Finally Friday Week 20: Living Wild in Maui

A rainbow on our journey up to the farm

"Nana ka maka;
ho`olohe ka pepeiao;
pa`a ka waha."

"Observe with the eyes;
listen with the ears;
shut the mouth."

—Hawaiian Proverb

We are tending to a friend's farm for several weeks out here in the wilds of Maui, Hawaii. It's an outdoor living style. The kitchen is outside and we sleep in a geodesic dome and use the outside shower. We are taking care of two cute pups, 6 chickens, an amazing garden.

Life moves at a slower pace here. I'm sitting in the open air kitchen sipping Hawaiian ginger tea with fresh picked limes from the lime tree. Every now and then a hen comes along and plops down in front of me and then gets up, cackles and pecks at something in the rocks, and then wanders off. We don't feel the need to do too much out here except tend to our farming duties. We aren't farmers at home, except for the little garden we have in the front yard that a dear friend is watering while we are away.

The kale and Swiss chard here put my kale and Swiss chard to shame. These are not plants, these are TREES. I've never seen a kale tree grow anywhere else, so my husband and I figure it must be all the Aloha out here on this island in the middle of the Pacific. Here's what they look like:

Besides gathering eggs from the hens everyday, there are plenty of fruit trees bearing lots of fruit right now. The avacados are humungous and delicious and there are also bananas, mangoes, limes, tangerines and peaches all growing right above our heads!

And the flowers...well, there's nothing like the flowers on Hawaii: hibiscus, bird of paradise and, my favorite, plumeria.

The tropical rains have moved in, so I've moved the pups inside the dome where we are hiding out until it passes. Rains last a very short time here. The big chimes are blowing gently in the wind and birds of all varieties are singing their songs. Out in the pasture beyond, past the goats that graze in the gulch, I saw a pair of spotted dear. The male had huge antlers. And a few days ago a bright orange cardinal flew into the open air kitchen and kept trying to fly out the window rather than out the other side which was open to the outdoors. Yoon had to catch him and set him free. 

We feel so fortunate that our friends are willing to share their piece of paradise with us and we are tempted to live out in the wilds of Hawaii too someday. There must be a reason why we keep coming back to these islands every year. When you get away from all the tourists and the hoopla and really sink into Aloha, let it enter you and feed your soul, things really start to shift. They say the islands magnify everything and change happens super fast. It you set an intention here, it's bound to take hold much faster than it normally would. I think I believe that.