Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano, recently erupted for the first time in 38 years on the island of Hawaii, raising excitement among scientists trying to unlock its many mysteries. Speaking of mysteries, I have one of my own which I'll share here, though it's not about the volcano itself, but about Pele, the goddess who rules volcanoes, and makes her home at the Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island.
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| Mauna Loa December Eruption (Honolulu Star Advertiser) |
THERE STOOD PELE
"Pele's too angry for a goddess!" my Santa Fe astrologer friend who knew about these things said. "Look at Athena and Aphrodite, or Kwan Yin! They don't have tantrums and throw fire around."
I had no idea where she was getting her information, but I had to laugh. "Well, I like her spunk."
We were on Maui after all, and it wasn't prudent to diss goddesses when you were hanging out on their turf. "And Pele is the goddess of fire. Maybe that's what you do when you're a fire goddess."
"She's over the top. Way too much anger for a goddess. Everyone says so."
That was one of the things I loved about Sherry. She was so far out she considered herself on a personal level with goddesses. It was only fitting that she had a line on their social codes and morés. She would have rolled her eyes if she heard me say that, and then she would have said, stone sober, "Other goddesses."
"Well, when I saw her, she was pretty mellow."
"What do you mean, when you saw her?"
"I never told you that story?"
We were sitting in upcountry Kula on the slopes of Haleakala. Sherry had landed a gig doing an astrological reading for one of her clients who lived there. The week-long stay included a primo little ohana on the owner's ten-acre property where we sat while this spirited discourse took place. It was a low-slung two-bedroom guest house with stunning vistas of Haleakala Crater and long views that extended down to the isthmus, the far away lime green cane fields, and the blue Pacific.
"Oh, it happened years ago, just after I met Paul in the eighties, when Lahaina was still low key. That's when I saw Madame Pele."
Good grief, it was now the millennium and I was still coming back to Maui. It seemed like I'd been coming back to the island half my life.
So I began telling Sherry the Madame Pele story. It had started innocently enough. Paul and I had met just weeks before his 40th birthday. He was heading to Maui with a friend to celebrate. As luck would have it, the travel magazine I worked for was staging a conference there and our dates coincided. Serendipity.
I knew nothing about Pele before her Lourdes-like appearance, though I'd always been a big believer in myths, gods and goddesses. When I lived on Maui a year after college, her name never came up.
The "Aha!" factor started the day after the Pele sighting. Paul was sitting in a bar in Lahaina having a late morning Blood Mary, still confused by the previous night's mysterious incident. He laid his tale on the bartender.
"You'll never believe what happened to me last night."
"Don't tell me you saw the woman with the white dog?" the bartender said.
Paul later told me chills ran up and down his spine.
"How did you know?"
"Everyone's been seeing her lately. Madame Pele, goddess of the volcano. She's showing up all over the island."
Paul sat silent for a minute, thinking things through. "Pele? I've got to tell you the story."
"Shoot."
"Well, my girlfriend's here for a conference. She had a meeting last night until nine and I picked her up in Lahaina. Since her hotel's in Wailea, I didn't drink at all before driving to the other side. The road's too dark.
"Right after we passed Puamana on the outskirts of town, we saw a beautiful Hawaiian girl, hitchhiking. She was wearing a turquoise blouse and white shorts, holding a white dog on a leash. I slowed down because I think Jeanine wanted to pick her up, being a retired flower child, but I sped up. It seemed weird. It was late. We really didn't say much after that. I think we were both kind of dazed a the sight of a Hawaiian hitchhiker with a dog at that hour. She seemed out of place.
"Twenty minutes later we get to the Kihei "Y" where you split off to Kihei or Wailuku, and there she was! The same girl with the white dog on a leash. It's like she just materialized!
"I said, 'Did you see that?' We looked at each other as I passed her. I slammed on the brakes and stopped. I'd overshot where she stood, punched the car into reverse, and slammed on the brakes again, this time stopping dead in front of her.
"I leaned over Jeanine, rolled down her window, and all I could think to say was, "How did you get here?" She looked right at me and said, "It was easy."
"I didn't know what to do, so I just took off. Neither of us knew how she did it. Not a single car passed us. You know how Maui roads are at that hour—empty.
"We drove to Wailea, and this morning Jeanine had another meeting on the Lahaina side so I drove her over and here I am, still trying to figure out what the hell happened. Pele? Tell me about her."
"Madame Pele is the goddess of fire and the volcano," the bartender said as he continued his bar set-up. "She shows up as either a beautiful young woman with a white dog or as an old, old woman with long white hair. She walks along the road, hitchhiking. Everyone's been seeing her lately. A lot."
Over the years, Pau and I have discussed, dissected, and argued it, but we always come up with the same answers. We weren't drinking or smoking, and we're not crazy.
Paul is the pragmatic type: Science rules, myths are for sissies, and ghosts and goblins don't exist.
Me, I'm the free spirit, but this was way out of my league. How did that young woman turn up twenty miles down the road in quick order, with her dog, as though she was just waiting for us to come around that bend? We're positive no cars passed. We didn't slow down or stop, so even if a car had picked her up, she'd have been just getting out when we rounded the bend. There was no time for that.
We have no idea how she did it, but Pele being Pele—anything's possible.
Why did she choose us? No clue. Hawaiians can't seem to agree on what it means either and we have asked many. Some say it's good—an omen—like seeing the shroud of Turin; some say it's not so good. Many ask if we spoke to her. If so, then it's a blessing. The one thing all locals seem to agree on is this: Pele shows up most often on Hawaii, the Big Island, her home, where the volcano flows. But this particular week she was a Maui magnet.
Over the years this story has proved to be the ultimate icebreaker. While eating sushi in Santa Cruz years later, Paul was telling the Pele story to the diner next to him. It was a cozy bar, seating for eight at most, an intimate room. Before Paul got to the crazy finish, a visiting Hawaiian at the far end of the bar interrupted.
"Hey, bra," he said. "I'm from Maui. I'm gonna tell you where she was waiting: at the Kihei "Y." Right?"
Chicken skin! The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. "How did you know?" I asked as my heart beat a little faster.
"It's an old cemetery. She always shows up there."
Well, that further creeped me out. The goddess knew her turf.
We never did figure it out, and occasionally we still think of Pele, like now, when the volcano flows. Other island friends have had sightings, but never on Maui. One guy we know saw her twice on the Big Island, as the girl. Local magazines sometimes tell Hawaiian tales of "ghost" sightings. But our Pele was no ghost. She was right there in front of us: a beautiful Hawaiian girl with long flowing hair and a white Samoyed. If only I had reached out to touch her. I was that close.
If you enjoyed this post, check out Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.
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