Offerings made to Pele at Kilauea crater

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Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:21:44 -0400

At the rim of Kilauea, this plaque explains about the crater inside the crater - the home of Madame Pele

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Here is a depiction of the size of the inner crater before it blew up in 1924, increasing the diameter to the 1/4 ro 1/2 mile it is today.

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At the rim of the inner crater, another plaque tells us prepare to be inspired, at the home of Pelehonuamea (Madame Pele).

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Every Hawaiian is aware of pieces of hardened lava being taken from here, and then mailed back with pleas to replace the taken rocks, with testamony to the a well known curse upon those that remove anything; that doing so ruins one's life.

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Someone has made an offering of fruit to the goddess, right at the rim of the inner crater. I figure, if taking something is a curse, then leaving offerings has to be a good thing...

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The inner crater walls smoke with lava gases even now... leaving the tell tale patches of sulphur.

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Walking farther along the inner crater rim than most tourists, looking for a private place to make my offerings, I see a patch of sulphur, near some huge lava-bubbles...

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At the rim of the crater here, I find more offerings: a bunch of wilted and dried flowers.

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A few feet away, a 10 foot lava bubble with one side open looks something like a bizzarre mouth upon the crater wall

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Inside, more traces of offerings... an old pot...

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... and some newly placed flowers (to the left), still fresh..., with remnants of many offerings between the flowers and the pot... It is inside this mouth that I decide to make my offerings too, but I asked Madame Pele for her approval.

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Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:21:44 -0400

That night, eating at a restaurant in the volano area, I noticed that I was sitting before a wall with a huge framed blow-up of this photograph and couldn't take my eyes off it. To the right is a lava cave simiar to the one I chose. To the left, the spray of lava just happens to look like a heart. I took this to be a good omen of my choice. I gazed at this photo all through dinner. On my way out, stopping to look at another photo over-head of 6 elderly women eating there, the women asked me how my dinner was. I said that I really couldn't wait to bring my wife here some day. The women looked shocked, until one of them explained to the others that I had been eating alone. The other 5 women all said they'd seen me eating with another woman, though I was accompanied only by the photograph the whole time.

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So, first thing next morning, I returned prepared with everything in a back-pack: odd numbers of everything: vases, roses, red chalices with red liquor, red cloth...

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Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:21:44 -0400

I made the customary ritual sequence of prayers, then called Madame Pele to make offerings to her and her retinue: E Pele, E Pele, E Pele, Ae aia la o Pele! As I chanted this, a haunting tune came into my mind and transformed my chant.... it was far more than I alone doing the chant. Emerging from the cave, I saw a woman dressed in red wandering nearby. She waited until I was about 100 yards away, then peered inside the cave, then back at me...

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Later, on the plane, I noticed a painless, huge bruise on the inside of my left arm, in this shape (but upside down to this diagram). Notice the size and shape of the outer Kilauea crater, and the relative size and position of the inner crater...

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Here's a picture of the bruise about 2 days after it first appeared. It bled (internally) for 4 days or so, before settling, and darkening a lot since this photo, but the light spot, in the position and shape of the inner crater remained clear, and became more so as the rest of the bruise darkened. A Chinese resident of Honolulu told me that I had been "touched by a spirit".

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Those offerings were made on Oct.21.2007. Exactly one month later, at 6 am on Nov.21 the lava flow at the active crater (Pu'u O'o) near Kilauea changed, prompting a press release from USGS. More lava is flowing to the surface, but pooling instead of posing a threat to residents of the Big Island.

http://dreaminghades.com/USGSKilaue/Press%20Releases.htm

and some spectacular aerial footage on the CNN website

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2007/11/23/von.kilauea.volcano.cnn

Still, a month after being there, whenever I close my eyes, I'm right there still wandering the lava fields, as part of me has never left...