Lunar Leo

Born in mid-August, I fall into the astrological sign of Leo, but my true affinity has always been for the moon; no surprise with a name like LUNEL.

Facing East - Sun through the trees

Turning West - Full moon setting

Each month for the full moon, I head down to "da pond" - Ahalanui where, at high tide, waves crash over the lava wall protecting our favorite local swimming spot.

During most of the year, I can make it down for an evening swim. Watching the sun fade and the sky turn pale lavendar, pink and blue, the moon will rise large over the ocean. During the winter, a moon light swim at night sometimes presents more of a challenge as it is darker earlier.

Last Monday, for the full moon, I rose at 6am for a drive down to swim. Going out the door to the car, I had to stop dead in my tracks as the sunrise coming through the trees on the east side of the property was so glorious. I took a photo, and then, turning to the west, I found another stunning view -- the moon setting in the west. Not a bad way to start the day!

Moonlight (Malamalama o ka mahina)

While waiting for the moon to rise -- here's my view (while floating)

Phil and I are attending a weekly Hawaiian language class for beginners. The purpose is not to learn to speak fluent Hawaiian, a rich complex language that is very much alive and taught early to children attending local schools. Our goal is to learn what we can, so we may more fully appreciate the highly conceptual nature of this language, where for example, the word aloha means about 15 different things!

Moonlight on the water

Malamalama o ka mahina means moonlight in Hawaiian. Malamalama is also the name for a local school because this word also means light of knowledge. Lama means torch, lamp or light.  Each month for the full moon we make a trek down to the ocean to watch to moon rise over the water. The drive down at night is dark -- there are no street lights as we head due east from our house. Nor is the area where we swim lighted, so flashlights are essential. This last full moon we arrived about 45 minutes early, so it was very dark and the stars were brilliant.

It is absolutely delightful to walk down the well-worn lava steps and slide into the warm dark water at Ahalanui Park. Since I swim there several times a week, I know where all the edges of the large pool are and how to navigate in the dark. Just floating in the water under the stars is beyond magical.  This photo is exactly what I saw this visit. Then, as the moon rises, the eastern sky begins to lighten with moonlight playing tricks with the clouds. Moonlight also plays across the waves as they pile up and crash over the sea wall of the pool.

The ancient Polynesians navigators made their way to many isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean by celestial navigation -- using star "lines."  Currently the Polynesian Navigational Society is conducting a three-year voyage round the world using star charts like the one we have included here.

Two hand built voyaging canoes Hokule'a and Hikianalia, are traveling over 60,000 nautical miles around the world.  We encourage you to learn more about this amazing voyage by clicking on this link: Polynesian Voyaging Society .
 

Lunel's Historic Quilt

Working in our spacious dedicated art studio.

In January I pulled out almost 30 T-shirts that moved with us to Hawaii.  The T-shirts range from 1980 - 2011 so it really represents a 30-year history of my life. Since our average temperature is 75, it's really too hot to wear them, so I decided to cut (most of*) them up into squares and make a quilt for myself.  (No, I have never made a quilt -- but it is so like me to just jump in and figure it all out as I go.)

Back on February17th, I posted the beginning of the project, but since then I have painted, sewed, embroidered, drawn on, and bejeweled and embellished 36 squares and still have about 8 to complete.

Well of COURSE there would have to be a MOON!

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Above is a picture of me that Walt and Jenny took during their visit last week.  Most of the squares are 8x8" but some I have cut into quarters to create some 4x4" squares.  Photo here shows twelve completed squares (most details you can't see well) -- and one of my favorites enlarged so you can see the detail.  Each one is a miniature work of art and I've had great fun doing all of them.  With the border added, I think it will be about 5x7 feet.

* I only have five T-shirts now, which are nice to wear on chilly mornings and evenings -- "chilly" in Hawaiian means about 65.

Blue Heaven On The Skin

Yesterday I took myself down Pahoa-Pohoiki Road (better known by locals as Mango Road) to Ahalanui Park for a late afternoon  swim at the warm pond there on the edge of the ocean. 

The full moon was awesome last night, the water...ahh, just the temperature of my skin.  For this child-of-water, the experience is indescribable.  "Floating between" sky and earth, I cannot tell where my body ends and the water begins.  I am suspended and surrounded in a bliss of well-beingness.


At one time I might have said, "I have waited all my life to be here."  But the truth is that every single step along the way has brought me to this place of nurture, warmth and magic.  As curved waves break over the edge of the lava and pour into the pond, I am swept by unseen currents and my body rises and falls rhythmically.

I see tourists coming down with their cameras to take a picture of it, but they do not get in, and "click" they are gone.  This is "to experience."  Those who have had the privilege know; those who have not -- well, how can you even explain it.  So, after a year of satisfying "labor" (on house, ohana, yard, and garden) my muses are again calling to me to ??  somehow express and articulate (with my own artist's voice) the wonder I feel.

While it is certainly womb-like, all movement is completely unrestricted.  I feel both strongly connected to the earth, but suspended under the blue sky, I also feel my connection to the heavens and beyond.  At dusk, I float, arms extended, my right hand holds the sun, and the moon is cradled in my left hand.  I am an orb.  My dear Priestess of Poetry, Sherri Rose-Walker, once read me a new poem that contained the phrase "blue heaven on the skin" -- and I stopped breathing!  How aptly those five words captured how it feels to be in the living water.  While a photo or painting might capture the "image" I cannot stop there; I am driven to express how this experience FEELS.