NEW WORKSHOP : "Unfurling" the fourth and final workshop based on Kaulana Mahina

The series of basic and foundational knowledge and practice with Kaulana Mahina (the Hawaiian Moon Calendar) and the universe from the Kanaka perspective, ends with the workshop entitled "Unfurling".  This fourth workshop-study group will summarize and integrate all three workshops, and add the recent work of Pua Kanahele and the system of knowledge called Papaku Makawalu.  "Unfurling" will offer a broad and specific system of knowledge from which personal journeys can unfold.  The broad and foundational knowledge comes from the many teachers' mana'o shared in the four workshops of Kaulana Mahina.  The specific ways in which those teachings aid you comes from your readiness to make connection, room and images that speak to you in relevant ways. 

A PREVIEW of the workshop "Unfurling" is now available for reading, and will remain public through July 1st.  Link here, and see if this workshop appeals to you.

The new workshop begins with the energy of a solar eclipse in the mother of astro signs, Cancer.  What births are on your horizon?

Points of Reckoning: personal and spiritual navigation and the process of unfurling

Hapu'u an example of Papaku Makawalu

Do you notice how patterns repeat themselves in nature, and in your life?  Simple things like "I don't put a thing back in exactly the same place everytime."  Or, "I always put things in exactly the same place every time."  I heard Pete say (the first thing) the other day when he was looking for the top of the water bottle.  I heard myself snickering and then admitted I don't put things back in the same place everytime either.  Other examples, "Patience is easy for me, I can wait."  Or, "Patience is a pain, and I don't like pain."  Other simple examples come through living with the trees and bushes of berries that seem to be surrounding us, making just enough room for our vardo and Quonset to blend in.  Seasons come and go, the sky above us huli turning from day to night, sun up, sun down, mahina up, stars out.  That cycle of repetition is slowly yet efficiently teaching me to notice my place within the natural scheme of things.

Teaching is often the best way I learn.  It continues to be true these past three months, as I write and connect the ancient practices from my mother's lineage.  Kaulana Mahina the Way of the Moon has given me points of reckoning and a newly rebuilt foundation of stability.  It's not easy, and I think, that's the good news.  Learning to count differently requires giving up meanings long clung to:  2+2 doesn't always equal 4, but it matters that you stay long enough to learn why.  So it's been with the workshops that began with Count on The Moon.  That first workshop began with the basis idea that there are 7 po, 7 nights of the moon, when traditional wisdom of the kanaka has said, "Do nothing new on these nights."  During the months of travel in the wa'a kaulua workshop, I have learned that "Do", "nothing" "new" and "these nights" mean something different for every one in the wa'a.  Is writing doing?  What is something new?  NOTHING?  Anyway, maybe you get the picture.  The Kanaka Universe was observed and recorded into a system thousands of years prior to this year.  The study of that universe, and its application to life today is a multi-media experience.

Inseparable for the kanaka was the spiritual and physical universe.  Foundational values set the stage for a very different kind of universe based on reverence and respect, rather than dominion and domination.  It is a universe built on aloha(love), ha'aha'a(humility), pono(harmony) and hanapono(right action).  My journey as makua o'o includes times of confusion and huli (up-sets).  To see my physical journey and repeat it would include many re-traced lines:  back and forth, forth and back; dig, dig, cover, cover, dig deeper.  Points of reckoning are markers, just as navigators know which stars are the fixed and dependable points of reckoning at different times of the season/year, personal and spiritual navigation must also have dependable points of reckoning to know 'I started here' and now 'I am here.' 

Every one of us has a style and a navigational preference.  Some of us talk our way through the journey, others work our way through the journey, still others write our way through, and others still sleep-walk our walk through living.  The Summer Solstice  marks a point of pono between the sun and earth leaving light and darkness equal from this Papa Honua.  "Good Time for Ceremony, the Solstice," said Pua Kanahele as I watched and listened to her in a video presentation describing the system of knowledge called Papaku Makawalu.  This system of knowledge is the latest of points in my personal and spiritual map of reckoning.  It affirms the values that set my mind and heart at peace when my body is weak and my confidence in huli.  Soon, I will integrate Papaku Makawalu into my navigation.  I describe this system of knowledge to mean, "From a solid foundation, grow from there."  There's an 'Olelo No'eau that says that same thing.  Do you know the one I mean?  How does it read?

If you are interested in exploring the unfurling nature of all that grows, as it relates and connects the ancient past, and your life today, consider signing up for the fourth and final basic Kaulana Mahina study group-workshops entitled "UNFURLING" beginning Muku Po (Hawaiian New Moon)in the malama of July. A preview of the workshop will be posted here very soon.

What do they call a cowlick where you come from?

" A cowlick is a section of hair that stands straight up or lies at an angle at odds with the style in which the rest of an individual's hair is worn. Cowlicks appear when the growth direction of the hair forms a spiral pattern. The term "cowlick" originates from the domestic bovine's habit of licking its young, which results in a swirling pattern in the hair. The most common site of a human cowlick is in the crown, but they can show up anywhere. They also sometimes appear in the front and back of the head.


The term cowlick dates from the late 16th century, when Richard Haydocke used it in his translation of Lomazzo: "The lockes or plaine feakes of haire called cow-lickes, are made turning upwards."  - Wikipedia.org

Way back in the day when we were small bare foot kids in a valley where yards opened up to yards, and only one neighbor lived behind a wire fence and a gate, cowlicks were called 'giddy-giddy.'  One of the neighborhood kids must have had giddy-giddy, he was trouble ... watch out  for him.  I think I did but there was always something plain and simple about that warning and the giddy-giddy:  you knew it was there, so knew what to expect. 

I've been calling up memories from those small kid times recently, finding myself at my old Elementary School, at recess playing hop-scotch.  The innocence and playfulness of those times has soothed me as I reached for a good-feeling thought.  Even now, I see the cement sidewalk, the ramp leading up to the classrooms, the right angle where we could go to the library.  The white lines of the hop-scotch blocks already smudged indelibly with the red dirt that does not wash out. 

Memory, a good feeling thought is a powerful agent sometimes a gentle clearing to make the simple act of choosing as a girl:  'play hop-scotch' or 'go to the library' at recess.  Rewinding memories and choosing to remember that girl playing is a more sophisticated choice at sixty-three and I do it to put together in word-play, word-work and storytelling.  That eight year old girl from valley was playing hop-scotch with a whorl of hair she had not met, yet.  The times of play and innocence at school masked the white-water rafting that worked my world within.  There were signs of the rough waters during those hop-scotch days, but most teachers and on-lookers could never see the double giddy-giddy that swhirled on the back of my head.

I woke this morning, still a bit rummy from sleep and an over-load of the giddy-giddy effect.  Preparing to write, I often read what Elsa P.'s dishing up for the day and found a load of conversation and discourse about the morphing effect of water (Neptune) on the way a person comes across in the every day.  Among the servings of astrology and pyschology I found this article-post about cowlicks, and took that article with me, back to the red-dirt stained hop-scotch blocks and giddy-giddies.

Elsa is discussing a situation between a couple.  The double-messaging of communication, and the issue of purposeful manipulation:  say this, but do exactly the opposite.  And,  it's a wonderful parable of the cowlick.  She ends the article with this, but read the whole and see what answer you come up with.

“I think it’s subconscious,” I said. “You know how a person combs their hair one way and it repeatedly falls back the way it falls naturally? Like a cowlick. This man has a cowlick in his psychology and we’ve discovered it. It’s not malicious, it just is. He’s going to say one things and then say the other, very reliably. It’s not because he has this intention, it’s because he has this cowlick…”






Whew!

Do you have a cowlick in your psychology?

Full Moon Birth

The moon is now in Capricorn, the lunar eclipse and full moon according to the Gregorian Calendar has moved pulling with it the energy of our full-flood of intentions and a new day.  Our view of the Po Mahina (the phases of the moon) allow for the belief that there are four full moons.  Yesterday was the po called HOKU, today is the po called MAHEALANI and is often considered the contemporary calendar's full moon.  Aue, not this month, and so it might vary in other months or malama as well.  The study and integration of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar challenges my beliefs, slows my impatient pursuit of answers, and in the process fuller meaning arrives.  Sometimes, I need all four bright moons to see the light other times I'd just as soon pull the comforter over my head and wait it out in the dark. 

This lunar energy has spawned new birth and excitement.  One more beautiful blog.  I am a fertile turtle and from the welling up of the full moon and the release of one more large burden, the contracting has birthed a blog of story, comfort, food, and the moon.  In a package of juicy red and golds WHISTLING WOMEN AND CROWING HENS was born a fully-developed baby blog.  Not premature, nor  pulled with forceps this blog has been long in the making.  Surprising me still, this blog waited for the eclipse during full light to push her way out of the womb.  I am thrilled to see the new blog and the collaboration with a talented culinary artist to expand the character of my blog-gene. 

Here is the link to WHISTLING WOMEN AND CROWING HENS.  Take a look, oooh and aaah at her and leave us a comment to let us know you have visited.

Full Moon & Lunar Eclipse

Both Full & Lunar Moon energy will peak this afternoon (3pm Pacific Daylight Time) here on Whidbey.  I'm feeling the pull of the tides in my emotions and body.  Just back from a long sit on a log at the beach, I watched the long sandy bar and the low-tide of the Full Moon & Lunar Eclipse on its way.

Astrologers say the effects of an eclipse are felt for six months after the eclipse with the enduring nature of letting go and moving on just as Mahina moves.  She doesn't carry our personal burdens, our emotions are ours and yet she is nurse to us all and says in whatever language you hear in your heart, "there, there, you'll be alright ..."  Parked as I was for awhile I watched and felt all that was there with me on the quiet mid-day on Whidbey.  On the back of an envelope came this ...

Stay long enough
to feel the changes ...
in the direction and speed of wind,
watch the tide shift
from empty
to slow yet steadily filling.

In me, the water changes too
from low empty --best resting
to fillig slowly, steadily.

Stay  long enough
to see pidgeons
walk the bar
find the just-right
length of nesting;
the heron hungry
at low-tide,
now angler at knee-high water
rich hunting as tide shifts.

Stay long enough
stay long enough
stay long enough.

Mahina moves and Makawalu

Mahina moves = Moon moves.  The 'Ole Pau is passed.  That was yesterday, and the fourth of four Po Mahina (Hawaiian Moon phases) that suggest "rest, review, re-alignment, weeding, fix your gear."  The more I study and practice being in sync with the goddess Mahina, the more alignment I feel.  The rest times are not completely relaxing in truth, some of my greatest transformation comes during the 'Ole phases.  This morning when I answered the question, "How do you feel?"  I wrote, "worn."  And, that was true at the time.  Hours have passed, slowly Mahina moved, and now I am not 'worn.'  Instead, I have fed myself comfort food to soothe and reassure me, had a nice walk, breathed some forest fresh air, and had a chat with my son who is in San Francisco for some R&R.  I am renewed, and realigned for the forward movement.  That's the thing I love about counting on the moon.  Mahina moves = moon moves, and the moon is our personal and collective link to 'how i  am feeling.'  Each day/night that changes, a little or a little more, yet always moving.  "This too shall pass."

Mahina is moving into Po Huna (the first moon in the second week) in Anahulu Poepoe.  Emotions, things, process is rounding out.  What began with New Moon is gathering momentum.  The 'Ole Po was a time to rest, slow down and get a point of reckoning ... to determine the worth or frivolity of your course:  keep/weed; good seed/water;energy-drainer/up-lifter and inspiration.  Pete is just back from his morning of errands into the 'little city' using the post-'Ole moon to keep us on track.  We like the path we're on, and continue on it.  A bathhouse and laundry in our future is down stream and on our path.  Does it require maintaining a hopeful and determined attitude?  Yup.  The 'Ole Moons often bring up dreams and waking opportunity, giving us messages, language and particular examples of just what our kuleana is.  Not every opportunity is my opportunity.  Again, the moon is all about 'How am I feeling?' 

Being makua o'o the tools/the sticks for getting from here to there are the same sticks.  The maturation comes from using the same tool differently once you get 'there.'  For example, I continue to keep writing this blog, but use the growing inspiration from it to tap into new projects and birth new platforms of growth:  Count On The Moon Workshops, Prime the Pump on-line writering group, an ebook for children of all ages, a new blog-cookbook in the making.  Another example, I was born in Palolo Valley on O'ahu Moku, lived in Kuliouou Valley for twenty-plus years, left the Islands to marry and create a child.  Now, the makua wahine (me) lives in the place to which I traveled, and my child lives in the place where I was born.  Same tools, different uses.  Yes that?  Here's another clue for the cultural detectives among us: MAKAWALU.  The examples in this paragraph are example of makawalu?

Soon, there will be more examples of makawalu.  What is makawalu?  What tools continue to work for your journey as makua o'o?  Questions, questions, always with the questions.

Moon in June

Our weekend of celebrating our first year here in the woods was a two-day party, cooking and sitting to eat and tell stories at the new orchard table (which now has a fine long bench to go along with it!).  My universe, our universe, the Universe seems to expand with abundance.  Information flowing full-flood during this June with New Moon in Gemini has indeed birthed so many connections.  Pacing the flow is my challenge, but I am excited by the huge sweep of traditional mana'o timing itself so this makua continues to feel alive.  I'm just up from a late afternoon nap, the glory of getting older and mostly-retired and revelling in study is soul sweet stuff for me.  Pete is off on a late evening ferry ride to participate in community discourse in Mukilteo:  there is an issue of the table he has followed for months, and he wants to be there to track and in-put his dime's worth.  It's an equivalent sort of sweet for him.

When I began blogging here at Makua O'o, these pages were a place to anchor my spiritual practice while the physical world we'd known came mostly undone.  Not wishing at this time to recount that journey it is enough, I feel, to say we have learned through first-hand experiences many things we do not want.  Now, the practice of using the tools of makua give me a chance to keep learning, and publishing.  Blogging is an awesome sample of the criss-crossing and dot connecting nature of a Universe ever-birthing.  I am in the process of learning and integrating the mana'o of two of my contemporary, living heroines:  Rubellitte Kawena Johnson and Pua Kanahele.  Both women draw from both kanaka and western spheres of the educational universe.  Those spheres have been my wells of knowledge as well though my gifts have been tapped differently than these two.  My 'degrees' are mostly internal and my journeying has always been through storytelling.  I continue that through blogs, and now on-line study workshops.

Capricorn-based as I am with my moon and ascendent in Capricorn in the 12th house of depth, and the Saturn task master liberal in my astrology, I teach and I heal, I heal and I teach.  Slowly and steadily I heal from the effects of an illness and reaction to the environment and re-learn my place in my universe, and the Universe.  It's important to know the space that is 'my' universe and feel-sense-connect with the bigger Universe in a personal way.  Having been through the experiences of disconnection, diagnosis and healing there is a sense of urgency and a strangely calm symphonic to what comes after -- what is coming now.  That might be the glory of aging!  Or, maybe just the aging in reverse that is often characteristic of Capricorn's who endure?

Na Po Mahina and the Universe

The regularity of Mahina's crossing the sky began our re-membering time.  We watched her, felt her and counted on her while we lived open to the world ... vulnerable in all ways and somehow, stronger because we were turned in-side out like all babies.  Huli,up-ended and birthed again.  Sources seen and unseen help every step along the way contractions and galloping momentum pushes me forward.  What a ride!

More tools for the Makua

Lunar Return Reports
Over on the side-bar (to the right) is a NEW LINK to Lunar Return Reports from Elsa P.  creator and author of the first astrology blog.  Yes, she wrote 'em when the blog was a new word, a new world.  I am using these reports as a new tool, another one.  Elsa's helped a lot over the years, maybe these reports are a tool you could use.  They're very inexpensive and filled with monthly insight.

Monthly On-line Workshops-Study Groups
Count On The Moon "The Blessings of Emptiness" or "'Ole Mahalo" was our first workshop based on the Kanaka's Universe.  The focus was the Hawaiian Moon Calendar.  The blog-workshop venue is growing and progressive, and exciting.  A small group is consistently finding the rhythm of attuning to Mahina, the connection with cycles and the cultivation of their space/place in the Universe.

The current monthly workshop Malama I Ka Ha has just included the mana'o and teachings of Kumu Kawena Johnson, and with this new teaching the meaning and vibracy of the Kumulipo (the 2000 + lines of the Hawaiian Creation Chant) takes on personal meaning.

I am in love with learning, and find stability in discovering connections.  Are you connected?  And to who and what are you connected?

Hauoli La

Summer is in the air here on the Island.  Sunshine and music fill the orchard, the Quonset door is wide open, JOTS is fast asleep and Pete is cutting the tall grass around the table and chairs.  We prepare to celebrate on Sunday, one year of being here.  Life in the car, sleeping in parking lots, a'ole a 'normal' home Akua and the guardians stayed with us as we made our way.  Like mo'o (lizards) who shed skins we have done that too.  Shed of many things, beliefs and limitations the today we live is more content.  We envisioned this life:  plenty of trees (a thousand), fresh air (most of the time), kind and quirky friends and sharers-of-place, planting space, quiet, resources to grow more good relationships.

The regularity of nature:  mahina risings and settings...thirty phases of dark-light, 'ole moons that refresh and reclaim balance and direction, awareness of the sounds, sense and growth in shrub, fern, pine, cedar, alder and fungu help connect with what is important.  Slowed and secure we have allowed for relaxation and release of suffering.  Older and more accepting of life as it is, our lives as real people attract other real people.  Hauoli, happy with ourselves we are happier with each day.  We are more at ease, less afraid, we gentle out.

On the sink across the Quonset the first of the green shoots from the Ki Kahuna (sacred ti-leaf) swells.  I've spoken and welcomed the precious plant from O'ahu, and smile to think we are here together Island to Island, preparing to celebrate happy days.

Hauoli la!