mahinui ever more at home
beauty is where you make it.
And what you make it.
One of the most important “things” for me is to live in a beautiful place. For it to be that way, I have to hold up my end.
I sort of live in three places. They are all beautiful.
The one that I interact with the most in terms of maintaining its beauty is my favorite. The rain forest of Kilauea is magical, serene, full of the spirit of an ancient people, and of the goddess that resides there. Pele.
My part is to clear out the ginger that would choke out the ohia trees and hapu’u ferns, trim out the hapu’u so their dead fronds are returned to the earth, and bring in bromeliads, orchids, anthurium, and so on. I have placed maybe a hundred orchids in the hapu’u and ohia. At any time, there may be a dozen or more in bloom.
When you wander around the grounds, you will come upon an ancient giant ohia with a trunk so large you cannot wrap your arms around it.
There are sugi cedars that used to be dense with branches clear to the ground. I trimmed them up as high as I could reach, and now there is more space in the forest. So there is more moss on the ground.
There is a tree near the gate with long ribbon like moss growing on it. The moss is nearly always damp. I run my hands through it, and it is almost like seaweed.
Last time I was there, I put in some vanilla orchids. I am eager to see how they are doing.
I chose a logo plant for the house—shell ginger. It was on a trip there over two years later when I was working in the garden and realized the ginger by the house that I thought was awapuhi was actually shell ginger. It was finally in bloom from being fertilized.
There are lots of photos in my 43 things, some of this place, some of the other beautiful places I live. Come and see.
I used to laugh at Lady Bird Johnson for encouraging people to make America beautiful. Now, I think to tend the neighborhood, the places we live, and make them beautiful is a calling.
