Red Glasses

Aloha mai kākou,

I hope you are well. It’s been couple of weeks since I made it to this writing space. Life is happening! I appreciate talking to some of you who actually read this, wow! Thanks for following along, and I apologize for disappearing.

The other day I went to my mailbox and there was a small package inside. Opening it, I found a card, some darling photos, and a bright pair of red glasses. It was from the Burgess ‘ohana, celebrating Aunty Pua’s birthday.  

I remember how Aunty Pua would say that her red lipstick was like her armor. With it on, she was ready to tackle whatever meeting or life event came her way–especially if she had her red glasses on, too. When I saw her on Zoom with her glasses and lipstick on, it made me happy to know that she was in the mode, ready to rock, to do her Aunty Pua thing. Time to call the circle! Time to ask a curious question or three. Time to rascal.

The beautiful red glasses with shiny new lenses also reminded me of when we were working with Aunty Pua over several years to develop an evaluation framework that came to be called “The Aloha Framework for Evaluating in Native Hawaiian Contexts.”

I am a convener for the Culturally Relevant Evaluation and Assessment Hawai‘i Chapter. We were tasked to develop a framework for Evaluation and Assessment grounded in Hawaiian culture. It was Aunty Pua who led us to aloha. Reflecting on this today with red glasses in hand, I went back deep into my vault of meeting notes, all the way to 2017. Here’s part of our exchange, a quote from Aunty Pua on lenses and ALOHA.  

Three of us got together at Kahumana, ate, talked, and came up with the following: what are the lenses that really differentiate how we as people of Hawai‘i, native or not…what are the unique principles with which we view any evaluation research that make it compatible with our understanding of how people here behave? In the process, it always leads us back to aloha, and back to Aunty Pilahi Paki. 

When Aunty [Pilahi] came back to the concept of aloha, it was years before I started lessons with her. Her way of talking about aloha as a series of lenses is very compatible to how we look at things through this lens. Break it down—ALOHA—see all the different ways we begin to evaluate the impact of whatever info and data is being gathered. 

As a result, we started thinking—is the point of research info, or insight? Is that part of what we are trying to gain in gathering and holding these bits of info? What will lead us to making decisions that will bring us to that quality of aloha? How do we turn info into insight?

There’s a difference between information and wisdom. How do we become, information and knowledge turning to wisdom, instead of a static state of informing? What is the process by which a smart person also becomes wise? Not age, but something that happens in the life of a person. Sometimes age helps. It’s never a guarantee. INSIGHT and wisdom to decision-making. 

How she articulated aloha, a series of lenses working in tandem with each other, leading to that precious place of aloha. If it is the outcome of everything we do and want to do, here are the different things we test for. Is it patience? The Hawaiian idea of patience is active. Not waiting for someone to save you, figuring it out, what needs to happen. To find the right time, timing, sequence. Aloha as a sequence of lenses, brought together, when you can see the world through that series of interconnected lenses, what results is a deep and abiding love. From Hawai‘i, we contribute to that conversation. That’s where we’re coming to, trying to figure out.  

What would an example look like that might lead us, show us the pono-ness of looking through that aloha lens? Is there a sample work or job that one of us is doing that would change dramatically or interestingly if we looked at the design through the lens of aloha? Would that shift our outcomes? 

…I’m thinking about the role of insight and intuition in insight and evaluation, how do we encourage that seed? When we think about the word from knowledge, ‘ike, to see, it’s a very different way of knowing. It’s not just reading or experiencing, but seeing. Not just with your eyeballs. Aloha forces you to see in that way, through abiding love. Aloha helps us transform the difference between self. When you aloha someone, love them as you love yourself. How does all this work go into how we pursue knowledge, evaluation data, and turn it into stuff people can use in a really deep way?

Although you may not be an evaluator, I’m guessing these words here still resonate. The art of observing and evaluating, kilo, is something we are all doing all the time. How do we go from info to insight, from knowledge to experience, from insight to wisdom, and then to the application of that in the real world? How do we use the lens of aloha as a transformational catalyst to love ourselves, and love each other? Indeed, no one is coming to save us. What thing more radical than to exercise aloha amidst the violence of today’s world?

Thank you for the many deep and powerful conversations lately that I’ve had with so many folks as we walk the trails of community work, doing our best to apply the lens of aloha, explicitly or intuitively. Akin to Aunty donning her lipstick as armor and glasses as lenses to see the world more clearly, aloha prepares us for the invitation and protection that allows us to engage with the world in ways that are pono, and build pilina for now and for generations to come. 

Aunty Pua: red lips, red glasses, ready to go. What lenses have you been donning lately? Do they help you, prepare or protect you, shield you? What’s your armor like these days? What do you come back to again and again that helps you feel safe, protected, ready, you? 

Mahalo,

Dawn

Photo taken in 2017 at Pike Place Market…Red!