Monday, March 28, 2011

Nana I Ke Kumu

Kaulana Mahina
Nana I Ke Kumu  "Look to the Source."  ... a Hawaiian proverb
and the title of kupuna Mary Pukui's texts for a life of pono

The 'Ole Moons of the Ho'emi Anahulu (the diminishing phase/week) are pau.  Pete and I have worked up the weeds in our personal gardens ... those beliefs, and attitudes that do not add to our well-being or weigh us down for the future we envision.  We have rested well, taking longer to rise from the futon.  I have issues of long-standing history rising up as I prepare to launch the wa'a, the canoe of criss-crossing cultures and translating our experiences of becoming pono (in harmony) through attention and practice with the 'Ole Moons of emptiness/nothing. 

Old history is replaced with new history in a gentle long-wave or cataclysm.  I have know both kinds in my life and as I age I wish the replacements were more gentle, but sometimes they aren't and I deal with them with as much patience as I have, and then I ask for some more ... patience.  Traditional cultures, First People have long sustaining practices that hold up over time.  The kupuna, the elders pass and some of those practices pass with them and we mourn that loss.  What I am seeing in my lifetime is a passing of values in new and broader, maybe even deeper ways as I witness na wai kanaka (the ways of the people) in the hands and hearts of our children.  I am a mother to one son, now nearly forty.  His life shines onto his ancestors and forward into the lives of his peers as his generation translate and carry the traditions forward.  I hear him on the cellphone describe the LomiLomi workshops he and his healing work partner are completing in France.  I listen to the ways one culture criss-crosses the other.  The story grows, the Source remains pono, the Source is big, big enough to embrace us all.

The version of sharing we offer, at any time on the continuum ... today, in a few minutes, tomorrow is what we know at the time.  Our foundation and our ancestors shore us for the process and the progress.  Our home, our planet, Papa Honua is sustained and loved by the Source ... Ke Kumu, and we are responsible for and to that Source as well.  We were born from the Source and our unique version of unfolding counts.  We lay the sticks out ... we pick up the one that serves and speaks to our need and our journey.  The sticks, the o'o of the makua on her/his way are always there to serve.  I notice how diverse the sticks are, how versatile the tools for making a good life are.  I look to the Source, and am happy to know I have a shovel, a rack, a wheel barrel and a rake.  I'm working the garden for planting ka me 'ai (good things to eat) today.  Lucky, I have so many tools.

Don't forget COUNT ON THE MOON On-Line Workshop and Study Group starts this Sunday, April 3rd.  Click to read a PREVIEW & register.

Aloha,
Mokihana

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