Tropical Mindfulness

    With much gratitude for everyone and everything that have brought me to this place and time, I am sitting looking out over the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Hawai’i (the Big Island).  I hear the sound of small waves breaking against the relatively fresh Earth of lava rock pools between me and the deep blue sea.  I feel a warm breeze on my sun baked skin. I see a good sized Honu (green sea turtle) is basking on the rocks.  I saw some small, young ones swimming in the small protected pool earlier as well.  Will they also come out to bask? Who knows?  We must wait and see, and be with what is happening right now, right?

      

  Except, I am at this very moment also writing a blog post, so perhaps I should be mindfully attending to that!  I recently listened to a talk on dharmaseeds.org by Michelle McDonald and she points out that if we were completely mindful of everything every moment, our heads would basically explode.  Though she may have put it more eloquently than that.

  

      The reason I started this post, and the reason for the wave photos was because I was feeling very clever after noticing the following:

     I was watching the waves come and go on the beach the first day we arrived here.  I tried to mindfully watch one wave arrive, crest, ripple up the beach and recede. But there was always another wave right behind, capturing my attention.  It proved verrrry tricky to focus on one wave at a time. Just like my thoughts and experiences.  They come so quickly, that I feel lucky to be able to notice one at all.  I try to slow down and notice, but not be harsh or judgmental towards  myself if I cannot.  After all, I certainly do not want my brain to explode.

What are you seeing/hearing/smelling/feeling/tasting at this very moment?


Disclaimer:

It's not like I'm some kind of mindfulness expert, but I have been attempting to be more mindful since beginning my yoga teacher training with Yoga Calm about 5 years ago.  Mindfulness certainly doesn't always make life more pleasant, but it definitely makes it more interesting, and I enjoy weaving it into my yoga teaching and daily life. My starter book was Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Visit my website shadygroveendeavors.com for information on my yoga classes in Eugene, Oregon.

Vitamin D Deficiency Prescription

Around the darkest days of the year we got a wild hair (hare?) to visit Hawaii. 

We started North of Kailua-Kona at Puako Bay.

There were strawberries at the Waimea (Big Island) Farmers' Market.

Not to mention bananas, papaya, rambutan, oranges and lillikoi (passionfruit).

It was Mid-January.

We saw honu (turtles) and whales.

I practiced Tunisian Crochet on the beach.

We smiled A LOT.

Then we got in our little rental car and drove around the north side of the island to Pahoa.  On the way we saw Akaka Falls where someone had left a little yarn bomb friendship ring on the rail.  

One of the highlights of the whole trip was seeing brand brand new bits of Earth's crust.  Excitingly, it is headed right for the little town of Pahoa where our friends live.  No big rush or danger, but it may well cut off the highway in a while, and after that, only Pele knows which way she will flow, or if she will stop and simply head elsewhere. 

While we were in the area we went to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. 

There are a lot of invasive plants and species thriving in Hawaii, and most of the botanic garden was non-native, but it was a pleasant way to  spend a few hours.

Two cuties pies were spotted amongst the ferns and bromeliads.

  After Hilo/Pahoa we kept going south on the ring road to visit the center of Pele's domain at Volcanoes National Park. On the way we saw where she had obliterated a favorite black sand surfing beach and an entire semi-occupied subdivision in the 1980s and 1990s (maybe you watched this on a National Geographic special) and replaced it with fresh pahoehoe and a new mini-black-sand beach.

On to Volcano!

Steam vents!

Calderas!

Sulfur Dioxide!

Hydrogen Sulfide!

Magma glow!

Volcanoes National Park is not overly huge, but there is plenty for a few days.  

The next day we drove down the chain of Craters Road.

 We stopped at a Lava tube within a native Ohia Tree forest.

We leaned that the fluffy stuff from new fern fronds was used for nice soft bandages and such. 

We saw pictographs, which are largely associated with blessings of new babies. 

We saw every shape of lava imaginable.

 Best of all, we saw Nene which are an endangered native goose.

      We continued to continue southward. Stopping at yet another black sand beach (yes, the sand gets really really hot),  I watched a sea turtle haul itself out to bask (I think I stayed 30 feet away like the sign said, so the zoomed in photo may be a little pixelated).  Then we drove out a tiny one lane road to South Point.

  Southernmost point in the U.S.  

Next stop, Tahiti. 

Our last few days were spent south of Kailua-Kona at a nice B&B, Kawa'aloa Plantation. We chilled out, watched geckos check out my collection of  new Tunisian Crochet, gecko colored dishrags,  and watched sunsets before heading back home to good old dark Eugene. 

It was just what the doctor ordered.

To be taken annually for best results.