Peles viskning
Category: 04 Award Winners
The Big Island, Hawaii
The feeling I had on this early morning is hard to describe. As I hiked out under moonlight over the smoldering crunchy lava, an eerie electricity filled the air and I couldn’t help but think that something momentous was in store. It wasn’t until much later that I realized what may have been responsible for that feeling. A mate of mine informed me of the story of Pele, the Goddess of Fire in Hawai’ian folklore. A volatile and, at times, vindictive goddess, Pele took pleasure in her power to both destroy the land and also create it. Legend has it that she and her sister Namaka-o-kaha’l, Goddess of Water and Sea, constantly sabotaged each other causing Pele to move down the island chain before finally claiming the Mauna Loa mountain on The Big Island. You can visualize her fair profile in the upper left–it’s as if she is blowing, or whispering, into the ocean causing the steam to part on the surface of the water below. I get chills every time I look at it. It’s my shot of a lifetime.
