Building Lava Rock Walls (Intuitively)

For many reasons I have gone through most of my life trusting my intuition, mostly ignoring directions, and being willing to fail and learn from my own mistakes rather than first finding some book on the subject.  It never occurred to me until just today that I could find a book, let alone a U tube video to tell me how to build a lava rock wall.  (click on any photo to enlarge)

To find lava - start digging!

Flat blank canvas - our property (2012)

Today, after three years, I decided to look it up. When the first words were "get out your measuring tape" I knew I was in the wrong department.  When I saw that you started with the BIG rocks first, I realized I had spent three years of building them upside-down. Silly me?!?!   I begin with all the SMALL lava rocks first, stamping them firmly down to create a wide bed.  After a layer or two of medium rocks edged firming into place, I finish my walls with the big heavier stones that hold everything in place.  To my way of thinking, everything in the universe is built from the small stuff.

Stomp a firm foundation

Funny thing is, when we first moved to the Puna District on the Big Island and began to assess the very blank canvas of our one acre, there were no visible lava rocks on the flat terrain of crushed red cinder surrounding the house.  I ignorantly asked our next door neighbor where people got their lava to build with.  Typical of the kindness here, he did not laugh, and replied quietly, "You just have to start digging."  And so I did.

I have never allowed "not knowing" to stop me from learning, but in following my intuition, I decided that I would let the lava teach me what I needed to know.  I look at our first walls, and I smile; although they are not so good, they were my patient first teachers.  In fact the first word I learned in Hawaiian language was PO, as in POHAKU.

An "upside down" lava wall in progress.

PO has many meanings that include: night, darkness, realm of the gods.  Its deeper meanings also include a primordial deep darkness from which everything springs into being-ness. This certainly appealed to me as I appreciate the mythology surrounding the Sacred Darkness respected by many cultures around the world.

POHAKU means rock, stone, but lava stones here in Hawaii carry the spirit of the land in ways far to complex to enumerate here. Simply put, however, they are the foundation for the entire island culture that did not use metal -- used for building gigantic structures, for walls of homes and pens for animals, for scraping and cutting tools, weapons, catching fish in lava walled fish ponds, and preparing food. Working with them I feel an appreciation and I feel a quiet sense of grounding being here -- in this new-land-place.