The rain beats in hard sheets as the power flickers and the jungle bends and sways. The elements are strong today, its a bit of a Mystic Monday and it’s impossible not be tuned in.

My brother was humming around me as I sat writing to the rain earlier; I lit his favorite scented candle to say “welcome” since spirits are drawn to scents they loved when they were here in human form. Love, he tells me, write about love.

The air is thick with mystery today. My brain gets that tingly electric feeling it does when something is trying to speak, while I’m out on a run with my husband. I feel drawn to turn right instead of left and realize why when I looked up at the base of Makaleha Mountain and see the faces gazing down through a visage of moss, frond, and tree.

Look up, do you see the watchers? I say to my husband. The face of a kind, wise Japanese man; the stoic gaze of a fierce warrior; a lady who keeps shifting her eyes so they appear to travel with us as we run. The faces in the hillside regard us as we stare up at Makaleha, the Hawaiian word for “eyes gazing upwards in admiration and respect.”

We do respect them, and we are in wonder, for in the many times we’ve gone towards the mountain they have never shown themselves to us until today.

Humbled by their gaze underneath the misted green, we know them for who they are – – Ancestors, the faces of those who were here first, their ancient knowing still guarding and protecting this island.

The sky opens and water falls hard on the run back home. Steady candescent streams; we realize we’re being baptized by the land. Cleansed, renewed, welcomed, dissolved, each of us continually shedding the skins of who we were in Alaska and stepping into our new skin of Kauai.

Everything swirls in my mind as the water brings new life to the ground beneath my feet. I think about that renewal as we run the fastly flooding streets, up and down the tree canopies, winding our way back to home.

I think about how the month of October is the 10th month and how 10 represents the end of a cycle and the beginning of something new. I think about how each of us shed a skin every 30 days, the end of a month usually marked with a flurry of feelings and activity inviting us to release and let go so we can step into a new cycle each new month.

I think about how much wisdom is found through the gateway of nature. How the planets and stars and moon and sun are constantly aligning for change and how following their paths better allows us to understand the energies of the time. How the elements and animals and flowers and trees all have a medicine and power their own.

How many mysteries there are in this space. So many of them right before our eyes, if we take the time to listen and notice. If we take the time to try and understand.

And I realize: is that not what it is to be a modern day mystic? To seek and see the extraordinary in the ordinary. To pull in knowledge, in all its vast forms to help us better open up and see spirit and the divine and the mysteries. To see how it all blends and bleeds and breathes together supporting us, guiding us, helping us, nurturing us- bringing us ever closer to Love.

The rain continues its immersion of soul; the sacred of the land sings in harmony; home and warmth draw near – –

And somewhere beyond The Watchers look down.