Lush Lush

Nature simply is
Animals use and nurture it
We love and admire it.

If only everybody could realize that, instead of infecting green valleys with their fungal sprawl of condos and concrete slabs.

I just came off of the biggest nature-high I've had in a very long time. Basically I hiked Koko crater and instead of the usual walking around, sitting in admiration of the beauty and then walking back down, I sat in admiration, and then laid down and let the clouds tell stories over the powerful, giant mountains, and let the ants crawl all over me until they became a part of the whole experience. For probably an hour--not really sure--until the imprint of the golden rocks was a deep grave on my back. I think I fell asleep, actually I don't know. Maybe I imagined it, maybe I was just lost up there in the beauty of the world. I didn't want to come back down. I wanted nothing more than to fall asleep up there forever. I swear I could have died and it would have been the best death ever.

The "urban sprawl" is kind of an eyesore, but it was cool how the sun was reflected off of windows, giving birth to bright silver-gold sparkles all throughout the landscape between the mountain and Waikiki.

In fourth grade I went on a hike with my class, and the hike-leader told us since we didn't have cameras we could make a mental picture by holding our hands in L-shapes and making a little "ch-k" sound. I think those photographs are so special. I took lots today, sorry I can only share them in words.

As I started the hike, the right side of the path (which 1 month ago was parched and housed scorched trees from a wildfire) was raging with greenery. It felt like I had just come across a secret stash of ice-cream mountains. It was better than any holiday or birthday present. So much natural green. Ah, it was amazing. Between the long blades of the various grasses stood the black tree trunks, leafless, lifeless, but nevertheless beautiful. At the edge of the path were explosions of yellow flowers, something between sunflowers and dandelions. And scattered around those stemmed suns were light purple morning-glory-like bells, holding on to their vines. I almost didn't start the hike, because I wanted to explore those tempting fields. Still, up I went. On my way back, however, I picked a few of those yellow flowers and arranged them on my kitchen windowsill in the empty, blue-tinted balsamic vinegar bottle.

Could I just have those fields, or use them, or live in them? I wonder who they belong to anyway. God, I so badly just want some land. Not necessarily to own it, just to live on it and use it and love it. Could I be the hawaiian version of Heidi, with the little goats roaming around the side of the mountains? Some fruit trees planted nonchalantly in those fields? What a life if would be.

It's funny, because last march the flowers surrounding Koko Crater were violently pink and red Bougainvilleas making themselves comfortable along the green back-side of the mountain. Nature knows how to switch it up every now and then!

I don't know if anyone has noticed this before, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the first: that flowers tend to grow in complementary colors in nature. Where there are yellow flowers, there are almost always purple flowers. Where there are red-orange poppies, there are baby blue flowers. And red flowers just dominate, they have to balance out the green. Pretty cool... It's not always true, but very often. Mostly in meadows that are untouched by human intervention. I've been taking note of this phenomenon for a few years, wow wow wow. No, it doesn't need a explanation of which pigments those plants contain. No science, just wonder and admiration.