Reflections...

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Last night was amazing and profoundly beautiful...
Under a canopy of stars...
In the starlit shadows of the majestic Ko'olau Range...
As smatterings of ice cold rain visited the dark...
I watched the intense burning fire incinerate a painful past...
In an all consuming heat...
Amidst the stone platforms and thatched structures...
As the malo and kihei clad kanaka...
Planted the descendants of Hāloanakalaukapalili...
As prayers, tears, and wails echoed across the blackened precipices...
As I pondered my kūpuna with the burning back kapu...
As I pondered my kūpuna baked alive in the imu of war...
And their sufferings that allowed me to exist...
I understood sacrifice in large and small ways...
And the healing power of Forgiveness...
It is to understand my beloved sacred kūpuna...
It is to understand myself...
It is to understand Love...
It is to understand Aloha...
'Onipa'a kākou...

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