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Show Lava, however, came with us. A piece taken from the slopes of Mauna Kea, the home of Pele, Goddess of Fire. My parents had flown to the Big Island with our next door neighbors, the Rice's, just before we had left the islands. Mr. Rice had piloted the tiny plane, plunging and soaring above the Molokai Channel until my pregnant mother threw up into a brown paper bag. They spent the weekend hiking the volcanoes and soaking in Queen's Bath, a pool made of lava and adorned with ferns. Pele is the most visible of the Hawaiian Gods and known in chant as "She Who Shapes the Sacred Land." She lives in the Halemaumau Crater of Mauna Kea, the highest mountain in the world measured from the floor of the sea. No matter what you think of Pele's ability to shape shift, her reported appearances as a young woman and an old woman with a white dog, you must respect the fact that she has added some seventy acres of land to the Big Island. Pele is a jealous woman. She has a long standing argument with her sister Na-maka-o-kaha'i, the Goddess of the Sea. Their battles can be seen today when Pele's lava reaches the ocean and creates mighty plumes of steam. What Pele is known for most in the islands is her curse on anyone who takes lava from the flanks of her volcanoes. While a few believe that a park ranger on the Big Island made up the curse as a way to prevent tourists from stealing park property, most, especially those who have experienced the curse, know Pele's wrath. Web sites like Lava Rock Return.com offer to take your lava back to the Goddess for you, wrapped in a Ti leaf, a symbol of good luck, in hopes of appeasing her anger. The page is filled with stories of the terrible tragedies people have suffered once they took some black sand, a chunk of lava, or the glassy beads known as Pele's tears. I do not doubt her power in the least. 50 |