Aumakua

It’s Saturday and I am at the beach.

My friend turns to me and asks “If you were going to be a sea animal, what would you be?’

(These are the kind of questions one asks another while lounging in the sun on Saturday on an isolated beach belly filled with PB and J and potato chips)

She says she would want to be a turtle. I tell her I would rather be a dolphin. When she asks why, I respond quickly: “Because they are never alone.”

This answer surprises me. But the truth of it hits my heart with greater shock.

Earlier that afternoon we had seen a school of spinner dolphins swimming and playing the ocean before us. I had never seen them before, though I come to this beach multiple times in the week. They jumped and spun and flipped and squealed until they were out of sight.

I thought how much fun they must have with each other and how they must feel so safe knowing that they are all together. When I swim in the sea or on land, I do it alone and have only my wits and some pretty rusty karate moves to protect me. My best playmate is my own imagination and she is CRAZY if you haven’t noticed.

I find myself yearning for a dolphin school of my own; the safety of friends and family around me who know my fins and flippers, can communicate without words, can sense each other’s need for a nuzzle or a spin. I yearn to not be so alone in this world of mine.

As I sat there musing on this I let my gaze coast along the water in front of us. And then I saw them, the school, was right there, so close you could see their dark fins. I wasted no time, I yelled to my friend as I went charging into the water; “Come Ann! We are swimming with dolphins.”

Ann and I swam quickly to the spot where I had seen the dolphins but they had vanished. We swam out farther and farther and farther, farther than I had ever been out. I was getting frightened. We had seen no sign of them. The water was deep and we were past the protection of the reef bay. I asked Ann if we should go in. She was determined.

Try Wait.

Then just seconds later we saw it. Something big and black with a very pointy fin was coming straight for us.

We both did a sudden gasp which we later confessed was a “I really hope that is a dolphin and not some huge giant man eating porpoise.”

Within the time it took to take a deep breath we were surrounded by them. They swam in groups of two and three, and followed each other in instinctual formation. I dove down beneath us to see one swimming underneath and I could hear them calling to one another in those little squeaks and squeals. Their silvery backs bobbed in and out of the water as they enveloped us. I am not sure if either of us spoke and if you could have taken a picture of our faces at that moment you would see the sight of true awe and wonder.

After the final preliminary circles they began to play around us; suddenly bursting out of the water in a spin or a back flip. They held us close as we all swam along back towards our beach cove. And then just as suddenly as they arrived, they were gone.

Walking the beach later we bumped into a father/son who had watched our whole endeavor and shared their fear for us.

“There was a shark in the water,” they said.

“Oh, no,” we corrected them, “those were dolphins.”

“Not the dolphins. There was a nine foot shark in that reef right where you were headed before the dolphins came to you.” They explained how they had been snorkeling when they saw the shark headed to a spear fisherman’s catch that he held in bag near the reef.

Ann and I stared at each other. We didn’t need to say what we were thinking. We knew those dolphins came to protect us and to move us away from the reef and back to our safe cove.

In the days following this I have had moments of pure disbelief. To any of you who have shared an experience like this with a wild majestic creature you understand how there is this breathless no words can describe pure high of such a sharing.

It is truly one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

I am captivated, entranced and enlightened.

I told my experience to a Hawaiian family I am working with and they shared my awe and wonder of it. They spoke of the specialness and significance of being embraced by the dolphins. They also spoke of the Aumakua, which are the spirit animals families have as guides.

My Dolphin Aumakua is my family out here in the islands.

When I gaze out to sea I know that they are out there.

And I don’t feel so all alone.

Molokai Madness

Molokai Madness

For those of you readers wondering “How long can someone live alone in almost total seclusion on an almost deserted island before she looses her mind?”

The answer is… six months.

Coo-coo for cocoa puffs.
Lost her marbles.
Gone bananas.
Off her rocker.
I’m breaking down and falling apart,
And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
No one could put humpty dumpty back together again.
I’m cracking up and there is no nice way to say it.

Maybe if I could go into a Starbucks (judge away!) every once in a while and sit in the cool comfort of plush upholstered chairs, air conditioning, canned hip music, and consistent coffee beverages… maybe then I could make it.

Maybe if I could get a jar of almond butter without having to donate a kidney to pay for it….

Maybe if I could wake up to a world of cement and pavement where the voices of the trees and bushes demanding attention like unwanted step-children could not find me…

Maybe if I didn’t have to stare into the mysterious chemical abyss that is my swimming pool…

Maybe if I could have one day of rain...
Just one day.
(strangely just started raining when I wrote this)

Don’t get me wrong.
I love Molokai…
I just can’t stand it!
I want to sneak out while the cats away and jump on an airplane headed to somewhere HUGE with coldness and lots of hard ground and traffic and Starbucks on every corner (continue judging). I want people in my space, getting all up in my grill, invading my privacy and what not. I want to see folks in the rat race, working for “the man,” complaining about pensions and retirement packages and the failing economy. I want to feel the vibe, the pulse, the heartbeat of a city!

"Try Wait" I remind myself.

Then I take a moment here on my little island to walk outside under the cool moonlight.
It throws itself over the ocean where the waves are growing everyday with the promise of surf and winter storms.
My cat’s white hair glows as she sits calmly on my lap and we smile as we listen to the wind rustle through the palm frawns.
I smell the ripening mango from the tree next to me as it wafts over through the night air so fresh and so clean.
My skin and body and all the places in between let go and relax.
And I hear the island say: “Not yet, you are not ready yet. We have other things to show you before you leave.”

“How about showing me a decent Americano for crying out loud???” I joke (but not really).
I know the island is right.
I know this madness is only temporary.
I know I am just growing and I know that this current frustration will schluff off like an old skin in the coming weeks revealing something… I know not what.
Something amazing I guess!

Like a Starbucks? (i am shamed)

Try Wait

A mysterious buzzing sound around the main house had been swirling around my sub-consciousness for several days. My mind must have put it in one of the far corners of my brain in a file marked “Signs that Casselle is going Crazy” and forgotten about it.

But when I noticed the giant swarm of bumblebees around the front cottage my mind quickly re-filed “mysterious buzzing sound” into conscious memory. The swarm was like nothing I’d seen before. It was dark and massive and full of fury. I courageously looked under the cottage awning to see what the jazz was all about and it was there that I was confronted by a giant nest of clustered bees.

Thousands and thousands of them working furiously on their hive.

I was horrified.

And yet I could not take my eyes off of them.
They seemed to have an energy so frightening and intense that it captured me and stuck my feet in place.

Later, after I had pulled myself from their trance I called the bug man. I am fond of this bug man for many reasons. Number one reason: he kills centipedes and scorpions that would otherwise feast on my flesh. Number two: he calls me “sweetie” and “honey,” (terms that endear me to someone immediately).

The Bug Man comes the next day with his special bug killing arsenal, takes one look at the nest and says that he will have to kill them unless I can find some bee keepers to come and take the nest.

I frantically call two folks who keep bees but not one answers.
I have guests coming in two days and the Bug Man will not be able to come back this way until too late. It is now or never.

I wait a few more minutes for my phone to ring with hope that the bee keepers will respond but… nothing.

I look into the sad eyes of the Bug Man and give him the go ahead nod.
I feel as if I have just pushed the button to have the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

Minutes later an entire colony of bumblebees, thousands and thousands of them, lie in a puddle in the bushes, their hive in shambles. A few stragglers who were away collecting honey during the massacre fly around in vain looking for their home, for their queen, only to find the sick smell of poison and a pile of bodies.

Just as the Bug Man loads up the last of his equipment the phone rings; “We would love to come and collect your hive!” she says.
I am speechless.
Eventually I squeak out “They’re gone.”

The tears swell up in my eyes.
I try to hold it together for the Bug Man but he knows he better get away quick-like or he is going to have one broken down, sobbing, inconsolable, caretaker on his hands.
He speeds away to his next appointment just before the tidal wave of shame and sadness and anger washes over me. I run to the shower in hopes that I might wash away the great crime I have just committed. But I fall apart anyways and great waves of sobbing choke out my heart.

There is a popular saying here in the islands about taking your time.
"Try Wait," they say when us mainlanders are pushing and racing around like we got a lion at our back.
"Try Wait."

If I just would have waited 15 minutes.
If I would have not let fear guide me I could have saved them.
The colony could be on its way to a special new home where they could buzz, buzz, buzz all day long and be no harm to anyone.

My mother, who is visiting this week, saw the cracks appearing in my already rocky sense of self and got on the internet to find some validation for the crimes I had just committed. “They say swarms in July mean there is no queen so the hive would not have been useful to the bee keepers anyway.”

I decide not to remind her that it is the end of August and that the rules of "mainland" seasonal rituals don't necessarily apply hear to the tropics.

I stare out the window and look down at the bumble-bee mass grave under the palm trees and cry a little more. I say a little prayer but I know it’s no use. In my faith, you don’t get away from atrocities like this no matter how much you pray.

Days later I am still hearing the buzzing sound.
I think I'll try wait next time.