
We’ve reached the strait once even I could not go through

I am the captain and I have been told
But I am not shaken, I am eight years old
And you are still young, but you’ll understand
That the stars of the sea are the same for the land
And we came to learn the sea

I was bumbling along waiting outside the yoga studio killing time.   I walked up to the bulletin board and reviewed the local postings.   Massage this, yoga that, retreat this, alternative that, and there it was: a beautiful blue poster with a large bee, sacred geometry superimposed around a large blue sea punctuated by the  infinity symbol.   The poster heralded  a  lecture about bees, scheduled  for two weeks later on my birthday in the nearby hamlet of Pahoa.

I had had a consultation with a Mayan Priest in May.  Eduardo had performed a healing ceremony on me, helping me to heal and separate from the man I had lived with close to a decade.

After the ceremony, Eduardo reminded be that  according to Mayan Astrology, I was a bee, a honey bee.  According to the Mayans, bees are communicators, networkers, and adventurers, pollinators:  they are manifestors.   After the ceremony,  which involved an egg,  energetic clearing, mediation and prayer, Eduardo bade me farewell and  sent me to the Ark Book Store in downtown Santa Fe where I was to purchase two small Mayan candles and most importantly some Copal to burn.  This was his prescription to support the energetic work he had already done.

And so, I drove off to the Ark book store straight from his home in the Pecos.   When I  arrived at the bookstore I advanced quickly to the section of the store devoted to sage and candles and such, found the two colored candles he recommended and copal and headed to register.   The lone employee behind the counter was busy with another women, and so I stood at the counter killing time.   I looked down and there lay  a book entitled, “The Shamanic Way of the Bee” by Simon Buxton.   The book literally lay below me set  at a 45 degree angle.   How very odd I thought.  I thought of Allison in Wonderland’s expression about how things were getter “curiouser and curiouser”.   “Alice had it about right”, I muttered to myself.

I honored “Sacred Synchronicity” whenever it reared it sense to such a degree, and so I purchased the book and began to read it.   It was spooky, it was fascinating, it was way beyond my comfort level.  And so I put it down, and life continued unabated, and the book lay unfinished.

Two weeks after I found the Hawaiin Bee poster, I emailed my Ukrainian friend on the Kona Side of the island in attempt to render vous  on the West Coast of Hawaii.   We connected back and forth and made tentative plans to connect.  She told me she was slated to visit Pahoa on my birthday as her husband was giving a lecture.  ”What is he lecturing on?” I queried.  ”Bees,”  she replied.  I paused.  ” Is this the Temple of Uriel lecture on Bees?”   “Yes,”  she replied.  I was stupefied.  120,000 people lived on the big Island of Hawaii, and her husband was delivering the lecture I had wanted to attend.  What were the chances?

The morning of my birthday, I took my rental car down the south eastern road between the two now missing towns of Kalapana and Kapoho.   Pele has submerged these two towns in the last fifty years, her lava now flowing some few miles away under lava tubes and above, her path shifting daily and clearly visible at night just five miles down the road.  I found a stretch of rocky shore near some surfers and watched their ballet unfold.   The weather was perfect, the wind not to weak or strong.   I put in my ear pods and began to listen to music which acted as a musical score for the surfing safari I was witnessing; that is   until I was interrupted by an explosion of fire crackers that assaulted my ears through my headphones.

My head snapped right in response to the noice, and there I saw  a small boy   with glee pasted upon his face some twenty feet away.  As my head turned,  an enormous black bumble bee appeared , and held space in front of my third eye for roughly four seconds, some six inches from my face, stationary like a dragonfly, and it was off.  Strange maneuver for any bee.   Stranger too  that a bee would show up for my birthday, eerie intact.  What was the bee telling me?  Showing me?  Asking me?  Did it  show up to remind me to attend the lecture that night?

In the afternoon, back from the beach, I picked up my friends, Patty and Jenn, and we drove off to the Kava bar at Kalapana where we enjoyed Smoothies and Kava and headed off the nine miles to Pahoa to attend the Bee lecture.

My Ukranian friend arrived at the beginning of the lecture, and we settled in to hear the amazing story of the once  high school science teacher who had been approached by bees in a trance, directed to set up a Hawaiin Bee Santuary, become a beekeeper, bee protector, and communicator for their cause.

She said the bees were under attack by the foolhardy activities of humans, that they were profound and brilliant creatures who had managed to withstand the ice age, asteroids, having gain wisdom on their 10 million year old presence on this earth.   She showed slides of Mayan Bee Shamans, she spoke of Simon Buxton’s Book.  She spoke of the ancient Cretan’s Minoan society, a female run society that worshipped Bees.  I thought of my grandfather’s name, Kritikos which literally means MAN FROM CRETE.    She spoke of the importance of the queen Bee, and how her color was blue, and her number was eight, the number of infinity.

I had grown up at 8 Jeffrey Lane, now lived at 8 Likely Place.  Natalia’s enormous knowing eyes sought my gaze.  She pulled her shirt top back and forth and raised her chin to suggest I look at my clothes.    I looked down at my clothing, solid blue from head to toe.

I was in some kind of labyrinth, a hive of sorts, this was clear.   2012 was surely going to be the year of the Bee.   To Bee or not to Bee that is the question………………That’s the buzz………