"Entering the world of ancestral memory requires a certain mindset...To understand the many levels of mele, one must digest, believe in, invest in, defend and commit to Hawaiian cultural practices and Hawaiian language arts. The Hawaiian cultural knowledge one possesses, along with the clues presented in chants, creates a stage for enlightenment--a junction where memory and na'au meet and produce instantaneous moments when ancestral knowledge is reborn again.
Know your culture and language well enough so these special moments do not flee without recognition."
-Pualani Kanaka'ole Kanahele
"The shadows always intrigued her, even as a girl child the patterns that happened onto her skin caused something different. Through the screened window the moon did not ask permission to tattoo her. While everyone else slept, this child made room for the moon and the shadows and grew the voice.
The wind's silent breezes changed the markings that floated onto her small brown arms. In the night 'brown' might have been any number of colors. The ink of moon's stains were always the same and wore itself on all pallets. But, it was the wind that made the tattooed dancers sway and change shape like hula changed the bodies of her aunties when they moved. She watched and let the shapes bathe their way into her blood, carried as messengers to the place where memories swam.
