ʻAwapuhi
Mama loved the scent
of wild yellow ginger,
growing thick on the slopes of Tantalus.In its blooming season,
she would walk up that steep, curvy road
to pick two or three.These she would weave into a brooch,
to be pinned to inside
of her blouse — hidden,
but for that warm perfume.On the day she was buried
she wore a lei of wild yellow ginger,
freshly picked from the slopes of Tantalus,And left for me,
in a blue shoe box,
a thousand, neatly-woven, dry,
fragrant brooches.—by Puanani Burgess
Mother’s Day 2026. Happy Mama’s Day to all of the moms and aunties out there. I’m not a mom—I’m a daughter, niece, aunty, granddaughter, it just depends on the day. I got to be all of those things today, as we celebrated all the mamas in our orbit.
It strikes me the complexity of our lives and relationships and how we navigate them the best we can. There’s nothing like our first relationships, like that of mothers and their children. I started my day first thing talking stories with my mom and checking in on the fam. They live farther away now, and I got all the updates—insurance, aches and pains, work stuff, which spot they were going to go for brunch, how the cats are doing, her favorite crack seed that I’m going to send. It made me happy to hear how they are doing and I also witnessed the patterns of our relationship, the tone of voice, the familiar questions and answers that make up our family dynamics.
Then we spent the day preparing a meal for the ‘ohana here, and I made a puffy French chocolate cake. My uncle made a favorite meal for the matriarch of the family. My Grandma Gigi is my hanai grandma by two marriages. She lives here with my uncles and was with two of her sons today. With all of them I got to witness their families stories, patterns, and her motherhood now that she’s in her late 80’s. Generational evolution and the narratives passed down over time. The opportunities for healing.
Later, our friends came over, a couple in their late 30’s and 40’s who have a sweet baby girl, six weeks old. We held the darling girl and marveled at the miracle of motherhood, the potential of new life, and so much love. We made plans to celebrate Father’s Day together.
These experiences ran the gamut of life—a sweet baby girl, a young mom, my older mom, and a mother in her twilight years. It strikes me how we all do our best as women, as mothers, as humans, and how we sometimes win and sometimes fail. But we continue on, each in our own fallible way, loving and showing up as best we can for ourselves and each other.
One of my uncles is a lomi practitioner, and recently sent me info on another practitioner who has these epic healing sessions. He will sit with someone for hours, up to 18 hours or more, as long as it takes for the healing to play out. It starts with you telling your life story, and from there he includes touch and lomi as a radical form of stretching the body past its limits to inspire healing and resolve old patterns held in our flesh. It sounds fascinating and expensive, and you have to be at a certain stage of readiness to undertake such an intensive therapy.
I like the idea of unconditional regard, of being held and supported by someone as you share probably some of the most vulnerable things you can—your life story, your insecurities, your secrets and fears. Would you try it? I think I would. The fabric of our relationships, what makes up our own field and then the energy and cords between us as beings is such a delicate and wondrous thing.
I think of what it means to be in circle, to be deeply held and listened to without judgement. After Aunty Pua passed, I reflected that something remarkable about her way of facilitation, and something that I think made it work so well, is that after your story, there’s no analysis, no judgement. It’s just the next person’s turn to share. That takes the ego out of the interaction and brings our common humanity to the fore. She had an ability to sit and witness, to center her breath, to calm the circle just with her presence. She believed when someone cried that we shouldn’t comfort them physically, don’t touch or shush them. Let them have their grief, their moment. Give them that ea, difficult though it might be. With Aunty Pua, I’ve sat in circles with grown men, academics, scholars, leaders, and watched them break down as they share the injustices of the world that have deeply affected their lives. The witnessing of such grief and pain was a radical act. Perhaps then there’s an opportunity to invite the whole story into the circle, or maybe it’s just the next person’s turn.
We are each individuals who hold stories. Grief, pain, joy, stories. We share our stories in circle, and witness our common humanity. We soak in this safety, that our story will be held without judgement, and we provide the same to our fellows, holding their stories.
That’s what I felt today as I witnessed and celebrated all the beautiful mamas in my life; hearing their stories, witnessing their joys and maybe some struggles too, interacting with their kids, now adults, their babies, full of potential, with myself, full of potential, and the ways that all of us at all ages are being and becoming.
Mahalo,
Dawn
Photo taken on Kaua‘i, 5/7/26