7/1/2010 – Nature Within, Nature Without

Nirlepa and I took another hike together on the slopes of Hualalai. We took Blondie with us and walked through this semi-arid mountain forest. The time was 5pm and the yellow gold of the evening sun washed over the landscape, giving it a warm glow. The ground was gray lava, but covered in places with this bright green grass, and in others by an olive green Spanish moss. Crooked, gnarly, dry and stiff gray-barked trees covered the landscape as well walked along the service road. The forest was filled with bushes and trees that could survive only in this harsh climate. We are above the cloud line and while this forest is nearly constantly surrounded by mists, today the skies offer a rare clarity of azure blue. The temperature is crisp, and the smell is of dried and rotten wood. Soft tuffs of lambs ear grow here and there, and a few vines of passion fruit wind their way along the fence post and hill top trees.

A slight breeze made the gray branches creak with displeasure as it rustled and hummed through the sparse green leaves. The predominantly succulent foliage and dark olive green and sage green tones dominated this landscape. The bark of all the trees was gray like sun-bleached timber. At a height of 6000 ft above sea level, this land offered views of the entire coast line, even as far as the neighboring peaks of Maui across the ocean.

As we walked along this undulating hilly landscape I became present to how this whole environment mirrors a personality I knew from our clinic. Her name is J, a 50~ year-old woman who’s temples are awash in white and ash – the color of the bark of the trees. She’s extremely thin, has life long lung conditions, grief and depression. Very sensitive to all treatments her voice is a like a slightly slurred crackling of timber against a wash of weeping gusts of wind, providing a wide inflective range. Her whole body presents like the rigid and stiff trunks of these trees. She holds herself with rigidity and austerity. Her spine is twisted in a zig zag pattern of probable chiropractic accidents which have given her spine a gnarled and knotty look as that of the trees. Working as a food critic, and writer, her opinion is held in high regard by many. She enunciates with precision, and articulates her views with diction that separates and gives each word their own clarity. Her languaging reveals the same unclutteredness of this landscape and its few, but well put together and coordinated species.

The Small Intestine themes of communicative precision and purity intersperse with airs of respect, structure, and refinement color the overall weep and mausoleum-like quality to her presence.

J’s view of life rests as that on top of the mountain and she looks down at those below with an elevated perspective of what is a righteous, appropriate and refined way of living – a way which she knows is not for everybody – but a way in which she knows is a right perspective for her.

Her liveliness is that of this place in the sun – her colors of thoughts are complex and move through shades of perspective and clarity as the sun moves across the sky revealing shades of blue, orange, gray, silver and green. This place has a sacredness and exists in praise of the mountain itself. Worshipful, penitent, tall, upright – a temple awash in silver, gold, gray and green.

Aloft in the heavens, this place is devoid of much water yet filled with precious minerals. It focuses on conservation, reservation, and structured thought, organization and growth. Similarly, J’s incisive thought process cut through the bull and materialistic thought in order to reach the definitive gems of meaning.

J could have been birthed as naturally from this place as if the womb of the land had opened itself up and given birth to her, mothered, and schooled her in the ways of appropriate living.

I feel honored to be standing on its sloping hills.