Aunty x 3

Aunty³

I.
Aunty Pua told us her principle about Aunty Izzy Abbott. Aunty²! She shared that Aunty Izzy was one of the first kanaka scientists/PhDs; she was an expert on limu, seaweed. She wrote books and many many papers and taught at Stanford. Aunty loved that Aunty lived in different worlds at the same time, and sought to build a bridge from the ‘ike of her kūpuna, to the modern world of science, to the minds, lives, hearts and interest of the young folks in their community. In her Hūlili article, Aunty shared an abridged version of the story: 

We asked Dr. Isabella Abbott, a world-famous Hawaiian ethnobotanist to be a speaker at the Kalo (Taro) Festival in Wai‘anae. For her workshop she brought four microscopes and placed them on a long table. She took thin slices of kalo and put them on glass slides and put them under the microscopes. She then called the children up to the microscopes to see the body of their ancestor, Hāloa. 

Dr. Abbott told the story of Hāloa being the elder brother of the Hawaiian people, being on the earth to take care of and to nourish the people; she then told the story of kalo from her Western academic perspective which sees kalo as the most nutritious food for the Hawaiian people. As we watched and listened to Dr. Abbott’s presentation, we watched as she wove her traditional way of understanding the importance of this plant, as Hāloa, the elder brother, and as kalo, a nutritious food, into whole cloth. 

The ability to weave these two perspectives into a whole meant that people wouldn’t have to choose between one way or the other—to be traditional or modern—but they could be both. This “and” perspective allows for greater inclusion of many perspectives which is part of building beloved communities.

I love this idea that there are aunties out there trying to make the world more accessible and more relevant and more beloved to us as people living in the modern day. And, and, and. To make science fascinating, and perhaps make culture more relevant and interesting to folks who may have been told it should be relegated to the past, like when the Aunties were growing up. However, they changed things. They decided to teach us that we belong in the worlds of science and culture and wonder and being loved. They wove paradigms together to help us sit with the cognitive dissonance of our daily lives and challenged us, gently or not so gently, to find harmony and middle ground. Innovating on the modern by applying the science and wisdom of our ancestors shows that ‘ike kūpuna is indeed timeless, timely, and so necessary.

II.

Ho‘ā ke ahi kō‘ala ke ola. O na hale wale no ka i Honolulu; o ka ‘ai a me ka i‘a i Nu‘uanu.

Light the fire for there is life-giving substance. Only the houses stand in Honolulu; the vegetable food and meat are in Nu‘uanu.

An expression of affection for Nu‘uanu. In olden days, much of the taro lands were found in Nu‘uanu, which supplied Honolulu with poi, taro greens, ‘o‘opu, and freshwater shrimp. So it is said that only houses stand in Honolulu. Food comes from Nu‘uanu. 

‘Ōlelo Noeau 1016, Pukui

I found this ‘ōlelo no‘eau while researching during a recent writing retreat. What did it teach me? Before, in Nu‘uanu, it was so abundant no one lived there. The food, it grows (T)HERE. The houses? Eh, they’re somewhere else. 

I’m not a language expert, but the dictionary says:
“ho‘ā ke ahi”: ignite the fire—light the imu
“kō‘ala”: to roast, -‘ala, fragrance
“ke ola”: ola—life, health, well-being, livelihood, healed, grant life, survive, thrive.

Get ready to cook—wellbeing, health, and wealth await us when the land is this fertile. But this proverb also brings the knowing that fertility doesn’t just happen. Folks worked so hard to ensure that the continual wellbeing of the soil, the people, of kākou, was possible. So what does that tell us about Nu‘uanu? How many people lived somewhere else, nearby, to grow that much food? And how much time did they spend? A lot! What was their focus? ‘Āina! And what came of it? Food, well-being, having enough, experiencing abundance, being in relationship together—kānaka and ‘āina, with Hāloa as a brother and bridge, eaten, pounded, and planted, generation after generation.

Finding these gems of old proverbs reminds us who we were as kākou and gives voice to the land and how we lived in mutuality. That the highway I drive on to work every day is on top of land so fertile there were no houses. The cooking fire is the bridge from the food that is grown to food in the calabash, ready to eat. The proverb becomes my bridge, bridge to understanding the ahupua‘a I work in and care about, and the value of ‘āina, just as Aunty Izzy’s microscope became a bridge for young people to see the body of their ancestor, Hāloa, and to change their perspective on their genealogy and their own potential.

III.
So last week I didn’t publish what I wrote because after I got it all out, I realized it wasn’t all my story to share. In my Hawai‘i lifeways hālau that I am part of, we had a hā‘ike or two last weekend, and two groups of us went through processes of moving forward in our journeys. What’s relevant to what I’m telling here is that a third Aunty, my kumu, is also deeply adept at not just codeswitching, but transversing deeply contextual paradigms. Aunty³. She holds and makes space for people but also for ‘āina to do their thing, and to develop relationship and reciprocity (I might say mutuality) with each other in ways that are profoundly transformative. If you want. If you’re ready. 

And the remarkable thing is that even though I know about this intellectually, and maybe have experienced this deep mutual relationship with ‘āina personally, it was never so potent to me as last week Friday. My hoa and I, we sat beside a ritual fire all night long that we had lit ourselves with hau and niu. Meanwhile up in the Lua Pele dozens of miles away, Eruption 35 was breaking records, making the sky above us glow as red as the coals we were tending and stoking all night. As above, so below. (The etymology of that phrase is very relevant!) It was pitch black, no lights. All you could see was the red glow of the coals and the red glow of the sky—and then, some stars. We told each other stories and remembered how we each made it to the circle seven years before, and how we’ve grown since then. We talked about Lonomakua, the elemental deity who taught his niece to make fire. In the morning, Aunty T. made everyone coffee and I made grilled cheese sandwiches with smoke meat. A bridge from night to day—good since we forgot to gather any snacks for our midnight rendezvous, and the imu crew needed morning fuel.

Some people like my kumu are alchemists, able to awaken our pōtential in relation to the kākou all around us. It only seems like alchemy because we are still remembering how. In Aunty Izzy’s world, by zooming into the body of our older brother on a cellular level, we bridge to our kinship. And in tuning into the ritual fire at hand and on the night horizon, I could bridge the turning of the landscape, the cycles of the land, and our connections. Anu‘u. That deeper sense provided a relational accountability I’m still integrating on my own cellular level.

IV.
As the Pele awakens all over the Pacific Rim, as earthquakes and movements and eruptions and waves ripple through the circle of fire that distantly surrounds us (so close), I wonder: what fire keeps you in relationship to the things that matter most? And how will you stoke it for the long nights ahead?

I hope that these distant and perhaps oblique reflections land. And I hope you’ve had, or find, aunties and uncles to inspire a sense of wonder and curiosity about our world and your place in it. 

Mahalo,

Dawn

Still shot of Episode 35 at Kīlauea borrowed from KHON2 News. !!!