Harp Time Capsule

The low A string on my harp has broken and I need to get a replacement for it. I took the harp to a local musical instrument shop, but they didn't carry any strings and were unable to order any for me. The hunt for strings continues, and I may have to order them on-line instead of patronizing local music stores.

While I was looking inside of the harp, at the underside of the sound board where the strings are knotted in, I discovered a large slip of paper. When I pulled it out, I found the slip was really three cancelled checks from 1989.

The first check was dated May 7, made out to Here Inc. for $275.60. It was the check I wrote for my harp! I'd gone to an international folk dance festival in Minneapolis with some friends. On a long table in a hall outside of the main performance area, there was a collection of various nylon- and metal-strung NeoCeltic harps. I strummed a few, decided that the sustain on the metal-strung harps was cool but too long, and on impulse picked out my harp. 

(Cue Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero": "... he saw stars in his eyes / and the very next day / bought a gut-strung lap harp / from a funky folk store / didn't know how to play it / but he knew for sure / that one lap harp / played on the floor / was a one-way ticket / only one way to go....")

This set the stage for folk music performances; playing ritual music; Renaissance Faire busking; and moonlit desert nights in a white cotton duster, holding up my harp to the winds for an Aeolian concert.  It also set the stage for when Mark met me harping underneath the full moon during a gay men's spiritual gathering.

The second check—written in green ink—was from May 1, made out to Northfield Sports for $211.95 for my black-with-yellow-neon-highlights RollerBlades! 

In no time, I was RollerBlading backwards while juggling three koosh-balls by daylight and donning my big black-and-purple-cloak and glow-sticks and swooping around the Carleton College campus by night. There's nothing like a twilight RollerBlade humming Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre while bats flit overhead; or RollerBlading on a foggy December solstice full moon in a black cloak holding holly and a wooden skull in one's hand (and surprise gifting the holly to a corner store filled with Eugene hippies); or RollerBlading on Halloween wearing homemade cardboard owl wings and a white poet's shirt. And these were the Rollerblades I wore on a Rollerblading date through the parks of Eugene with Mark.

Sadly, the plastic boots fatigued and broke during a Halloween mishap in 2016 involving a lit pumpkin and a pile of leaves piled up against a street curb.

(Cue Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero": "...he saw stars in his eyes / and the very next day / bought some beat-up knock-offs / from a second-hand store / They weren't his old RollerBlades / but he knew for sure / that RollerBlades / laced up real tight / were a one-way ticket / into the pale moonlight....")

The third check, from July 22, written out in pink ink to Jacobson's for $33.87 records the purchase of a red-and-white polyester gingham picnic spread and napkin set, and possibly a picnic basket.

Jacobson's was a general mercantile store that sold household goods, some clothing, and possibly paper products. I'm pretty sure it had a portal to Lake Woebegone in it. This purchase involved 1) a younger, hopelessly romantic (or was that infatuated?), not-yet-out-to-himself version of myself (who wrote a lot of the kind of poetry one would expect from a self-closeted, twenty-something, hopeless romantic); 2) one of the women from Reed College that I had a huge crush on; and, 3) an airport layover where said woman-friend was flying away to start her Peace Corps mission (back when one could haul a picnic basket full of food and utensils right to a departure gate).  

This particular picnic spread and napkin set was sold to me by "Old Man Jacobson" himself, who after learning that I was looking for picnic supplies (and possibly reading the stance of a hopeless romantic heading off to one last Noble Farewell Forever), interrupted my browsing with his boney hand on my boney shoulder and the question, "Is she a classy gal?"

At least three replies—from snarky to star-crossed—flitted through my mind, but I settled on "yes."

"Then this is the package for you!" he said, and presented the red-and-white polyester gingham picnic spread and napkin set from behind his back.

"I'll... take... it," I said, and set the stage for a short picnic on the International Airport Hubert H. Humphrey Terminal concourse. Some stewardesses gave us two thumbs up as they walked past us. My friend flew out of the country, and I returned to Northfield.

I'm not sure what's happened to the spread or the basket, but some of the napkins still lurk in a linen drawer in the kitchen.

I played my harp at her wedding (in Oregon) ten years later. 

At the reception, the bride and her mother disappeared for a moment.  While the folks around our table speculated, Mark quipped, "They're having 'The Talk.' You know—'Honey, now that you're married there's something I need to tell you. They'll beg and they'll plead but you have to be firm: you need to keep separate checking accounts.'"

At this point, the bride reappeared, perturbed look on her brow and checkbook in her hand. We dissolved into laughter as she walked by.

Mark and I still keep separate checking accounts.  I'm pretty sure Mark does not keep any of his cancelled checks in any type of musical time capsule.

Winter Storms, Waterfalls, & Holiday Lights

I can't believe that just last week Mark and I were running around on the Oregon Coast in an early celebration of my birthday. Normally, when we go to the coast, we visit the stretch between Florence and Newport. This time around, we went south to the North Bend area.

We visited Silver Falls and Golden Falls, located at the end of a windy, sometimes narrow, road following the Coos River to its tributaries. The atmospheric river fed the falls, and the falls were trying to return the favor with a fierce spray of mist. Even though it wasn't raining at the time of our visit, we both got soaked. The geology was interesting; we weren't quite sure where all of the house-sized boulders came from. The falls looked great, and I imagine that I would enjoy them on a hot, dry day.

Afterward, we found our way back at the Pacific and Shore Acres State Park. It's been about twenty years since I was at the Shore Acres Gardens, and all I recalled was a fountain with lion's head spouts (I remember them looking more like lions and less like lumps of corrosion). We took a path to the beach where the surf surged dramatically against the rocks. The day became increasingly grey. When we went to an overview, the wind picked up foam frothed up by the pounding surf about thirty feet below, swirled it around like a murmuration of birds, and dropped it around us like dirty clumps of New York snow. As I looked south, I saw armies of clouds slowly creeping north and dropping curtains of rain.

Mark arranged for us to view the holiday light show at Shore Acres, but as it wasn't quite time for the show to start, we killed some time finding a local fish market where we picked up some "cold" clam chowder (the clerk had just turned off the burner, and the chowder was still hot) and some smoked salmon. Then it was back to the garden's light show. And the rain.

We both enjoyed the lights (even if I did have to keep my camera under my coat to keep it from getting too wet), and thought the local groups who created the displays did a good job. I think our favorite displays involved fish or whales.

2025 New Year's Dream

New Year's Day I dreamed, among other things, that I was trying to fit into an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus.  The sarcophagus was more like a storage crate with a fancy faience and gold lid; it was narrow and short.  I was scrunched up; I have a sense my knees were drawn up against my chest, and I clearly was too large to fit the cover over the sarcophagus.  I think if this had been an anxiety dream, I would have felt claustrophobic, but as it was the tone of this part of the dream was more like, "Well, this isn't going to work."

I woke up for real, wrapped in the sheets and sandwiched between the dog, a cat, Mark, and the edge of the bed, with my left shoulder numb—so I'm pretty sure this part of the dream was inspired by an uncomfortable sleeping position.

I migrated to the couch, because this was about the third time I'd woken up in an uncomfortable sleeping position, and I didn't want my tossing and turning to wake Mark.  Cicero joined me, which was cute, and somehow did not interfere with my rest.

As far as Auspicious New Year's Dreams go, I suppose this means 2025 will be about recognizing gilded, but constricting circumstances.  That and I need to arrange for better sleep.

A Writer's Solstice Altar

I’ve connected with a writers’ Zoom session to write. I’m writing a blog entry instead of working on a short story because it is easier to write a blog entry. I am supposing that instant gratification is in play—and in any case, writing a blog entry is better than staring at a paragraph and spending an hour researching on the web to polish a single sentence; or going back-and-forth on cutting-and-pasting the opening paragraph of the moment; or, worst of all, staring at a blank screen and not writing anything.

Today is the Winter Solstice. It’s hard to believe that this time last year Mark and I were walking around Las Vegas. The Solstice Spiral Walks that I helped to facilitate with C.N. aren’t happening at the local UU Church any more, so I won’t be drawing chalk spirals as a guide for fir boughs and candles or playing a tone drum in the pouring rain while congregants walk a spiral and contemplate the returning light. On one hand, it’s one less thing to do; on the other hand, I miss holding contemplative ritual space, even if the only folks I really knew at UUCE were C.N., G.M., S.H., and some other acquaintances.

A couple of days ago, I attended a Starhawk-Wiccan Solstice ritual (and potluck) at a pagan friend’s house; they conduct rituals for the greater Eugene pagan community. The ritual reminded me a little of the ritual Sunday services at UUCE: there was a lot of singing and swaying in place. As we stood in a loose circle and sang songs about the Children of the Goddess, the joke “Why can’t Unitarians sing? / Because they’re too busy scanning ahead to see if they agree with the words” came to mind. During a moment of ritual contemplation, I was thankful to be married to Mark. I did not sing “Nobody can hold back the dark,” during a closing chorus, but it was a near thing.

I was going to say that it looks too rainy and grey this Solstice morning to focus the sun’s light onto a candle, but as I looked up from the computer screen, wan sunlight shone onto the kitchen nook. Perhaps, I thought, there will be a break in the clouds later for strong enough sunlight to shine through. —And as I watched, the sunlight strengthened.

Recognizing that there’s no time like the present when it comes to ritual (or astronomy) and the Oregon sky, I leapt up from the keyboard and away from the writers’ Zoom session, scooped up my Anubis matches, the giant magnifying lens, and a beeswax pillar candle in a copper cauldron. (Why, yes; I do have ritual tools readily handy at my house, doesn’t everyone?)

I hurried outside to the deck. There was honest-to-goodness blue sky above. The sun shone above a thick bank of grey clouds and grazed the roofline of our southern neighbors’ house. It’s winter solstice, and shadow of their house stretches across the yard and brushes up against our foundation. The wind gusted.

“Behind you.” Mark was entering and exiting the house to do some yard work.

The deck was relatively dry for a damp, Oregon winter day. I set up the candle on one of the four round outdoor end-tables I originally bought to use for altars and attempted to focus the sunlight onto the match held against the wick. A spotlight circle of sunlight shone on the outside of the candle; the wick was deep in a thin shell of beeswax from previous candle burnings. I broke off most of the wax, turned the candle, and tried to shine focused Solstice sunlight again.

“Behind you,” Mark said.

I stood over the candle looking down on it; a thin wisp of smoke rose from the wick. Then my hair fell forward in a curtain, which made it hard to see what I was doing and risked making Mark’s dire predictions about solstice fire, candles, and really any sort of combustion, come true. I riffled my pockets for a nonexistent hair tie, all the time watching the sun, the clouds, and the shadow of our neighbor’s house.

I pulled my hair behind me, crouched down, and refocused the sunlight. The wind gusted again. The magnifying lens projected an upside-down tree onto the white smoke of the smoldering wick; I moved the patio furniture altar out of the shadow of tree branches.

Mark, who was picking up dog poop from the yard, asked, “The sun’s pretty low. Have you ever done this this early before?”

“No,” I said, watching the cone of sunlight waver as I tried to place its focal point onto the wick. This was technically a ritual, and I hadn’t grounded, invoked a proper circle, or invited the four directions. I hadn’t reflected on the hinge of the year, or the returning light, or numinous and immanent Earth processes. I hadn’t taken a moment to dedicate or rededicate my life to anything in particular.

I quietly sang, “Bring from the center of the sun…” and flame sprang from the match and wick. The wind guttered the candle; I picked it up, held it close, went inside, and brought the candle to the desk—in the writers’ Zoom session, I saw myself, long haired, in red plaid, holding a copper cauldron with a flaming candle in my hands.

I placed the candle next to my keyboard and mouse. Happy Solstice, I thought, and returned to the writers’ session.  The sun dimmed as the grey returned, but I had Solstice Fire on my desk.

Sexagenarian

Soon I will be a sexagenarian. I think this requires that I get a faux ivory figurine of Death blowing bubbles with the legend “Momento Mori.” When I entered the cohort of pentagenarians, it was much easier to pretend that I was still forty-something—and in any case, I still had half a lifetime in front of me to write and create and be generally crafty. Now The Great Transformer feels much larger on a horizon that seems much closer. And the ancient Egyptian impulse to have spoken prayers for the spirit of So-and-so is more relatable. I suppose I will also need to get a faux ivory figurine of Ozymandius.

So far about the only thing that about reaching the milestone of sexagenarian is that I am looking forward to is being able to work the phrase “putting the sex back into sexagenarian!” into conversations. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that I will age better than repeatedly saying “putting the sex back into sexagenarian” will. And I’m not sure how well the phrase will play in a decade when I am no longer a sexagenarian: “putting the sex back into septuagenarian” just doesn’t have the same ring and “putting the septum back” sounds unappetizingly medical. I suppose I will have to quote Calvin and Hobbes and say, “You can take the tiger out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the tiger. / The question is ‘can you put the tiger back into the jungle?’”

I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there, somewhere.

When The House Feels Empty

Mark has been away helping his mother and family for the last few days.

It always strikes me how our small little house feels so empty when he’s gone. The cats and dog help to fill the space, and The Child (and his cologne) is back from school, so it’s not like I’m completely isolated. The honeymoon period where I can do things that would annoy Mark is over—there comes a moment when you realize that you can only enjoy so many Marvel, Disney, or Pixar Movies (which Mark could live happily without viewing) that you can watch and only so much electronica or Mediaeval Eastern European music (which drives Mark crazy) that you can listen to because it doesn’t make up for the fact that your man is in another state. And the New York Times games aren’t as fun because Mark’s not there for us to play them together.

When he comes back, we’ll decorate the house for the holidays. This will involve moving large pieces of furniture and pulling out the seasonal table cloths and decorating the house with extra lights. 

And digging out the Christmas music that we can all tolerate.

New Accessories!

As an early 60th birthday present to myself, I’ve just had my ears pierced. Both. Apparently men just getting one ear pierced on “the gay side” is so 1985. I now have two sparkly, dark green training posts in the center of my earlobes. I’d like to think that they’re topped with emeralds, but I’m pretty sure they’re green zircons or something.

If I don’t think about them, I don’t notice that there’s some metal lodged in my earlobes. When I do focus my awareness, I can feel a slight pinch where I’m supposing the swollen flesh is pressing against the posts. I will conjecture that my body will attempt to reject the titanium implant for a week or so and then line the hole with a layer of skin. Or scar tissue. Or something. In any case, I’m suppose to rinse the holes in my earlobes with saline daily.

These are my first—and most likely only—piercings, and I’m not going to be forcing increasingly larger posts into my lobes. I held off on getting any kind of body modification because dealing with my contact lenses and hair and beard can be time consuming and it seemed easier to have one less thing to maintain. But I figured an ear piercing is another way to accessorize! So why not start now. I aspire to have a dangling Vermeer Pearl after my three month break-in period is over. And pirate hoops. And a small pink triangle of quartz.

I think most of the time I’ll have simple chrome studs or something subtle. But I do look forward to sitting down before a mirror and saying, “Bring me my studs of lapis lazuli!” or “I shall wear onyx today!” or “Adorn me with auroras set in crystal!”

And then my very long hair will fall down and cover my ears and wearing earrings will be my little secret until I tie my hair back or the wind exposes me.

Six-fold interweave

 The latest tile-wiggling:

Embodied Ways of Knowing

The other day I read about a phrase that was something like, “embodied ways of knowing” (and of course, I am not remembering which social media feed I read it in or the original author). It felt like a response to explorations of “women’s ways of knowing,” or “gay ways of knowing” that at a stroke cut out problems with binary essentialist foundations of being, spirituality, and community—while at the same time allowing individuals to customize or specify their personal praxis.

I suppose there is potential for erasure with “embodied ways.” I could see how not naming a specific group would make it harder to enclave with others of similar embodiment. On the other hand, using embodied ways feels like it would make it harder to mistakenly assume community when in fact all there is are shared gender and orientation expressions.

I’m not sure if this is a New Thing, or if it’s So 2020.

Mahalo to Hawaii

Monday, October 14. Volcano Village and Kona International Airport, HI

On air travel days, I pull no card, but instead imagine the Eight of Wands.

We got up around 4 A.M. and put the finishing touches on our packing. Orion amazed me with how high in the sky it was, and Aldebaran was in the zenith. Then were on the road from Volcano, via Hilo, to gas up at Costco, return our rental car, and then shuttle to the Kona airport. We didn’t see any goats until we got near Kona.

The airport once again impressed us with how open air it is. I suspect that during a monsoon it might not be quite as fun. I’m pretty sure that somewhere around here, as we were playing with language, Mark came up with the phrase, “Hakuna Mahalo.” 

Singing "Hakuna Mahalo" to myself helped me to deal with the upset infants on the plan ride home.  

I am fairly certain we'll be back to Hawaii sometime in the next few years.  I did briefly entertain the fantasy of moving to Hawaii; between the snorkeling and the astronomy I could spend a lot of enjoyable time.  But then I think I'd want to do things like make a version of Stonehenge (which seems colonial), and then I'd start missing the trees and birds of the Pacific Northwest. So I guess I'll just visit.

Volcanoes, Petroglyphs, and Sea Turtles

Sunday, October 13, 2024. Volcano Village, HI

Oh no! Today’s card is the Three of Swords! I’m interpreting this as Last Day of Vacation Mentation… or possibly having to choose which fun thing to visit first. The strategy that I should adopt for future visits is to have a coin to toss to expedite the decision making process.

Rising early (again!) made visiting steam vents rewarding, as the dawn air is cool and the vents are more dramatic. 

This morning, we visited vents that go deeper into the Earth and hit pockets of sulphur.  The rising vapors contain sulphur dioxide, which forms bright yellow crystal needles near the vents. I suspected and was rewarded when I looked under the wooden railings of the boardwalk we were on and saw very tiny crystals criss-crossing over the wood grain.  I was lucky enough to get a nice close-up of the vent where larger crystals grew like lichen. 

We visited an old-growth forest in Kīlauea park specifically to bird watch, but only sited pheasant/feral ground fowl. I think we had more fun than the bird-watchers from Connecticut, who had come specifically to sight a checklist of birds and had only found one.

9:30-ish, we med it back to Volcano House (more parking this time) for the buffet breakfast—shockingly, our meal only cost $50.00 instead of the usual $60.00.

We did more caldera site-seeing before returning to the Funky Motel for a nap. Mark saw a Hawiian hawk and other native birds outside on the (dirty) veranda. And also a sign encouraging folks to kill any tree frogs they might see.

In the afternoon, we drove to the end of Seven Craters Road and visited a petroglyph site at Pu’uloa. The site, a short boardwalk loop, was about a half-mile from the road, at the end of a wind-swept trail over a dusty lava flow. Families would chip a hole in the lava stone hills and place an umbilical cord there for a child’s long life. There were many geometric designs, and a few turtle and anthropomorphic signs as well.

I had expected the petroglyphs to be on canyon walls, like ones I’d encountered in Arizona, but these were mainly horizontal or on slight rises in the lava flow. I suspect the photography would have been better if we’d arrived closer to sunrise or sunset, but I still managed to get some interesting pictures of the designs.

We walked along the boardwalk above the markings and tried to fathom what they might mean—did thirteen holes in a row indicate a lunar cycle? What about nine holes around a circle? The strong wind clutched at my hat and blew the seed pods of a yellow, pea-like flower back and forth, which sounded like hundreds of wooden sistrums clack-clack-clacking in a mysterious language. The wind-borne sound ebbed and surged with the gusts and worked its way like a chant into my mind.

The mid-afternoon sun was frying Mark, and he endured my photographic questing for as long as he could before announcing that he needed to head back to the car. I admitted that the sounds and the wind were driving me into an overwhelming altered state (i.e. “freaking me out”), and after one more photograph, I followed him back to the car.

In the evening, we drove back to the Black Sands Beach for more quality turtle time. When we arrived at the beach, a tour bus was just leaving. The three turtles we’d see basking before were in about the same position in a closed off portion of the beach as they were on Friday.

The basking turtles were high up on the beach—we didn’t see their tracks in the sand and surmised they’d come ashore during high tide. Two more turtles were in the retreating surf and we watched them work themselves over boulders as the sun sank behind Kīlauea. Their shells were shaped like the builders—sometimes they looked like rocks; near sunset they looked like waves. I wondered how heavy the turtles were as they leveraged themselves by their flippers over the jumble of rocks between the shore and the open bay waters.

After the sun set, we left the three formerly-basking turtles on the moonlit shore. Venus came out, but no other stars were visible. We drove back up to the steam vents. 

By the time we arrived, it was very dark—I think I saw the end of the comet’s tail over the summit of a volcano, but it looked too big, so maybe it was a sun column. Venus was about ten degrees off of the western horizon with Scorpio chasing after. Not where I was expecting it at all, and tilted ninety degrees sideways, was the Teapot; I realized the zodiac was arcing overhead through the zenith instead of floating over the southern horizon. I’m pretty sure I was saying, “Whoa!” for the rest of the night. 

Mark still thinks it’s pretty funny that I think seeing stars in a different position from a lower latitude on the globe is the coolest, most mind-blowing thing ever.

Kīlauea and The Curse of The Hula Girl

Saturday, October 12, 2024. Volcano Village, HI 

Today’s card is the Four of Swords, reversed. This seems like a reference to the actual process of vacationing and rest. I will admit that at times, usually in the middle of the night or at stray points, I would find myself fixating on work.


Earlier in the week, we had texted The Child to remind him that we were actually out of the state and in Hawaii. When Mark asked him if there was anything he especially wanted from Hawaii, The Child texted back, “Bring me back a Hula Girl.” While I was smacking my hand to my forehead, Mark was laughing about the Burridge Hawaiian Curse. About this time, The Child texted, “Can I use the car while you’re gone?”

We’re staying in a funky motel; it’s clean and dry and has odd amenities (limited hot water and no screen door). The grounds are cluttered with unused, overturned flower pots. The covered porch area needs sweeping. There apparently used to be a hot tub, but we can only see the impression where it was on one end of the porch. It’s possible a hot tub used to be in an empty rundown shed at the end of a little path. The motel is overpriced, but staying in Volcano Lodge would have cost more, even if we wouldn’t have had to buy water and good coffee. The Hilton condo, with its kitchen, dining area, and living room, was nicer—if a little Disney.

Today we visited the steam vents of Kīlauea at dawn; I felt like I had seen them before, especially the concrete lined vent with the pipe railing around it; but maybe there were similar vents somewhere in Oahu back in the 1970’s. Then it was a six mile hike along the crater floor; I couldn’t help but think of Frodo and Sam’s march along the plain of Mordor as we walked along a dusty trail between lava rock cairns leading over lava flows. This was like hiking into (and out of) Crater Lake, only without the water. There was lush vegetation on the crater slopes: yellow iris-like flowers—Mark enjoyed the red lehua blossoms especially.

Then we toured through a lava tube, which was lit dramatically, but overrated. And filled with school children. The most interesting feature was near the end, where you could see how high the lava had gotten within the tube before it drained out.

Parking for lunch was an adventure in itself. There weren’t any open parking stalls next to Volcano House. The secondary parking lot filled. The rangers redirected us to a third lot, which was also filled or reserved for tour busses. The rangers there told us to park at the vents, which was about a half-mile away. Mark drove back to Volcano House and cycled through the first half of those. “You’re hungry, and it’s hot; you wont’ survive the walk from the vents back here. I’ll drop you off.” I protested a little that I could make it. Then a stall opened up as I was getting out. “It’s parking karma!” Mark proclaimed as he nabbed the stall.

We ordered lunch, which continued the meal trend of costing about $60.00. Mark asked every staff person he met if they had seen an eruption and they all had.

There was a gift shop in the Volcano House, in which we successfully found a dish-towel with an image of a 1950’s pin-up style Hula Girl. (Yes, there was a discussion about getting an image of a totally ripped Hula Dude, but oddly, there didn’t seem to be any for sale.) Due to strategically placed hair and arms, it was only a day or two later that I realized—hey, wait a minute!—that this was a topless image.

Afterward, we walked over to the Volcano Art Center (https://volcanoartcenter.org) filled with tasteful and expensive locally produced art. Mark liked a pyrogrphic piece; I saw a wonderful rendition of Pele, “Pele Sleeps” by Nelson Makua. And there were more of the birds from the restaurant (https://volcanoartcenter.org/product-category/prints/marian-berger/ ).

The Place of Refuge

Friday, October 11, 2024. Waikoloa Beach and Volcano Village, HI

Today’s card is the Eight of Cups, which seams appropriate for our visit (by land, this time) to Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, the Place of Refuge.

We woke up earlyish and went out again to the Hilton Coffee place… which took longer than expected, but did enable us to see another sea turtle and a native Hawaiian heron. We rushed through the museum path, got back and packed, then we said said goodbye to the Hilton Club House #4 . We headed south along the southwestern coast. We didn’t see any wild pigs, but we continued to see wild goats along the side of the road.

Pu'uhonua O Honaunau is a place where defeated warriors or Hawaiians who had broken social rules, or kapu (punishable by death) could flee to for sanctuary. It was also a place where the chiefs could hang out at, once they made it through a gauntlet of defending warriors. Mark had downloaded a walking tour from the US Park Service and we learned about a Go-like game, and lava tree castings, and the importance of stories of families’ relations with the local land.

There is an active shrine on the site that features several large, carved wooden ki’i (an image representing an akua, or Hawaiian god); the ones within the shrine’s sanctuary are different manifestations of the god Lono (responsible for rain and fertility). I tried to photograph the images, and the lighting was not cooperating, so the ki’i were washed out or underexposed. I’m always impressed by the texture of the carvings.

Under a kind of A-frame, we spoke with a woman as she wove palm fronds into baskets, roses, and fish. The fish gave me a Proust Moment, and I suddenly recalled a mobile made of small, black and golden woven fish, hanging in my sister’s upstairs bedroom in the house my parents rented in the late 1960’s.

Mark asked her how long her baskets lasted and she pointed to the first basket she ever made, thirty years ago. The fronds were trimmed to narrow strips. They started out green, and turned yellow-brown as they aged. The fronds were soft and not difficult to work with. She seemed pleased with how interactive we were and we had a nice conversation with her.

We ran into a park ranger and Mark asked about the carvings—they were too large to have come from the local palm trees. The ranger said that a wood carver would work with a priest, climb the volcanos where the rainforests were, and select a tree; the type of tree chosen would depend on which akua was being represented and also what relationship the carver had with the tree. These were guides more than rules, and the ranger indicated that tree selection could be pragmatic.

I can’t help but want to contrast and compare Hawaiian sculpture with ancient Egyptian sculpture. Hawaiian sculpture is wood, spans a shorter time period, and doesn’t have any words or written spells on it. My sense is that Hawaiian sculpture is more textured with bold geometric patterns, whereas (aside from linen clothing) Egyptian sculpture is more smooth. I am supposing that some of these differences come from the Hawaiians not having ready access to metal tools.

If I had to come to a conclusion after an hour and a half of touring Pu'uhonua O Honaunau, I would that Hawaiian religious sculpture is more about the stories between a place or natural phenomenon and a person or person’s family, and that Egyptian religious sculpture is more grounded in a magical tradition. Exploring the similarities and differences between kapu and ma’at is a whole other essay.

Next to the park was a place folks could enter the surf and snorkel, so we did. This was the second bay we had snorkeled in on our Tuesday snorkel tour. Yellow fish swam right at the stepped rocks where one entered the water. There were fish (and people) everywhere. While we were there, dolphins cavorted in the surf.

After snorkeling, we drove through the twisty highway to Shaka Tacoz (the more southern one), a fish taco place where geckos came out of the woodwork to lick up the guava sauce. The food and geckos were great, although the music was bad pop from 1980 (at least our cashier liked it, because she sang along with every tune).

More driving. We made it to a black sands beach where sea turtles basked in the sun. The beach is very black and like Yachatts, Oregon, only with much more lava and less basalt. The sand is more course lava pebbles than actual sand. There were folks in the surf, but it looked much more rough than the other sites we’d visited. I took photos of sleeping turtles. Mark got some excellent mahi-mahi from a food truck; I got an ice-cream bar.

Still more driving. We did not see wild pigs or goats. In the town of Volcano Village, 4000 feet above sea level, we made a food run during the last ten minutes of operation of a quirky market. The market reminded me of Capella Market in Eugene, which is a bad sign: the aisles were even more narrow, and the layout more haphazard. I had low blood sugar or something, so I apparently walked past food I would have purchased and could only find things like nails, hinges, laundry detergent, and third-tier-Hostess-knock-off pastry pucks. There was some sort of episode at the cash register with cheese sticks of insanity that I don’t recall very well.

We had fine dining in Volcano, which included newly discovered Mai Tais. The restaurant was filled with very large portriats of birds. Which looked varying degrees of angry or judgey.

After dinner, we fall asleep to the sound of about a thousand cheeping invasive tree frogs from Puerto Rico. The tourist book warned us about the frogs and the insanity their song could bring, but we thought they were charming background noise.