The Moths Beat Themselves to Death Against the Light

Either when you've traveled far and wide or widened your gaze near the land you call home, you can begin to appreciate and realize the value of a portable sanctuary.  Where you go, there you are, and will always be.
In the quest to finding all pursuits worthwhile, one needs to find out what is important to them.  Is it giving back to humanity, adopting a puppy, planting a tree, starting a family, donating to a cause, finding happiness within, attaining your dream job, seeking enlightenment, or finding a life long mate that offers you fulfillment.  I've discovered that I need to be happy both internally and externally.  I know I can't overcome every circumstance and I have to learn to embrace or sit with feelings of vulnerability, pain and hopelessness.  I've learned that it is better to have mistakes and learn from them than go through life effortlessly without conflict.  Conflict helps defines the character and to know this world and your place in it, you need to know yourself - both your limits and your potential.

I have found both physcal and intangible sanctuaries in holy gardens, temples, sacred ancient cities, the stillness of the desert, the ebb and flow of the tide, a passage of time, a microscopic seed, a kind word from a friend, a laughter from the belly, the fur under my dog's sun-kissed ear, and lying on the fallen leaves in my backyard.  We all inadvertantly seek these places or concepts every day.  It unconsciously eases our breathing, relaxes our soul, and slows our heart.  It allows us to wake from last night's dream and fall back into a new one each night.

I have located another sanctuary right now, writing this on a red sand beach near the birthplace of the great Queen Ka'ahamanu, Kamehameha's favorite wife.   Though these thoughts are flowing like Johnny Appleseed down a damless river, I am trying to prove that you can transcend location and find this sanctuary everywhere.  Recognition and awareness are all that is necessary.  It becomes a practice, like a meditation, which is also deeply embedded in routine and tradition.  Living and reinacting thousands of years of history: taking a solitary walk outside, playing an instrument, starting a fire.  Going to church every sunday, temple every sabbath, praying to the east 5 times a day, feeling part of a whole.  The community and congregation all are holding onto these ideas of something bigger, looking for an intimacy with the unknown.  You're certain to find this portable sanctuary if you want it and keep at it.

I am starting to notice these miracles that exist and they help me reenter my sanctuary everyday.  A plant's daily growth, a sun falling into an ocean only to be followed by a cool starry breeze, a smile from a stranger's happy soul.  I am seeking it in the unfortunate circumstances, though it is more difficult.  I'll admit to completely losing site of it on grumpy mornings.

We should strive not for the top, but the center.  The top position is already filled.  It is the air we breathe and the fruits we eat, it is the light and it is everything and we are borrowing time from it to find harmony with it and not try to control it.  The mastery is attained in the balance, in gravitating towards the center of two opposites.

"Sometimes the cause of civilzation is best served by a hard stare into the soul of its opposite." - Michael Pollan 'The Botany of Desire'

We seek this balance internally and in the environment we choose to be apart of. We seek it in a community where everyone plays their role to create a sustainable life.  We study the past and see civilizations meet their end not when they no longer are prosperous, but when they  lose sight of their roots, which were founded on sustainability.

I helped my friend with his taxes the other day and quickly discovered I could have been an accountant.  I'm fast with numbers, patterns, and organization.  However, working outdoors with bare hands and feet in the soil has gradually put my mind more towards ease.  I find this work more demanding, stimulating, and endless in terms of potential.  Here I'm working with land in different climates with different elements and problems and advantages.  I will never be bored or tired of a routine because each day is different.  In an office setting, the mold is a little too firm for me.  You can shape the clay slightly, but it's been set for so long that not only is it extremely difficult, it isn't encouraged.

And in my portable sanctuary, which can be aptly named both my body and soul, I've come to discover there is no end.  And with these thoughts implies there is always time for reconciliation and improvement and most importantly potential.  Every possibility is filled with potential.  Even to deny an impossibility is to succumb to a chained spirit.

Besides this daily practice, I've begun to regularly attend 'Maui Church.'

"A beach tells many lies but somewhere the truth is always written." - E. Hemingway 'Islands in the Stream'

It began in the sixties, like many other worthwhle revolutions.  Every Sunday at Little Beach, sitting north of Wailea, home of Maui's most expensive hotels, the locals have gathered for nearly 50 years to form something special.  To a tourist, or even a quick glance, it looks like a crowded beach with a lot of naked people.  The sand is powdery and soft, there are no tiny pebbles in the clear blue waters.  The snorkeling is excellent.  You can spot old sea turtles from the lava rock shore and swim with multi-colored tropical looking fsh, including state fish humuhumunukunukupua'a.  The weather is sunny, nearly cloudless, year long.  The view to the east is Haleakala, green sloping hills, and a Kiave forest, and to the west, an ocean framing a view of Kaho'olawe, also known as the Target Island, once used as target practice for dropping bombs during the war.  If the vog is low and the visibility is good, you can see the red planes and jagged hills on the mountain jutting out of the sea.

If the physical landscape isn't stimulating enough, the vibe is bound to turn an atheist into a believer.  The drum circle starts around noon and continues into the night.  There are plenty of regulars, but anyone can bring whatever energy they want onto the beach.  Last week, I saw a brass section for the first time.  A trombone and saxophone player, who both wore accessories that would compete against Flava Flav and MC Hammer's, played with the drums for a while and sang songs where phrases such as 'Space is the place' were repeated with progressive enthusiasm.  At night, expensive digital light projection toys were brought out and fire dancers began to play lustful cat and mouse games under the stars and in between the growing circle of the remaining beach's population.  The scene builds, not towards a climax or a finale or a breaking point, and it builds some more.

Here at Maui church, the congregation comes in all shapes and sizes, clothes, piercings, tattoos, hairstyles, and lack of clothes.  People cheer on the sunset like at a football game, yelling cat calls when a whale breaches.  Tooting their horns like cartoon characters worshipping Jessica Rabbit when a whale releases water from its blowhole.  Every beach activity from drinking a beer to playing frisbee to building sandcastles in the wind to bodysurfing to dog walking to dancing to dreaming.  The beach embodies a freedom of expression, and with an ocean as vast as the Pacific at your fingertips, it's hard not to feel the power and beauty this world offers.

And when this happening begins to fit into your life once a week, the way it has for so many people, you start to realize that if this world is one giant borrowed portable sanctuary, everywhere you go is home.

Some suggested reading that indirectly influenced this post:

Jose Saramago   In Search of the Unknown Island
Haruki Murakami  Kafka on the Shore
Jorge Luis Borges Circular Ruins
Jack Kerouac  Dharma Bums

Some songs that influenced this post:

Modest Mouse   World at Large
Elbow   One Day Like This
John Coltrane  Serenity
Bliss N Eso  Eye of the Storm



The moths beat themselves to death against the light,
Adding their breeze to the summer night.
Outside, water like air was great.
I didn't know what I had that day.
Walk a little farther to another plan.
You said that you did, but you didn't understand.

I know that starting over is not what life's all about.
But my thoughts were so loud, I couldn't hear my mouth