Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Straight lines and Curves




The new cycle of thirty phases of Hina has started, a perfect example of how Kaulana Mahina, The Hawaiian Moon Calendar is a circle or curve in contrast to the wall calendars most of us use to remember what day it is-- time to pay the rent; pick up visitors at the airport this afternoon.  By the calendar on the wall it is Tuesday, August 30, 2011.  If you or I could look up today, during the daylight hours, the gracefully unfurling light of Hina in the shape of HOAKA (the Crescent Moon) would tell us that 'time' is newly drawing to full.  From the view of Hawaiian knowledge, the first anahulu draws light and life from a closed circle into a silver spoon, gradually filling from the curve or circle into the upright or nearly 'straight' line of the 'Ole phases.  The wonderful and full connection that comes when both 'calendars' integrate is the reason I have embraced the study and living with Mahina time as major navigator. No doubt my round body more plump and slower in speed than when I was able to run up the steep hill has aged.  But, my feminine nature is more at ease today, accepting of the curves that outline my physicality and as well, the curves that note my emotions and ability to balance the needs of the daily 'do' with the spiritual and transformative flow of imagining, creating and sacred storytelling.

The two images above are lovely examples of the circles and lines from my life.  The larger image is The Whale Wheel design created by Tsimshian Roger Purdue depicting 5 Orcas in the Northwest Native art style. Pete and I drove north to the summer Penn Cove Water Festival, in Coupeville, WA where we saw Purdue's design and the carved wheel which will be replaced because of wear and wobbling.  The design not only adorn[s] the 2011 Water Festival T-shirts, posters and fine art prints, but is also featured on the new Whale Wheel being carved by local Coupeville carver's under Roger's direction. The carved whale wheel will replace the salmon wheel, carved by Roger and unveiled at the 1995 Penn Cove Water Festival.


"Artist Roger Purdue wants to see whales honored, and he wants them to return to Penn Cove. He wonders if the whales remember that bad things happened to them in the Cove, and if they could be watching and waiting for us to do the right things, so they can return. All the right things happened to bring about the creation of the Whale Wheel. A magnificent piece of cedar was about to be reduced to kindling, and though Roger could no longer do it himself, a group of talented carvers was willing to do the work. The wheel shape reminds us of the Native American Circle of Life, and similar teachings by professor David Suzuki on the continuity of life. Just as all of the atoms in our bodies were part of other life forms before us, they will be dispersed to yet other living things after us; perhaps the salmon, the bear or the whale..."

The second image is one that I have used to draw on the intuitive feel of unfurling and coming into fullness.  It is that image of the Hapu'u fern and the collective wisdom of my ancestors the Kanaka, or Hawaiian, that inspired me to explore and share what Puanani Kanaka'ole Kanahele called "Papaku Makawalu."  I have included the link to Puanani Kanaka'ole Kanahele's "Methodology of Papapku Makawalu" to encourage any readers to explore the depth and breadth of the Kanaka Universe in its elegant and holistic character.  Slowly yet steadily, individuals, small and larger groups and especially those of us with the genetic memory to seek the missing links and segments of the circular wisdom, build stronger and fuller lives on resilient foundations.

One particular excerpt from Kanahele's "Methodology ..." struck me as a straight line, an up-right Ku connection and it is this:

 PapakU Makawalu is a way of learning a diminutive component while having some perspective of the full extent of the whole. Lines that separate specializations are traversed and voids of connectivity are filled because Papakü Makawalu is a natural process of Hawaiians that show their intuition of the world. The purpose of PapakU Makawalu is to return to this high level of known existence..." 
...PapakU Makawalu is the means to elevate, titillate and expand our native intelligence...
From my diminutive location, in a diminutive space -- a Quonset Hut sitting in the woods thousands of miles from my source of origin, I am able to draw on the knowledge of ancient ancestors who knew life on the curve and straight lines.  From this space in the woods, my journey is precisely TITILLATED by the timing of information that crosses and criss-crosses my journey as woman, as makua o'o, as Hawaiian.  It is that intuitive itch that fueled me to write, to heal, to cry and to find interconnected meaning in everything from learing to grow 11-foot high peavines and bean stalks to moving through the process of chemical injury and the trauma of being without.

Huge vistas and new ventures grow from connections at every imaginable and unimaginable level.  Can you feel that in your life?  Do you grasp on to the light of a Hoaka Moon, or feel it when you harvest fresh-picked beans?   
 
HERE'S THE LINK to "Methodology Of Papaku Makawalu"  http://ahujournal.org/MethodologyOfPapakuMakawalu.pdf 

Sunday, August 28, 2011

STILL TIME TO SIGN-UP for Wayfinding with Mahina

The newest of our month-long cyber wa'a workshops focused on the way we track time with The Hawaiian Moon Calendar just started this morning.  We will keep the wa'a open for new 'paddlers' to sample through today (Sunday, August 28, 2011).  After today, the workshop is a 'reader only' blog.  You can sign on and enjoy the eclectic mix of traditional teachings and contemporary story teller for modern day wayfinding.  Click here to try a seat in the wa'a WAYFINDING WITH MAHINA.

We welcome new paddlers,
Mokihana and Pete

Saturday, August 27, 2011

To our Parsippany Reader

Our wishes and good thoughts of safety for you and your community, as Hurricane Irene hits your township.

Take Care,
Mokihana

Friday, August 26, 2011

Malama your pono practices

If you try to define 'malama' it may squeeze through your fingers in any attempt to tightly define the essence of a culture of people, place and priorities based on life on tiny land masses -- islands, surrounded by tens of thousands of miles of ocean and the heavens visible in all directions.  Much of the writing I do has to do with crafting examples of this seed of protocol.  Malama means 'to care' and to care is to respectfully attend to whomever or whatever you encounter:  your family, your yard, the forest, the air, the ocean, the water, the everything. 

Yesterday I had a malama me day:  a holiday from electricity, the keyboard, the woods, my usual day.  A holy day of being with myself away from the work of maintaining our tiny space life.  I drove to my favorite places within short distances from home and knew I had a little money to spend of small things if I found them.  In Coupeville I found a $4.99 dryer to replace the electric dryer that will need to wait until the reserves fill up.  In the new-to-me thrift store I found a perfectly intact wooden drying rack that stands six feet and will fit in the corner of our bathhouse and laundry in the making.  While I was enjoying my holiday the cellphone rang 'PRIVATE NUMBER' printed across the screen.  I answered and knew it would be my brother calling from Waimanalo. 

"Hello."  I said
"It's me," the raspy voice of my kid brother answered.  I asked him to wait while I set down the things I had found and walked outside.
"How are you my bruddah?"
"Well ..."  he loves to draw out the suspect, always has.
"I got the 'all clear'!" 

My brother has been having cancer treatment for six months.  It's been a grueling journey of chemicals and radiation.  The news my brother shared with me yesterday came on a LONO Moon, one of the two kapu moons of Kaulana Mahina when prayers and acknowledgement for life giving and nourishment are given to the akua Kane and Lono.  I practice these kapu and paid special attention to malama the gods so they would in turn malama us.  In addition to these kapu, I have called upon a very special group of friends who come to the BOARDS of the only blog I visit regularly.  ElsaElsa.com  When the chemo and radiation began and throughout the months of treatment it was this group of Elsa Community that consistently responded to my request for prayers and good vibes for my family.  The Elsa blog, the author, the atmosphere, the protocol of respect have been a source of malama for me since the early days of building our Gypsy wagon nest. 

"Oh my god.  I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU!"  My brother and I talked a few more minutes, happy to be sharing the good news.  I told him how the Hawaiian Moon has been present in my healing journey and named the LONO moon as a day of health .  After we said our good-byes, we said our "I love you's."  I finished my holy day thrifting and drove to West Beach where I knew I would find the ocean breaking at the shore.  I pulled Scout into the one parking place at the edge of the road and walked with my walking stick to see long stretches of waves rolling across the point.  Unsure of whether the tide was coming in or going out, I stayed close to the entry and called my thank you to the ocean, the sky, the stars, Hina and all that is.  Above the roar of the waves, I dialed my son and gave him the good news.  Across the water and beyond the horizon are tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific.  I know my thank you's travel that great distance with no difficulty.

We surprise each other, my brother and I.  We have known each other all our lives and we are not the same.  But, we malama each other and as I age I open my journey to a few trusted folk who know what 'malama' means without sqeezing the definition.  "Malama pono" means care for the rightness, and with each day I live I see the practice is what gives meaning to the protocol.  Thanks again, Elsa and the Community at the Astrology Blog for all the malama you give.  My brother needn't know you to receive the power of prayers in a protocol of respect.  It's the best of protocol I think!

Mokihana and Family

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Thanks for the giving along the way

Hina is in the daytime sky, and this morning, late in the morning, I spotted her before a passing cloud hid her from us.  "There she is!"  I reached for her and said, "I needed to see you there, dear."  It was just what I needed to remember the po of Kane and Lono are coming up tomorrow and Thursday.  The elegance of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar includes the regular times of reverence, the times of giving back and giving thanks; or, refraining/resting from the harvest or fishing to give the land and sea their own period of replenishing. 

Three years ago, our lives were just beginning to move from complete chaos.  If you've ever skimmed bottom you know there's little time or energy to appreciate the people who helped us move off the bottom in small and mammoth ways.  The sun has moved into detail-oriented and earth-bound Virgo the one who serves.  A new moon in Virgo approaches this week-end and the Kane and Lono moons call for making the list, stringing the lei of rembrances ... remembering and thanking all who have helped Pete and JOTS and me to re-build a life of value and increasing well-being.  Beginning in 2007 when the illness became most acute we string this lei of thanksgiving




Lizzie ... thank you for the upstairs apartment
Doug and Lois ... thank you for the welcoming arms and place to be completely insane while you loved us anyway
Glenda ... thank you for helping me sight unseen
Gayle ... thank you for supporting us through the early stages of trauma
Dr B ... thank you for providing a diagnosis
Ralph ... thanks for taking us to the airport to return to O'ahu when winter set in and still, we were clueless and homeless
Peggy ... thank you for flying us back to O'ahu, accompanying us through the first airplane ride with an oxygen tank
Annette ... thank you taking us in, letting me sleep on your kitchen table and be in your house during the weeks first back on O'ahu; thanks for introducing us to the world of kolea
Cousins ... thank you for the months of shelter, parking space during the nights, tolerance for an illness that was so difficult to 'get.'
The Tide Pools ... thank you for the many nights of ocean guardianship and the connection with Hina when there was nothing familiar to which we could cling
Judy and Moksha ... thanks for the driveway parking space
Lorraine ... thank you for your kindness at the beach park and the limu and presents
Christopher ... thank you for the clothesline, the electrical hook-up for the nebulizer and the mid-night crisis visits, visits to wherever we were during the journey and prayers
Glenda and Glennis ... thank you for checking out the Kitchenette in West Seattle for us when we knew we could no longer live on O'ahu
Joel ... thanks for renting us the basement and making us your favorite homeless people
Andy ... thank you for not getting pissed when I turned you in for burning dirty garbage in your fireplace
Chulan ... thanks for all the NAET treatments and 'do-it-yourself' energy lessons that keep me cleared
Annie ... thank you for buying us the beautiful windows in the Gypsy wagon
Christopher ... thank you for the generous 'building fund' check at Christma
Elsa ... thanks for the astrology blog and community a la Internet that continues to offer life rafts
Susie ... thanks for the Canary Report
Julie ... thanks for Planet Thrive
Lizzie ... thank you for the composting toilet and ukulele company
Kay ... thank you for the weekly phone chats that kept me tethered and supported for years
Mel and Shirley ... thank you for being the first landing pad in our life on wheels; we were still so lolo and off center; it was a stretch for all of us to try to live together ...
Leslie and Tony ... thanks for offering us a place to be our first winter in the Gypsy wagon Vardo For Two; Bend wasn't for us, but we learned what was and kept at it
Doug and Lois ... once again, you offer us a place to be with a wagon that squeezed the limits on the settlement of Everett and our friendship ... we endured and rose above it ... thanks
MCS Seattle folks ... thanks for the friendship, picnics in the summer, and party at Christmas
Ron and Peggy ... thanks for allowing a negotiated rent of your house on Whidbey for a month when we had to get out of the Mill Town; it was the rest stop that would move us closer to a place of calma
Madir ... thanks for getting our search for a place to park the Gypsy wagon onto Drew's List
Joan and Lana ... thanks for the clothes and the frig, the cookie tin for the t.p. and the raspberry bush that is spreading
David and Jen ... thanks for the ceramic electric heater for the Quonset
Grace and Michael ... thanks for Abraham
Libby ... thanks for the model of moving beyond
Amy ... thanks for being my writing buddy
Prime the Pump ... thanks for the creative outlet
Blogging ... thanks for the cyber storytellers' heaven
Summer, 2010 Eileen and Mary ... thanks for your prayer that included us in it; we are here and it feels like home.
South Whidbey Tilth ... thanks for a place we can clean fragrance-free and enjoy as a hang-out on Sundays in the summer
Good Cheer Garden ... thanks for everything and everyone you grow
Bernadette ... thanks for being the 'workhorse'
Scout ... thanks for being our trusted transportation
JOTS ... thanks for finding us
Molly and Mary ... thanks for a great famlily reunion
Christopher ... thanks for visiting us again and again and again 


And, since I'm the one writing this list I include Pete my partner, husband, friend, for the partnership on this caterpillar ride.  Lastly, to all our friends and family who have hung in their while we struggled to stay afloat, confused and confounded, yet praying for us all the same ... thanks so much.  
The akua and nauamkua we give you thanks for the courage it takes when we have none. 
If we have forgotten someone for their kindness, forgive us. 

Mahalo nui loa kakou,
Mokihana and Pete




Monday, August 22, 2011

What people have said about our HAWAIIAN MOON WORKSHOPS

" The Hawaiian Moon Calendar workshops have helped me to become more in tune with the moon, the natural world and the kanaka maoli perspective.  I truly look forward to each posting.  It continues to be a joy to read the depth and thoughtfulness of Mokihana's writing.  These workshops also remind me to slow down within my fast paced modern life.  They have become a vital part of my "practice" to finding my way back to nature and the ways of our ancestors. 

- hm, Oakland, CA

"..there are times in life when we are seeking more than other times. this is true for me. i look to nature, the celestial for insights, story, history and science.  Mahina, the Moon has always fascinated me. Through this workshop i have come to appreciate the storytelling of Moon, water and contemporary history as well as mythology from a Hawaiian rhythm. i have enjoyed and continue to enjoy delving into this world of inspiration and thought provoking reflection with Mokihana and the rest of the Wa'a crew. Mokihana's writing is beautiful, thoughtful and funny.

it is trippy in here, and thats my favorite part about it."
-RA, Mill Valley, CA

The next voyage in our cyber-wa'a 'WAYFINDING WITH MAHINA' begins this Sunday, August 28th, 2011.  Click here to preview the wa'a and sign-up for the workshop and newsletter.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Words in Woods ... connecting with the writer of Wood Wife

Do you believe coincidences are accidental?

Today has been a good day among the days and nights that have been mine for 60 plus years of days and nights.  Our nights of sleeping in the screened tent are over, at least for the while, and perhaps the season.  They were incredible nights of being with the night sky and the passage of Hina across the heavens.  This morning, Venus was so close to Hina I was shocked to hear Pete say neither Venus, nor Earth has it's own light, so of course, it was the Sun that shone so brightly on the planet.  Really?  Onto the pages of this virtual page, I put the thinking that goes through me and the passage of time seems to include these recordings as if to comfort me with the promise that these tiny moments matter ... even as they pass and maintain no light on their own. 

It was Market Sunday at the Tilth, our once a week morning jaunt into joint ventures with farmers and neighbors setting up their summer stock of Romano beans, round zucchini, bushels of beans, tiny sweet blue corn and purple cauliflower.  Garlic and chocolate chip cooks sell without prices on them, and the day's entertainment set up there microphone stands and gather under the awning for music-making.  We clean the two restrooms making them a safe and chemical-free place to do what humans do, and raise the bamboo poles with colorful flags to beckon Sunday shoppers. 

Before and after the Market, I am here to write, blogging at one or the other of the spots that catch the scent and rhythm of a life that is affected in sometimes large and often now, less debilitating measure.  When it all started -- blogging, it was mostly a life affected largely by the illness.  Somehow, the blogging has been a perfect form of medicine.  This evening after I had watered my row of gorgeous green Blue Lake Beans who are climbing up a newly-fashioned trellis made from twenty-foot fir saplings thinned from a friend's near-by forest, I came to check on a another piece of writing.  Writing that collaborates with spirit, and a willing adventureess.  There was no reply on her end, so I sought the blog space of a writer who has tapped the mythic in me.  That writer is Terri Windling, and the book which did tap me was Windling's first novel WOOD WIFE.  After more than 5 years of not being able to pick up and read books, I did and was treated to the glorious world of myth in the hands of an artist who spoke from the cauldron.  The book sat on the FOR SALE shelf in my local library.  It was $2.00, printed in large print, and marked Discarded from the San Jose Library. I bought it, toted it home, let it air on my Gypsy wagon porch shelf, and within weeks (a very short time in my world) I was reading WOOD WIFE.  It was the perfect fit for a writer and keeper of story the first novel of Terri Windling.  Seek it out if you are in that place where real is fiction and fiction not quite the escape for your taste.

Today, this very good day in my life, I visited Terri Windling's blog and was treated to the latest version of this writer-artist's life.  A version that is somehow, not unlikely, it is a version that embraces the many fragilities possible in a life where words, art, media and worlds of here and there come together.  Today, I read Terri Windling's post entitled "On Blogging" and even before completing it, I am here to pen a connection and will publish it even before I sit to finish Windling's essay.  Blogging has brought me comfort, healing, bridges of transport and understanding across time.  It's why I can imagine illness as part though not all of a self; a piece of what creates a day, a night, one life.

Windling's post "On Blogging" which also includes reference to one of my other favorite artist-blogger Rima Staines can be found by linking here:  ttp://windling.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/on-blogging.html

Blogging may not be a beautiful word, but without doubt it is a word of transformative power ...

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Moonlight Gardening

This is the final night of the La'au Po (the la'au moons).  Pete and I were chatting just before falling to sleep last night. 
"I forgot to water the garden," this was me talking. 
"Yeah, I'm not backing you up on that, sorry," Pete said nearly asleep already.  When he finally goes horizontal it's a short trip to snoreland.
"I better get up and do that (it was dark already). It was hot today."  I hadn't convinced myself and half wanted an excuse to stay put.
"In the morning.  They'll be alright until morning."

We let that conversation thin, closing out the busy day just ending.  A late afternoon phone chat with my family in Waimanalo put me at ease as I heard my brother's voice stronger than it's been for months.  The strain of cancer treatments is harsh journeying, but the support that musters to support him and the rest of us comes in visible and invisible forms.  From this distance our support comes through suggestions for sustaining nourishment he can manage.

"Drinking those 3 things everyday.  The green stuff?" 
"Wheatgrass," I tell my brother. 
"Yeah, wheatgrass.  Coconut water.  Poi." 
"You eat that through your feeding tube?" 
"Yup."
"You have all our prayers, too.  Everyday, all the time."  A silence on his end.
"Thank you."
"You got it, bruddah."

That conversation rewound in my mind and heart as I fell asleep.  Dreams of brothers and family and gardens needing watering swhirled in the dark space of the Gypsy wagon, and then there was sleep.
I woke when Mahina was bright in the sky above us.  Awake and doing my thanks for everything conversation with Akua, I was finally more awake than asleep.  I climbed over Pete, pulled the freshly washed violet cotton robe off its hook and slipped into it.  I took my scarf and hat and pair of socks to keep my f.resh from sleep warmth intact.  Mahina was brilliant in the clear and starry sky.  I greeted her with the childlike glee I have always had for a moonlight time in the garden.  Walking across the gravel pathway the small stones did their crunch, crinkle dance as my boots marked the way to the orchard gate.  JOTS was totally in agreement as to our moonlight walk as she waited for me to fiddle with the latch that is sticking from the summer's comings-and-goings. 



Inside the orchard was a landscape of shadows, big dark unmistakeable shapes of the single sunflower, the tipping stalks of the raspberries, collards leaning on their heartying stems leaves fanned in shades of green so different in moon light.  The hose, stiff from the cool night temperatures needed a bit of coaxing but once untangled the water welcomed release. 

"Hello, beans," I said on my way into the orchard even before the watering began.  The vining Blue Lakes are beautiful day and night, but at night the leaves fill space like roofs over tiny villages of flowers just beginning.  I tell them how beautiful they are, and tell them again as I start to sing a melody of notes unconsciously.  Not a whistle, for that would beckon to the wrong ones, I hum and sing softly as I give the carrots, collards, tomatoes, peas and beans an early morning watering.  Moonlight gardening like this one is a very special time when the darkness of the sky perches on the edge of the sun's eminent rising.  The stars and moon are dominant, but it is the shades and shadows of Earth's permanence -- the energy of la'au ... growing things, water-thirsty trees, blooming flowers and legged creatures that are refreshed and enlivened at this time.  When most of the two-legged creatures are tucked under covers there is a world of heightened potency available.  The La'au Moons are times for gathering the healing medicinals at their height of potency.  To be with my garden in the moonlight is to know that firsthand.  La'au PAU marks the end of the second week (anahulu Ho'o Nui) of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar.  A time of thanksgiving, a celebration of fullness a nice way of looking at being with the garden, and offering life-giving water to the life-givers.  Tomorrow the three 'Ole moons of rest, review, weed and reconnoiter begin.  The anahulu Ho'o Nui is a ten cycle period without 'ole, so these 'ole moons are a needed respite, and I am happy to have had time with moonlight and shadows, and watering the beans.

Do you moonlight garden?

Monday, August 15, 2011

Nance

go not by my face without time
to gently caress the eyes
that have loved you
in the winter when snow
has locked us against the cold

sit briefly to remember the yesterday
when we were agile
not fragile of bone
nor lost to the future
that will not be ours

kiss me because it is you I love
me who has baked cake
I cannot eat
but my sweet
you love down
to the crumb

do not pass
carees my cheek
kiss me now
tomorrow
may
be
too
late.



loving you as ever e & n ...


Sunday, August 14, 2011

Is it too late to look up?

I didn't mean to write this.  We're just back from the Sunday Farmers' Market where we do our bit of volunteering at a place that is just our pace with people who encourage us to be part of the solution.  One like me healing from the effects of chemical injury is always, always overjoyed (can you be too joyful?) to have a place where fragrances and chemicals are not encouraged and in fact encourages us to bring in our Freed-Up practices on-site.  My market bag was filled with one beautiful large zucchini ($1.00), large Italian green beans ($3.00), 4 first-of-the-season Transparent Apples ($1.00) and two 18" Japanese cucumber ($1.50 each).  The morning was easy, the clean-up swift, and the calm vibe from last night's Field-to-Table Harvest Feast still lingered sweet in the memory. 

The full moons of Kaulana Mahina are moving toward Kulu, the fat Mahealani moon was brilliant in the dark sky above the wooded home where we live.  I was just saying to Pete how truly blessed we are to be in such dark and restoring space at night.  I was in the city earlier in the week, driving into Seattle and being in the light intense space of freeways and urban economy.  Healing from chemical injury has meant noticing and attending to the high risk of exposure to too much light -- artificial light.  My night driving and airport adventure was just as I thought it would be:  difficult, but short.  My honey is home, we made the last ferry crossing at 1:05 a.m. and life is good back in the woods.

As I sit waiting for the water to heat so I can wash up the dishes, I sat and thought of Kauai, and Joan Conrow.  Months have passed since I checked in on Kauai Eclectic. It's not an easy blog to read.  It's not Conrow's writing that makes it hard to read, it's always the truth she flattens me with that forces me to check it out with lots of time in between.  The post that got me was entitled "Look Up " and was as suspected, a  piece that began with the full moon shouting at Conrow to get up and bask in her illumination.  The rest of the piece went in typical Joan Conrow style for the na'au with bits of human and societal choices that make you think "TOO LATE, already."  The entire post on Kauai Eclectic is here:  http://kauaieclectic.blogspot.com/2011/08/musings-look-up.html.

From the confines of my small Quonset, where the light of early afternoon sun brights the deep forest thicket, I know Kauai, the Monk seals, Johnson Atoll and the choices of organized systems fall so short of a planet lived in pono.  I know the effects of short-sighted solutions and live with healing from that short-sightedness most days.  I also know that LOOKING UP is the way we found our way out and back to a life lived a lot more firsthand, and that feels really good.  The water's hot, it's time to wash dishes.

Friday, August 12, 2011

PREPARING THE WA'A



Navigating is an ancient and persisting activity for all beings though not exclusive to humans the knowledge and wisdom of 'wayfinding' is a skill that has benefitted humans for centuries. Getting from here to there on an ocean of more than 20,000 miles, the Pacific Ocean is home to great navigators, and a culture based on connection with sky-water-earth navigation as a firsthand and innate source of balance, or pono. This blog-wa'a -- a cyber canoe, serves as metaphor and practical connection with the goddess Hina and her thirty po passage through the sky. Kaulana Mahina [The Hawaiian Moon Calendar] pictured on the sidebar of the blog is our one-dimension image of Kaulana Mahina. Using words, images, story and firsthand living, these monthly blog voyages serve as sextant and seat of exploration, encouraging all who come to LOOK UP to make sure of your place in time, and feel the affects of be connected, or disconnected. Finding your way back into a life lived firsthand? This may be a wa'a with a seat for you...
I am preparing the next month-long workshop focused on the Hawaiian Moon Calendar.  This one continues the study of Mahina and reviews the valuable lessons of living intune with moon-time.  I have created the beginnings of this blog-workshop but wait for input from readers and returning 'paddlers' to load this wa'a with knowledge, experience and stories that will nourish you, and build our capacity to sustain ourselves as well.

Link below to read the blog, and offer your thoughts on the polls found on Wayfinding with Mahina.
It's a full moons [there are more than one in Kaulana Mahina]weekend.  Enjoy being seen and being with the one(s) you love!
Mokihana

Thursday, August 11, 2011

First-hand living

"Firsthand knowledge is enormously time consuming to acquire; with its dallying and lack of end points, it is also out of phase with the short-term demands of modern life." 
- Barry Lopez 

first winter outside the Quonset
When you are living firsthand earth, wind, water, air and spirit are now.  Seated at my writing tray, the gurgle of the sink water, hum of our tiny frig, the heat from heater and the mousing around of my husband sorting through paper documentation of bills paid, notes made, pay checks received, product research ... all add up to a chunk of my first-hand.  The Quonset houses our cooking and sheltered space in 8 feet of tile floor and metal siding surrounded by the thousands of trees who allow us a place with them.  The glass jars filled with filtered water for drinking and cooking sit under our sink; the daily douse of niu ola(coconut water) emptied from young coconuts come from the neighborhood grocery now days, and memories of harvesting our own fade unless I look at the photos that remind me:  we did this and would do it again. 

Within inches of Pete's documentation sort, my knee and the keys of the laptop work at crafting a piece of writing that calls on the spirit of story to be with me.  The journey of re-claiming a life lived first-hand is a process, nothing immediate about it, we makua have had to learn through experience what it takes to make our way back to a firsthand life.  In the years since we rediscovered Hina's school of wayfinding, we are reminded over and over about the 'dallying and lack of end points' in  living first hand.  Small things like filtering water is slow and necessary.  My body requires the filtration to maintain a level of well-being.  I must use that water to wash my clothes by hand in the sink.  If all goes as we envision there will be a new small space that shelters filtered hot water for a shower and a washing machine (that works on electricity).  We have worked three years to get to this possibility, and we know that time might stretch leaving me washing my self and my clothes in a sink for awhile more. 

Yesterday, Hina hid from me.  She is now in the evening sky with the beginning of Anahulu Poepoe.  Without seeing her shape, to be positive of the phase?  Maybe Huna, maybe not.  The study group and blog we maintain focused on Kaulana Mahina is our cyber sextant, our navigation tool linking written word to the practice of participating with time.  I know the value of slowing into connection with moon time through experience.  Astrologers know the value of being in sync with planets and Hina, and vibe to the energy of the moon moving into different astrological signs (every couple of days).  Ten po (ten nights/days) at a time, I attune to the anahulu living firsthand the draw of water through me as it draws on everything on Earth.  Some of the knowledge that comes from Mahina are:

Anahulu Ho'onui ... first ten po after a dark moon ... slivers of light draw on the up-right KU masculine nature of life, my life...always begin with prayer and acknowledgment of the gods/the guardians/the providers of life ...then, time to feel the backbone of my life, strengthen my aim and my connection ... then, the 'Ole moons ask me rest, repair and keep pono.

Anahulu Poepoe ... second ten po ... after the 'Ole ... again, reminders of time to give thanks, and observe kapu practicing consciousness of choice ... the 4 full moons of Hina ... amplify the feminine quality of birth, re-birth, fullness ... the final 4 moons of Hina are la'au moons, times for planting trees and bark-covered plants ... these are also the moons when gathering la'au (plants, greenery) is most potent for healing...no 'Ole moons in this anahulu.

Anahulu Ho'emi ... the final moons of the Kaulana Mahina ... it begins with 'Ole and prayer (there's always time for prayer!) ... after a full ten phases of feminine/intuition/re-birth rest! ... pray for thanksgiving and then the kaloa moons ... these are especially good fishing moons ... and the final three or four moons (the Mauli moon is a sometimes moon) are kapu moons for the gods Kane and Lono, making time to pray for health and abundant food sources as the malama (month) ends, only to begin again.

I was reading and responding to a wonderful email discourse last night with one of the wahine paddlers in our wa'a kaulua focused on Kaulana Mahina.  She reflected on the challenges of re-entering a life lived firsthand sorting through the feeling that come from the busy-ness of a work life.  It was she who reminded me of Barry Lopez's quote posted at the beginning of this ramble.  I appreciate her honesty and her awareness.  With her permission a snip from her email is included below.

"...The problem is that despite my efforts to slow down (the message from Pele this summer) I'm still not finding the time to sink into observation of mahina and flow.  i seriously want to get there and have realized that it's now on my "list" of things to work into my life.  interestingly, i did see the connection as you had mentioned as well, about being able to see mahina during the daylight hours.  i noticed that i was mesmerized by her presence while i was out and about.  i kept thinking There she[is]!  Part of it is that, like yourself, I can't always see her from my house at night due to the angles of buildings and not feeing very safe to walk at night in my neighborhood..."

Navigating is all about honesty and awareness: if you don't know where you're going you could be there at any moment. On the other hand if you are aware you are not where you want to be you can choose to be somewhere else at any moment. If the next choice moves you closer to your envisioned destination that choice is a better-feeling choice. Firsthand living is not swift, and the knowledge that comes from it is good only when you integrate the information and find the wisdom and lessons from the living. Does it conflict with the normal pace of most living today?


What do you think?

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Voyaging Canoes: Reconnecting with Turtle Island

"We have chosen a motto for the whole project, which reflects the spiritual thinking in Polynesian culture about the sea, which has the same life-force running through its water as runs through our bodies, and how to treat this precious resource to not disturb Tangaroa, the God of the Sea. The following saying is a poetic way to say "be respectful and gentle":


"Move your paddle silently through the water"

We are a group of Pacific Islanders who have come together from many nations, sailing as one across the Pacific Ocean. We are voyaging to strengthen our ties with the sea, renew our commitment to healthy ecosystems for future generations, and to honour our ancestors who have sailed before us. As we sail our Vaka across the Pacific, we are respectful and gentle, always remembering our voyage motto: “Move your paddle silently through the water."  The Ocean provides us with the air we breathe, the food we eat, life-sustaining medicines, and nourishment for our souls. Currently, our Ocean is in peril and these essential gifts are quickly disappearing."


-from the website of PACIFIC VOYAGERS http://www.pacificvoyagers.org/


The waka coming into San Francisco bay.  Photo Copyright Duncan Morrison, 2011
Mahalo to Stacey Simpkin, of Pacific Voyagers for permission to publish this image here



Seven voyaging canoes have made the 20,000 mile crossing from the Southern Pacific Ocean to San Francisco on the California coast of North America.  Voyaging and reconnection is a theme of collective consciousness, moving the spirit of ancestral memory through the blood and body of modern kanaka.  The wa'a kaulua, waka, voyaging canoes arrived in San Francisco Bay, August 3, 2011.  The journey will be documented in a film "My Blue Canoe"  scheduled for release in 2013.


View the trailer to the documentary "Our Blue Canoe"

Joseph Strong oil, Waikiki in the early 1900's

The culture of the Pacific includes the value of connection and care of all that is, and malama i ke kai, caring for the sea is inseparable from the core of earth-connected peoples.  The waka and the voyagers who are making this trans-Pacific journey continue a legacy centuries old.  Metaphorically and physically way-finding is a seed never dead, always potent, and sustaining.  I remember reading about Nainoa Thompson's early days as young 20 year old man awakened to the seed of voyaging.  I had begun my own personal navigations and was living in the Pacific Northwest already.  Thompson grew up in Niu Valley, one small valley over from my own Kuliouou Valley home.  Decades later, I would use Nainoa Thompson's mana'o to fuel cyber-wa'a journeys to share Kaulana Mahina -- the tracking of time based on the Hawaiian Moon Calendar.  At whatever age, and in whatever stage we find ourselves the journey of way-finding is a vital connection to being in sync with All-that-is; neither expecting to tame nature nor possess it.  Here is an excerpt from a Nainoa Thompson story that vibes with me, reminding me to value the child-wisdom that is Akua's great gift to us all.


Nainoa grew up on his grandfather's dairy and chicken farm in Niu Valley-when the valley was still all country. It was Yoshio Kawano, the milkman, who introduced the ocean to Nainoa. Dawn would often find Nainoa sitting on Yoshi's doorstep, waiting for Yoshi to take him fishing. Yoshi would bundle Nainoa into the old car, and off they'd go to fish in the streams or on the reefs. He came to be at home with the ocean, feeling the wind, the rain, the spray against his body. To the five-year-old Nainoa, the ocean was huge, wild, free, and open. The ocean and the wind were always changing; this was so different from the serenity of the mountains and the farm. Nainoa came to sense and feel the tune of the ocean world, develop-ing a personal relationship with the sea. These early experiences, Nainoa thinks, were an essential preparation for becoming a navigator: "We learn differently when we are young; our understanding is intuitive and unencumbered."


If you are interested in joining us for the September on-line workshop/voyage of "Count on The Moon" ... Way-finding with Po Mahina, email us at ssvardoATgmailDOTcom and we will respond with the details.

Aloha,
Mokihana




Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Pete's Crescent Coop



Pete and I were looking at the first picture taken of us as an all-most couple.  Seventeen years ago.  Still crowing after all those years, and all the challenges.  He's a building man, Pete is.  He's built us a home, a Quonset kitchen and soon a bathhouse.  Chicken coops or hen housing is his latest gig ... bringing in cash, and making places for hens to crow while giving birth to those eggs we people love to eat.

These are pictures taken of Pete's latest coop, with a Crescent Moon venting window for the gals.

Do you coop chickens or house hens?  Do they range free?  What do you feed them?