Reign of the Rainforest

Hanakāpīʻai Falls, Kaua’i, Hawai’i

The path seldom looks the way we envisioned it. Even with a destination in mind, we know not for certain what lies before us. What’s needed to arrive does not often equate to what we desire.

Our great expectations often set us up for vast disappointment. It is the person who accepts & learns from the path who fully enjoys the journey.

Contrary to what we may think, to reach such pinnacles does not necessitate the grit of a warrior. Sometimes the hardest tasks require no physical effort, but patience. We fight the resistance of the current when what we really need is to let go & float downstream.

Sometimes…

Illnesses are cured not by medical protocol but by faith

Babies are born through love over desperation

Wealth flows in when we turn down work from those who do not align with our integrity.

Depression is fought when we stop resisting it and let it run through us, showing us how much we lost and how much it hurt…&

Everything gets done just because we believed it would

The hike to Hanakāpīʻai Falls in Kaua’i is such. While there isn’t much of a demand in gaining elevation, there is one to be wary of each step taken. So slippery & unsure is the path that the going is slow. There is mud that can take your footing as you stand still with rocks to catch your fall, heeding a reminder of how fragile bones are.

My wish to go fast, for life to go as I want it, is forbidden & there is no willing my way through it. The only way out is through & the only way through is slowly with care.

With this desire released, rapture is received. It is a time for absolute presence to reign & with it a focus sharp enough to bend time. The mud holds onto me, requesting I linger & lust over the trail. Such attentiveness, steady breath and footing carry me along in a type of mesmerization.

It’s only in such earthy grounding that one can be both grounded in reality & floating among it.

Sometimes the so-perceived obstacles placed on our path are not to be hurdled but to be revered. There is a skill to be mastered, a lesson to be learned. I choose not to worry but to welcome the slowness. It was placed before me for a reason. From this truth comes power & freedom.

To love life is to love the journey, even the parts that threaten to shatter knees & break spirits.

It is when we see that life is happening as it needs to that we find peace. It’s that deep knowing that sustains us when we’re most vulnerable to losing faith. 

Can you trust what’s been laid before you, even if it’s not what you wanted nor expected? 

Can you bear the pain, knowing it will pass? 

Can you contentedly walk the smooth path that will only last so long? 

Above all, can you have faith that if you lose your grounding, you’ll pick yourself back up? Finding it again, perhaps with more power, clarity, & resolution than ever before?

It is with tender care that I traversed this trail. I accepted my fate of a slow yet steady pace through the rainforest and I get swallowed by her boughs. Many of us think that meditation is only to be found in quiet solitude with eyes closed and blank nothing all around.

But I find meditation with eyes wide open, gazing softly at the wonders before me. My breath deepens, the waves in my mind slow, and reality is altered. Altered while magnifying its existence. I can see more hues of green, more lines on the trees, more grains of dirt coating the earth.

It’s a blissful kind of drug, achieved neither by substance nor modification of breath. Energy is both seen and felt. It is in such a state that arrive to (one of) the desired destination. The Falls do not disappoint even me, one who tends to be unimpressed by such feats of nature. She rains in bewitching succession, both fast and slow, in particle and in unison all at once. I swim in her pools, venerating her depths by keeping to her surface.

For a long time she lay hidden deep in the rainforest, unable to be seen to the undetermined eye. She knows her beauty and has set her price. To behold her requires you to prove your commitment and devotion to her. You must earn her trust by making your way to her.

Those who brave the path are worthy of seeing her for they have been humbled along the journey. They have learned the value that beauty takes time, nature is not to be rushed, and that there is grand exaltation in being present with each breathing moment of life.