I’m not one to knock telescope protesters atop Mauna Kea for their belief that Hawaii’s highest mountain is a sacred place deserving of protection.

My first Volcanic Ash column 20 years ago described Mauna Kea as "hallowed ground."

I wrote then, "I wasn’t thinking hallowed in a holy sense, just a place so spiritually uplifting that being there could elevate my mind, bring serenity to my heart and inspire me to the purest aspirations."

In an essay I contributed this year to the East Hawaii Cultural Council’s book, "Aloha ‘Aina Volume II: More Big Island Memories," I recalled magical Hilo moments when rain clouds lift and Mauna Kea’s summit is revealed.

"Some say Mauna Kea’s powerful effect on Big Islanders is just the psychological lift of a little sunshine on a rainy island, but it’s so much more," I concluded. "The rain and the mountain are the yin and yang of the island’s spirituality, which is strongly imbued in those who spent formative years there — and sticks no matter where we end up later in life."

So I get that Mauna Kea is a special spiritual place.

I don’t get the notion that the only way to protect Mauna Kea is to restrict human activities to what Hawaiians did there 200 years ago.

I don’t get the demonizing of astronomers, whose honorable studies of the stars are lumped with the perceived evils of military bombing on Kahoolawe and corporate GMOs.

I don’t get the ugly words directed at the Hawaiian high school senior who hopes to work at a Mauna Kea observatory.

I’ve gazed at Mauna Kea from sea level, walked its slopes and summit, and circumnavigated it on a sheep-hunting trail with biologists studying the palila bird.

The impression from all perspectives is that this is a very big mountain — and that diverse activities can coexist without violating respect.

This was reinforced by a spectacular drone video of the summit by Epic Aerial Productions.

The film was intended to show the telescopes’ desecration, but to me it showed the summit is so vast that the clustered observatory domes simply don’t dominate the larger landscape.

When the telescopes are eventually decommissioned, wind-blown red cinders will cover their footprints and there will be little sign they existed except for the knowledge about our universe left behind.

In the meantime, the film showed Hawaiians freely practicing rituals such as chanting, building shrines and planting their flag with no telescopes or construction areas in sight.

The anger here goes deeper than the fate of a mountaintop, and I don’t pretend to know the answer.

I only hope there is one that doesn’t end with Mauna Kea, a spiritual force that joined people for so long, becoming the thing that fractures us.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com  or blog.volcanicash.net.