Last October I had posted the question asking where one could find living, growing Aya in Hawaii. I had a wedding to go to on the Islands and thought maybe I’d get a chance to see the sacred vine up close … Some were concerned about my question, some were helpful.. here’s the follow-up….

You see, I have not yet experienced ingesting Aya… I am interested in it, attracted to it, have read quite a bit about it, talked with folks who are experienced with it, yet have not yet taken the plunge. There’s even a bit of vine at the house where I live that I just sometimes sit with and vibe on… I feel like I’ve already had some pretty intense experiences doing just that. Anyways, I figured probably the next step would be to meet some living plants and see how we hit it off.

Somehow, through a distant friend, I was put into contact with a farm that commercially grows the vine on one of the Islands (I’m not even going to say which one). They told me to give them a call when I’m there and that they’d be cool with me coming by.
So, I get to the islands and give them a call… They’re ex-pat Europeans, kind and somewhat jolly on the phone. They seem even a little perplexed that I’m just calling to come see a plant and I suspect that they think I’m probably looking to do a brew and/or for a place to drink…. Their response is something like, “ya, sure man, you just want to come by and look at the plants?… no problem, when you get here we’ll talk, take care of you…” They inform me that they don’t have a cell phone and that the only phone they have is at their farm office… We agree on a time for me to call in the next few days and I’m given a rough location, with the plan that they’d give me to details once I call.

So the day I’m going to see the vine comes around… I had already looked at a botanical garden that was supposed to have it, but we couldn’t find it in their catalog and the help didn’t know what I was talking about. I give the farm a call at the agreed time and get their answering machine. With nothing to do but wait for their callback, I wander the area, coming upon a small local farmers market. I check the cell phone… bars galore, yet no callback. I kill some time walking around the market, but a t-shirt from a blonddread with sunburn on sunburn skin. No messages. Looking at piles of ginger and some durian-like fruit that I’d never seen before, I notice a plant. A small shrub, it has dark green waxy leaves, some of which have a sort of soft surface on the underside. I recognize it immediately, although I’ve never seen one in person - Camellia sinensis, tea!

You see, although I’ve never drank Aya, the one brew that I do know well is tea, having drank it practically every day for over 30 years. I absolutely love tea. My mother introduced me to tea. Black, with milk and sugar like the British, and for a while with almond or rice milk when I was veg, now with milk and honey. In fact, I somewhat attribute my first “altered” experiences to tea… I recall late nights as a child unable to sleep or waking up from super vivid crazy mystical dreams loaded with angels and demons that I now recognize as the effects of too much caffeine. Tea is such an integral part of my life, I could not imagine it not being a part of my daily rituals, yet I had never met a tea plant until that moment!

Through misty eyes, I answer “no” to the girl’s question “you gonna buy or what?...” stop fondling the plant, and leave the farmer’s market.
As soon as I’m on the road the cell explodes…. A bunch of “dude, we’re here, where are you?” messages, followed by one “we’re leaving real soon, sorry we missed you” and my chance at seeing the vine is gone. ..

But I’m ok with that because..

I got to finally meet an old friend who has been there the whole time!

Maybe Aya and I will cross paths someplace else, some other time…. I also got to meet some other real nice plants on the North Shore, but that’s another story!!