Many of you don’t know that I own an island in the South Pacific where I spend a great deal of my time. When I’m not dogging it in Los Angeles, Walihi is the place I call home. It is a refuge, a place of tranquility and beauty far, far away from the many humanities of our world.

Walihi lies north of Tahiti and southwest of the Hawaiian Islands. Far from the shipping lanes, it is a small island that has been charted by only a few seafarers throughout history.

Walihi, pronounced ‘volley-high,’ roughly translates as The Island of Limitless Love and Endless Beauty to the Edge of Time. Despite its size, the island affords several lush green valleys and seven distinct beaches where long rollers, perfectly shaped, caress the wide shores of fine white sand.

The surf is always up on my moku, my island. The hale nui or Plantation House was built in the mid-nineteenth century by a reclusive whaling captain who had a startlingly contemporary eye for architecture and a passionate demand to spend the cocktail hour facing West planted in a comfy chaise on a wide lanai. The few guests that I have brought to the island cannot witness a sunset without sobbing, for the beauty is so intense that it invokes a private and personal catharsis.

Life on Walihi is idyllic, but the island is not a utopia. Even though the team of gardeners may snip the thorns from every rose and comb the thistles off a Koa tree, red ants battle black ants and jellyfish invade the shores after every full moon. Orchids blossom and die. Cows are murdered, tarred with marinade, then sacrificed upon my bar-be-que grill. A bartender may screw up a cocktail proportion. Haole guests will get a sunburn and a coconut occasionally falls upon my head.

The Realities of Life are not ignored for they are accepted judiciously and rationally. Prominently placed on a rise in the Valley of Higher Thought, there is a small but tastefully designed temple dedicated to the Best of Human Nature. A long reflecting pool edged with lotus blossoms mirrors the bright light of The Eternal Flame of Reason and Objectivity. On nights when dark clouds obscure the ever-present full moon, the Eternal Flame fills the valley and glows like a volcanic beacon.

Nicknamed ‘Led Zep’, Haleakala or Mount Stairway to Heaven is the islands highest peak. The purple and black lava rock rises abruptly and dramatically to an exact elevation of 5,280 feet above sea level. The summit is narrow and affords a spectacular and unobstructed view.
When a Chinese junk crashed upon the Reef of Irresponsibility, I salvaged a Lazy Susan from the galley and brought it to Led Zep’s plateau. The Lazy Susan was big enough to sit on and allowed me to spin slowly and view the world in 360 degrees. There I have witnessed seven solar eclipses. I have seen the umbra, the shadow of the Moon, cross the Pacific and darken the blue waters like the hand of a God. I have seen the fire of Bailey’s Beads, the flare of the Diamond Ring and the horizon bleeding red in an endless sunset.

I rarely tell anyone about Walihi because it is too hard to put all of its beauties into communicable words. Life on the island is as easy as Life and Love should be. Walihi is all these good things but so much, much more. We all need a place to getaway.

Click on the image above and follow the rabbit hole to your own Walihi.

———————

GORDY GRUNDY is a Los Angeles based artist.