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?
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