As I settle more deeply into my time here in Hana, I feel the softness of this land bringing out the soft, supple places in my body and heart. My soul responds to the beauty and fragrance of this Frangiapani, collected on my walk this morning. There was no clear sunrise, but rather a cloudy and warm drizzly beginning to this day.
I can feel the pull of this place, a pull that tugs at the core of my body, pulling me down into Her. When I arrived and realized I had been called here, that this place had called me, this pull made itself known.
In some ways, it’s like the pull you feel on your whole body as you stand in a wave being drawn back to the ocean. The pull of the tide is mighty.
This pull feels like it’s pulling me down into this place, whatever this ‘place’ is. I don’t know. Yet I know the feeling as it pulls not only on my body, but on my heart as well.
And, sometimes, She’s not gentle at all. As I exited the surf the other day, a wave with a punch lifted me up and tossed me down without warning. I landed on the side of my head. I felt woozy. I felt disoriented and had to sit to collect myself. I remembered a good healthy respect for nature that I had forgotten.
As I walked the beach this morning, one thing was very clear. No matter how much I try to make up a strong strand of meaning in my life, I could clearly see, there is no meaning…at least not one that I might make up. Oh, yes, I will still try to make it up, ’cause that’s what minds do.
Yet in this place of tropical bird calls and sweet Frangiapani spread out across the ground, I find when I simply be in my body and open my senses to every layer of experience that presents itself, I know no meaning.
In feeling the pull to this place, I know no meaning, but I listen and witness. I am opening. There’s a softness in this opening, a palpable tenderness. I also am aware of my fear of my own power, a power I see all around me, in the waves crashing against the shore and in the volcano on whose base I am sleeping.
The feminine is mysterious. She’s contradiction. She’s unreasonable. And, so am I.
Dear Julie,
so lovely to feel the land of Hana through you, so far away yet so close…
your post reminds me of a Rumi poem:
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing,
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase
each other
doesn’t make any sense.
Rumi (Translation Coleman Barks)
what a paradox for us who love and live with the words…
much rest to you
Filiz
Beautiful.
Thank you.
Just gorgeous. I know this pull well, and the tug between meaning (which strikes me as an enterprise of the brain) and something deeper, more essential, more inchoate (in my heart). xox
I love how you find access to your own femininity, your own mystery in nature. I had a profound experience when I recently ventured into the “wild” as well. Beautiful.
thank you for this most delicious birthday gift. 40 feels like a sacred initiation, and your soulful prose and embodied wisdom are guides on my pilgrimage. with deep gratitude.
You are a beautiful writer! I love your descriptions and imagery, not to mention the gorgeous photos. Reading your blog posts make me feel calm, which is a rarity in my hectic life. Thank you. 🙂