Nature's best

I've always loved nature. Whether it's the womb-like experience of floating in the ocean, looking up into a sky adorned with fluffy white clouds that form and re-form shapes, allowing my imagination to run amok in the atmosphere.

Or the sense of adventure that overcomes me, as I wander around the garden on a sunny afternoon: prodding the millipedes and watching them curl up lazily into balls, tracing the random flight of a graceful, honey-coloured butterfly, or sucking on the slender tube-like base of a vermilion ixora flower to draw out its sweet nectar.

I'm always amazed at the fine detail captured in the design of a dragonfly, a balsam seed pod or a fern frond - how God's creations are all so 'wonderfully made'.

But the place where my soul is most at peace is Hawaii. The beauty of the islands strike a chord deep within. Its rugged, green peaks set against a backdrop of deep blue skies and sea. The scents of plumeria and tuberose mingling sweetly, as doves coo in response to the ocean's rhythmic roar.

Here is where my spirits soar, and my inner child can come out to roam wild. He speaks to me on the breeze, in every glorious sunrise and sunset. I am restored, made new, by the celebration of life that surrounds me.

The nature of love
Nature at its best is love
Lavished so gloriously, it’s quite divine
Like an ‘Io1 aloft a sultry updraft
Or a humpback breaching the sapphire Pacific
Dolphins spinning songs of aloha2 nearby
It’s majestic, just joyous
Sweet

Because of You, I’m alive
Enrapt, inside a pikake3 rainbow
Tasting eternity in the wind-kissed Ko’olaus4
Riding the Pipeline5 that hugs the North Shore
Weaving richly coloured leis6 of memories
It’s mystical, mostly magical
Unreal

Heaven in the here and now
Is where my heart resides
In the trees that dance a gentle hula
As friendly trade winds embrace the glowing sky
Awash in sunset pinks and golds
It’s magnificent, amazingly awesome
Nō ka ‘oi7

1 Hawaiian hawk, Buteo Solitarius
2 Hawaiian for hello or goodbye when used as a greeting; a sense of hospitality and care; a combination of love, joy, harmony, affection, gentleness, compassion, humility, generosity and patience
3 Hawaiian name for jasmine
4 A mountain range on Oahu, Hawaii
5 Banzai Pipeline is the beautiful tubed surfing break found at the immensely popular surfing site, Ehukai Beach Park, on the North Shore of Oahu
6 Hawaiian for flower garland
7 Hawaiian for the best, number one and superior

by Jackie Pau, June 7, 2006