Pu'ukoholā...
Posts
La'a...
Sacred, holy, devoted, consecrated, set apart or reserved as for sacred purposes, dedicated...
Hōʻailona...
Today was a beautiful day. We celebrated the opening of the Makahiki Season at Halawa Correctional Facility. A newly emerged Pulelehua, or butterfly, joined the celebration of Peace, Love, Forgiveness, Healing, and Redemption and was a powerful Hōʻailona. Ke Akua, na akua, Lono, and our beloved ancestors were all present to bear witness to the gathering. The Pulelehua served as a powerful reminder, that everyone is entitled to positive change, renewal, forgiveness, and re-emergence in a new true beautiful form. Let your Spirit soar into the Heavens...
Nevermore...
This is a Raven from Alaska, the home of our native brothers and sisters as well as the home of Native Hawaiians who left these islands at various times in the past 220 years. This Raven is robust and of varied genetic composition. Our native crow, the ʻalalā has not fared so well. Of at least five species of Native Hawaiian crow which once existed, only the ʻalalā tenuously survives to this day. Between 1993 and 1998, 27 captive ʻalalā were released into the wild. 21 died. 6 were recaptured and returned to the captive flock. In 2005, the Maui and Keauhou Bird Conservation Centers held the World's population at the time, 55 individuals. In 2008, three years later, there were 56 individuals in the World. A variety of issues plague the restoration and survival of the ʻalalā including predation, loss of habitat, a dwindling genetic pool and loss of instinctive behaviors. If we come to the precipice of losing the ʻalalā, like so many other of our Native Hawaiian birds, I would s...
'Ike Hawai'i...
To see, know, feel, greet, recognize, perceive, experience, be aware, understand...all things Hawaiian...
Co-Existence...
I stopped in my tracks as we stared at each other for a brief few seconds. Sharing both time and space in an ephemeral moment once in a billion years. She had every right to attack and sting me...the way humankind has treated her and her extended family. But she didn't. I was very grateful. I don't intentionally kill bugs anymore. Large or small. Live and let live was the lesson she taught me that day. I am eternally grateful and humbled for my little fuzzy hardworking Kumu...my sweet Teacher...
'Auku'u...
Black Crowned Night Heron. 'Auku'u also means to wretch or vomit. I have seen 'Auku'u 'auku'u before when they ate too many tilapia at a time...
'Io...
Hawaiian hawk (Buteo solitarius), an endemic and endangered hawk with dark and light color phases, confined to forests on the island of Hawaiʻi, where it is regarded by some as an ʻaumakua. The ʻio signified royalty because of its lofty flight, and hence occurs in such names as ʻIo-lani, royal hawk...
Forever...
Tonight, I walked into the boys' bedroom and found Koa sitting on the floor in the dark clutching his little Mr. Piggy stuffed animal and hiding between the couch and closet. I asked him if he was okay. He said yes. I knew he wasn't. So I asked him to come sit on my lap on the couch and let me hold him because I wanted to. He slowly crawled over and up into my lap. He is growing up so fast that I treasure moments where I can hold him again. I held him and we looked at Mr. Piggy. The seam where his neck attaches to his chest and shoulders is a little ripped open and some of the stuffing is visible. I told him that we will have to perform surgery on Mr. Piggy and sew his head back onto his body better. We both laughed. I showed Mr. Piggy my stomach scar up close from my recent pancreas surgery and told him not to be afraid to get a scar like me. Then I held Koa tighter and began rocking back and forth slightly as I hummed "You Are My Sunshine..." to him. I remem...
Consumption...
Live your life to the fullest consuming whatever your heart desires with wanton abandon and in the end, you will have no Egrets...
Thanksgiving...
Wishing everyone in the World a most beautiful Thanksgiving. Thankful for so many blessings in this most incredibly profoundly beautiful life. Praying for everlasting Peace, less suffering, more laughter, tears of joy rather than tears of sorrow and for every one to truly love and forgive one another...and for not one single person amongst us to feel lonely and abandoned, but to feel truly loved...
Memories...
Trying to repatriate the iwi of Henry Opukahaia in 1972, twenty-one years before he was finally able to come home to Hawai'i. My cousin Diane would end up working at the burial excavations at Honokahua at Kapalua, Maui, in the late 1980's which gave rise to the Burial Sites Program where I started in 1994, the year after Henry came home. Life is full of amazing destiny... Addendum: I remember hearing about Deborah Lee having a dream which initiated the 'ohana effort...amazing... I didn't get to visit his grave in Napo'opo'o until August of 2010...it was like a Mecca for me... I remember breaking down and sobbing at his new grave...so grateful that, unbeknownst to me, he was a guiding spirit throughout my whole life...saved me from certain ruin... I remember talking to him in Cornwall when I was five years old and picturing him as he looked in his Memoirs book, lying under the concrete slab...God is Great... : )
