Raging River july 29th

The dizzying of the rain that poured all through the night, filled the rivers today.  The waterfalls have been roaring, crashing into our sacred swimming spot just across the road of onipa”a. You could hear its thunder from the workshop, behind the banana trees. I stood in aw of our swim hole, warping into a whirlpool, energy crashing, mist rising, to my face. Just the thought of jumping in, sent my thoughts cascading down the river. The might and power of the water astounded me.

Today was slow and lazy, filled with reading books and quinoa nori wraps. We gathered in the evening as a community and I could feel the sleepy spirit. We ate Kale salads with yummy miso nutritional yeast dressing, coconut quinoa, and this incredible bread with onions in them. It seemed like a feast. Home strummed his guitar and brook played the drums and the kids played on the silks and fought and played, continuously, little bear napped off and on.

Ive been hungry to read lately. Ive dove into the book “the white Orelader” and I haven’t been able put it down long. Its about this girl whose mother is beautiful and mysterious, dangerous and talented. She ended up getting jealous of her lover, who cheats on her, and kills her using the white orelnader. The mother is thrown in jail and the little girl jumps from  foster home to foster home, enduring the strangest  events that test her strength. I see a lot of myself in the girl. The book is fluid with rhythm and poem.

Im finally here

Im finally here, and it still hasn’t hit me. Sunshine nearly everyday, a pleasant Rain nearly every night and almost anywhere you go, there is the ocean in sight and a breeze in my hair, Im here, Im really here, living in Maui. This is and was my dream, and I’ve made it.  Been here officially two weeks now, and my eyes feel like bleeding from all the new things Ive seen. We live in the jungles of Huelo or Haiku, it’s a little over an hour bike ride to the nearest bus stop, which can be a pain, but I didn’t come here for convenience, I came here for discipline, simplicity and a full emersion into nature and a far healthier lifestyle. I came here to meet myself, fullfll my dreams and plant my feet in the dirt and feel the hum of the earth, to get wound up in Merkaba, the fractals, and meditate on the nature of reality. Who are we, and where is God? 

We Did the bike ride for the first time a few days ago, and it was killer, but so worth it. My eyes felt like they were being dipped in a bowl of candy. We have a waterfall right out of front yard of Onipa’a, the self-sustainable community we live in, swimming in it is like floating in paradise, and it is. I can tell there are miles of water falls and streams to explore, right out our front yard. Its exciting, and overwhelming all the same.  Right across the road, of where we live off Hana Hwy on mile marker two, is Twin falls. Home, one of the members on the community, who started Onipa’a Took us there two days ago, and we hiked and swam for hours. Its kind of a bit touristy there, because lots of people who visit maui, drive the famous “ road to Hana” and one of the notorious stops is Twin falls. I remember reading about it in blogs and websites before we moved here. I don’t much mind though, its not over crowded and the sites are fabulous, with all the new kind of tress, crab claw flowers, avocado tress, and mind blowing bamboo, your heart could explode. Home took us to secluded waterfalls, where only locals really go. The hike took us through bamboo, and twisted tress, large leaves, across streams, up steep grades, over fallen logs and Koa tress.

Life here is more simple, and the people I meet are friendly. Its so easy to meet new friends, get in a conversation on the bus, or hitch a ride. Just last night I met a lady around my age, who gave all three of us a ride home from the Haiku community center. She was  a bit eccentric, talking fast about a boy she met, who she didn’t know where he lived and couldn’t remember his number, but was supposed to see him that night. She showed us her music she made on garage band, which didn’t sound half ba, her voice smooth and soothing. She told us how she performed on Fridays at the lillkoi Grill, perhaps sometime Ill come and see her. I grabbed her number, as she did offer to take us on the road to Hana drive.

We are all still trying to settle in here, and figure out how to set up a routine. Being in a jungle, Im still trying to figure out how to keep clean. Seems like all my cloths have mud on them, and my shoes too. Our cloths we must hand wash, which in fact I did a whole load last week, by myself, by hand. That was quite the experience. Took hours, in fact the whole process took nearly three days, from the wash buckets, to the three rinse buckets to the hand ringing, and hanging, the waiting for them to dry. Eventually were are going to get a hand ringer, jonni has even talked about putting together a bike powered ringer, which would be amazing!

Right at the moment I feel like I am in an actual dream, Im sitting in a little café in the small, historic town on Mokawao, sipping coffee, writing on my giant laptop, looking out the window and the bustling people going to different shops, in the sunshine, faith music playing, I think it might be Jazz, but Im not listening. I came here to Mokawao with home, who was checking out a work opportunity for our little crew, and was supposed to check out the library, but its Wednesday and the library here doesn’t open until noon, and its only 11:30am. Im content here in this little café, Im actually quite pleased to have some time to myself, away from the family, to just be a stranger in an unfamiliar town, and just write, let my brain wonder, to let things just kind of sink in.

Since Ive been here, I find myself doing a lot of internal searching, emotional purging and questioning what it really is that I want out of this, out of life, out of anything. I’m certainly doing a lot of cleansing. With the absence of dairy, meat, nicotine, alcohol, processed sugars, pesticides, aspertame and different synthetic chemicals, I find myself detoxing, in a way. For about three of four nights in a row I had a headache that emerged only in the evenings, I have a hunch it has a lot to do with the lack of processed sugars. Im looking forward to continuing to be vegan, and getting my body cleansed of chemicals, and getting far more healthy and in shape, this is just the beginning of an entirely new life, new body, new mindset, and a spiritual journey that will last a life time.

Kaia is still trying to find her grounding, with a lot of her time preoccupied with her new friend Koa who lives her, and who is only two months younger than kaia. They are learning how to share still and be nice to eachother, but still much of the time playing well. I can tell she is confused, and misses family but doesn’t know how to express it. There is times of outbursts and crying, but over all I think this is very good for her. We don’t have the opportunity to indulge is shows, or cartoons, and candy, and that for her is very different, but Im glad she is three rather than 11, or otherwise,  I could imagine it would be a lot harder. I feel like this is a good life change for her, for all of us, and in the long run, I hope It sets a president for the rest of her life.

I would say I was home sick, and Im sure I am, since I was gone for three weeks in New York, then only a week home, then a giant move to Hawaii for the last two weeks. I just haven’t had very many free moments to soak it in, to think about it, but I have had dreams of friends and family, one of the more memorable dreams being that it is 4^th of July again, and we are celebrating all over again. Im sure it will be more intense as more time passes. I feel at home away from home, and the feeling is slightly conflicting. I could see myself here for years, but I see myself home next summer, at least visiting.

Anguish Unedited

 I Think I understand complete and utter anguish, more than I understand any other emotion. The place between your ribs, that’s pulsing, and rising up, the opposite of wholeness, but a full brokenness. A place that you go, that not even an ice burg in the middle of the ocean could you find yourself more alone. There is a shame that comes with anguish, that is where you meet bitterness, but when I was young, I hadn’t known bitterness yet.

               As a child, I laid in many strangers bed, reaching out to heaven, with no reply, except maybe the gentle comfort of dopamine that releases when the mind suffers beyond its own comprehension, and maybe that is where we meet God. Still now,a child screaming out in pain for their mother, or their daddy, yanks me out of my perceived reality and I’m seven years old again, writhing In madness, squirming for comfort, there was none. I never went home, and that pain has never gone away, I just learned how to not feel it sometimes. It doesn’t have to be a cry from a child, sometimes just a simple rejection.

Some times I see myself in a room filled with things made of glass, beautiful things, and I have a bat. I think about it, in my loneliest waking moments, where I let my pain transform itself to rage, and it begins in my belly, where is starts to get hot, when the fire reaches my chest, the day dream begins, and Im smashing everything. Glass is flying, and I can feel the weight of the bat in my hand, and the pain I get when I hit things hard and the bat pushes back, but my muscles hold strong. I fear the glass will fly up and cut me, but it some ways I hope it does, so the people that see me, could see the pain, the bleeding and what this rage has done.

               Nothing hurts more than being alone. You just wanted to be special, you wanted the person you love the most to hold you in your arms so you could be home. You never went home.

I think the most important thing for people who have seen and felt the anguish, is to find a place, deep inside, that’s safer than anyone in this world, or safer than any place in the world, because as beautiful as the world is, its far more cruel than your worst nightmares. I’ve been to that place often, deep inside, whether it was during a time I was raped, or mental hospital where your cognitive abilities had had enough and shut down, and nothing made sense anymore. I’ve been there. During a time where you died to your body, for 23 hours bringing a new life in the world, or a time when I had felt the worst physical pain in my life, where my knee was shattered to bits, and I go there. It may not be the place you find God, but many think hes there, but a place where you see yourself eye to eye. I can see the universe swirling there and the answers to my questions, the greater reality. Where you dive into each fractal until it doesn’t make sense, but then it does again. When they told me that my father had got hit by a train, my mother had died, my aunt committed suicide, the darkest despair your mind can not comprehend, there is a place waiting for you there. When your best friend betrays you, you feel like you have to start over again, How many times will I have to start over again. How many times will I break and have to find strength. Until death.. I’ve watched people die, I’ve held their hand until they took their last breath, and I know its a battle, in the heart and in the mind, a fighting and bargaining with your own soul. I know what it is to die to the self, but I don’t think I know what it is to let go, that must be death, the ultimate. Final. death.

Just weeks ago, I spoke to my councilor about my dreams, a recurring dream and fascination with drowning. Whether the dreams had been me drowning, a stranger and even my daughter. I was surprised when he told me that it made complete sense. That drowning is a struggle, and it order to find peace, you must let go, when you do, you go into a state of complete nirvana, and things don’t have to make sense but they do. My heart yearns for that peace, but you have to conquer fear, in conquering you have to let the fear consume you, then let go. Its not abnormal to go to a place, as metaphysical as it is, where fear fills your lungs and you cant breath. Panic.

              I will never sit down, and I will never turn myself in, I will always start again. If these things have taught me anything, its that in anguish, fear, complete brokenness, loneliness, and self loathing shame, that you do always have a friend, in yourself and you must find it, create it if you must, inevitably you will. I don’t know what I’m writing about today, except pain, and that it is real, that we all feel it. You live long enough, and its not a stranger, and sometimes you need to just let it consume you, as long as you get up and start again.