Celebrating Kaua‘i, Earth Day

By Virginia Beck

Those who came to Kaua’i, came to find peace, beauty and a safe place for our families. Like all migrants, Polynesians came to find opportunities for land and growing communities. Many of us came not just to escape turmoil, crowding, the machines and the cities, but to look for a place to grow. Some came to heal from heartbreak, grief or illness.

Kaua’i’s healing energy is generated from its pre-historic origins as the oldest of the six major islands. Though sleeping, the very soil is from Earth’s molten core, magma ejected to the surface to build some of the Earth’s tallest mountain, when measured from the sea floor.

Kaua’i, with its extraordinary mountains, canyons, rivers, ocean, and beaches, never fails to amaze. Abundant fruit and vegetation, magnificent full moon to colorful sunrise, everything to inspire us with the power of creative life force, or “mana”.

The beauty of the present moment stuns us into an awakened state of appreciation for how lucky we are to live here. Light, everywhere, gleaming from the waves in flickering blazes of turquoise and blue. The sun slowly flooding the eastern sky with every shade of pastel clouds, and waking birds. Butterflies and flowers waken to the warmth, unfurling wings and petals. Blossoming trees, plumeria, gardenia, even the flowering macadamia nut trees release waves of fragrance that creep through our open windows.

Rainbows shine for everyone, regardless of age, wealth or social standing.

Waves pulsate, lift and fall with relentless power and grace, needing nothing but the planet and the moon to continue. Mountains rise without effort and the lands spread at their feet, fields running into beaches that blend with the reefs and the deeps.

Kaua’i speaks in languages you can only hear when you are quiet. And sometimes, if your mind is too busy or noisy, she will snap you to attention with a double rainbow, a flaming poinciana or green parrots bursting from the surrounding forest.

The sad winter after my mother died, bare branches stretching across a large window echoed my mood; skeletal and barren across the unrelenting grey afternoon.

A spark of green caught my eye. Then, another. Budding leaves breaking through the tough, dry outer bark; the way new joys can crack the brittle shell of a broken heart, or new beginnings rise from seeming failures.

Virginia Beck

Last week, I cut a shiny green apple for breakfast. As the blade sliced through the star shaped heart of the apple, seeds fell out, along with a tiny surprise. One had already grown a tiny root! Not yet free, and already, the next generation! Amazed and curious, I planted it in a pot by my kitchen window to see what would happen.

Two days later, it was an inch high, lifting an earthen clod twice its size. What power and grace! What great patience, that life force slumbering inside us, waiting for a chance. When the bitter blade of failure, grief or illness slices your life apart, have faith in life itself.

That same power lives in you and all things. We are part of the Earth, not separate beings. We are made from it and all the good things Earth shares with us.

So this April, when Earth Day and the spring solstice come, celebrate our shared B-Earth Day, and live a good life. Make Earth, the ‘aina, proud.

• Virginia Beck, NP, Certified Trager Practitioner®, does private Wellness Consulting and Trager ® practice at the YWCA Women’s Center in Lihu‘ She is part of the Women’s Health Team at West Kaua‘i Clinics, and can be reached at 635-5618.