ʻO WAI Lā
Who are my waters and why are we here? The answers lie coded in my blood & bones. Coming to light, in every conscious breath I take.
My sands of birth are Keoneawa.
The waters who raised me flow from Kawainui.
Protected by Hauwahine.
Konahuanui houses the sacred scrolls of my hanai.
I am a physical representation of these elements.
The contemporary manifestation of my ancestral lineages.
Bridging bloodlines is my alchemy.
I was housed, reared and shaped in a home of love. Born to a family whose blood origins are the lipo o ka po, the galactic womb of Uliwahine. The magic of our lineage lay dormant through generations of trauma and oppression. And yet, I taste her, on the edges of my lips, I smell her in the folds of the breeze, I hear her, in the shimmer of silence. She is not lost on me.
In radical opposition, multitudes of noʻeau reach for me... hula, olelo, oli, ulu, la’au lapa’au, my kupuna reach for expression in every move I make. My life has woven formal teachings of these cultural practices, since early childhood. This weaving is an offering to the hungry hearts of my pained ancestors. Answering this call to auamo & live these cultural practices for my kupuna, is a reclamation of who we are as kanaka. And so it is.
Amama ua noa.
REARING
Now for the Anu’u.
The waking.
All narratives are questioned. My conditioned thinking, contextual ways of being, questioned, thank goddess!
You see, in the construction of this fixed and fabulous identity as a kanaka maoli, as wahine...the rigidity made me fragile. “I am olapa.” “I am chanter.” even, “I am mother.” Their utterance, a declaration of worth. And in so claiming these identities, the definitions of these roles became the hardware from which I drew my possibilities of being in the world. Because I had yet to tap into my Mauli, I depended on this identity to feed me, to prove my worth in the world. My accolades as a cultural practitioner defined me and my worth was dependent on being understood through the lense of cultural identity as a kanaka Hawai’i. I limited my potential when I chose to see myself as defined by what I do.
WAKING
And so, the crystallization of who I am, became the papaku from which I stand today. These accolades, accomplishments, activations…my identity as kanaka maoli, as wahine, as olapa, have become the momona to the aina from which I grow. At one point in my life, I gave anyone who claimed authority to teach or share wisdom, a pedestal in my world, and my sense of self, my confidence in that self, and my authority in the world was nonexistent. Since then, Iʻve had to take everyone in my life off the pedestals I put them on, previously,
HULIHIA KA MAUNA
and placed myself on a pedestal of my own definition. One that stands humbly, and proud as fuck, bearing every memory, experience, breath & step, until this moment, now.
PAHU PAHU, UHA MAʻI O KA LANI
The unapologetic, being, is key. As a woman who lived three decades in apology of self, of desire, of existence, this quake is essential to my Mauliola. It is my commitment to shaking the shit as she resurfaces and loving all freakishly, fertile, fermented, fierce and fabulous seasons of me.
Kaleinohea, eala_mama, Jessie, this is, all, me. I am all of this and in the same breath, nothing at all, mhm, in the extremes, the totality. I feel, I am, every single piece, wholeheartedly. This is my super power. Paired with the proclamation of owning it.
NEI NAKOLO