Seeker After the Divine Adventure

I stumbled upon this phrase the other day and it struck a chord.  It resonated deep inside me.  The sound it made was a resounding, "yes".  Yes, that is who I am, that describes what drives me.  I am a seeker after the divine adventure.  It's why I climb mountains, and hike muddy trails.  I'm seeking the divine that is all around me.  It's why I read.  It's why I study. It's why I keep striving for something better.  I am seeking after the divine.  The divine within, and the divine that surrounds me.

For years I have said, mostly to my children, "We are not lost, we are on an adventure.".  If you hang around with me long enough, you are bound to end up on an adventure.  It happens almost daily.  The world is full of interesting things, and you never know where and when they will turn up.   Some of the very best moments have occurred while on an "adventure" (aka driving around sort of lost).

Just last week we were at the Criminal Justice Center (I thought maybe we would run into the Super Friends.  Isn't that where they hung out???), housed in the Territorial Office building, getting Quincie fingerprinted.  She needs FBI clearance for her visa application to Paraguay, and so, thus, the need for fingerprinting.  Anyway, we are in a government building, on a busy city street with crazy traffic and all that entails.  It has all the makings of a boring, or maybe even frustrating experience.  But, we had a wonderful day!

The building where this office is located was very old, 1900 is old for a structure by Hawaii standards.  Right inside the front door was a beautiful glass dome skylight.  The State Moto is "Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻ āina I ka pono" - The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.  What a beautiful statement!  It makes me ponder how much life this land has left with the way our society is today ....

After conducting her business, we wandered around a bit, checking out the architecture of the building. The beautiful details were obscured a bit by haphazard modernizing.  Some plywood there, sheet rock here, and some cheap laminate counter tops slapped up over there could not hide all majesty of the former home of the territorial government.    Oh, the stories that transpired within those walls!

Right next door is the King Kamehameha V - Judiciary History Center.  Since we still had about 20 minutes on the parking meter, we took a quick tour of the museum on the first floor.  This is the building on King Street with the King Kamehameha statue out front.  In the ceiling of the main entrance is this beautiful glass skylight.  I love glass art - stained glass, blown glass, glass sculpture, sea glass - it's all beautiful to me.  As we left that building, the day's best treasure was about to be discovered!


  A middle aged blond woman hand makes, real fruit popsicles, and rides her bicycle powered cart to sell them on the street.  We were lucky enough to meet her on the path to our car that afternoon.  They were delicious!  Heavenly!  Divine in fact .... We tried a pineapple and a lilikoi.  I've been thinking about them ever since.  My tongue craves more!  We devoured them as we walked to our car in the rain.

I love to walk in the rain.  I have always loved the rain, especially a warm, summer rain.  I have the best memories of walking through the streets barefoot in a summer rain with my brother Rik. It's always a summer rain here in Hawaii, it's one of my favorite things about living here.  There is something truly magical about standing there with the rain coming down and the sun warming your skin at the same time. It's like standing in a rainbow.  Someday I will find the right words to describe it. 

Yesterday was a semi planned adventure.  We had planned to do the Pillboxes (Ka 'iwa Ridge Trail)
early in the morning, then chill at Lanikai beach the rest of the day. Responsibilities and obligations got in the way, and we didn't hit the road until about 1pm.  First stop (Ok, not the first stop.  We wandered around a while looking for a good place to eat, stopped and then changed our minds, you know, it was a quest, and a quest never follows a straight line.) - Buzz's in Lanikai for some delicious food - especially the dessert of vanilla bean ice cream with toasted coconut mixed in as well as on top, drizzled with fresh lime juice - in a PIE CRUST!  Yep - divine!   
With ridiculously too full stomachs, we climbed a mountain.  The first step on the trail was crazy steep and it got more challenging as we went along.  In many places the path was not clearly defined and it was more like free climbing a mountain that hiking a trail.  It was short, but steep.  We gained over 500 feet in elevation in less than 1 mile.  The views were SPECTACULAR from up there.  The wind was pretty fierce and Q threw a few boomerang raisins.  (That is the best use for the raisins in trail mix BTW.).   
The WWII bunkers along the ridge look like old-fashioned pill boxes, hence the name.  The bunkers are heavily painted with graffiti now, but they are still cool.  I imagined soldiers hiking up there with all their equipment, and standing guard at those posts.  The view would have been different then, without all those homes between the mountain and the beach.  Oh, the stories contained within those walls!  We all 3 managed to climb up on the roof of one of these bunkers.  It was not the easiest thing to do and we felt quite accomplished.

As we trekked down, the rain clouds were rolling in.  We walked the last few minutes in the rain.  I love ending a hike in the rain.  It's the best. 

Without moving our car, we walked a few yards to one of the best beaches on the island.  The sand is brown sugar soft and the water is crystal clear.  We had this stretch of beach all to ourselves while we swam and played.  When the fishermen showed up in force we decided it was time to go.  If they were planning on catching something that needed THAT big of a pole, I didn't want to be swimming with it!



 
We pulled up to the house at sunset.  What a glorious end to another day of seeking the divine adventure!  Life is Beautiful!