moonscapes and other majesties

yesterday, after three days of playing hide n'seek with the intense hawaiian sun, Beloved and i ventured out even further. we tried to go south, but because it was a holiday, the road was closed. i didn't quite understand the correlation...though i suppose it must really help on thanksgiving to keep the holiday traffic in check.

so we turned north, and drove up through kona, past the airport, and into the lava fields, huge tracts of undeveloped land so recently turned to black stone you can still see the enormous bubbles, the ripples and the folds. in some places the rock is bare, in others, small clumps of straw-colored grass has taken hold.

white stones pock this eerie landscape, spelling out names and other sentiments, in english and hawaiian, and maybe other languages, too. "for the girls" read one, "for the boys" read another. "mahalo mama" read a third.

i saw a pair of black goats picking their way across the craters. for the first time i understood why its considered bad luck to take a piece of lava from this island and something about the energy of this entire island. this lava is too raw, too new. to take it home - for the unaware, at least - would be like taking home a newborn baby without understanding how to care for it.

no wonder mama pele doesn't like to let it go.

but no wonder they have a race called the ironman, and no wonder people have been drawn to practice fertility rites. the energy, because it is so new and young and raw, feels particularly rejuvenating, especially regenerating.

this morning, Beloved is buying and selling and trading and managing. i've got a couple loads of laundry tumbling, and the mist is just beginning to burn away. it's going to be another glorious day.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.