Reflections on a Day of Fasting

 

            The fasting season began this week, just in time.  My inner energy on low, this cycle of 19 days will help me recharge it.

            Yesterday Roshan and I accompanied a friend for a drive up near the summit of Mauna Kea (13,796 ft.) to watch the sunset, have prayers and break the fast together.  As we ascended, we drove in rain and a dismal cloud cover, but at around 7,000 feet we suddenly rose above the clouds, which spread out like a fluffy tablecloth across the Valley extending to the other high peak, Mauna Loa at 13,677 ft. and behind us far out over the Ocean beyond Hilo.  Gnarled trees spotted the pasture-slopes of Mauna Kea where a few obscure cows fed, content with their lonely dining on the green landscape.  The sparse trees with their bent and twisted limbs looked like figure skaters frozen on one foot; or like old, hunchbacked souls doing Tai chi.  We were passing through the landscape of the strange and eerie, where ghost-like fingers of the tops of clouds rested between the stubby, stoic trees.

            At 9,000 feet we passed the visitor center and plodded up the steep, supposed-to-be-4-wheel-drive-only road to maybe 11,000 feet, where we pulled onto a ledge that gave us a panorama of the sun's rays streaking across the top of the world.  The temperature had dropped from the mid-70's in Hilo to cold at the heights.  Once parked the three of us put on sweaters and coats before stepping out into the crisp, thin air to watch the last flares of sunlight give way to the fast-growing shadows weaving their way up the mountainsides, ‘til just enough day light remained to read from our prayer books... "I beseech Thee by this Revelation whereby darkness hath been turned into light..."

            As night settled across the Pacific, a nippy wind stirred about us, sending us back into the car for warmth and a dinner of Subway sandwiches, fried potatoes (which we ate with chopsticks), homemade cookies and plenty of water. 

            Descending to the visitor center, we joined a small group of tourists who had gathered to watch the vivid night sky through a telescope. Tonight, Saturn and Venus took the main stage.  Being able to see the rings of Saturn through a telescope amazed me, but the frosty air forced me inside the visitor center for hot chocolate mixed with coffee crystals, as I waited for the cold numbness to leave my hands.  Such centers of learning pour out scientific knowledge in large quantities, too much to remember in one setting; the videos, display panels and computer terminals together become a bombardment.  I did learn that an explorer named Vancouver introduced mountain goats to Hawaii in the late 1780's, animals that quickly destroyed much of the natural plant life on the slopes of Mauna Kea.  I thought to myself, "What was the guy thinking? And to think that a whole metropolitan city in Canada has been named after him!"

            Having our fill of stars, hot chocolate and cold air, we left the visitor center as a ridge of clouds, like an invading battalion of infantrymen, moved in, gradually blocking out more and more of the 100 billion stars of the Milky way from our sight as well as the entire Andromeda galaxy (with an estimated 200 billion stars), which before being hidden by the dark invaders had been a fuzzy smudge of light below two stars on the lower eastern edge of night.

            During the 45-minute descent back to Hilo in clouds and rain, we spoke of the need for a language that expressed the spiritual and abstract wonders of experience:  We say "Wonderful", but the word doesn't say enough.  All of our superlatives fail to convey more than a nebulous sense of awe, a vague description of the mystical feeling.  Our friend who drove us up said that the "Quietness" that he felt close to the summit stays in his mind.  We had been sitting on top of the world.

             A couple weeks ago, when our oldest son, Aman, was visiting us from that place named for the explorer who almost ruined the flora and fauna of Mauna Kea with his idea of importing goats, I noticed in the local Mall that the music store had a clearance sale on pre-recorded cassette tapes.  I found several tapes of Keith Jarrett at $2.99 each, a sale I could not pass up, as I had recently been listening to some Keith Jarrett piano concerts with renewed fascination. 

            One of the recordings, "Changeless," which features improvised pieces from live concerts with Gary Peacock on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums, is almost other worldly, like being on top of Mauna Kea at sunset. 

            I am there now.

                         -- C. S. Cholas
March 5, 1999
Hilo, Hawai'i