My friend since high school, Janice Wellington, OP, was using her 25th jubilee gift from her sister and brother-in-law -- a week in a condo on the island of Hawaii. I got to tag along on the trip. One of the places we visited was the Laupahoehoe peninsula. The day we were there, the tide was incoming with waves crashing against the shore, sounding like thunder and sending sprays of sea water high into the air. The location is a memorial for the 21 children and teachers who died there.
On April 1, 1946 a tsunami reported to be 50 feet high crashed on the Laupahoehoe peninsula just as children were arriving for school that morning. The tsunami washed away the school, sweeping 16 children and five teachers out to sea. They all drowned. With the waves crashing on the shore the day I visited, I could picture the wall of water slamming onto the shore and inundating everything.
I've meditated about Laupahoehoe, thinking about Francis of Assisi's relationship with "Sister Death" and about the children. It took me over five years to make the SoulCollage card. Creating the card became part of the healing process in grieving over the death of my husband and soulmate, Jim. We were married for 34 years, and about a year after his death I was beginning to heal. This card was part of that process, helping bring into my awareness a different and more positive image of Sister Death as something which may bring one toward union with God. Still, swimming in the air, whether fish or human, is risky business.
The card is a composite of several images: the waves at Laupahoehoe, fish photographed under water while snorkeling, and a sunset shot on a volcanic beach. The card speaks to me of death as a new kind of living, returning to the Source of all good. It speaks to me: I am the One Who calls you back to Me. I am the One Who gathers you into my heart, into my love, back to the Source in my overflowing fountain fullness. I am the One Who calls you to swim home. Return to the Light.
If you would like more info on the tsunami at Laupahoehoe, here are some links:
Eyewitnesses recounting what they saw, 51 years later: http://archives.starbulletin.com/97/03/31/news/story4.html
A YouTube video of the Laupahoehoe peninsula in 1945, the year before the tsunami hit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJO0K0WjWqc
Oh, here's a luau picture of Janice and me on the big island, December 2003.
