It's nice to be

A collection of blogs offers unexpected new views on ancient solutions. People, places and blog writings open up the whirl of life at different rates of spinning. A Makua O'o might be practicing "Know that wisdom is found in many places."

My native instinct to include variety in my life led to creating a flock of blogs. I might go for days or months without a new post at a blog, and then it's nice to be back. Today I found a blog called the habit of being when I went to my own side-bar to visit the warmth of Aotearoa (it is summer in New Zealand ) with Ahipara Girl. While visiting, I viewed and met beautifully painted pohaku and even more beautifully created young children, one of them just recently celebrated his first year on The Planet. Then, on Ahipara Girl's blogroll the author of the habit of being left a poem written by one of The Planet's elders of consequence, Wendell Berry. The link to that post is here.

The poem from Wendell Berry follows:


when despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
and I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. for a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

thank-you Ahipara girl

Thank-you

I recently made connection with an astrologer and elder who is inspiring me. Donna Cunningham is new to me, though not at all new to the realm of astrology and teaching astrology. I have been exploring her writings and her articles on her blog Skywriter, and have posted a couple articles on my other blog VardoForTwo sharing my experience with tools for clearing energetic thought forms. In related branches of her work Donna Cunningham shares her love and her broad experiences with writing, and in particular I was struck with the concept of reworking or rewriting pieces to keep them fresh and applicable today. That's what this post is about: reworking or reissuing an article I wrote several years ago in the Hawaii Island Journal. This piece was my last regular column of "Makua O'o" written for that HIJ. The relevance lies in the effectiveness of the visualize that is included in the piece; a wish to be 'like a migrating whale' ... spending some time in the Islands and some times kela (over there). The power of visualization and putting it down on paper is evidenced by a look at the life I now live. I have migrated back and forth between the islands and now I live in a tiny wheeled wagon and write stories and blogs for an even more invisible audience. Seven years later and the experiences of living with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities heightening my awareness of life's highs and lows, it's time to review the wish-list, recognize where my journey has led, up-date my thought forms and make new lists of thanks, and create action plans for a Makua who is now sixty-two years old.


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Thank you

Life is a cycle of seasons and try as I might in my fifty-plus seasons to out-run or avoid feeling sad, I think I have learned that I will never out-run feeling sad or any of the full inventory of feelings. When my life has been busy with deadlines and lists there have been fewer moments to feel –sad or anything else. Motion has a ‘feel’ of its own and it must be that characteristic that fills in for the reflective and sensory experience of yearning. There’s a tender and vulnerable sense that pervades me when I feel ‘sad.’ I haven’t died from feeling sad, and yet with age the depth of my feelings increases in direction proportion to the years. Decisions, choices become just a momentary move. Akua brought me back to Hawaii to catch up on my sensory inventory, reminding me how many ways there are to feel; that’s just what one of the things these islands do – give us humans experience with feelings. I arrived nine cycles ago with few boxes but heavy old emotional baggage and a relationship with Faith that was weaker than hot tea seeped from a day-old tea bag. The years of writing this column Makua o`o have been a precious gift given to me by the Muse who has watched me since birth. Aware of the missed opportunities for self-expression, my guardian of the word must have waved the big wand when I began unpacking my bags because I have uncovered and unloaded resentments, short-sighted perceptions and expectations about people, places and relationships in the nine years since my move from the Pacific Northwest. Words and stories have been my magic carpet and thanks to Michael Gibson and the vessel of the Ka`u Landing and then Lane Wick and Karen Valentine who evolved the Hawaii Island Journal, the practice of makua o`o has reached many people. I have no idea how many people have read this column, but maybe the numbers don’t matter. That people have read is it.

This is my last column of Makua o`o. That makes me sad. It’s time to move along with the rest of my life and to tell the truth I know not where the path leads but know it leads some where different. I hope Akua sees me spending time both here in my home of birth and kela … that other place or places yet to be determined. I would like to be a migrating whale spending time here in the winter. So this is a piece filled with “Thank-you”, a phrase simple and powerful. Here goes.

Thank-you, Michael Gibson for making space for my writing in the Ka`u Landing when the teaching of makua o`o was new to me.

Thank-you, Lane Wick and Karen Valentine for creating a newspaper of value. You have invested your talents and your vision into a communication source that has taken information-sharing to a new and inspired level of integrity and heart.

Thank you, Gretchen Kelly for honing my writing with sensitivity to my intent and skill with the craft of word-smithing.

Thank you, Alice Moon for welcoming me to Hilo when I was a first-time published essayist looking to do my first ever book-signing gig. We have become good friends since then, and I am grateful.

Thank you, Tutu Pele and Hi`iaka for the dreams and the inspiration to persist. The energy of volcanoes is raw when you are living on one. Life and death and re-birth are more than metaphoric.

Thank you, Haunani-Kay Trask for being volcanic and Hawaiian. Those who read her stuff and truly listen to her voice accept her anger is hers and if it challenges your place in the world … that’s a good thing. Interviewing Trask was a pivotal piece of work. It was exciting to meet and interview a contemporary revolutionary.

Thank you, Kuli`ou`ou. I knew you at a time past, but understood you so little. I know you better now, and know I have become different because I am a wanderer. That is what makes me saddest of all. It is no fault of yours, and there is nothing I would change about either of us.

Thank you to all who have read Makua o`o. In case you have forgotten, here are those tools of the makua o`o that were shared with me by Aunty Betty Jenkins. Be well, keep practicing and take care.

OBSERVE with a keenness of attention for details

THINK CREATIVELY with a sense of intellectual curiosity, interest and concern

LISTEN CAREFULLY to those words spoken as well as those unspoken

MIME and personify those who exemplify the highest caliber of po`okela (excellence)

QUESTION for clarification and clearness of thought for decision making

PRACTICE patience and endurance

ENGAGE in good health practices

KNOW that wisdom is found in many places

FEEL the heartbeat of culture

BELIEVE in Ke Akua

“Crying a lovely thing, isn’t it? ... It helps you survive. I think the fittest are those who cry.”

- From One Vacant Chair, a brand new novel by Joe Coomer

A name of her own

I wrote this article in 2004 for the now historic(no longer in print) "Hawaii Island Journal" a wonderful small press that covered Hawaii Island news with heart. I lived on Oahu at the time and wrote a twice a month column "Makua O`o." This was the first place I shared the teachings of an elder in training, and it was such a fun way to share my delight for small and naturally occurring miracles. "Notice" would be one of the o`o I might have been focused on when I wrote it. Maybe, some other ...

I found this file as I sat doing 'ole day activities ... cleaning and weeding through a hundred files that need to be culled or stored somewhere else. When I opened it I was surprised. You lose track of what you write, and then there they are ... those words. What is particularly sweet is to read this story and appreciate it as history. That mango tree "Tutu Abuela" ... my old family tree is no longer. In my memory she remains, and I'm happy to store her there. Delete? No, not yet.

And yes, that is my full name given me at birth.

A name of her own
By Yvonne Mokihana Calizar

When it rains hard sheets of water drum dense summoning the wind. Together they make quiet a racket, pocking up the stiff dried dirt making thick mud soup where the eaves are without gutters. I love the rain almost as much as the trees and croton hedges love the wetness. I know they lap up the liquid like any child would a favorite smoothie or icy drink on a hot Kuli`ou`ou afternoon. Tutu Abuela our mango tree is an old friend to both the rain and the winds. Thanks to the reoccurring cycles of air, wind and rain, she has set her roots deeply, spread wide her branches and in her lifetime buckets of mele mango have ripened and fed family and friends. If there is culture in my life Tutu has been present through all of culture’s time. She has seen the home place large and open with a grassy lawn cut into baseball diamonds for home-style neighborhood games. When there were dogs on this kuleana we kept them on chains wound around her trunk. She was accommodating. I wonder whether the old wounds I find deep at Tutu’s base are a memory of those chains. I was unconscious of the special place this tree would play in my lifetime when we had a huge front yard and kept our dogs chained. Small was my awareness that a tree would play such a consistent role of nourishment for me.

Until recently our mango tree was without a name. She was my ‘mother’s mango’ tree to many of us and I realize I would call her that as a way of keeping Ma close to me. To say she was my mother’s made me feel un-alone. Visitors to our place have easily felt my mother’s energy. For years I have asked my mother to guide my choices when the decisions I have to make seemed impossible. Living in ‘her’ house meant living with her spirit, her ways of seeing things, and her beliefs. A subtle and important change has happened to me because I have given our mango tree a name of her own. Tutu Abuela. Both words mean the same thing in English. They mean ‘grandmother.’ But to me the importance of a Hawaiian-Spanish name like Tutu Abuela means I have made room for the missing “me.” Calizar, my family name is a Filipino name with strong links to the blood of the Spanish. It is an uncommon name and with it comes a mystery that I hope to understand. Sometimes bits, bites or chunks of our history and our culture are shut in rooms without keys. I know almost nothing about my family in the Philippines, but sense that it is time to live my life with that family present more often. I’ve begun making room for that piece of me.

It began with the rainy season. Caring for a mango tree means different things. I rake the fallen leaves, sorting out the little rocks that get caught in my rake as I gather up the thick curved leaf fingers into piles. We’ve kept Tutu fat – she is nearly as wide as she is tall and that means the clothes lines that stand beneath her now brace one of her heavy limbs to the south. Our back yard is one-quarter mango tree so her presence is legion. You cannot NOT see her. The shoots along her limbs have grown thick as well creating a virtual mango forest within one old tree. The leaves catch rainfall and funnel water into the craggily, cracked valleys of the mango tree. Over the years, without noticing, these pockets of water have become drinking fountains for mosquitoes, ants and families of other crawling critter. Tutu developed crotch-rot of the worse kind. It’s funny how my attention to others –other people’s mango tree’s, other people’s ways of living with or without trees—had distracted me from the disease living right under my nose. I was busy amplifying my righteous attitude about my neighbor’s decisions to cut their trees and did not see that large wounds were steadily wearing into the heart of the matron mango. Ants had moved dirt into the weakened joints of the low growing tree creating soft spots that would eventually split the fifty-year old in two.

I suppose if Tutu Abuela was one of a forest of wild mangoes the rot would continue and eventually the ants and their families would take the tree down. The kupuna would become a nurse log for keiki, creating a fertile place for seeds dropped by a bird to set roots and sprout. Portions of the once-strong mango might be vital enough to retain the identity as bearer of perfect fruit. But the chance that all traces of mango would disappear would be as likely as any. Tutu Abuela is not a wild mango growing in a lost and isolated tropical paradise. She is a mango tree with a name of her own, and she is part of me. We have begun tending to the puka in her heart, and with tender words spoken as we cut the rot from her she continues her place in my culture. My family knows that I ask her questions and listen as she answers. My family knows that she is important to the health of this place and that means she is important to my health.

Parts of our culture will be subject to crotch-rot and invasive bugs – over-stimulation, fear based beliefs and tending to other’s business rather than our own among them. My relationship to my culture is a living and changing business. It’s definitely my own business, and may seem odd to those who observe me at it. But, the truth I learn by cultivating a love for things over which I have seemingly unquestionable power is: if I neglect or take this love for granted I will never know how valuable a story ‘She who has a name of her own’ has to share. It is raining steadily and by the morning Tutu Abuela’s pockets will overflow with water. We’ll need to remember to clean her wounds. A small thing. A good thing.

'OLE DAYS of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar: Wednes through Saturday

'Ole days of rest, review and repair begin today. No new posts till Sunday. Take care out there.
A hui hou, Mokihana and Pete

Passing the bowl: tradition and value

Makua O`o is an active, living description of a human being involved in living with purpose and in pono (in harmony with all). I'm perched on the futon looking at these pictures asking them to give me inspiration to express something that is more than just 'talking into a fan.' I'm digging into my na`au (my gut) to put something ... a word picture that will aid me in acknowledging my value, my contribution.

Sometimes I lose touch with the purpose for being here...distracted by the challenges, obsessed with the countless adjustments, saddened by loss. I forget that ALL the discomfort of a twenty-four hour experience with multiple chemical sensitivities also includes beautiful times, exquisite moments and examples of humility and laughter.

The photos look back at me and I am reminded of the legacy of a culture that believes in working hands. The pohaku ku`ai (the poi pounding stone) my son carries, I passed to him from his Tutu Kane (grand father). I have used the pohaku to carry many stories shared with me in communities throughout the islands and the continental America. I carried the legacy of connectedness, my son took the pohaku back to the lo`i kalo (taro patches) and used the pohaku to make poi.

The calabash ... the koa bowl is similar though not the same bowl, that I too carried to communities as I gathered stories, listened to them shared from the heart. My mother first owned our family calabash. She kept it in her home. I took it out and opened doors she might never had thought to enter. That bowl ... our family bowl was passed to my son. When it was time for him to make a trip to Aotearoa (New Zealand) to learn and share traditional healing practices, a gift was necessary. "Special treasures are being taken over there, Mom." He told me this over the phone. "Well, you have the most treasure possession in your hands now." "I know," he said. "You ask, say your prayers and see whether the bowl is the gift to take with you. You'll get the answer." "Thanks Mom."

My cousin RosalynnMokihana passed into spirit earlier this month. When she passed a legacy of culture and tradition passed to me because we shared the value of the name. We carry the "Mokihana" name and I honor it as I also honor the bowl and the pohaku. Kanaka Maoli (the original people) of the islands called Hawaii, have a memory and a responsibility to sustain the culture. Layered over with systems and practices of hewa (wrong doings) and occupation, the island culture has been Touristized and Adapted. It's difficult to find the soul of the culture ... and to be truthful the real stuff has been hidden on purpose until time and education filled the hearts, minds and souls of the young; until the Makua remembered the faded dreams of value. Slowly, and now steadily the value builds.

I treasure my name as I treasure the life-times of those who have gone before me. I am the fourth Mokihana in my family line ... My life has taken me far from the island, and challenged me to survive and to transcend the very toxins and toxic ideas and chemicals that have sickened thousands before me. In the comfort of a tiny home on wheels parked thousands of miles away from the sands of my birth, I peck away at words that will not simply be idle chatter. I blog, I draw inspiration from many sources, and the name works beautifully...as a whole. I know how much work comes with that name, and rest during the 'Ole cycles of the moon.

I value the legacy of storytellers ... my father, my mother ... who birthed this round-bodied physical me. The ability to paint word pictures with the voice has been a treasured gift in our family. The gift of gab ... yes, and more. The time that is now offers me access to a whirl of readers, and a potential collective ready to make decisions based on a different truth. Words have power and I respect them. It must be enough for me to do my best and not ... wait for praise because someone values them, too.

The Makua O`o is a man or a woman who is given a few basic life tools to learn life. The tools are useful for any number of tasks, and will sustain a lifetime of use. The discovery of living will not pass to those in a rush to finish. Life will end soon enough. What this Makua is learning is to value the tools as useful, if I use them ... every day; know where they are when I need them; care for them when not in use. Then, when it's time to pass one or two or three of the o'o to a Makua down the line ... aue (alas) I will know where to find them.

Aloha, Mokihana

STARRY, STARRY NIGHT: Know that wisdom is found in many places … SOFTEN THE GROUND OF YOUR BEING

As I lay there in the dark, gazing at the starry starry night immersed in soul-stirring music, I started a journey of recovery from a serious illness. And realized that the stars, be they out there or in here; are all part of me. They are me...

http://www.wellnessoptions.ca/html/1/011/1_i11_1_main.html

I come less frequently to this place on the page, this blog "Makua O`o" but am probably more connected to the wisdom of the cosmic connections than at any time in my near 62 years. Cosmic art: Astrology and Akashic Record Readings, life on the Ledge in the Woods in the VardoForTwo, and the recent passing of the other Mokihana have softened me up.

Trying to make sense of the changes that take place with me means I 'search' for the meaning and look for answers deep and wide. My o'o ... the digging sticks get heavy use, they break from use and then as I write this I remember that I have left my stick covered in the back of the car for weeks now. Then, the wind came yesterday and stirred things up. A south blowing wind brought the stories of distant places, the energy of things/people/places in between. The barometic pressure rose sky high and the ions energized this place on the ledge. Last night, or probably very early in the morning, the winds must have moved on ... perhaps to the eastern part of the continent to join the winds mounting forces as "Hurricane Bill"? Out of a deep sleep I felt the shift. It's part of the package that comes from being multiple chemical sensitive; I feel things accutely. Like the kitty I notice the winds coming, and when they pull out so does my energy.

The quote that opens this post is from the emagazine WellnessOptions. I starting searching for an article I remembered reading that described the 'science' behind emotional shifts triggered by barometic pressure. I found that article at Wellness Options and read through it. My brain fed on the information ... satisfied with the reasoning, I turned to another tab on the page and found an Editorial entitled "Starry, starry night ..." This is what makes the internet such a farmer's market for me. The food that feeds my curious nature can find what is needed if I am open to discover it.

The Ledge in the Woods where we live today is a haven of darkness at night. A couple human generated lights cast the artificial glow into the night sky, and yet with small effect we are able to view and expose our whole selves to the magic of connectedness to STAR DUST. I grew up on Oahu in the Hawaiian Island archipelago at a time when roads were coral chunks and dirt. The street lights were few, and one car traveling the valley road echoed against the Kuliouou valley walls. If we chose to we could be with stars at night. Life there has changed as it has changed across the Earth. Stimulation of every manner turns all beings to a near steady on-position, deep dark sleep becomes a rarity and in the process we age more quickly ... restoration and rejuvenation not possible without darkness.

A strange, frightening experiment is taking place in Seattle, Wa. neighborhoods. The city has begun replacing the old street lights with high-efficiency LED bulbs. There's a very real price we pay for the cost of efficacy and this street light example is one more worth knowing about. Here's a clip from the the article, "Kill the lights," in Seattle's Stranger Newspaper . Read the whole article if it peaks your interest in the value of a good night's sleep and a body that knows it needs star light not 'blue LED':

The problem with the new lights isn't just aesthetic. According to Dr. David Avery—a professor of behavioral sciences and light therapy at the University of Washington and the region's leading researcher on the impact of light on human chemistry—the LED lights could interfere with human biorhythms. Certain photoreceptors in the eye's retina react to cooler colors of the light spectrum, sending a signal to the brain that the sun is up. When humans see the blue light, our bodies think it's daytime. "The sensitivity to these cells for the blue and greenish color makes perfect sense, because the sky is blue. So for millions of years, life has evolved with this 24-hour rhythm of blue light being very prominent for part of the day and then darkness," he says. "This is kind of a conductor of a circadian symphony in the brain and body."

According to Avery, "Theoretically, if someone has one of these LEDs or a blue light outside their window, it could fool the eyes and the brain into thinking that the sun is still up, so the melatonin hormone might not rise normally and sleep might be disrupted." Incandescent lights, the standard bulb in homes, are on the red end of the spectrum. (You may think of them as being white, but they're not.) Shifting the city's primary outdoor lighting to blue-hued LEDS, Avery adds, "would be a major change in terms of our environment." Studies suggest that people exposed to daylight at the wrong hours, like those who work night shift, have more health problems such as high blood pressure and obesity, Avery says.

Engage in good health practices … CARE...Grieving

We received the email from my cousin Koa last night ... a family message to let us know the time and details of the memorial service for his elder sister Mokihana. It was one of the last things Pete did before coming to bed, and just one more reminder that our dear friend and cousin had indeed passed from that familiar body I have known all my life. The email stayed on the page as Pete stepped from the Vardo to brush his teeth and do going to bed things. I re-read the message, hearing Koa's organized voice modulated and even explaining what will happen, why it was happening and when it would all take place. He anticipated questions with answers and in true fashion ended with "If you don't already have a job, please call or email us ... thanks for everyone's willingess to jump right in." A voice mail with this same cousin's voice was on my cellphone when we drove into town where cellphone service happens. The same modulated voice with the message of Mokihana's passing was there, too. It's all too real, all true and of course, we have known the cancer was wide-spread and Mokihana's ika was spent.

If there is anything of value in pecking at keys that form words I hope to find it as I go along. Grief is physical, I tire from the work that is required to feel the sorrow and the gladness in all its modulations. Pete and I grieve differently, I notice how the stages of grief pitch up into the stage of anger as we pick at each other as if the fighting will make the other loss less important. A distraction? Maybe, or just a human condition that allows us to move through. As I hung over the edge of the futon reading and re-reading that email my mind bargained with my body: "If I get on a plane, arrange for oxygen, get a ...." Anything to make it possible for me to travel once more and arrive at a place that is already a proven no-go ... the bargaining just won't work. Travel back home is not a healthy choice for me or Pete. We have made those trips and know we do not have the health to do it again ... not now. This is the truth and it saddens us.

This is grief work.

Before we fall to sleep Pete talks about Mokihana again. He tries to remember the very first time he worked on her old Papakolea house: her sink was not working. It was the first of many other fix-it times for him in her houses. He would come to know my cousin and island family would become more and more real because of it. I recall the times of knowing when we were girls, teenagers, young women. We have know each other for a lifetime. Pete and I-- two old dears who create a life not familiar to our family back in Hawaii, grieve the loss of a cousin and grieve the reality that we will not be at that memorial gathering. The comfort and consolation that might come from the stories and energy must come in different ways for us. We have created rituals here and that is good.

The process moves in whirling ways. Current sadness passes and then there is a blast of radio from the outside kitchen ... a snip from the Newport California Jazz Festival "I'll take you there ..." the Staple Sisters. "I love that song!" Pete says through the window in the front door. Yah, there you go. Maybe a Sunday drive will take us into town where cellphone service happens. Maybe I will call family and talk for awhile. Maybe. I'll take you there.