OK... Two tiny figurines: a wizard standing on a piece of granite, the dragon coiled on an egg shaped piece of lava rock; the creations of Jan Mozel in 1980. These figurines may someday be sold, I suppose, but probably not at a garage sale; they are fine art and should be treated as such. I hope that whoever comes into possession of them will take my repeated warnings seriously.

     These items are in the care of my good friend, Gus Acosta, who at this writing, lives in near Hawi at the north end of the Big Island. They are there because I can't bring them home to California. To the person who comes into possession of these objects, they should not leave the Island. The Dragon's perch is a piece of lava rock the size and shape of a large hen's egg, and this is the problem. The dragon's egg belongs to Pele.

     I'm not superstitious, but...Having been to the Big Island many times since first arriving in 1974, and having lived there continuously for over ten years, I'm aware of events that support the myths about Madame Pele, volcanic mother of all these islands, and I have suspended disbelief in the face of so much evidence.

     There's a lighthouse, of course, on Cape Kumukahi, the easternmost point of land in the Hawaiian Archipelago. Inland about a mile and a half had been an ancient village whose overgrown stonewalls defined former homes, longhouses, taro patches and fish ponds. In the early 1950's, a local tour bus operator got a lease for the acreage and had developed it into a tourist attraction. This kind of thing will predictably result in blowback from Native Hawaiians and sympathetic Kamaainas, of course, and it appears to be upsetting to Pele. She can be protective of Hawaiian people and she can be destructive when violated.

     In 1955, Madame Pele exercised her veto. An eruption broke through the ground right there, with fountaining lava 700 feet in the air. It buried the entire village and the nearby present-day town of Kapoho under 10 feet of pahoehoe flows, and piled up a 300-foot high cinder cone. The flow went almost to the ocean, and only stopped when it was 7 feet from the lighthouse door.

     That was not the only time she acted in such a way. In late 1975 when I was there, a consortium of Japanese investors was laying the groundwork for a hotel development at Kalapana. With it's black sand beaches and palm trees with a picturesque Painted Church, 15 miles south of Cape Kumukahi, and a lot closer to the volcano's main caldera, what could go wrong? Of course there was a lot of public resistance. There were hearings, proposals and protests. At the height of the uproar, a large 7.2 earthquake hit with its epicenter Kalapana, and when the shaking stopped and the tsunami waves subsided, the entire coastline had dropped 2 feet in elevation. The developers weren't heard from after that, Pele had swept their hi-rise plans away. People who have been Pele watchers for any length of time were not surprised.

     Today, 40 years later, after repeated lava flows, the entire village has been covered up and its famed Black Sand Beach, the old Painted Church, village and surf spots obliterated, all gone.

     In the 1980's a large swath of rainforest on the slopes of Kilauea was proposed to be clearcut to make way for an expansion of the industrial geothermal power plant. There was a lot of public resistance. Public hearings that were met with large protests when they were held on the Big Island, were moved to Honolulu where the demonstrations wouldn't be so large.

     Hawaii is normally blessed with consistent tradewinds blowing from the East by Northeast at 11 mph. The volcano was in one of its periods when it was producing a lot of volcanic smoke, which usually blows away off to Kau and South Kona. On this day, on a rare occurrence, the tradewinds stalled and changed directions carrying the air pollution all the way to Oahu and into the chambers where the hearings were held, choking its participants, 200 miles away. The permits were approved, but Pele had expressed her displeasure.

     Persistent among the Pele legends that the idea that she doesn't want her rocks to be moved, especially to be taken from the island altogether. It's "Kapu", Hawaiian for taboo. It's not an ancient tradition since in the days of Polynesian sailing canoes, there was no reason to carry rocks away. It wasn't a thing until 20th century travelers began to pick up a volcanic rock or a vial of black sand to take home as a momento.

     At the Volcano House and at the Volcano National Park Park headquarters, this is a well-known phenomenon. Visitors to the island who took home pieces of lava as souvenirs have shipped them back with characteristic stories describing a chain of bad luck that followed and pleas to return the rocks to Pele with apologies, hoping to remove the curse. There are lots of them.

     Jana came into my life about the time my son was born in 1971. We were all living in a big Victorian house in San Francisco, overlooking the bay on Potrero Hill and she was part of the communal living experiment we were having there. She became a virtual nanny to little Johnny, and one of my closest friends there, and a person of some undeniable pyschic abilities.

     By the time the commune broke up and we all went our separate ways, Jana had gotten married and moved to Pacific Grove, and had two children. I didn't hear much from her in that period, but in about 1980, when I moved back to Hawaii, committed to raising my son and sticking it out no matter what, we came into contact again.

     My return was going well at first, I returned to the Big Island prepared, I thought, this time. Before leaving the mainland, I had accomplished getting my California Contractor's License. The license would be an ace in the hole whenever I would return to the mainland, and would be evidence of some level of expertise in Hawaii. On the strength of that, I landed a project to add a two-story addition on the back of the health food store in Pahoa for the architect that was half owner.

     I had moved into Pahoa into a place that was slated to be turned into a small restaurant to complement the nearby health food store. Things were looking up, I had enough to put a down payment on that house I bought from Steve Aprea in Chapter 6. I had a windmill and set of batteries to provide some off grid power, and a little bit of savings left over. Johnny was going to move in with me before school started, and I would have a good project creating the restaurant.

     Jana with her psychic abilities somehow determined that I was ripe for picking and since she had divorced her husband, she was free to explore a future with me. I was hard to get hold of having no phone, but she found my ex-wife Patti in Pahala and got in touch with me. We arranged for her to come visit.

     She stayed about 10 days, and in that time we toured the Island, and I really had the best time I had ever had in Hawaii. Filled with the love and magic of it all, we planned that she would go back to California, settle her affairs and then come over with her kids to start a life together.



     When she arrived she already had the wizard created and he is perched on a piece of California granite. She had the idea for a little dragon as a companion, and had brought her colored clay and her tools to sculpt it while she was here. She wanted to find a piece of lava rock for a molten lava colored dragon. She found this perfect egg; produced naturally by Madame Pele.



     The day we left to take her to the airport, we ran into unexpected traffic, and by the time we got there it was too late to board the plane. She caught the next flight out, but then missed her connection in Honolulu, got another flight to San Francisco, where she missed the last flight to Monterey on a small airline and ended up spending the night in a hotel in San Francisco without her luggage. This is exactly what happened to all those people who sent their rocks back to the Volcano House.

     Sometime later, I realized she must have had some lava rocks with her when she left. Like the Wizard and Dragon, each with a small stone as its base, I think she took some specimens home with her for future projects.

     For me, the restaurant deal fell through, my savings had been drained by Jana's visit and soon I was struggling to make ends meet, had to sell my electrical system. As the months went on, I could only communicate with her by letter writing and a rare phone call. She realized I was getting cold feet, and was becoming doubtful herself. Finally, she wrote me a Dear John letter calling it off. By the time I got it and called her up it had been a week since it had been written and mailed, and she was mostly over it. That day we talked on the phone, we had another grievous event to dominate our emotional states. It was the day John Lennon was killed, December 8, 1980. Imagine.



     I didn't see her again until April 1991 when she visited me when I was living at PCHQ in Goleta. I know the date, because we went to a lecture by the Dalai Lama at the UCSB Event Center. Here's the ticket stub from the Chapter 14 display of ticket stubs and backstage passes.

     I took her for a drive up one of the canyons that lead up into the mountains. She had never been to this part of the state. The road roughly followed the course of the creek, and at one spot where the two converged, she started saying, "Oh! Oh! Stop right here!" We got out and she went down into the creek bed, insisting I follow. She turned and led me hurriedly upstream as the creek veered away from the road. In about 50 yards we came to a huge sandstone rock face rising hundreds of feet from the edge of the water. About 10 feet up there was a niche like cave, and then another cave and another; oval shaped openings, and big enough for two people to climb into; which we did.

     It was likely that the indigenous Chumash saw some significance in this formation as it provided box seats for happenings on the large streamside gravel bar that it faced and the large village that had once been near there.It seemed like a natural for a ceremonial arena. If it was a sacred site, our smooching and horsing around in the niche wasn't too respectful.

     As we left, got to the truck and drove down the canyon, I noticed a dusty whirlwind following us at about 40 feet. As the road angled to the right, the whirlwind went straight on into a lemon orchard in another 200 feet the road took a 90 degree left turn at the edge of the orchard, and when we had passed the bend a little ways the whirlwind came roaring out from the left and directly intersected the pickup, throwing dust, pebbles, twigs and leaves swirling about inside the cab.

     I'm not superstitious, but... I later learned that this kind of thing was well known to the Chumash. A dust devil was considered a "Hap-Hap", an energetic spirit being that always appears with something angry to say. Jana had never been in this part of the world, and didn't know anything about Chumash lore, but she found that place like there were searchlights attached to it. Magic things like that happen around her, like our time in Hawaii. That day I'm pretty sure we were scolded by a genuine Hap-Hap for our irreverence in a sacred place, and chased from the valley.

     The last time I was in touch with her, she was living in Brookings, Oregon. I don't seem to be able to find her any more.

     While I was writing this "Garage Sale" book, I called up Tim Gaughen to fill in some details in my memories. As always, we got to swapping stories of things that happened back then, and he told me one I hadn't heard before.

     Colin McIver, Tim's sometime partner, had the shop next door to the Emporium where he fixed sewing machines and appliances. He and Tim were always looking for a way to make a buck. One that Colin came up with was to advertise in the tourist magazines to mail order a genuine piece of lava from a Hawaiian volcano. It worked; he had enough takers to make it worthwhile, but before long, he started getting them sent back to him, with tales of serial misfortunes uncannily similar to those of journeys plagued with missed connections and lost luggage.

     I share these stories to reinforce the Kapu about the home of Wizard and Dragon. They embody the magic of Jana and Madame Pele, and are not to be taken lightly.

     The successful bidder to become custodians of these treasures will have to assure us that they will not leave the Big Island, and the amount to be paid substantial enough to establish the buyer's sincerity.



WARNING:
These objects may not be
removed from the Island of Hawaii
KAPU !

Not for sale. Uncle John's Garage Sale is just the name of the book.

     

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