WEBVTT

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I'm going to read you a little
bit from the last chapter, which

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is set in Hawaii.

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One thing I'll tell
you, because I'm not

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going to read it,
the Hawaiians--

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the native Hawaiians-- have
the notion of the 'aumakua.

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An 'aumakua is a kind
of spiritual guardian.

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And families often would
have a particular 'aumakua.

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It could be any
kind of an animal.

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Shark was a very
powerful 'aumakua.

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And a family would have a long--

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often many generations
long-- relationship

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with a particular
animal that would

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do fabulously magical things in
guarding that particular family.

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So you need to know that word
because I think the excerpt I'm

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reading uses it later on.

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When I arrived in Oahu I
moved into an apartment

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on the edge of
the Forest Reserve

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in the upper Mānoa Valley.

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Honolulu may be an urban sprawl,
but the university neighborhood

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of Mānoa feels like a village.

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Well-tended bungalows
cluster on the valley floor

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between symmetrical ridges
that rise on two sides,

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rippled with fins of volcanic
rock overgrown with mossy green.

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The ridges meet on the mauka
or mountain side of town

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as opposed to the makai--

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the ocean side-- forming
a deep lush crotch

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of green out of which
slides a slender waterfall.

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Taro patches once
were cultivated here,

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fed with the water
running off the ridges.

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There are a few
taro plants today--

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one or two diminutive species
planted in a landscaped yard,

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or a vagrant giant with
heart-shaped leaves

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as big as a human torso growing
on the edge of the now largely

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cement-lined Mānoa stream.

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At night the neighborhood
looks like glitter

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spilled on the ground, the dark
heights calm and sculptural,

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rising into the blacker sky.

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The hills are high enough
to catch the passing

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clouds, so on the mauka side
of town it rains every day--

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fat drops popping and ticking
against the dense waxy

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foliage outside my screen, the
wind sloshing through the trees

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like an omnidirectional tide,
so that the trees lean and sway

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and swirl like jellyfish
in an ocean of air.

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The shape and scale of the
valley is deeply appealing.

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Human habitation, though
dense, is in modest proportion

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to the harboring land.

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I have looked and
looked at its beauty,

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walking several miles
every day on my way

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to and from work along
sidewalks, through a meadow,

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down a trail bordering
a schoolyard,

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and through a winding
back alley, trying

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to find the language to
convey the spiritual power

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of the softly
verdant cliffs above.

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Natural beauty, as all
cultures seem to have known,

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raises the spiritual
energy of the world.

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One does not need a
specific system of belief

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in order to experience
this, for it is

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an inbred biological capacity--

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E.O. Wilson's biophilia.

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We cannot help but love the
wonders of form and color

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and vitality in the
lives that surround us.

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When one feels the
upwelling of that energy,

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it is often accompanied by
the desire to pass it on.

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Some people take photographs.

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Some write passionately
in notebooks,

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or send letters to a loved one.

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Some make drawings or
paintings on stone or paper.

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Some give the joy back to the
universe in the form of a prayer

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or chant.

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And some just hoot
into the silence

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to hear their voices fill
the air and return to them.

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My method is writing.

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That's where my love of nature
meets my need for human culture.

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After our weekly classes,
my graduate students and I

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gathered at Mānoa
Gardens for beer and talk

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about the state of the world.

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I've never worked with
a more diverse group

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of individuals, each one a
multicultural phenomenon.

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One was an East
Indian businessman

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who grew up in Sierra
Leone and runs a data entry

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company serving
clients on the mainland

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through the computer labor of
workers in the Philippines.

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He told of having visited
a village in India

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where youngsters attending an
after school computer class

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were picked up by their
fathers riding on camels.

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"We've almost solved the
problem of production," he said.

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"Soon everyone will be able
to have what they want."

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"But we haven't solved the
problem of distribution,"

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argued the Marxist
African-American basketball

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player from Berkeley, citing
who gets left out economically,

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the growing split
between rich and poor,

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the lack of justice in
the free market economy.

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I joined in-- the most
monochromatic of the bunch

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as a pale faced New Englander--

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insisting we cannot speak of
human progress without counting

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the cost other species are
paying for our success.

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"I've been reading about
hominid evolution," I said,

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"and about how we're
genetically best

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suited to live in small
kinship groups, at most 100

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to 200 people.

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We haven't yet got
an ethical system

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to deal with the
complexity we've become,

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so no wonder we're confused."

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A young Californian
of Austrian heritage

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told of attending high school
in a Catholic monastery,

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and of his disillusion with
the politics of the monastery's

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moral system that resulted
in his getting kicked out.

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He took up surfing,
which he practices

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with the intensity of a monk.

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And he-- it's true--

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and he spoke about
the sacred tradition

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of surfing among Hawaiians,
and about how proud

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he is to have earned
the respect of locals

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through his courage and
skill on the big waves.

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A woman of mixed
European ancestry,

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who grew up on Long
Island, New York,

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but has lived for 27
years on the Big Island

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where she makes paintings
depicting the old Hawaiian gods,

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spoke about her
understanding of the sacred

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as transcending
religion and culture.

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It sounded pretty ethereal
to the rest of us,

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especially after
a couple of beers.

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Everyone agreed that for all
the gains and individual freedom

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and rights democracy
has won, there

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was no longer a common
ethical system for Americans,

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no real sense of the sacred
as something absolute,

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unquestioned, and
inviolable to guide us.

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Among my students were two
women of Japanese ancestry,

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one a retired Episcopal
school teacher, and the other

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much younger, a
former social worker.

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Though they were 30
years apart in age,

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both were struggling
in their writing

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to understand the impact World
War II had on family members

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who lived in Hawaii when
Pearl Harbor was attacked.

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Those relatives had known
themselves as Americans,

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but when, through none
of their own doing,

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they suddenly became "the enemy"
to both their native homeland

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and to their adopted
country, the cultural wound

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was so profound that 50
years later, their children

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and grandchildren are
still trying to heal it.

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There was also a young
man of Hawaiian, Chinese,

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and Japanese ancestry who
had worked for a time killing

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wild goats that were ravaging
ranch and park lands on Maui,

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and who subsequently
wrestled in his art

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to make peace with the
necessary violence inflicted.

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And there was the native
Hawaiian, still angry,

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200 years later, that
Captain Cook and the others

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had ever showed
up in the islands.

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"It wasn't Christianity that
did the natives in," he said,

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"but the diseases the
Europeans brought."

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I offered an appeasement
that the Europeans

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didn't understand
at the time how

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the diseases were transmitted.

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"They knew what happened in
other places," he accused.

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"When they got there,
native people died.

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They should have stayed
home until they figured out

00:09:27.290 --> 00:09:30.230 align:middle line:90%
what caused it."

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There are moments in
such conversations

00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:38.390 align:middle line:84%
when, despite all disagreements,
each person leans back

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from the table and looks
around at the others,

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astonished, and grateful
that the world has progressed

00:09:46.810 --> 00:09:51.280 align:middle line:84%
at least far enough for
us to sit together and try

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to understand the folly
and faith of our species.

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We know more about the world,
about the beliefs and crimes

00:10:01.180 --> 00:10:06.220 align:middle line:84%
of our ancestors and everyone
else's, than any other people

00:10:06.220 --> 00:10:08.170 align:middle line:90%
who have lived.

00:10:08.170 --> 00:10:12.160 align:middle line:84%
Perhaps democracy is
in its infant stage,

00:10:12.160 --> 00:10:16.090 align:middle line:84%
analogous with the point in
history at which Americans first

00:10:16.090 --> 00:10:19.600 align:middle line:84%
began to cultivate
the diminutive strains

00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:21.790 align:middle line:90%
of native corn.

00:10:21.790 --> 00:10:26.290 align:middle line:84%
Culture is both the crop
we grow and the soil

00:10:26.290 --> 00:10:28.120 align:middle line:90%
in which we grow it.

00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:31.610 align:middle line:90%
It is our key survival strategy.

00:10:31.610 --> 00:10:35.890 align:middle line:84%
And it has become the key
survival strategy for most

00:10:35.890 --> 00:10:39.580 align:middle line:90%
other forms of life on Earth.

00:10:39.580 --> 00:10:45.730 align:middle line:84%
This is the human power employed
by intention and accident

00:10:45.730 --> 00:10:49.300 align:middle line:84%
that we find so
difficult to acknowledge.

00:10:49.300 --> 00:10:55.050 align:middle line:90%


00:10:55.050 --> 00:10:58.380 align:middle line:90%
The black sand beach is gone.

00:10:58.380 --> 00:11:02.010 align:middle line:84%
Though many tropical
paradise photographs still

00:11:02.010 --> 00:11:05.640 align:middle line:84%
celebrate its grand and
elegant arc, sheltered

00:11:05.640 --> 00:11:11.250 align:middle line:84%
by gleaming coconut palms, the
village of Kalapana is gone.

00:11:11.250 --> 00:11:13.020 align:middle line:90%
The ancient temple ruins--

00:11:13.020 --> 00:11:14.160 align:middle line:90%
gone.

00:11:14.160 --> 00:11:16.770 align:middle line:90%
The green canopy of palms--

00:11:16.770 --> 00:11:18.270 align:middle line:90%
gone.

00:11:18.270 --> 00:11:21.750 align:middle line:84%
Past a road closed
sign, the highway

00:11:21.750 --> 00:11:27.060 align:middle line:84%
lies 30 feet deep under
black iridescent lava

00:11:27.060 --> 00:11:33.420 align:middle line:84%
from the flow that began 15
years ago and has not stopped.

00:11:33.420 --> 00:11:37.110 align:middle line:84%
I hike out over the hardened
surface, past crumbling

00:11:37.110 --> 00:11:43.050 align:middle line:84%
fists of lava, and over terrain
that looks like black meringue,

00:11:43.050 --> 00:11:47.340 align:middle line:84%
swirled and peaked and
cracked with fissures,

00:11:47.340 --> 00:11:50.730 align:middle line:84%
a trail is barely visible
where the lava has

00:11:50.730 --> 00:11:53.940 align:middle line:90%
lost its shine from footwear.

00:11:53.940 --> 00:12:00.390 align:middle line:84%
The stark new earth is as solid
and quiet as anywhere wild I

00:12:00.390 --> 00:12:01.710 align:middle line:90%
have walked.

00:12:01.710 --> 00:12:04.650 align:middle line:84%
Though this particular
stretch of ground

00:12:04.650 --> 00:12:10.060 align:middle line:84%
emerged from the earth's hot
mantle only seven years ago,

00:12:10.060 --> 00:12:13.980 align:middle line:84%
all of this destructive
creativity, it seems,

00:12:13.980 --> 00:12:16.590 align:middle line:90%
ought to have a sound.

00:12:16.590 --> 00:12:20.700 align:middle line:84%
The air is cloudy and stinks
of Pele's bad weather--

00:12:20.700 --> 00:12:23.400 align:middle line:90%
Pele, the volcano goddess.

00:12:23.400 --> 00:12:25.890 align:middle line:84%
Five miles down the
coast a huge plume

00:12:25.890 --> 00:12:28.350 align:middle line:84%
rises where lava
continues to pour

00:12:28.350 --> 00:12:32.220 align:middle line:84%
into the ocean, white steam
billowing and spreading

00:12:32.220 --> 00:12:37.710 align:middle line:84%
into a gray pall that covers the
coast for as far as I can see.

00:12:37.710 --> 00:12:40.950 align:middle line:84%
Under foot there is
not a speck of soil,

00:12:40.950 --> 00:12:44.580 align:middle line:84%
only a few cinder crumbs
that have broken loose

00:12:44.580 --> 00:12:47.880 align:middle line:84%
from the volcano's
heaving project.

00:12:47.880 --> 00:12:53.220 align:middle line:84%
Sword ferns have taken root in
creases, seams, and cracks--

00:12:53.220 --> 00:12:58.000 align:middle line:84%
anywhere a spore and some
moisture might lodge.

00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:01.440 align:middle line:84%
Green has never
looked so electric

00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:06.040 align:middle line:84%
as do these pioneers on
the black lava shield.

00:13:06.040 --> 00:13:08.610 align:middle line:84%
I follow the dim
trail to the ocean

00:13:08.610 --> 00:13:11.580 align:middle line:84%
and find that a new black
sand beach is beginning,

00:13:11.580 --> 00:13:15.960 align:middle line:84%
where lava has shattered into
particles as it meets the sea.

00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:18.840 align:middle line:84%
Beaches too small and the
water too rough for anyone

00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:22.380 align:middle line:84%
to be swimming or sunbathing,
but three or four small rock

00:13:22.380 --> 00:13:25.650 align:middle line:84%
piles have been built along
the shoreline as offerings

00:13:25.650 --> 00:13:31.920 align:middle line:84%
to Pele, whose whims and angers
fill land and swallow towns.

00:13:31.920 --> 00:13:36.270 align:middle line:84%
And coconut palms have been
planted wherever the sand gives

00:13:36.270 --> 00:13:38.340 align:middle line:90%
their roots a purchase.

00:13:38.340 --> 00:13:42.570 align:middle line:84%
The seedlings at most knee-high
after six years of growth,

00:13:42.570 --> 00:13:47.100 align:middle line:84%
each splitting fruit
from which a stalk grows

00:13:47.100 --> 00:13:52.140 align:middle line:84%
is surrounded with stones to
protect it from water, and wind,

00:13:52.140 --> 00:13:54.960 align:middle line:90%
and visitors like me.

00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:58.170 align:middle line:84%
Their stiff fronds
click in the breeze,

00:13:58.170 --> 00:14:00.690 align:middle line:84%
and I keep startling
at the sound.

00:14:00.690 --> 00:14:02.820 align:middle line:84%
Pending footsteps
are approaching

00:14:02.820 --> 00:14:06.510 align:middle line:84%
to cross the crisp,
cindered ground.

00:14:06.510 --> 00:14:09.810 align:middle line:84%
Odd how we measure time
saying, "the Big Island

00:14:09.810 --> 00:14:15.450 align:middle line:84%
is 500,000 years old," when, in
fact, it is still being born.

00:14:15.450 --> 00:14:19.590 align:middle line:84%
People find meaning and
answering to that process.

00:14:19.590 --> 00:14:24.870 align:middle line:84%
By building and planting, they
honor the form-making spirit

00:14:24.870 --> 00:14:26.520 align:middle line:90%
of earth.

00:14:26.520 --> 00:14:29.250 align:middle line:90%
But there is one difference.

00:14:29.250 --> 00:14:32.850 align:middle line:84%
Pele does not weep
over the destruction

00:14:32.850 --> 00:14:36.990 align:middle line:84%
she inflicts in her
building projects.

00:14:36.990 --> 00:14:41.340 align:middle line:84%
We are the animal that cannot
accept the destruction it

00:14:41.340 --> 00:14:46.110 align:middle line:84%
causes, that hears not
just an inkling, but a cry,

00:14:46.110 --> 00:14:51.480 align:middle line:84%
coming out of the world
and feels spirit rise.

00:14:51.480 --> 00:14:57.870 align:middle line:84%
Maybe this is the voice of our
'aumakua, a guardian spirit born

00:14:57.870 --> 00:15:01.970 align:middle line:84%
of the creatures we have
driven out of existence.

00:15:01.970 --> 00:15:05.040 align:middle line:84%
It cries louder
and louder, trying

00:15:05.040 --> 00:15:09.330 align:middle line:84%
to get our attention
above the noise.

00:15:09.330 --> 00:15:12.330 align:middle line:84%
I walk back over the
silent lava shield,

00:15:12.330 --> 00:15:15.840 align:middle line:84%
past the nursery of
vibrant coconut palms,

00:15:15.840 --> 00:15:18.360 align:middle line:90%
towards the lava paved road.

00:15:18.360 --> 00:15:21.480 align:middle line:84%
The hillside above
is rich with greens,

00:15:21.480 --> 00:15:27.090 align:middle line:84%
some lined up in tended rows
and some exploding wild.

00:15:27.090 --> 00:15:33.390 align:middle line:84%
All stages of living nurture
are here side by side--

00:15:33.390 --> 00:15:36.810 align:middle line:90%
the beginning, middle, and end--

00:15:36.810 --> 00:15:41.130 align:middle line:84%
not in sequence
but simultaneous.

00:15:41.130 --> 00:15:48.150 align:middle line:84%
To know myself, if only for a
moment, as part at the beginning

00:15:48.150 --> 00:15:53.640 align:middle line:84%
is to know the earth's
sacred strength.

00:15:53.640 --> 00:15:59.070 align:middle line:84%
I buy a Coke and a papaya at
the black sand beach drive-in,

00:15:59.070 --> 00:16:00.990 align:middle line:84%
flip through a
photo album showing

00:16:00.990 --> 00:16:03.690 align:middle line:84%
the progress of Pele's
neighborhood improvement

00:16:03.690 --> 00:16:05.160 align:middle line:90%
project.

00:16:05.160 --> 00:16:07.020 align:middle line:84%
The woman tending
the counter tells me

00:16:07.020 --> 00:16:10.200 align:middle line:84%
how great the beach used
to be and how far she has

00:16:10.200 --> 00:16:12.780 align:middle line:90%
to drive now to go swimming.

00:16:12.780 --> 00:16:14.760 align:middle line:84%
"Are you sure you don't
want three for $1?"

00:16:14.760 --> 00:16:19.380 align:middle line:84%
she asks, gazing ruefully at
two crates of golden fruit just

00:16:19.380 --> 00:16:21.750 align:middle line:90%
picked from neighborhood trees.

00:16:21.750 --> 00:16:24.630 align:middle line:84%
"Well, yes, I
guess I do," I say,

00:16:24.630 --> 00:16:29.040 align:middle line:84%
and choose two more at
different stages of ripeness.

00:16:29.040 --> 00:16:32.190 align:middle line:84%
20 yards behind her
the edge of the lava

00:16:32.190 --> 00:16:35.670 align:middle line:90%
is frozen into a lifeless wave.

00:16:35.670 --> 00:16:38.820 align:middle line:84%
She tells me to
come back at sunset

00:16:38.820 --> 00:16:45.770 align:middle line:84%
to see how beautiful the flowing
magma is reflected in the plume.

00:16:45.770 --> 00:17:16.000 align:middle line:90%