Just last month, Halema`uma`u erupted with all of the fury of, well, a fire goddess. Breaching the surface for the first time in decades at the site that has been a center piece of the area and the National Park for decades, Tutu Pele cast forth ash and fire and sulfur dioxide.It's that last bit that has many people on the island of Hawai`i concerned and has brought some reality to the predicament to the people across the state. I don't know if the population of Honolulu really ever understood what the people of south and west Hawai`i have been dealing with until the vog rolled in and obscured the Ko`olau.And it is in the midst of all of this that I was having a conversation with my mother and my wife. All having grown up on the Big Island and lived through the first couple dozen phases of the Kilauea eruptions starting in the 1980's, we all agreed that we could not believe just how bad it was. And moreover, although we all love that island, there is a part of us that is grateful that we are not there right now. (But know that we have all of you folks over there in our prayers)As we are talking about this, I wondered aloud,"I just wish I knew what Tutu Pele was trying to tell us with this eruption."Leave it to my mother to sum it up by responding, "She is trying to remind us that when it comes to the land, we are not in control."Indeed.So in this era when Western society is finally accepting that the world is larger than any one of us and that it is each of our responsibility to take of this earth and that it will in turn take care of us, we get a friendly reminder of how delicate a balance life truly is.
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