Small Is Beautiful — the Kaua‘i Way

By Virginia Beck

When the world is turmoil and the news is toxic overload, guaranteed to destroy your mood, there is always the small, beautiful world of Kaua‘i. A sanctuary from the hurly burly of world culture, the Internet, and all the trappings of insanity.

Kaua‘i brings you back to earth, the ‘aina, the reality of a place where nature rules. It is a place to wake up to the miracle that is your life, and the miracle that a place like Kaua‘i still exists. The fourth largest of the eight Main Hawaiian Islands, it is more remote, untouched and alive than most places on Earth. No wonder its guardians, its stewards and residents protect it with a passion.

Kaua‘i is small enough to be manageable, and is a sanctuary for many. Ever since the first Polynesian voyagers came seeking a home, other cultures have followed, giving us the rich mix of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Hispanics and Caucasians.

The Internet culture and corporations promote bigger and better, but slower and smaller is healthier for our community and our children. Cultures that have survived over the last 11,000 years and the recent 2,000, have integrated change more slowly to protect the old ways that have survived from prehistoric ancestors.

What Kaua‘i offers is the beauty of the small, a perfect menu of delight. One ocean. One sky full of every changing clouds and colors. Rainbows. Birds.

One beach, one wave; the one you are in. The timeless nature of Kaua‘i is its incredible vitality, radiating from miles below the seabed to the mountains above.

This stops the chattering monkey mind in its tracks. The sheer magnificence of the day, the cliffs, the surf, the flowers stills your mind, softens your heart, and leaves you just being, in wonder and amazement. Reverence for life and the planet.

Your quiet, slower heart, pulses with the waves. Your mind is bedazzled with beauty and joy.

Green, plush mountains soar and lift your spirit to the sight of waterfalls. Life pulses around you in a million shimmering greens of foliage, ferns and flowers.

The flicker of a lizard awakens you to the small realities of a bouncing leaf, grasses trembling in the breeze. Creation unfolds all around us. Still not finished with perfecting life.

These tiny details remind us of the precious gifts of rain, water, life giving and renewing the green kingdom all around. A break from the tyranny of the mind.

The small gifts of Kaua‘i, the crown jewel of the planet, will return you to the gift of your own life. Your life is a gift, one of nearly 7.5 billion. Yours is more blessed than most. In caring for the planet, for Kaua‘i, you are protecting your future. And that of all your future relations.

The planet requires that we respect the gifts we have taken so abundantly, and replace them. Kaua‘i requires that we take care of it. Make sure we give back to the island love, respect, kindness. Honor the water by not putting into it anything that you would not want in your body.

Aloha is a gift, a responsibility and a joy. Share it.

• Virginia Beck, NP and Certified Trager® Practitioner, offers Wellness Consultation, Trager Psychophysical Integration and teaches Malama Birth Training classes. She can be reached at 635-5618.