Pure in Mind and Body

You know the dangers that lurk in the environment that you live in. When you move to a new area one of the first things you should do is to discover what dangers lay in wait for you in the forest, grasses and back alleys. You can never be too careful.

I was raised in a city so I knew the dangers that I had to avoid. If I choose not to avoid them then that was because I was aware of them and prepared to deal with the dangers. Thankfully, most of the dangers don't think they either react or just are dangerous being themselves. A rock can't hurt you if you know it is there, but if you forget you will end up with a broken toe.

I moved to a different city on the other side of the country and had to learn the dangers there. for one thing, there are a lot more wild animals in the mountains than the farmland of southern Ontario. I never even gave bears a thought growing up except to wonder why they all liked their porridge a different temperature. Maybe that was Goldilocks the B & E artist. There are Cougars, mountain lions, Wapiti and even the deer can give you a kick if you piss them off. I'm sure that there are dangerous animals in Ontario, but where I hung out there were only raccoons, mosquitos and black flies. Irritating sometimes, but rarely dangerous.

I tried to find out the dangers that would confront me in Maui, but surprisingly the Chamber of Commerce plays death and dismemberment Down in their advertising. I knew that there are sharks in oceans, but shark attacks are pretty rare in Maui. Still, I kept an eye out for people with recently missing limbs and or hunks torn out of their torso. There can be danger from jellyfish and Portuguese man-o-war, but I didn't hear anything about that on the news.

The Chamber of Commerce are pretty sharp because they market swimming with the Sharks as a fun activity when you visit the islands. That would be like encouraging tourists in Banff to hang out at the garbage dump to take selfies with the Bears. It takes all kinds! Actually my daughter is going to swim with the Sharks in a months time when she is honeymooning on Oahu.

Every morning and at least once in the afternoon I take a walk down the beach. The first day there must have been quite a wind storm because a beach tree had lost a large branch and it was lying on the each. This tree, a Kiawe is a lot like Mesquite, really good for BBQ's. It also has many thorns that are dangerous looking. Loose branches are a good thing to keep an eye out for on my beach walks. If I happened to run into someone new to the island I would pass on a healthy respect for Kiawe branches.

This afternoon while I was walking down the beach, I was looking up the beach instead of at my feet and felt a sharp stab and when I did look down there was a branch of Kiawe firmly attached to my foot by one of those thorns. What was I to do? I had no phone to call Louise to come and get me. the locals would take another toke and just laugh at me. Other tourists really couldn't care less about the fat, old guy cradling his foot. Do I walk on the beach where I've seen people spit and walk with their dirty, fungi encrusted feet. I could walk in the ocean but we all know what the fish do in there.

I did the only thing that I could do, I walked where the ocean would be filtered by the beach and the beach would be cleansed by the ocean. The best of two worlds. When I got back to the condo, I had Louise look at my foot to see if I needed immediate medical attention or if it could wait till I got back to Canada and universal health care. She looked and as I prepared myself for the worst I heard her say, "There isn't anything there.", and she dropped my foot.

I guess we can attribute this miraculous recovery to being pure in mind and body.