Standing at the edge, I could feel the almost unbearable
heat penetrating my shoes. Poisonous gases were forcing
their way through holes in the volcanic ash, destroying all
life they came in contact with—as if they were so determined,
the Earth herself could not hold them back.
It was mid-morning. The volcano had erupted on the
Big Island of Hawaii—in fact, was erupting as I stood there.
Burning lava flowed into the sea, new land taking shape
before my eyes. I was watching creation, standing on newly
formed earth, earth that hadn’t been there yesterday.
I had passed countless signs along my way: ” d a n g e r !
n o e n t r y ! ” I saw them, had considered them, felt the fear
they were meant to instill, but my feet had kept walking,
fear and all. I was compelled to keep progressing toward
the heat, toward the gases so thick and sulfurous that I
could see them rising into the atmosphere—hovering above
a boiling liquid mass the hottest, wettest shade of red I
had ever seen or imagined in my life or in my dreams. I had
been inexorably drawn right here, to the edge, where redhot
lava had bubbled and spilled its way down an immense
mountain to meet the cool blue sea. Death was so close by, I
could smell it in the atmosphere, and I knew that being
alive was my personal choice.
I was not alone. My girlfriend Katrina and I had come
walking here together. After we’d scaled a massively swollen

bulge in the newly formed ground, the warning signs had
stopped, as if they weren’t needed any longer. Officials
passed us in neon orange jackets that looked drab compared’
to the hot lava pouring forth. Since we were the only civilians
who had ventured this close, the officials gazed at us
disapprovingly, but they didn’t stop us. It was as if we had
been sufficiently warned, and once we had come this far, the
risk was our own.
I stood as close to the edge as was humanly possible,
watching the seeping reddish stuff ooze and blister, spread
out into brand new surfaces, extend and define its own
boundaries. Who would claim ownership of this fantastic
display of the power of God? What person would drive
a stake into the virgin ground and try to give it a name?
Who would foolishly think they had control over the Earth
herself?
Watching the lava claim parts of the sea, I asked myself:
Does water overwhelm fire, or is it the other way around?
The world itself seemed to be shifting before my eyes, and
there was nothing to do about it but simply watch. I felt
frightened and hollow when I realized that I had always assumed
that the edge was the edge. But as I watched this
edge extend and consume everything in its path, I realized
that it all keeps moving and changing. Nothing is ever
what we think it is, not even the edge.
The lava passed dangerously close to my right foot. The
nerve endings in my toes tingled, anticipating the searing
heat that could destroy my foot, my leg, my entire body.
My breathing had become shallow. Fear had overtaken my
chest, pressing in on it, crushing my ability to reason. The
oozing gases were so strong, the mere act of breathing had
become something I needed to think about. It was crucial
that I stay connected to my breath . . .
The deeper I breathed, the calmer I became . . . until I
was shocked to discover that I wanted to jump, not into the
water, but straight into the lava. Into the creative core of the
Earth. All fear had left me. I could have done it, had my
legs only begun to move: I had to hold them in place, keep

them from pitching me forward. It was not that I wanted to
die. I didn’t. I was happy in my life and suicide was not a
part of my equation, never had been. Yet the compulsion to
heave myself into the fire was overwhelming.
My body shifted forward, trying out the limits of how far
I could go. I peered into the fire, and it was not alien. It was
a part of me, a life force so strong and compelling I wanted
to merge with it, to fly into the belly of it, to be consumed by
the heat, to be the hot, seeping, sexual, oozing fire.
“Don’t do this,” my inner voice warned me. But why
was it better to stand on this side? Both sides contained
mystery, light and darkness and infinite possibilities. Each
contained its own version of the edge.
But where would it all end? I looked around. Land
continued to form out of the fire. The edge was expanding
and moving further and further from me—showing me
that standing still was the same as retreating. So, in actuality,
standing still was impossible. I was either moving forward
or moving backward, because the very earth beneath
my feet was moving. No matter what I did or didn’t do, I
was a part of the movement, woven into the creation and
destruction of the Earth herself, even if I thought I was
standing there doing nothing.
Katrina touched my arm. I looked at her. She was feeling
it, too. Were we candidates to fly across the edge together,
the Hawaiian version of Thelma and Louise?
We turned our backs to the seduction, breathless. We had
felt the pull, the draw to our inevitable future. It would happen
one day, but not like this. This was too mad, too dramatic,
too surreal, and ultimately too meaningless. Leaping
to our death? Ridiculous. And yet—the molten syrup sizzled
behind us, beckoning.
I was tired of laboring for breath. I began to walk away
and Katrina followed. At first it was like wading through
thick pudding, straining against the tide, trying to resist the
inexplicable urge to be at the center of the cyclone. But resist
it we did, heading back across the charcoal-colored
porous ground.

Wherever I placed one foot, then the other, had once
been the edge—the fine line between here and there, between
this world and the other. Even the flattest, most nondescript
parts of this newly formed ground had, for an
instant, been as sharp as a razor. Now they were simply
part of the whole, reasonably safe and solid.
As we left the sacred territory and got closer to the mainstream
of life, officials in orange showed up once again,
eyeing us irritably, as if we were now once again their concern.
I had left no man’s land, where gases ruled the atmosphere
and fire ruled the sea. Now these people though that
they ruled—and I looked like a dissident, someone who had
broken their rules and could not be trusted. Their stem
faces were masked by an efficient demeanor that spoke of
important work to be done. But I saw the fear peeking
through, the understanding of the mortality of it all, of having
been in the awesome face of creation. They had seen
how little control they had over anything. They knew how
small they were in the scheme of things, but it was as if
they didn’t want anyone else to know.
They said nothing as we passed, since we were now
walking in what they considered the proper direction. At
least we were moving away from danger—or so they
thought.
Where is safety, if every moment of life contains its own
version of the edge? Now we were returning to the confines
of society, where decisions on mortality were no longer left
up to the individual, a world where there were laws against
dying. Perhaps fear served its purpose here. Perhaps it was
an illusion to keep us on the path, to keep us safe, to keep
us connected to the necessary lessons of life and maintain
us on our journey. Or perhaps it was simply one of God’s
stunning and mysterious ways to keep us on His time, not
our own, to keep us from getting too close to the edge.

Story taken from the book
Hot Chocolate for the Mystical Soul
101 true stories of miracles, angels and healing
by Arielle Ford