The Steep Path Into the Marvelous
A walk through a botanical garden in Hawaii that unfolded into a meditation on beauty, history, and what it means to live close to the earth.
Last Sunday we went to the most beautiful and expensive botanical garden I have ever been to.
A little turtle stamped on our wrist took me back for a second to another time when I lived in the city and was attending music shows.
A steep path took us into a marvelous world in the middle of the jungle. To a place where ferns are as high as trees, wild birds singing, a limitless variety of orchids and flowers of every shape and color, 200-year-old trees. All thriving in harmony.
The path took us slowly to a rocky beach where the sound of the waves breaking off the sea cliff took over all the sounds of the forest. Where the Hawaiian rivers meet the salty water.
While facing the ocean and looking at the untouched nature I took deep breaths, imagining taking all that beauty and presence in and leaving what no longer needed to be in, out.
Knowing that moment would be anchored in my body to call on when needed. Remembering the gift of that perfect instant.
With my husband we try to get ourselves time outside of our house. Our home and land is also our office.
Working from home has a lot of advantages. I can get up, enjoy my morning routine, and just go with the flow. It allows me to be fully present with my clients and the people I connect with.
I spend a lot of time writing too. I can cook our lunch and dinner. Go for a walk, get my feet in the grass, take a break in the sun, talk to my plants whenever I need it.
We rarely talk with anyone else than each other. Our weeks are similar but not the same.
Once a week on Fridays we drive to the bigger town for our grocery shopping. It’s always a long day mixed with the heat of the sun and the heavy traffic. It’s also our most social day and we get to eat fresh sushi and enjoy a short break from our lives.
Having an online business can feel isolating. But at the same time I have incredible conversations with people I share the same energy and interests with. I have strong friendships with people I have never met.
What I learned from living in different places and having different relationships is that there is rarely a place or a person that has it all.
We are in a dance of negotiating with ourselves on what matters and what we agree to let go of.
I wanted a life of presence, but for that I had to create a life I wanted to be present in.
And maybe that’s something some of us don’t understand. We try to force ourselves to be present in a life that doesn’t encourage us to be. Or that is so out of touch with who we are and what we want that we spend our time, our precious time, escaping it.
The place we were standing on had, a long time ago, been a Hawaiian fishing village.
In the 1800s the village became a shipping port. By the early 1900s the valley was deserted and nature took over the whole bay.
I find it fascinating to visit places that are still living at a slow pace, untouched by technology. A few graves remind us, visitors, that we are walking in a sacred place.
Through many Indigenous and traditional worldviews, from Hawaiian Āina to Māori Whakapapa, Andean Pachamama, and Nordic Yggdrasil, humanity is not separate from nature but deeply interconnected with it.
Seeing the land, animals, and all living beings as kin, ancestors, or sacred relations that sustain and define our existence. Places like this garden carry that deep meaning and history.
It makes me wonder, as some of us have a hard time moving on from our past, if the 200-year-old Banyan trees also carry grief from a past that is no longer here. Or if they are capable of embracing what is.
As I really enjoyed the beauty and experience of all of it I can’t deny that places like this carry a silent weight of a world that wants to own every part of our Earth for profit.
That garden might protect an ecosystem and carry past human stories, at least it will not be bought by a billionaire to make a data center or a resort that offers continental breakfasts.
My generation saw our parents prioritizing work over their health, over what their heart called for, over connecting with nature.
All for the pressure of society to conform to one and only “safe” plan. Study, graduate, get the lifelong job, get married, have kids, buy the house and the car and you will be happy, successful, and someone in society.
Some people from those generations seem upset that we aren’t loyal to that plan. That we aren’t sold by it because we saw our parents’ sacrifices turn into pain and regrets.
But also, because the world changed. It’s not the world they grew up in, and they can’t navigate or expect the same…
The future feels so uncertain these days… Sometimes I wonder if some of the experiences I have today will be the last. The last I will experience in a specific way.
I look at my pecans that I try to eat cautiously as I can no longer afford to buy them. Is it the last time I will taste them?
Is it the last years to enjoy traveling and experiencing a world that will no longer be possible as mother Earth slowly pushes humanity because we took her for granted?
The lushness of the nature I witnessed is authentic, present in the moment, it just is.
I ask myself and you…
Can we inspire ourselves from it? Listen more deeply…
Nature is inviting us to reconnect with our truth, our true nature.
Could we do the same?
With gratitude,
Nina
Your photos capture so much light and beauty, Nina. I was there last month for Mother’s Day and really enjoyed it. You’re right, it’s a truly magical place.
This was such a refreshing read—with beautiful photography. 🩵🐢