Jess Banks schools you.

I left for New Zealand with a conundrum packed in my carry-on: how I could I celebrate the winter solstice my soul needs this time of year in a place where it’d be the summer solstice? At first, I thought Midsummer’s Eve would be the answer, but the short night isn’t deep enough to sink into. Even in the dark, the smell of green things and the fresh sunset would puncture my illusion. My body would unfurl like a leaf in the evening warmth; no curling in to protect my blood-hot heart from the winter chill.

Two days before the solstice, I did something that the telling of which still feels blocky and foreign in my mouth: I climbed a volcano. Guarding and menacing the Hauraki Gulf, in the curve of Auckland, stands Rangitoto Island. It’s visible all along the North Shore, a compass point of dark green above the water. Locals like to remind visitors that dormant Rangitoto is overdue, like a spun-out pregnancy.

The landscape is both lush and austere: blooming trees and thick foliage growing around fields of hot black volcanic rubble. The higher you climb, the fewer basalt fields there are, and the jungle-like nature arches all around. The massive caldera looks like an Alpine valley.

But as I stood, looking down into that crater, my insight shifted and I saw living fire beneath that quiet forest floor. The rolling, arcing, molten center enfolded me just as the nourishing dark earth did, all in the same place. I felt grounded and explosive. I felt firm and strong and liquid and volatile. I was held in solid rock at the edge of heat so intense it melted both rock and body.

The barrier between these forces may seem stark. But the whole thing—the volcanic core and the blackness of rock and fertile soil—exist to create. The cataclysm that cracked the sea floor with fire and steam raised Rangitoto into being. What destroyed and choked and covered the sun in ash created a point on the surface of this planet that wasn’t there before. And atop that cooling land, rocky and barren, the nutrients that had churned in fire grew a vibrant diversity of plants, a biome that drew the lively creatures that formed the orchestral theme as we climbed. The island breathed in sea water around its porous edges, and filtered the gulf to turquoise clarity.

Another eruption is due. Rangitoto will destroy and create again. The destruction is not malicious; the creation is not joyous. But they will both be powerful and life-changing, no matter how small the event. Until then, the island is a vessel of potential. They call that dormancy, but there is nothing sleepy or restful about Rangitoto. It is patient. It waits. What looks like doing nothing couldn’t be further from the truth.

This is how I will create. The need to be still allows my fiery heart to fill and melt impurities. I cannot produce without this preparation; I am not losing time as I conserve my resources. Making changes that clear away old growth and connections is not cruel or unloving. Transforming stale material and ideas makes me stronger and more authentic. And I have the power to raise the earth and make something this planet has never known before. I am the volcano.

PS: This picture of me and Rangitoto was taken atop another volcano I climbed. I’m a volcano-climbing fool.

Reverb Broads 2011, December 30: If you could go on a trip regardless of cost, where would you go and what would you see? (courtesy of Dana at http://simply-walking.com)

I’ve already been crazy fortunate in how much of the world I’ve seen. I’d been to all 48 contiguous states, most of the provinces of Canada, and across the Mexican border before I graduated from high school. By the time I got married at 21, I’d added England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy, and New Zealand to the list. Like I said, crazy fortunate.

Still, there’s a whole lot of world left to see, and I’m an adventurous traveller. There are loads of things I want to see and do out there. Here are just a few:

• I want to see the wooden shrine at Ise in Japan. It’s the principal shrine for the Japanese Imperial Cult, and every twenty years, they completely rebuild the entire shrine complex on an adjoining plot because Shintos believe natural spirits live in trees, and renewing the wood rejuvenates the spiritual power of the temple.

• I want to sleep on a rooftop in Greece under that blue, blue Mediterranean summer sky.

• I want to eat my way across India, and wrap myself in its bright silk, and bathe in the holy Ganges, and let the liquid syllables of Hindi and all its dialects wash over me in the breathtaking heat.

• I want to take my family to the parts of America that stick in my memory like splinters: Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, the Black Hills, the Colorado Rockies, Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, Vermont, Bar Harbor.

• I want to go alone to a storm-washed rock in the North Atlantic or Irish Sea and let the ascetic austerity settle deep in my spirit: Skye, Skellig Michael, Iona.

• I want to steep myself in the spices and the history of Morocco and Egypt.

• I want to hear the crackle and chime of the Aurora Borealis, or the eerie midnight sun, across the skies of Iceland and Sweden.

There are a few places I have relatively less interest in visiting (Russia, South America), but were I offered the opportunity, I’d be on a plane in a heartbeat, because I love the adventure of it all. And there are places I want to go, not for pleasure, but to help with the meager skills I have to leverage: Haiti, Congo, or Senegal.

In short, I want to keep travelling. I want to see everything.