Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, things change. One thing that hasn’t changed is the lava flow isn’t stopping. It’s just not going where everyone thought it was heading.

Lava is so strange: unstoppable, furiously hot, creeping, burping magma, eating up vegetation, munching homes; transfer stations, graves and anything and everything in its way.

When we moved to Hawaii, I told my family that we bought a lava blower attachment for our lawn mower. My sister actually looked it up on line because somehow that didn’t sound right to her. She was right. Yep, no such thing.

It seems like the only thing that stops lava is intention. It was Albert Lee’s intention not to have lava invade his lanai, living room, kitchen… okay, his entire house, on its way to cross over Pahoa Village Road. He qualified his intention by building a berm in his backyard to stave off the lava.

Albert Lee got a whole lot of publicity. Collectively, everyone knew about Albert Lee’s effort and no one wanted to see the lava take out his home and the major road into town. Did he, the whole town, the state of Hawaii, the mainland and the entire world stop the lava from taking his home with pure intention?

I like to think it did. I like to think that the power of pure, positive thought can do things.

Albert Lee’s house is still standing.

I’m about the least spiritual person I know. In fact, I took one of those quizzes in Cosmopolitan magazine years ago that asked, “How spiritual are you?” I remember pondering even before taking the test, what spirituality actually was.  Was that religion? I took the quiz hoping that along the way I’d discover what spirituality was. Turns out, at the end I was still baffled and failed miserably at being anything close to spiritual.

Puna, one of nine districts, in Hawaii, is a very spiritual place. But for someone who is very nonspiritual, I can’t even talk about it because I’m so not. The closest I get to spirituality is getting my hands and feet in the dirt. I’m a farmer and I’ll make no qualms about it nor will I ever be an Ultra-spiritual person (a person who thinks they are super spiritual but their actions say otherwise) or a drainbow (a person who is a wannabe spiritual person who instead drains your energy).

There’s no faking spirituality. You either are or you’re not. However, I do admire those who are.

I’m more spiritual than I used to be. If the power of intention stops lava from destroying peoples homes, I’m going with the flow.