[ an old and beloved dream that i think about from time to time, just to remind myself of certain things... ]

i am at the foot of a cliff at the edge of an ocean. the rumbling i hear in the distance, growing louder is, i know, an approaching tidal wave. so, anxious and profoundly fearful, i start climbing the cliffside, only to find out two things about it: it is made entirely of glass, and not only that, its surface is broken up into sharp shards and razor-like edges. wherever i grab, wherever i put my feet on, i am cut. but i am climbing anyway, preferring this torture to that of drowning. it feels of pure agony, as my hands and feet are being ripped to bloody ribbons as i move up quickly, the roar behind me getting louder all the time. as the pitch of the dream becomes intensely anxiety-driven and desperate, as i reach the middle of the cliffside, it changes: i become lucid.

i become aware i'm dreaming, and then i tell myself: oh. these cuts are nothing. i can endure these easily! and so i continue climbing up, up, up, as i begin to see the curve of the coming tsunami reach up into the skies... and now the cuts on my hands and feet feel like nothing and i speed up even more, virtually flying up the cliffside, climbing as if my life depended on it. the glass takes on such vivid, vibrant color, like that from a prism or a rainbow, that i stop noticing that every time i reach for a razor-sharp edge of glass-rock, or step on it, i bleed. there is no pain now, as i finally reach the top, and the tidal wave breaks... behind and below me, and crashes to the base of the mountain. i turn around and see the sea calm, as it never was before. i look all around me and continue to marvel at this mountain of glass, still knowing i am dreaming, knowing that i may never see this place again, in a dream much less awake.

then i do awake.

[ that was years and years ago, sometime shortly before i realized what it was that i really wanted to do with my life -- which happened to be precisely what i was doing then. and i never dreamt about the mountain of glass again since i am, in fact, on one. ]

Today, I am hiking into a valley sacred to the ancient Hawaiians, Olowalu, and looking for petroglyphs -- the stories and lore they left behind in carvings of figures and totems on rock and stone.

9 p.m. ... Posting pictures from this afternoon's hike. The first (top) row is of the view approaching Olowalu Valley and as I get closer, the cliffs where the petroglyphs are located; the middle two rows are closeups of the petroglyphs, and the bottom row is a more general view of the area, from the top of the cliff above the petroglyphs. Click on each image for a larger (9"x6") version [file sizes in k range from 100 through 196]:

{ net.casting }
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