Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

We're slip-sliding offkilter (23.5 degrees to be precise) around this eliptic plane. We are careening PDF (pretty darn fast) around the sun, sometimes veering closer to the rays and sometimes shying away. And because of the dapper-doffed-hat angle of our planet, we get Demeter and Persephone's yearly push-me pull-you, with the swell of springtime flowers and the burst of heavy harvest, and the long cool rest of the earth. The waves reach up to moonlight and the stars move over us, hanging changing sheets of constellations across the sky. We're little monkeys and we like stuff. We're science monkeys and the world is neat-o. So we notice things like the planet hotting or colding, or the lights lining up, and the stars holding still. Also, we like parties. Hence, seasonal festivals! Also, we are worried little curious monkeys, and the fact that we grow up and die is freaky. So we try and puzzle it out, mapping our wonder and worry across the sky. When it's getti...

First, let me say, I don't know anything. Go ahead and read my know-nothing thoughts, you've been warned. The thing with ceremony is, it doesn't happen in normal time. You cross a border into another world. It's not benign, it's not easy. You need help. There's a reason fairy tales are populated with helpers, with wise old guides in guises. You can't go it alone, you can't muddle through safely. You need to walk with someone. Ceremony is personal. It's happening in the outside world, of course. It's happening in the world of dirt and fire and dust and sweat. But it's really happening inside your own na'au, your own gut, the seat of your spirit. Although an observer can describe or name or categorize or claim ownership of the outer stuff, what happens in your own brain and guts and whatever that bloody breakable organ that houses love is-- that's entirely your own. When I'm close to ceremony, I can't talk about it becau...

I left Hawaii. Not forever-- just for two months. Just the day school got out-- all my book shelves pushed into one corner of my classroom, all the partitions folded and desks stacked and supplies boxed up. I got on an airplane-- actually three-- and left Hawaii behind. I just got back Sunday. I learned a lot. Some of what I learned I should probably write about. But not today. Today, I went back to work. And the day sort of embodied everything that is sacred and amazing, and everything that is enraging and crushing about this rock in the middle of the pacific. I left the house at 4:30 am. I drove my truck through the dark-- down the mountain, along the coast. Just knowing the black ocean was right there, invisible and inky on the side of the road, lapping at rocks in the dark-- gave me chills. The ocean is big and powerful-- a force to be acknowledged and respected. Good morning unseen ocean. By 5:30 I made it to the beach. Many of the other teachers were already there, stand...

I came late to the faculty meeting yesterday. I walked in with my laptop and planner but the conference table was gone and everyone was sitting on the floor in a circle. Kaina, the Hawaiian language teacher and charismatic force of nature, was sitting shirtless at the front of the circle, with three large wooden bowls in front of him. At either side hovered a shirtless teenage boy. To their left sat our two graduating seniors. Ah. A Kawa ceremony. Cool. I mentally changed lanes. Last year's kawa ceremony was out in the school garden one evening, in the handmade hale, and was followed by a hi'uwai-- a purifying dunk in the ocean to symbolize letting go of the old and embracing the new.  Apparently this time it was in the social studies homeroom, on the carpet. I noted the three bowls-- one full of the stringy dried Kawa, one full of murky grey-green liquid, and one full of clean water with many little coconut bowls bobbing around. Kaina whispered to the boy helpers, di...