Some readers may wonder why this website is named “Supernatural Rooster.”  It is an odd and perhaps even a presumptuous name.  Supernatural?  Rooster?  That bears some explaining and there is a story behind it.

After Bonnie and I got together I began to reflect ever more on my lifetime of experiences.  I had explored cities and mountains and canyons and coral reefs.  I was conversant in many subjects. And I had many observations to share about what was happening as our species entered the new Millennium.

I wanted to express myself not only in articles and books read by specialists, or casually on social media, but in a more lasting format where people could read at their leisure.  And I wanted to have things organized.  For two or three years, I periodically tried to find a name for a website to do this.  But I couldn’t find anything appropriate — much less inspiring or catchy.  And it had to be available of course.  Nothing seemed to work and it was frustrating.  But I didn’t want to settle for anything that wasn’t right.

The story of the Supernatural Rooster begins in May of 2017, when Bonnie and I were visiting Honolulu, Hawaii.  We had stopped there for a quick three nights while we were on our way to the nation of Fiji,  where we planned some underwater photography of soft coral ecosystems.

Royal Hawaiian Hotel

While in Hawaii, we climbed to the top of Diamondhead, the famous rim of a volcano that can be seen from Waikiki Beach.  The photo of Bonnie above was taken at its summit and the view is looking down on Waikiki Beach, which we were to visit later in the day.

We stayed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.  It was one of the oldest of the hotels on Waikiki.  Behind the hotel was perhaps the most expensive shopping district in Hawaii.

One evening, as Bonnie and I strolled through the area between our hotel and an upscale shopping area named the Royal Hawaiian Center, we stopped at a little plaque designed to commemorate something.  I heard Bonnie reading and it did not interest me particularly–  until I heard her utter the words “supernatural rooster.“

Those words got my attention.  “Supernatural Rooster?   Honey, what did you say about a ‘supernatural rooster? ”  A possibility began to crystalize.

She started over and read from the plaque: “This is the place of Ka’auhelemoa, the supernatural rooster from Ka’au Crater.  Ka’auhelemoa inspired the name of this land section of Waikiki.  ‘Helumoa,’ meaning ‘chicken scratch, was once a massive coconut grove with an estimated 10,000 trees.”

I was fascinated.  What had happened with a supernatural rooster?  Why was this valuable part of Honolulu named  “chicken scratch?”

I loved the idea of a supernatural rooster.  I could think of no more fascinating a creature.  And no matter what the supernatural rooster turned out to be the words seemed so much better a name for a blog than any of the others I had been considering.  When Bonnie and I got back to the hotel, we both researched Ka’auhelemo and Hemuloa on the Internet. This is what we learned:

George from top of Diamondhead

Long ago Kakuhihewa, the King of Oahu, was walking in the Waikiki area, where the royal court was located.  Legend has it that a rooster appeared and landed in front of Kakuhihewa.  It scratched the earth, as if to say “Here.”   Some stories say the rooster “challenged” Kakuhihewa. Then, as quickly as he had appeared, the supernatural rooster Ka’auhelemoa flew away.

Kakuhihewa took it as a favorable omen and planted coconuts where he had encountered the supernatural rooster.  Helumoa, meaning “chicken scratch,” was the name he bestowed on the coconut grove, which over time is said to have grown into a place of 10,000 trees.

In the 1880s, Helumoa was inherited by one of the last of Hawaii’s royal family — Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop.  And here is where the story gets even more fascinating.  During her lifetime, Princess Bernice encountered the decline of the Hawaiian people. In her opinion, education was critical to the survival of her culture.  For that reason, she left 375,000 acres of ancestral land to a trust dedicated to schools and programs that would keep native traditions alive

Hemuloa was part of the estate set aside by Princess Bernice to educate future generations. Now, there are hotels in the area.  And shopping centers.  There, throngs of Japanese tourists shop at the highest of high-end shops, as if to unwittingly pay tribute to the land they attacked in 1941.  The wealth of the Royal Hawaiian ancestral land has ballooned fantastically and was now being used to support the children who will inherit the challenges of future years.

After reading this story, and considering how catchy the words Supernatural Rooster were, and how the whole thing was related to educating future generations,  and how the name was available on the Internet, I decided the name was quite fitting for a blog.  As I have explained elsewhere, because of a double tragedy, I would have no biological descendants.  But I still wanted to pass along something of myself to future generations — so as to live on in the world of ideas and influence reality.  This is the story of how this website came to be named Supernatural Rooster.