In the middle of our covid confinement in Pape’ete Tahiti, we finally had the chance to escape from the marina and do something else. Anything else. We were so excited to get off the docks, so we booked an excursion into the heart of Tahiti. Whatever, just get me out for a day! We got up early to meet Tracey, our British guide who turned out to be a total dynamo, knows everyone, and introduced us to people that will never leave our minds. Or our hearts.

But before I start describing this day, I’m going to apologize at the outset for my language. It’s not vulgar or profane, only anemic compared to the vocabulary needed to truly describe what we saw. My language is Kansas, what happened is Oz. This day started with Tracey introducing us to Hervé Maraetaata, a little spider monkey of a man who led us deep into the Tahitian jungle and through three lava caves.

Hervé is a deeply spiritual man, but of a more ancient sort than we’re used to. He doesn’t subscribe to the religion that conquered his people, but a faith more tightly woven into the DNA of his people. On our walk up to the lava tubes for example, he explained to me how the Mother (Earth) takes care of us, provides for us, if we listen and take care of her in return. She is happy to supply the sun and rain and plants and animals we need to live. But accepting her gifts should come with gratitude, acknowledging the gift that it is.

This perspective is called Malama Honua, which means very simply “to care for and protect our Island Earth” of land, oceans, living beings, cultures and communities. It advises you to live as if you were on a canoe in the open ocean or isolated island. If you adopted this perspective, your resources would be precious, your relationships would be more so, and the Earth itself the most precious of all.

In communicating this simple message, Hervé speaks, makes his point, and then says “maruuru” (thank you) with his hands as if in prayer by his chest. There is a purity in his spirit, like a gentle gravity that invisibly pulls you in. You cannot help but to be blown away by the power of his obvious message, and the clarity of the messenger.

We walked and talked through the stone tubes carved out of the rock by passing lava from so many thousands of years ago. It’s crazy that, a brief geological eyeblink ago on this very spot, we would be standing in the middle of a 50 X 50 foot tube of molten earth radiating at 2,200 degrees, eating its way through the passage I’m splashing through right now.

The river bubbles beneath a vertical stone apse above our heads, echoing our voices back to us. Also, the walls were lined with iridescent lichen, we guessed, or perhaps some form of reflective mossy alga. In any case, when you arched your neck upwards to see them along the overhead dome, they shimmered gold and silver like biological L.E.D lights.

Splashing upstream led us to waterfalls that we actually had to climb up into. On ropes. Like ropes with knots that you were expected to haul yourself up with on that vertical rock face. Hervé helped heave of course, but we basically just had to figure this out as we clambered up.

Inside the black caverns were the falls, but interestingly no animals. I expected bats along the ceiling dome, rodents around the periphery crevices, and was told to expect eels in the pools. But none of these guys came out to see us spelunking by.

Going through these caves was so interesting. I think if you saw the arch and bend of these walls in the light of day, or in some Barcelona or Milan of the world, they’d immediately make it into a cathedral. The formations are an elegant arching interplay of space of form. They’re no less impressive here, though placed in a jungle and only for our personal showing.

Deeper we went. Climbing, crouching, crawling, splashing, farther into what this earth has been. In the stream between tubes two and three, walls of ferns angled high to the right and left into the deep green leafy V-shaped arms of life that channeled us forward through river stones and the occasional tumble of water down the cliff.

Inside the final tubes there were more subterranean waterfalls, vaulted ceilings and low crouching passages to be duck-walked through to get to the next cathedral-like apse. After making it to the end, we trekked back through the jungle and to the vehicle to head home again.

Being in touch with nature in this way, present to this earth, is like a detox for the soul. A cleanser that releases the toxins of incessant social media, harping pundits, and 24/7 worries that dog your thoughts even when you sleep. I felt truly clean inside. In the end, we had all pushed ourselves physically to do things we never really expected we’d do. And I left feeling a connection I never saw coming. Like a roto rooter clearing out the accumulated buildup within the arterial walls of my life. Cleansed. New.

But wait. There’s more.

After our excursion through the lava tunnels, Hervé brought us back to his home, where there was no electricity or other trappings of the modern life. Yes, none. And yes, these are quite happy people.

Let me just level set the scene here as well. In Polynesia, family stays together, takes care of each other, shares with each other, and treasures that bond. In fact, selling land on this island is almost unheard of because the parcels belong to the entirety of the families who originally settled this island eons ago.

In fact, in times of oral tradition, you needed to be able to recite your ancestors back to the individuals who originally landed on this island, however many centuries ago that was. You named them to show that your family is their family, and their property is your property. That’s how rights were assigned, which means that if you wanted to sell your land, you’d be selling something that belonged to your entire extended family, most of whom still live there. Good luck.

The bottom line for them is that land is family. Family is land.

And on this particular parcel, tucked into a cove with jagged ridges extending around them on both sides, they live with their kids and cousins all around all the time. While we were there, the uncle was just down the black sand beach burning the excess palm fronds, his kids swimming in surf, and his brother out in the water in his canoe dragging a few lures behind him as he paddled back and forth. I was told that he normally gets 10 fish or so. The sea provides, I’m told, when you respect her.

Back at his home, we were shown the chickens, the taro plants they were growing and the 20 different varieties of bananas (he leaned over to me to let me know that loves the plantains the best!).

Lunch was prepared over a fire using large hollow bamboo, which was cut just below one of the junction lines. This formed the floor of the tube, and the upper end was left open. Hibiscus leaves were placed in the bottom, and then added in was papaya and the chopped chicken (which until quite recently occupied the chicken coop area of the yard). The taro was cooked that way as well, in a separate bamboo tube.

They served us a Polynesian version of plantain crepes and some other vaguely purple semi-gelatinous cube that was formed by beating the hell out of some plant, letting it congeal, cutting it up, and serving it with fresh right-from-the-coconut milk. After tasting it, it was so good I just wanted to rub it on my face. After the meal, he played the ukulele and his son the guitar. They sang traditional songs, and shared the meaning of the dances performed by his daughter and grand-daughters. There is truly nothing like this.

The dances are an extension of their oral traditions, with stories told through singing and dance. The children are taught the meaning of the dance, how it relates to their culture, and how that is not just to what they do, but who they are. It’s deeper than a dance, it’s a transmission of culture. A part of you thinks they are performing for us. But in reality these stories are for them to tell to each other as extensions of who they are. I was just grateful to be a bystander at the telling.

Something you cannot escape when you are with them is the overall nature of these people. They are truly happy. Do they miss Netflix? Not at all. Microwave popcorn? Uber eats? Snap chat? Not even a little bit. They’re not chasing an elusive rabbit of visibility or productivity or hits or likes or anything.

Marinate on that for a minute. This is true authenticity. Remember that? Lack of pretense. Remember that? Me neither. 

In the end I left with my heart full of the purity of kindness shown by this family. Yes, the food was delicious, the songs were amazing, the dancing was next level stuff, but what you feel from this is over and above what you see with your eyes. You are in the presence of time: through the geological memory traces left by lava tubes, and the deep cultural memory transmitted by these gracious people.