Pacific Rhythms - Island Time

Summer - Week 27 - On Fire, Moon and Hawaiian Waters

In Her Nature is a year long exploration into the healing power of the natural world. Season by season, setting out to awaken the spirit, and rekindle joy. The weekly journal of a neighborhood, its plants and birds and creatures — and how they are helping repair a heart and rebirth a soul.

The Big Island of Hawaiʻi teaches patience with its rhythms. Here, where the Pacific stretches endlessly toward the horizon, the sun and moon perform their ancient dance with a drama that mainland skies can only dream of. This week, I've been witness to both their spectacular exits from the stage of day and night, each divine farewell carrying its own character, its own sacred weight.

Yesterday evening, I watched the sun's daily sacrifice along the western shore. There is nothing subtle about a Hawaiian sunset. The sun doesn't slip away apologetically as it might through the filtered haze of a mainland evening. It blazes. Framed by the dark silhouettes of swaying palm trees, the Pacific Ocean becomes a mirror of liquid fire, reflecting every wild shade of orange and red as the sun descends toward the water's edge.

The colors begin gently enough, pale gold spreading across the sky like honey on warm bread. But as the sun drops lower, the performance intensifies. Crimson streaks shoot upward through the clouds, and the ocean surface catches fire in dancing ribbons of light. Through the graceful palm fronds that dance in the trade winds, the very air seems to glow, as if the sun is reluctant to leave this island paradise and burns brighter in protest.

When the sun finally touches the water, it doesn't simply disappear. It sizzles into the depths like a piece of hot metal plunged into my farrier's quenching bucket. The sky holds its colors for long minutes afterward, as if the heavens are still reeling from the intensity of the sun's departure.

But this morning brought a different kind of farewell. The July full moon was setting over the same Pacific waters, but with entirely different energy. Western tradition calls this the Buck Moon, named for the time when deer antlers grow fastest. In Hawaii, this moon carries the sacred names of Hua or Akua, marking one of the four nights when the moon reaches its fullest power, a time when fishing is blessed and offerings are made to the gods.

Where the sun departed in fury, the moon withdrew in whispered grace. Sea mist had rolled in during the night, and the full moon hung suspended between layers of cloud like a pearl in soft gray silk. There was no fire in this setting, no dramatic color, only the gentle silver light growing dimmer as the moon descended toward the horizon.

It was contemplative light, the kind that invites quiet observation as I walked along the beach in the last of the early morning moonlight. The gentle transition seemed to call other witnesses too. Black crowned night herons stood sentinel along the water's edge, their fishing adventures complete, their red eyes growing heavy with the approaching dawn. Some perched on driftwood logs like ancient totems, while another settled in the gentle surf, allowing the tide to lap over their feet.

Above the shoreline, Java sparrows with their distinctive bright red beaks gathered in chattering flocks by the dozen, their animated twittering creating a dawn chorus that seemed to bridge the night's quiet and the day's awakening energy. Their calls echoed across the water as they moved from palm to palm, small ambassadors of the coming day.

While the sparrows celebrated the approaching dawn with their chatter, the night herons below seemed to embody the moon's own rhythm - patient, unhurried, content to simply be present. Their red eyes, so alert during their midnight hunts, were beginning to close as the sun's warmth touched their feathers. They had worked through the moon's hours and now rested in the sun's domain, living messengers between the two great lights that govern island life.

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This week brought another reminder of the Big Island's raw, elemental power. On July 9th, Kīlauea erupted in spectacular fashion. Episode 28 of its ongoing volcanic symphony that began in December. For nine hours, lava fountains shot skyward from Halema'uma'u crater, the earth's molten heart painting the sky in brilliant oranges and reds that rivaled any sunset.

Standing at the crater's rim during the eruption, with sulfur-tinged air in your lungs, you understand that the dramatic sunsets here aren't just atmospheric phenomena. They're part of a larger story of fire and creation, that this island, this earth is still being born, still growing, flow by flow, from the sea floor toward the stars.

There is something profound about witnessing the sun's departure, the moon's farewell, and the volcano's fury from the same small stretch of Pacific shore. In Hawaiian tradition, all three forces are sacred, but they speak different languages. The sun speaks in the urgent tongue of growing things, of action and achievement. The moon speaks in the patient dialect of tides and seasons, of inner knowing and spiritual connection. And Kīlauea speaks in the primal language of creation itself, of birth and transformation, reminding us that the ground beneath our feet is alive and ever-changing. Together, they create the rhythm that has governed island life for over a thousand years. A rhythm as eternal as the islands themselves.

Coming from the high desert of Colorado, I've spent the week immersing myself in nature that feels like another planet entirely. The native ʻōhiʻa trees that dot the volcanic landscape, the brilliant red ʻApapane flash like living jewels, their crimson heads catching the light as they feed on the equally red lehua blossoms. These endemic finches exist nowhere else on Earth, their presence a reminder that this island nurtures life found nowhere else in the world. Creatures perfectly adapted to this unique convergence of fire, water, and wind.

Below the canopy, ancient tree ferns unfurl their prehistoric fronds in the misty understory, their delicate lacework creating cathedral-like spaces that seem to hold the island's secrets. These living fossils, some towering twenty feet high, transport you back millions of years to when such giants dominated the planet. Walking among them feels like stepping into a primordial dream, where time moves differently and every unfurling fiddlehead speaks of patience and persistence. Monarch butterflies drift through these ferny sanctuaries like orange and black prayers, their migration patterns carrying them thousands of miles to find refuge in this Pacific paradise.

Immersed in this world where million-year-old ferns shelter migrating butterflies and endemic birds, this island teaches you to measure time differently. Not by clocks or calendars, but by the quality of light, and the changing of tides.

As I write these words, the full moon has disappeared into the Pacific, and the sun is climbing higher above the volcanic peaks behind me. The day's heat is building, the winds are picking up their gentle rhythm through the palm fronds, and the island is waking to another day of paradise.

But I carry with me home the memory of all three farewells - the sun's fierce goodbye, the moon's gentle departure, and the volcano's magnificent eruption fading into quiet. The herons, the lehua, the ancient tree ferns - they all belong to something larger, an 'ohana' that extends beyond family to embrace every living thing that calls this island home. To witness such beauty is to understand what it means to belong to something eternal and be part of this timeless story.

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—> What moments of natural wonder caught your attention this week? Please share your stories and photos in the comments below. Let's experience nature's gifts together.

As always, thank you so much for reading and supporting me.

Love,

Jane