The Healing Island

I have been momentarily transported. I am no longer in a hospital bed, or laying on a couch, gazing at shoppers. I am no longer in a world I know. I am sitting on the edge of a precipice, staring down a jagged volcanic cliff at the crashing blue waves rolling back, collecting power, and forcefully smashing against the wall, sending a spray of white foam rocketing up into the sky. I am surrounded by a carpet of bright green ferns; my feet disappear under the canopy. I look ahead and see tall palm trees leaning over the cliff as though they’re waiting to jump. I look behind and see a dense, foreboding jungle of vines, parted like a curtain to reveal the dark forest behind, mystical and ancient. I pick up my guitar and strum the first few chords of a song. I am interrupted. A sea turtle lifts its head from beneath the water’s surface. It bobs up and down, patiently waiting for me to finish the song. Slowly it returns back to its business. Suddenly, the mist from the ocean catches the fading sun reflecting off the vine forest and creates a rainbow in the sky, lasting only for a moment. And I sigh. I am no longer in a world I know.

The Big Island of Hawai’i is also called the ‘healing island.’ The goddess who rules the island, Pele, is not known however for her gentle demeanor. She is vengeful, destructive, mighty. The red lava that flows from her fountainhead and decimates villages at random reminds those who live on the island that creation is birthed from destruction. Locals refer to her with reverence and humility. They seem to understand that healing is not a gentle process. But Pele is not without compassion. My first night, I sat across from a new friend, a dreaded yogi, at dinner. He told me that while I was on the island, my healing would be accelerated by Pele’s power. But first, it would be necessary to make her an offering. As I fell asleep that night, I dreamt of this past year. The path I’ve been walking has left me with little to offer a goddess. I feel depleted and worn. The strength and force of cancer have brought me to my knees in humility and changed me almost to the point of being unrecognizable to myself. I feel like a small village, annihilated by molten lava, broken down and destroyed. I was driving past a village like this, now a black lava bed, and noticed new houses being erected. Why do they build, when they know Pele is just as likely to bring her wrath on them again next year? But maybe it isn’t wrath at all. Maybe reconciliation is not a gentle process. Maybe it is only through the violent destruction of our foundation that we recognize with clarity how to build it stronger. Or maybe we build it to be destroyed, and it is destroyed to be rebuilt.

Healing is not gentle. It is standing on a precipice, inches from dropping into the force of the violent wave crashing against the cliff, inches from losing yourself in the dark and tangled forest. But healing is the beauty created when those forces collide to form a rainbow, and you are blessed—if only for a moment—to witness it.