About Time, Part 2

I wrote last month's article "About Time" and put it in the mail to Linda Ellis, First Sunday's editor and publisher, the day before leaving for a healing gathering in Hawaii. I've never considered myself much of a sun-and-sand person, and mountains and forests usually beckon me more than beaches. But I didn't want to miss the opportunity to work with the divine feminine and experience the healing power of sound, toning and chanting with my spiritual sisters and teachers in magical Hana, the isolated east Maui area known as "the last Hawaiian place."

Hana and its neighboring community Hamoa rest at the eastern foot of Haleakala, the volcano whose emergence from the bottom of the Pacific millennia ago formed east Maui. (Fortunately, the last Haleakala eruption to reach the ocean occurred in 1790. While the volcano may not be officially extinct, she at least appears to be soundly asleep.) The only way to get to Hana/Hamoa by land is along a winding, narrow 52-mile stretch of road that takes two hours to travel. But what a journey! The road to Hana twists through rainforest lit by green-filtered sunlight and incandescent tropical flowers, past waterfalls and along a black-lava shoreline upon which an impossibly blue-green ocean tosses in a white froth.

Sixteen of us caravaned in rental cars to the oceanside houses in which we would stay and hold the healing space for a blessed week. A couple of days into the workshop, we drove further along the coastline to Kipahulu and the tiny 19th century Palapala Ho'omau Church (on whose grounds aviator Charles Lindbergh is buried), where we held hands and sang "Amazing Grace" in a state of amazing acoustics. Then on to the Seven Pools of Ohe'o, where a stream tumbles down the side of Haleakala in a series of waterfalls and stony pools until emptying into the sea.

We picked our way across the rocky borders of the stream until we reached one of the last pools and went swimming in the cool mountain water. One of our party swam to the waterfall that fed the pool and climbed onto the rocks beneath it, sitting for several joyous minutes amid the clear cascade. She told us later that for a long time she'd had a recurring dream of sitting under a waterfall as it washed away years of shame and pain and fear from decades of abuse. The next morning, for only the second time in her life, she woke up feeling happy instead of afraid, sad, or dreading what the day would bring. (The first such awakening had occurred during one of our healing gatherings in Hot Springs, Arkansas two-and-a-half months earlier.)

After swimming in the pool we picnicked in a thatch-roofed shelter during a light rainfall, then hiked back up to the parking lot where we'd left our cars. As I was preparing to drive back to Hamoa I realized with delight that I'd left my wristwatch on the stones surrounding the Ohe'o pools. I began laughing, recognizing it as a perfect coda to my recent musings about time. As I drove a carload of my sisters along the winding road back to our rental house we spontaneously began singing, soft harmonies turning languorously in the tropical air.

That evening I called my husband, who'd remained home in Nashville. "I've entered a state of timelessness," I announced, explaining how I'd "accidentally" left my watch at the Seven Pools.

"It's probably at the bottom of your purse," he yawned, it being five hours later in Nashville.

"No, you don't understand! This is a good thing," I exclaimed. "I don't want it back."