I have returned to reading 2 verses from the Tao te Ching every morning. It's become part of my routine again: down the driveway to retrieve the paper, a cup of coffee, my favorite morning chair looking out on the front yard with an east facing window at my side. It's very dark at 5:30 AM; there's no moon. 

The roosters crow in the blackness (thankfully in the distance....that's another story) and the cocqui frog-bachelors who have not yet hooked-up are singing their little frog hearts out. Once dawn slips up above the horizon they will retreat like vampires to the quiet and dark of the leaf litter, resurfacing when darkness falls to again sing their two-note song of romance: Koh Key' Koh Key! I found one once in my kitchen, sitting on the counter looking confused. I have no idea how he got there, but in the past I have found a few clinging to the outside wall near the back door. I captured him, and, crooning to him, walked him out the drive and across the dirt road, where I tossed him into the heavily overgrown vacant lot, assuring him that it was a better place to find mates than in my kitchen. 

Some locals would berate me for not killing the coqui; they are seen as a menace to paradise. The cocqui came to live here only within the last ten-or-so years; many locals believe they stowed away in plants sold at the new WalMart.....of course many locals protested when the WalMart was built on "ceded lands" supposedly held in trust and belonging to the Hawaiian people. It's possible; the cocqui were first heard not long after WalMart opened, and some said you could walk outside the plant section of WalMart at night and hear the frogs singing inside.

Now the cocquies (coquii?) are singing and mating all over the windward side of The Big Island. Their song is so loud that Brad and I have started using a white noise machine when we sleep. This is ironic since we came here to the rainforest boondocks for some privacy and quiet. But there's one thing I have learned about life in paradise: Mother Nature makes the rules and Madam Pele is Her name here on The Big Island. The windward side is nestled "I Ka Poli O Pele"/ "In the bosom of Pele" and we live according to her rhythms. Even the State of Hawaii's official seal states this fact, "Ua Mau Ke E A O Ka Aina I Ka Pono O Hawai'i"/ "The life of the land perpetuates in righteousness."