Lessons...

As part of a teaching collection, years ago I acquired a stone club head made to sit on top of a hardwood handle, and lashed to it tightly. It was found decades ago by another Hawaiian who decided it was time to part with it. My instincts told me that it was real and ancient, but due to distance, I couldn't see it in person. The day the package arrived, I came home late from work and excitedly opened the box to view the stone newa, or club. In the din of my hallway, as I kicked my shoes off, I took the stone out of the box. I immediately saw a reddish tinge to the rock on one side, and it seemed shiny, like blood. I quickly put it back in the box. I didn't want to handle it any further until I could re-examine it in the morning light. It really disturbed me that night.

I ended up taking the box to my office the next morning, and later in the day, I took the rock out. It was dark gray closed-grained basalt. Very dense. To my surprise, there was no sign of the reddish coloring I had witnessed the night before. I put it into a small milo wood bowl in a bed of pa'akai 'alaea, ocherous sea salt, from Kaua'i and left it alone for about a month. 

One day, while two gifted friends were in my office helping me discern the identify and story of a Native Hawaiian woman who died in in the late 1700's, by communicating with her Spirit, via her skeletal remains, I asked them to check the pohaku for me when they finished their work with the deceased woman. One friend is very gifted in obtaining the names, stories, and guidance from Spirits that reside in rocks. Sentient beings. In certain rocks. Vessels...

Mary Kawena Pukui, the reknown Hawaiian scholar, called these gifts, "ike pāpā lua." The gift of second sight. There is also "aka kū", or a standing or shadow vision. I had also learned about this from another kupuna who experienced these visions quite often.

As I handed the pohaku to her, I said, "I think it is old, and real, and may have taken human Life." As she cupped it in her hands and closed her eyes, she was quiet for about a minute, then said, "Oh no...it has taken Life. Many lives..."

My heart sank. I asked if they could help cleanse the rock. The two women began to meditate while standing next to my desk, and after awhile, they began seeing many people in the Spirit World coming forth who had been killed with the club. Those who lived centuries ago and who haven't ascended yet to a higher Level of Existence. The mood in my office quickly became so heavy and I found tears streaming down my face. I could feel so much sadness and despondency in the air.

I had learned that when people die a violent death, they often don't believe they are dead, or they have so much unfinished business, they dwell here amongst the living. I also learned that in the Spirit World, there isn't linear time like when we are alive. It isn't like a Spirit is wandering around here for 200 or 300 years waiting for something. Time doesn't exist as we, the living, have come to know it. 

My Beautiful friends began holding space open, and bringing Light down from the Heavens, to help guide those who were ready to ascend upwards to a Higher Level. Especially those that were able to release the shock and anger of their violent premature death, and find Forgiveness. Forgiveness amongst such Horrible Tragedy. 

After what seemed like an Eternity, but more like a half-hour, they helped as many Spirits ascend as they could. My friend holding the rock in her hands, meditated awhile more and then we ended the short ceremonial event. I wiped the tears out of my eyes and the rock was handed back to me. I was so humbly grateful.

I asked how many kupuna had been killed by the club, most likely struck on the head. My friends said they saw many...dozens. I still felt sad inside. The pohaku whisperer friend then told me, that what was unusual, was that the kupuna had to find Forgiveness in their Hearts, to release the anger and pain, towards their killer in order to ascend higher, but that the pohaku also needed to seek forgiveness from those he had slain. He had to then forgive the man who arduously fashioned him into a weapon, and wielded him to take Sacred Precious Life.

She said that the rock could have been fashioned into something else, but the maker never asked permission of the pohaku to make it into a weapon.  To take human Life. The pohaku didn't want to kill. I knew such a Beautiful stone could have had many purposes in Life. A pestle to grind medicine to save Lives. A small pounder to make food. An ulumaika to play sporting games. Sharpened into an ko'i, an adze, to carve Beautiful things. Even a small akua, as I have seen small figures of the same size and density, carved into human forms. But No. It was made, with great effort, into an object of Death. Our ancestors often named their weapons, and fed them during war.

The previous owner had told me that he fashioned the pohaku to a stick with cordage to see how the grooves on the pohaku were used, and found that he could lash it very tightly and securely. One end was slightly narrower, more like an axe shape, while the other was more bulbous and round. Both would quickly crack your bones in two and shatter your skull into pieces. A horrific death for sure.

After my amazing friends and I parted ways that day, and I was alone in my office again, I picked up the pohaku, and held it close to my cheek. I promised that I would never fashion him into a newa. To never lash him to a club handle with cordage. He would remain free and no longer live in a painful tormented past. Such that he looks like a closed fist, to strike, to hit, to punch, to beat, he would become a lesson about the Sacredness of Life. About the dead-end pathways of Anger. War. Death. Destruction. About the Choice of Peace.

He is about Life now. About Forgiveness. He goes out into the World now bringing his message to school children. To prison inmates. To troubled youths. To anyone willing to listen. So the horror of the past wasn't in vain. I certainly don't understand many things and mysteries in this World, but I do know my own Truths. This is my Truth...