Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer's Search for Wonder in the Natural World (18 page)

What I
thought
, was. What I
see
, is. And it is phenomenal.

 • • • 

When the
finishes its chant, one of the girls makes a quiet plea to repeat it. Her friends echo the sentiment. I peer out into the dark horizon, light emanating from a hole in the earth that leads straight to the churning, molten, vibrating core of the planet. It looks like the last glowing embers of a campfire set to explode with a simple nudging of Pele’s stick.

Throughout their song, the volcano has amped up its light. One of the
kumu
standing to the left of the group admires the increased activity, visible as a crimson reflection in a cloud of gas, ash, and soot. She says, “I think
Pele really liked that!”

The girl standing behind me whispers to her friend, a tiny seven-year-old wearing a leopard-print beret, “Did you
see
that?”

“Yeah!” she says. “There was an outline of a woman in there!”

They’re claiming their observational powers. But who am I to claim I have
powers
? All signs point to: The Crazy Gourd Lady with a Developing God Complex. I guess it’s something I’m going to have to get used to. Because Alva was right. My voice has expanded. It’s unfurled in directions I didn’t know it could go. And, in some ways, it isn’t even what I thought it was.

My voice doesn’t just reside in my throat or on the written page; it is expressed every moment I am alive. I am absorbing the infrasound of volcanoes and earthquakes when I’m changing diapers, when I’m cooking dinner, when I’m sitting at the kitchen table fretting about bills. And when I am expressive, when I let myself fall into flow, to be creative, when I believe in myself and resist holding back, when I don’t shy from the spiritual stuff, when I follow my bliss—when I talk with my hands so dramatically that the people in an adjacent restaurant booth come by to ask me if I’m a professional mime—I may feel nervously alone. But I am simply joining the chorus of universal elements that are transforming around and within me.

Because the iron that turns my blood red is the same star-borne element that tints Pele’s crater. More than half of the human body is composed of water. We’re roaring ocean and sound-ferrying sky. Our hearts are percussive instruments, our ears drum skin. We breathe in the atmosphere exhaled by the green earth, and we emit it as song and speech and story. We might very well feel infrasonic vibrations and let them channel through us as abstractions, smears of color across the mediums. We are creations and creators, art and artists, songs and songwriters. The embodiment of spirit. Instruments of knowledge. Just like
Pele.

The girls are chanting
again, lost in their flow. I can feel the hair on my arms begin to rise, as if pulled by the crater. As if internally electrified. The
is not chanting
about
Pele, they are chanting
to
her, and she is responding.

They utter:
Ha‘a ana ka wahine Pele.

She moans.

Uhi‘uha mai ana ‘ea.

Her plume shifts.

The girls will surely draw from this moment when they’re dancing in the coming years, morphing into fiery phenomena of all sorts. They might even channel Pele in their day-to-day lives when they’re called upon to do things that seem beyond their mortal ability, when they begin to doubt themselves. At least, I hope they will. I’d like to think I might be able to find some of her fearless, inner illumination when I need it most.

These girls have spent hours, days, years of their young lives learning to embody this place, to kindle the essence of this sacred phenomenon in their own souls. Now, they are witnessing
it
transform into
her
, an image of their own likeness. They are seeing. They are being seen
. She is Pele. They are Pele. She is them.
And, from where we’re standing, I swear, it looks for all the world like this volcano is unabashedly hips-twisting-hands-twirling hula dancing.

February/March 2012

I’M ON A FLIGHT HEADED INTO THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, AND I
HAVE BEEN
seated next to a Japanese philosophy professor. His specialty? Phenomenology: the study of phenomena, that which appears. This school of thought—as I learned in Hawai‘i—suggests that reality is subject to first-person perceptions. Given this experiential bent, I suppose it’s no surprise that, like me, he is on a quest to see the northern lights.

Hirobumi “Hiro” Takenouchi took a visiting professorship in southern Sweden because he wanted to be situated near the auroral oval, a halo that encircles the polar regions of earth and provides conditions that allow for viewing the northern lights, otherwise known as the aurora borealis. It’s his second effort in the northern part of the country. The first time he visited, he spent a week holed up in a hotel room, waiting for an apparition that never appeared. He’s here to give the phenomenon another chance to show itself.

If you lived within the auroral oval—which encircles Iceland, northern Canada, Scandinavia, and Alaska—you would likely be aware that Japanese culture fosters a special fascination with the lights, which are created when solar winds from the sun slip past the earth’s protective shield. Whole resorts are often booked by citizens of the tiny island nation. The country’s interest can be traced back to the work of Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino. At least, that’s how Hiro tells the story.

He adores Hoshino’s photography, with its wisps of green celestial light, but he also appreciates how those images came to be. In the 1970s, the photographer heard tales of the lights and decided that they were something he needed to see in person. But this was before Google and travel advisor websites. Where would he stay? How would he find his way?

Hoshino wrote letters and sent them to towns across Alaska—the closest auroral region—addressed only with town names. Many people thought it was a ridiculous pursuit, but he pushed on until one of those shot-in-the-dark inquiries received a reply. It was from the mayor of a small Alaskan town who invited Hoshino into his home. The photographer accepted the stranger’s invitation and ended up spending much of his adult life under the aurora.

Hiro believes the resulting images are beloved because they symbolize a man living according to his great passion. Hiro also respects Hoshino for his lay philosophy, relayed in essays. “What impresses me is not his work about nature,” Hiro says, “it’s about how he questions this scenery. He says, ‘This is so beautiful I want to tell my friend. But how can I convey this? How can I express what is happening in front of me?’ Because, once presented, anyone’s personal experience becomes, to the other person, theory. But what they can see, what they can directly observe, is the way the phenomenon has changed me. If I first acquire the knowledge of a phenomenon, my loved ones will see it through me. They will see my way of living change.”

Since I’ve spent most of my year on a phenomena chase, this, of course, makes me question: Has
my
way of living changed?

I have to admit, even this far in, my overarching quest is offering as many challenges as opportunities. Working and traveling and having a family is a tightrope-style balancing act. Sometimes I perform pretty well. Sometimes I don’t. But when I start to question myself too heatedly about my Quixotic seeking, I think back to last summer, when my mother-in-law was visiting from the Midwest. At her request, we attended the local Lutheran church, a former mission that sought to save wayward mountaineer souls. It is still beyond the reach of asphalt, surrounded by woods.

Archer, not yet two, was railing against sleep when we arrived. I rocked him as hymns were sung. He crumpled bulletins. He wanted to get down. He could not be contained. Matt suggested that I take him outside, so I did.

We picked up speed as we neared the exit. It felt like we were making a getaway, dramatic as any runaway-bride romantic comedy. Archer started to giggle when sunlight hit his face. I started giggling, too. Then I unexpectedly teared up as if I were actually at a wedding. But the moment wasn’t about commitment. It was about freedom. And the two aren’t necessarily at odds, something I’m only beginning to understand.

No one expected Archer to sit still through the whole service, not even his grandmother, who is supremely bent on following protocol. In hindsight—emboldened by my lightning chase, fortified by Pele—I realize that I, too, had been fighting against perceived restraints. Why should the acceptance of antsy-pants not extend into adulthood? Isn’t there a holy sense of purpose to be found in the search itself, at any age?

Not long before I left for my northern lights chase, I traveled with Archer to stay at my parents’ house for a couple of days. Matt and I—short on child care—had been trading work hours, and I thought he could use a break. My parents, eager to spend time with their grandson, readily agreed.

It took a full day to get there. The following workday was excellent. Then, just as I clicked out of my dad’s computer, I realized I had saved my draft in a temporary file on the unfamiliar machine. There were a few halfhearted attempts to recover it, but I knew it was gone.

“Maybe I was on the wrong track,” I told my dad when he offered words of solace.

“This project is changing you,” he said, surprised by my calm response. “You seem more centered somehow.”

I think he’s right. But maybe he wasn’t seeing just me. Maybe he was witnessing the pounding of butterfly wings, the twinkling of dinoflagellates. Maybe his direct experience with me was informed by my brush with those phenomena.

Still, I’ll never be a totally cool cucumber. The day after I lost that file—unable to go back to my writing without risking a nervous breakdown—I tried to follow up on plans for my next trip, a jaunt to Alaska for the aurora. Things weren’t working out. Calls weren’t being returned. And the ones that were didn’t quite feel right. Nothing did.

I decided to use my precious time to do some logistical research. But instead of focusing on Alaska, as I’d planned to, I kept cruising websites about northern Sweden and Sámi mythology—the stories of one of the largest indigenous cultures in Europe. On almost every Swedish site I visited to learn about the northern lights, I found a Sámi shaman’s drum.

Now, I realize that seeing a shaman’s drum as a sign from the universe doesn’t exactly scream “supercentered.” But once you lose your voice to an
ipu
, it’s hard not to find kinship with instruments of all sorts. Because of those drums, I kept digging. I made some calls. Everything started to, well, flow.

I know this all sounds pretty hippie dippy. But just when I think I’ve gone too far off the deep end with this whole listening-to-the-universe bit, I’m seated next to a Japanese phenomenology professor and I throw up my hands. There’s something bigger than me at play here.

I brief my traveling companion on what I’m up to, admitting that I’ve only recently been introduced to phenomenology. When I mention that I’m still not sure I have a handle on it, he purses his lips and suggests he might be able to help. “The essence is really simple,” he says. “In history and society there are so many prejudices and theories. We see through these glasses, always with others’ opinions. We are not willing to see what is happening in front of us. We have to let the phenomena speak . . . To let them speak, you must be silent. But it is difficult. I have so many opinions, but I try to get rid of them for a minute.”

I ask him how this relates to the aurora, and he begins to laugh. His delight escalates and he leans his head back in a roaring chuckle, so dramatic I can see metallic fillings in his teeth. He says, “Phenomena decide what is fitting to them. We cannot know about the aurora before meeting it.”

My impertinence inspires a history lesson. Hiro tells me about how Western imperialism changed things in Japan in the late 1800s. “Before then,” he says, “people didn’t always use literature. They knew how to behave in relation with other people and other objects.” In Japan not so very long ago, the world itself—animals, humans, ocean waves, the winds—was an animated, sacred text. It’s a worldview that Hiro’s academic work seeks to revive.

“In Japan, physical and mental experience is still incorporated into everything,” he says. “It is not separate. Take Shinto rituals. They are always located in gardens. To reach the shrine you have to experience nature. Almost all traditional religions in Japan try to give time apart from daily life. In Shinto, which people might call animism, every phenomenon has its own unique soul which we cannot help but admire.”

Hiro tells me I am far too concerned with scientific theory. “It is not important if you want to experience the phenomenon,” he says. “The rising sun in front of you is the only one on that morning, in that specific place. It is the only sun in history that will be experienced in that way. The earth is round? It doesn’t matter. Not in that moment. Not to you.”

Every culture in the aurora’s viewshed has different myths to explain its origin, stories tied to their part of the world and how they perceive their place in it. The aurora borealis takes its name from the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora. She was said to renew herself each morning with a flight across the sky, heralding the advance of the sun. In southern Sweden, the lights were historically talked about as the torches of Sámi reindeer herders searching for their animals in the north. In Norway, they were believed to be the reflection of fish swimming in the sky. In Sámi tradition, the lights were spirits in and of themselves—sentient and alive.

The plane’s nose turns toward the earth. We’re nearing the Kiruna airport, where dog-sled taxis await. Hiro says, as if closing a formal lecture: “I have learned, not as a philosopher but as a man, that we had better talk about concrete subject matter. That is what we base our interpretations on. You cannot divide physical and metaphysical. It is all one.”

 • • • 

A few days later, I’m 200 kilometers inside the Arctic Circle at Sweden’s ICEHOTEL, the largest snow-and-ice accommodation in the world. I incorporated the attraction into my itinerary after reading about it online. But, now that I’m here, all I really want to do is hang out with the housekeepers.

This is, I must admit, sort of characteristic. When I first started writing professionally, I created a column about people’s jobs in a local newspaper. In those years of wandering my hometown, I found that almost everyone—street sweepers, physicians, musicians—had something interesting to say about their work.

Instinct kicks in when I see two snow-gear-clad people walking through the reindeer-skin-covered doors of the hotel. They’re carrying long brushes, brooms, and tools I’ve never seen before. Some visitors might be interested to know the names of celebrities who’ve slept here. But, though I’m no scrubbing bubble in my own house, I’m terribly interested in knowing how one might clean a room made of snow. So, I’m going to find out.

Marinus Vroom and Marjolein Vonk are startled when I approach them, but they agree to let me tag along. When we step into the sheltering hotel lobby—a room of packed snow—the loud squeaking of our boots is immediately muffled, absorbed by a ceiling modeled after tree trunks.

It takes a few minutes to establish that the cleaning crew I’m shadowing is not, in fact, a cleaning crew. They are the two elite artists chosen to create this year’s deluxe luxury suite, which they happen to be touching up for a photo shoot. Their suite, Flamingo Blush, is the only one in the hotel with a locked door, but it’s opening. The suite features a platform that looks like a dance floor and a back-lit flamingo made of ice blocks set into a snow wall. It was inspired by Ra, an Egyptian sun god that was sometimes said to take earthly form as the sunset-colored bird species.

Marjolein has been part of ICEHOTEL since 2001. In her day job, she works as a stylist for high-fashion magazines like
Vogue
. Years ago, while on a shoot at the ICEHOTEL, she saw someone build a chair of ice and said to herself: “I have to do this! You want a chair? Carve one! You want a chandelier? Make it!” At ICEHOTEL, she isn’t stuck rearranging the same old props. The possibilities are endless. Creativity. Creation. Poof. Like magic. “Everyone turns into a child here,” Marjolein says, as she slips a metal planer across clear-as-glass ice slabs. “They want to laugh. They want to touch the ice.”

They want to
feel.

It’s a tendency I’ve seen for myself. I spent my first hour here sitting on a bench near the entrance to the hotel, which is really more of a village of warm huts orbiting the main ice building. The path leading into the heart of the compound is lined with aquamarine ice columns. The one closest to the entrance has an edge that’s melted. At first, I thought the indentation was due to its position in the sun. But then I watched a young boy run to it, rubbing his hand along its side. Then, I saw a grown man take off his glove to press his skin against it, and I realized that the hard edge had been worn away by the hands of hopeful pilgrims. It has become a point of connection like St. Peter’s bronze foot in the Vatican, like the belly of a Buddha statue rubbed for luck. The ice here is no more miraculous than ice anywhere. But its status as a symbol serves to remind visitors that the elements and their mysteries are worthy of reverence.

“Something happened to me here,” Marjolein says, slowing her work. “I live in the Netherlands and we have a lot of ice, but I don’t know if I’d ever really seen it before. Now, I look at ice and see if it is soft or hard. I notice things.”

Marjolein seems to feel about ice the way I’m starting to feel about almost everything. When I tell her I’m on a quest for wonder, that I’m mainly here to experience the northern lights, she says, without pause, as if there’s no other way for me to succeed in this: “You need to talk to James.”

She directs me to follow a path around the hotel to the back work area where forklifts and wooden crates are lined next to walls of snow, saying, “He’ll be wearing an orange hard hat. He is here because of the aurora.” Marjolein leaves it at that. But I have my instructions. Off I go. Past an outdoor ice sculpting class, past a row of red kick sleds, until, finally, I’m behind the hotel.