I've settled into a supposed energy vortex known as puna (or the 'punaverse'). I like it here. there's lots of farming, musicians, artists, foragers, tantrics and maniacs. and plenty of rain. apparently the rainy season is on the brink of tapering off, but freshly evaporated ocean waters pour on us now.
I had a great last few days in Hawi. Cedar, the goat, gave birth to 3 kids, and it was a joy to hang with them, watch them engage in goaty play, a bit clumsily. I milked the mother a bit, but she wasn't all that into it. I tried to force her into the miking stanchion but she really wasn't into that, so we just got a bit out of her to keep her from swelling up too much. the kids probably needed most of it anyway...
On my travels down here to Puna, where I've settled into a month long work trade arrangement, I befriended a really sweet quebequois couple who invited me to travel with them in their rental car. we cruised through the south of the island, sat with some sea turtles resting and eating in tidepools. we camped near the kiluela caldera (the currently active volcano), hiked around on fifty year old ground in kiluale iki (little kiluela), with warm to hot steam vents shooting out here and there. the rainforest environs were dense and misty and reminded me of the northwest. I've sense encountered mative hawaiin thimbleberries (longer and smaller leafed then their pnw cousins), black cap raspberry cosuins, and heard tell that there are 11 native vaccinium species (huckle/blue berriy relatives), and salmon berry cousins... so much shared ancestry of which I've yet to look into the lineage story.
The place I'm at is called La'akea. It's an intentional community, with daily check ins and weekly meetings (one for business / consensus decision making) the other for 'heart sharing'. Its a place with a 20 + year history of permaculture design. Unlike the last place I was at, this one is in the middle of jungle, sub-tropical rainforest, with managed gardens, orchards, plant guilds and animal (incl. human) homes etched into an abundance of wildness. In the first day of worktrading I herded misdirected sheep and harvest and dug into a jackfruit that was at least 40 pounds (its the largest tree growing fruit, sometimes weighing over 100 lbs (or heavier than the artist as of recently re-known as prince!)); also took cuttings of some tropical perennial spinach and sweet potatoes. It's a beautiful place, more like what I was looking for. It took me a while to get here, but so it goes, I'm here now and thankful.
besides being with people who share my values of living together and consciously managing and living within land, for all the beautiful plants thriving in the warm and wet, I'm thankful that I'm able to be near soaking wet and not freezing because of it, that they have bikes I can use (I'm in town, Pahoa, now, about 4 miles away), that there are natural steam rooms (hot steam vents shooting into caves) I can bike to. To be close to the ocean, to live near a beach with weekend drum and dance gatherings... and to be returning in less than 6 weeks.
I am still having acid reflux problems. I just went to a clinic and they reassured me (again) that my heart and lungs are healthy. So I await the onset of hawaiian insurance coverage and try another round of acid reducer pills along with careful diet. once the insurance comes through (hopefully in a week or 2 ) I'm going to have my stomach and esophagus checked out more thoroughly , unless the heartburn is by then solved (hopefully it will be so)...
...kind of a scattered bl'enrty.
I wish all health, love and bliss following.
jeremy
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
sunny side up!
Okay, so I'm out of the rains, and hanging on the beaches of the sunny / "Kona" side of the island for a few days to take a break from work, recenter myself, soak up sun and seawater.
Swimming, goggled, at "beach 69" (just south of hapuna, south kohala coast) I encountered a massive creature that at once startled me and brought a smile to my face. an elegant sea turtle, the size (but not shape) of a medium-large dog, cruising around through the shallows. its waving arms reminded me of wings (I thought later of how to small insects, gravity affects them mildly, "as if they were moving through water," someone once told me) and it tail legs just hung out behind. a graceful creature, unworried, not stressing. I could have placed a hand on its shell or head but I decided to just hang with it for a bit. I have trouble holding my breath very long while I'm swimming, so it was a lot of ups and downs as it just aqua-frolicked....
last night was so windy that I had to secure my tent with rocks and lean into the windward side of it with my body to prevent it from folding up and sandwiching me... across the way I heard some bellowing and laughing childrens voices. I peeked out of my distorted rainfly to see that their tent had overturned entirely, perhaps taking them for a bit of a tumble ride , hopefully well cushioned by bedding...
this morning I lost the bout with some beautiful goldenbrown coconuts, and gained some well chafed forearms, inner thighs and chest in the process. I tuckered out about 3/4 the way up the 15 or so foot tree. with more of the right muscles and some technique pointers... Oh, if I'd have a long pole and a saw to lash on it I could have succeeded!!
For my foraging pleasures I had to settle for a bite of noni (which I am still working up an appetitite for--it's kind of like juicy effervescent blue cheese fruit), reported to heal all that ails ya.
Last week I ventured to the Puna area, where I met lots of kind and warm people, fresh black lava rock (some less that a year old), Ohia trees growing up through it, more geologically advanced regions with actual soil and thick jungles... warm pools heated by volcanothermal power... a couple communities that both felt warm, welcoming and exciting to visit...
soon it will be time for me to choose between them, figure out a way to actually earn a bit of money, so that I don't return home close to broke...
now though I'm taking some time to relax and reorient and reenergize.
I've got another night at spencer beach, and then will probably proceed south to camp at Ho'okena, where I can take a day trip to kealakekua bay for supersnorkeling.
the internet time expires soon.
aloha
Swimming, goggled, at "beach 69" (just south of hapuna, south kohala coast) I encountered a massive creature that at once startled me and brought a smile to my face. an elegant sea turtle, the size (but not shape) of a medium-large dog, cruising around through the shallows. its waving arms reminded me of wings (I thought later of how to small insects, gravity affects them mildly, "as if they were moving through water," someone once told me) and it tail legs just hung out behind. a graceful creature, unworried, not stressing. I could have placed a hand on its shell or head but I decided to just hang with it for a bit. I have trouble holding my breath very long while I'm swimming, so it was a lot of ups and downs as it just aqua-frolicked....
last night was so windy that I had to secure my tent with rocks and lean into the windward side of it with my body to prevent it from folding up and sandwiching me... across the way I heard some bellowing and laughing childrens voices. I peeked out of my distorted rainfly to see that their tent had overturned entirely, perhaps taking them for a bit of a tumble ride , hopefully well cushioned by bedding...
this morning I lost the bout with some beautiful goldenbrown coconuts, and gained some well chafed forearms, inner thighs and chest in the process. I tuckered out about 3/4 the way up the 15 or so foot tree. with more of the right muscles and some technique pointers... Oh, if I'd have a long pole and a saw to lash on it I could have succeeded!!
For my foraging pleasures I had to settle for a bite of noni (which I am still working up an appetitite for--it's kind of like juicy effervescent blue cheese fruit), reported to heal all that ails ya.
Last week I ventured to the Puna area, where I met lots of kind and warm people, fresh black lava rock (some less that a year old), Ohia trees growing up through it, more geologically advanced regions with actual soil and thick jungles... warm pools heated by volcanothermal power... a couple communities that both felt warm, welcoming and exciting to visit...
soon it will be time for me to choose between them, figure out a way to actually earn a bit of money, so that I don't return home close to broke...
now though I'm taking some time to relax and reorient and reenergize.
I've got another night at spencer beach, and then will probably proceed south to camp at Ho'okena, where I can take a day trip to kealakekua bay for supersnorkeling.
the internet time expires soon.
aloha
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