Today I’ve been thinking about Kilauea, the volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii that’s been reshaping the island’s terrain continuously since 1983.
I’m not sure why.
Perhaps because I was there around this time last year…
Perhaps because thinking about something red hot feels good after a long cold white winter…
Perhaps the approaching spring equinox brings the volcano to mind, since they are both about transformation and new beginnings, and not always pretty, at least at first…
Perhaps I need to be reminded that the blaze of Creation is a deeper, more powerful fire than the smoky flame of anger and conflict we contend with constantly these days…
Perhaps I simply miss Pele.
Here is a poem I wrote in 2010, after seeing the glowing caldera of Kilauea—the realm of the goddess Pele–at night for the first time.
Halema’uma’u
She is there,
stirring fire in Her enormous cauldron,
simmering stew,
plume of sulfurous breath rising,
glowing,
blood red in the black night,
a primordial witch’s kettle visible for miles.
“Stare—admire me—be afraid of me if you must.
You think me wild and dangerous.
I am
and I have been so since the beginning of time.
But—kinswoman—so are you.
You, too, kindled by subterranean shifts
fanned by passion and instinct
fire up your cauldron
simmer what is needed
and when it is time,
burn away the obsolete to forge the new.
Fire to flesh to fire to flesh . . .
You know this.
Live it.”
Have you seen Halema’uma’u caldera? At night?
What are you forging in your cauldron of creation?
(Photo taken by Tom Peek.)
I love the phrase about the newness “not so pretty at first”. We are so used to having it all right now. It’s time for me to step back and really look at the newness in all it’s glory, and not what I think it should be. Thanks Anne. Beautiful poem.
Thanks Nancy. Yes, it took me quite awhile to see the beauty and creation in the volcano’s destructive force, too.
Anne,
You always remind me of the strength I have within. I need those reminders ! Thank-you.
Tell Tom I thoroughly enjoyed his photo of Pele…………………………….Mary
I think we all need those reminders…
(The photo was taken by my brother Tom, who has lived in Hawaii now for 30 years. It is a great photo, isn’t it?)
Anne, thank you so much for this piece! Spring is new beginnings, and it is wonderful to be reminded that we can fan the embers that went dormant over the winter into a fie that can blaze a new path.
Yes, and Pele reminds us to do so even if the new path feels wild and dangerous…well, I guess maybe our deepest eccentricity is usually “wild” and “dangerous”…