Kenny Loggins wrote this story for Passionate Living slightly over a decade ago. I just came across it the other day while going through old files and being that it is yet current in its application to life and such a great story, I thought it would be fun to share it with our readers.

By Kenny Loggins

Several years ago, I spent some blissful time in a friend’s small tree house, built 50 feet up a giant tree in Hawaii’s King Kamehameha’s valley. Because of its beauty, austerity and remoteness, this seemed like the perfect place for me to take a couple days to myself, a sort of silent retreat for my soul.

It’s funny how little, seemingly insignificant moments stand out as subtle clues to much larger events looming just around the corner. Had I listened to my intuition the morning I noticed my slightly dim flashlight as I packed for the day, I might have spared myself the amazing learning experience the valley had in store for me.

Then again I may have missed out on an intense adventure and opportunity for the spiritual reminder and teaching of my trip. At any rate, I had noticed that the beam of light seemed a bit lower than normal, but in my serene state of mind, induced by the peace and tranquility of the blue Pacific and black sand beach and the amazingly warm and unusually dry climate for a tropical rainforest, I felt as if I was in a state of grace where nothing unpleasant could possibly happen to me here. I had forgotten that Hawaii is very alive, that nature is not Disneyland, and that grace comes in all kinds of packages, so I didn’t allow myself to notice the fading batteries and began my sunset trek back from the beach to the tree house, one that should have taken normally about 2 to 2-1/2 hours.

Many years ago, a thin trail, called ‘The King’s Trail’ was cut through the dense jungle where wild horses and boar now roam free. It was this trail that I followed as the daylight slipped almost imperceptibly away. Dressed only in my swimsuit and t-shirt with sandals, I had a backpack with a towel (still a bit damp from the beach), a sweatshirt, a papaya, and what was left of a small bottle of water with me. In daylight, parts of this trail are tough enough, but as the twilight approached, the twists and turns, often buried in fallen mangoes, became quite illusive.

As I passed through what should have been the final gate on the path home, signifying the last 15 or 20 minutes of the hike, the final glow of daylight faded to the point where I definitely needed my flashlight to find the path. Unfortunately, at this point in the trail the mangoes had fallen in such profusion that they’d completely hidden the path from view, and as my light faded, I became completely at a loss as to which way to proceed. Was it up to the right and along the crest of the valley wall, or down to the left paralleling the small stream that led home?

Suddenly I was faced with my first important decision: “Do I try to find my way back to the last farm house I’d passed 10 minutes ago, or try to forge on to the tree house? Surely it can’t be more than a few minutes further ahead, and if I keep the stream to my left, I’m bound to see the caretaker’s house lights soon” First mistake! I under- estimated how difficult, let alone how dangerous it can be to hike straight through jungle. The wind through the dense jungle trees mixed with the river sounds, and often I wasn’t sure which was which. I slowly trudged forward, almost blind in the faded glow of twilight, straining to hear the stream, which was somewhere to my left – I hoped. Thirty minutes later I began to understand the seriousness of the predicament I was in. I saw the glow of what I took to be a home somewhere ahead and to the right. I thought I’d passed the final farm, but maybe I hadn’t. I was relieved and excited as I left the stream behind and headed toward the glow in the trees.

Ten minutes of more intense hiking and I painfully realized my second big mistake: the imagined “house lights” had actually been a trick of the twilight, an illusion or mirage fabricated by either my mind or the Spirits of Waipio, tricking me away from my precious stream. Now I’d lost track of the trail and the stream, and in the deep blackness of the night I was not at all sure which way I was facing!

At long last I finally let go of my pride and started calling out, “I’m lost. I need help. Somebody help me!” Honestly, it felt more like a prayer. I was genuinely scared. (I can’t help but wonder now if that wasn’t the most important moment of the whole trip.) Because I was alone on retreat, no one knew I was missing, not even my family. No search parties were being sent out, nor were there any about to be. I was alone with this one, on this adventure, and it was between my Spirit and me.

I walked into trees and vines, cutting and badly bruising my feet, face, arms, legs, shins and elbows. I did this without thinking or caring about my own well being, until I finally fell over a 6-foot lava rock retaining wall. It dumped me up to my knees in a shallow river on the other side, badly bruising my left leg and right arm. Finally, I got the message: stop hiking or you’ll kill yourself!

I scrambled back up the lava wall and, with great effort, made it to what seemed to be an open patch of cane grass. At 10 p.m., resigned to my fate, I laid down under a star-filled sky and a cool but not unpleasant breeze. I used my towel for a pillow, put on the sweatshirt, over my sweat soaked t-shirt, and thanked God I was OK enough to sleep.

I woke with a start at 11 p.m., chilled from a cool damp breeze that had suddenly come out of nowhere, and when I looked at the sky I noticed the stars were gone. What was I thinking? This was a rainforest! If it were about to rain, which was highly likely, I’d be screwed. I forced myself to get up and practically walk on all fours towards any shelter under as dense foliage. When I checked to see the time, I realized that my Guess watch had a dim, blue light called ‘indiglo’ on its side. The night was so dark it actually illuminated my immediate two or three foot vicinity.

As I blindly climbed up a slight embankment toward the tree canopy, I tumbled into what turned out to be about a three to four foot dry riverbed.  I had clumsily yet magically found shelter and was basically unharmed. I realized I was now under overlapping trees, which just might provide some cover from a rainstorm. The trench had actually dropped me below the cold wind.

Having found my new home, I decided to ignore the possibilities of sharing it with the famous centipedes of Waipio. These poisonous, stinging, 100-legged insects loved to hide under rocks and in cool places. I now began to focus on my newest problem. In order to make a bed to sleep in, I’d have to remove about 100 rocks and boulders and 1000 macadamia or kukui nutshells from under me.

Luckily there was soft, cool dirt under the rocks. Using the indiglo, I tenaciously spent from midnight until 2 a.m. clearing a six-foot long by two-foot wide space for me to sleep in. I gathered as many leaves as I could to make a somewhat insulated bed on the slightly wet ground. By 3 a.m., feeling a lot like Robinson Crusoe, I covered my legs with my towel and lay down for two blissful hours of sleep. I could hear wild horses stamping and breathing above me, but barely cared. I just prayed they’d stay put and weren’t really wild boar in search of fresh meat. As I drifted off to sleep, I thanked God it didn’t rain, that I’d met no centipedes (a small miracle), and that the temperature had stayed just temperate enough to get some sleep.

By 5 a.m., I awoke with enough daylight to stiffly return to my hike again. In the soft glow of sunrise, I once again realized I had no idea where I was or if yet the Waipio Valley. I decided to head for the nearest hill to my left, climb it and see if I could get my bearings. As luck would have it, I found a deeply rutted dirt road. I soon recognized it as the road to the tree house! Ironically, I had spent the night only 15 minutes from the road. Classic. The Waipio Spirits must have had a good laugh on me that night. At long last I was in a hot bath and a real bed, and for the first time in many years, I slept till noon.

I will say that I was definitely a changed man after that experience. Waipio had beaten me into complete surrender, and as strange a welcoming as it may seem, I now felt initiated by the land of old Hawaii. Ironically, I honestly can’t think of a sweeter rite of passage. As I sit here today writing this story, I am still bruised and healing, and as rough a night as it was, I am grateful for how gentle the Waipio Valley was to me. Anywhere else in the world, I could have had a serious life-or-death ordeal. This episode, I see now, was a gentle reminder of who’s really in charge and, at the very least, a lesson once again for me to pay better attention to my intuition, especially when it comes to flashlights.

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