Iwa's Way

She arrives unannounced, enduring solitude at sea. Gradually, she builds strength while voyaging through Polynesia. Fleeing from Sun Ke Akua, she jumps from storm front to storm front. Her intentional eyes lie shrouded beneath grey brows with gleams of blue iris gazing upon the land.

“Who can I uproot now?”

With the tenacity of a Harpy Eagle, her predatory wings spread, generating gusts of grey swirling the air above while ravaging the water below. Huge vapors of silver spurs spin outward like a mean pinwheel, clowning and frowning on a clear blue sky.

Wild squalls in her hair slither like snakes in Medusas’ battering waves on the shore, warning surfers of her wrath, and daring anyone to enter her path. The grey goddess approaches anxiously.

Unaware of her visit, Chris Cook paddles out to Hanalei Bay on what he thought would be a great day of surfing. He rides a wave drawn from her destructive path that swells under her breath and blows to the Bay with a grandiose exhale of energy marching toward Prince Kauai’s north shore where waves barrel roll on the reef and dissipate through the pier to die on the sand.

As he drops in on a wave outside Flat Rock, her blustery breath and feathery mist suspend him in the air for seconds until gravity wins-then he drops on his board

where she slams him down with gusts of glory, Iwa’s Way.

Chris paddles back to the shore, bleeding from his right eyebrow:

“Guys, forget surfing today. With all the wind in my face, I could barely see and was blown upside down, landing hard on my skeg and ending up with a fin in my head.”

As word of her visit spreads, we make for higher ground, preparing for a hunkering-down in our friends’ secure garage. Through small windows we watch her sweep the land with her giant invisible broom, uprooting pine trees, and violently shaking the ground as they fall hard-a 3.2 on the Richter scale.

For three hours she sweeps, enthusiastically north to south, searching for Prince Kauai. He lies elegantly in a green cashmere sweater that cloaks his island. Iwa prunes his foliage with her wispy scissors, neurotically tearing his splendor suit, releasing his chickens from cages, launching his coconuts, and smashing his huts. She gives him a buzz-cut, unlike any Polynesian demigods before him. His Samson-like hair lay strewed along the shore.

Suddenly, her dark brow retreats as she opens her curious blue eyes. Her right eye trembles with concern.

“How could I destroy such a paradise?”

A beautiful radiance shines down on the uprooted foliage. Cardinal’s chirp, Myna birds gawk, and Plumeria flowers’ fragrance fill the air, blessing this chaos with sweet-smelling tranquility. Then a warm breeze blankets the land with the hope of her wrath subsiding.

She peers down keenly in search of the prince in his royal display who once was fully cloaked in yellow and red. Now his green coat is torn across the land. Where mamo birds once flourished in their yellow flair, their feathers for ali’i providing coats of status and hats of honeycreepers for chiefs from birds of curved beaks.

It begins to feel like a normal day in paradise as the quiet breeze circulates in Princeville.

Some gaze at the blue pinwheel. Others pause to sleep during this surprising lull, when anxiously, she boomerangs back around from the south to the north, reversing her direction. She heads back out to a warmer sea to harness more energy as she loses strength over the cooler watery land.

Prince Kauai’s lush gardens and fragrant flowers render her powerless. The frigid misty vapor from the land kills her stride. Iwa needs the ocean's warm air, fuel for her turbulent engine to feed her monster pinwheel in the sky.

On her journey back, palm trees sway frantically toward the north shore like taut rubber bands with just enough tension to hold their coconuts up. Their fronds rattle vehemently, a warning of a second beating on her return. The weaker ones snap, releasing coco-bombs like mini-quakes, and the ground below shakes. Loose palm fronds whip around wildly, lost in the wind. After three hours of sweeping her persistent broom the opposite way, she slowly evaporates, leaving her path of destruction her way, Iwa’s way.

Afterward, we survey the scene, clean up her path of destruction, repair villages and houses, collect extra driftwood to make bonfires, and thank Akua for renewal and uniting islanders to join a new band of survivors.

Several days after her departure, we now have regular community luaus, cooking turkeys and boars in pits dug in the sand. We pick guavas, passion fruit, Hawaiian-oranges, and papaya, creating an explosion of unreal fruit salad. We make outriggers out of driftwood washed ashore, we build huts and koa castles, and share poi, fish, and water with our neighbors. We rebuild shacks, remodel houses, and sustain villages, staying rooted in their community of Aloha.

And most importantly, we survive a state of chaotic disarray caused by the lessons learned from Iwa’s way.