Spring Into Spring

Today, standing near where our home was

This week celestial events gave us the drama of a SUPER MOON and the first day of SPRING. Also this week we were invited to do a TV interview about the devastating experience of losing our home last year, the trauma of evacuation, the anxiety of dealing with the insurance claim, the stress of living in four places in less than nine months, and our focus on recovery and starting over -- from scratch.

Given this conjunction of events, we decided to mark our "spring" as a personal "new beginning" by visiting Fissure #8, now a prominent and permanent 200 foot landmark in Leilani Estates.. Of the many lessons we have learned throughout this past year perhaps the most important is to look fear directly in the face, or as Pema Chodron reminds us -- to invite in what scares us.

Lunel placing our offering

Art by Jessica Taruni
Originally created for The Volcano Inn 1999

Standing at the base of the cone, we offered ho'okupu (offering) with a flower lei Lunel had made with orchids from our home. She sang an oli (chant) of gratitude for all we have learned and received. It was our first time visiting the place where our home stood, but we both felt ready.

After the loss of our home, many people asked whether we were going to leave Hawaii -- but honestly that thought never occurred to us as we both feel deeply connected to the 'aina - a Hawaiian word that means not only "the land" itself, but a relationship with the whole island-environment, itself a symbol of destruction and creation. Recently we even bought a beautiful, large stained glass window to place in our new home.

Please listen to this talk by Auntie Pua. It is short but packed with power -- about the changing of seasons, a celebration of the SUN, and our place in this world of reciprocal cycles.

 Auntie Pua --

 The Intense Breath of  the Sun

Post Hurricane

This is the "lighter side" of the hurricane, and we certainly deserve to  enjoy it, now that Iselle is gone.  But the sad thing are the houses along the shorelines that wave larger than this broke over -- leaving many homes in shambles. 

Additionally, there are thousands of homes here in the Puna District that are without power -- and will probably be so for many weeks.  Dozens of transformers in many subdivisions blew up as Iselle passed over and hundreds of power poles lie along the roads strangled by downed trees and electrical lines.  We have heard that there are not nearly enough power poles or lines, or transformers to address this emergency.

We continue to send out aloha and support to people without power or water -- and are very grateful for those who are willing and able to provide much needed help.  We are fortunate that we have a 10,000 gallon tank of purified rain water for our use and a BIG ass generator that keeps the freezer and refrigerator functioning just fine.  We have two solar panels on the roof that operate the pump that circulates our water through the filtration system as well. 

Having survived this, and realizing the holes in our own preparedness, we have spoken to our contractor about installing a sub-panel off our electrical box that will have just enough switches on it so that in any future power outage, we can simply switch essential appliances over to the generator and avoid the cords now running through the house for computer, phone re-charge, and TV.

About 16 people showed up for our Tiki Party on Friday night and we all gathered out on the new lanai (not quite finished).  Of course the Super Moon was stunning, and it was really nice to have a little diversion and moral support for continuing clean up and repairs after the storm.

NEW CORGIS IN LEILANI -- Driving around our neighborhood for a few days was like traversing a maze -- trees and power lines down in many places.  Driving down one street we recalled there were people living there who we heard had corgi dogs.  Sure enough they were out at their front gate so we got to meet their owners and have a quick peek at their tribe.  SIX corgis live at this house, and we were happy to find other folks who were equally entranced by this charming breed.