10-30-2012, 06:53 AM
I believe I did hear a siren -- and not just the kind that sings to you and makes you crash your boat on the shoals! Maybe it was the one on 6th and Maku'u. It was faint, like a mosquito, but I did hear one. It wouldn't have woken anyone up. I had to step out on the lanai to be certain I was hearing it. The whole experience was very eerie, with the helicopters with blinking lights, the police telling everyone to leave (with few leaving other than me!), the decision about what to take, and the momentary indecision about where to go relieved by a call from a friend.
Mahalo to the few kind people who thought of me, called to check on me and to those who offered me and my girl a place to go. I am very grateful.
And for one night, I was not thinking about Pele! Okay, actually, yes I was. I was thinking how funny it was that while my dinosaur brain was focused on Pele the way that T-rex in Jurassic Park focused on that poor lawyer who ended up in her mouth, I forgot about the ocean. I find it interesting that Pele was engaged in a sort of sleight of hand at the time. The lava lake was threatening to spill out onto the caldera and it really looked like something was going to happen. Then, as if a magician's cape passed over it, it receded and all went very quiet, save for the seismic sound of her footsteps as she stepped away, malie, malie, malie.
And while I was looking at the mountain that refused to come to me and fighting the urge to do what Mohammed did in that situation (go to it), I turned my back on the ocean. And then I had something more tangible to worry about. As Robert Muldoon said in Jurassic Park, Clever girl. Really, very, very clever. And that's the fascination: Animal intelligence, and maniacal energy coupled with natural beauty. Mythic stuff.
In my solipsistic worldview, the potentially cataclysmic energy that was welling up in the caldera was transferred to the ocean and safely dispersed throughout it. It had to go somewhere. And that event, broke the spell. For now. Ocean go in, ocean go out. Infinite blue. Nothing menacing about it. The lava lake recedes.
All is calm and beautiful in a post-lobotomy kind of way. But the energy of a goddess never goes away. Even when you don't see her, you feel it everywhere. With nature so powerful and such a powerful nature, something or somebody will be moved.
And, Of course, with Pele, the mere mention of her name could easily turn the flicker.......into a flame.
Mahalo to the few kind people who thought of me, called to check on me and to those who offered me and my girl a place to go. I am very grateful.
And for one night, I was not thinking about Pele! Okay, actually, yes I was. I was thinking how funny it was that while my dinosaur brain was focused on Pele the way that T-rex in Jurassic Park focused on that poor lawyer who ended up in her mouth, I forgot about the ocean. I find it interesting that Pele was engaged in a sort of sleight of hand at the time. The lava lake was threatening to spill out onto the caldera and it really looked like something was going to happen. Then, as if a magician's cape passed over it, it receded and all went very quiet, save for the seismic sound of her footsteps as she stepped away, malie, malie, malie.
And while I was looking at the mountain that refused to come to me and fighting the urge to do what Mohammed did in that situation (go to it), I turned my back on the ocean. And then I had something more tangible to worry about. As Robert Muldoon said in Jurassic Park, Clever girl. Really, very, very clever. And that's the fascination: Animal intelligence, and maniacal energy coupled with natural beauty. Mythic stuff.
In my solipsistic worldview, the potentially cataclysmic energy that was welling up in the caldera was transferred to the ocean and safely dispersed throughout it. It had to go somewhere. And that event, broke the spell. For now. Ocean go in, ocean go out. Infinite blue. Nothing menacing about it. The lava lake recedes.
All is calm and beautiful in a post-lobotomy kind of way. But the energy of a goddess never goes away. Even when you don't see her, you feel it everywhere. With nature so powerful and such a powerful nature, something or somebody will be moved.
And, Of course, with Pele, the mere mention of her name could easily turn the flicker.......into a flame.