When my boss came on board with us, we had no idea who he was. He wasn’t from Hawaiʻi, and we wondered if he would understand what we do and how we work.
Thankfully, he took the time to observe. He seemed to understand the adage that “the last person in the room shouldn’t be the first person to speak.”
Over time, through observation and conversation, he saw what worked about our work and our culture. From that listening, he drafted a set of partnership principles that we all helped to shape and edit. In that process, one idea rose to the surface and stayed with us: mutuality.
Today I was reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry, a meditation on the gift economy and the give-and-take that can arise from a mindset of abundance rather than scarcity. This is something we deeply appreciate here. Kimmerer writes beautifully about reciprocity, a concept that has become widely used, and maybe sometimes overused, in conversations about community, ecology, and justice.
In a capitalist paradigm, a purchase is made and that is often the end of the relationship. The supply chain goes in one direction. With reciprocity, the movement goes both ways. There is giving and receiving. There is relationship. There is response.
I appreciate this deeply, and I believe it can be very powerful. Still, I have a concern. When we do not share the same values, or when there are unequal power dynamics, what we call reciprocity can still become transactional. It can still become an exchange where one side gives up too much and the other side calls it agreement.
Kimmerer offers the example of a treaty signed by a particular tribe. Maybe many tribes experienced this. In English, the document said that they gave up everything. In their own language, the agreement was understood to mean that the newcomers were there to help. That kind of harm can happen for many reasons, but one reason is that the underlying value systems are vastly different, sometimes down to the most fundamental levels.
Here, many of us believe and practice that ʻāina and land are not the same thing. ‘Āina is our family. Aunty Pua talked about this often. How do we restore personhood to ʻāina? How do we acknowledge kākou, the WE that includes more than two-legged beings? How do we turn land back into ʻāina?
This is where mutuality feels important to me.
Mutuality is different from reciprocity. Reciprocity can still sound like exchange: I give, you give. Mutuality says: we are in this together. We have the same North Star. We set our prow in the same direction. You getting to the destination and me getting to the destination are not separate goals. They are bound together.
I appreciate the foundation this offers for our practice of Building Beloved Community. What can we do when we are truly aligned? With mutuality, I do not have to question what you are offering me in exchange. It’s not just I give, and you give. We do not walk away from each other and move on to the next transaction. We remain in relationship.
Maybe the question is not, “What are we exchanging?”
Maybe the question is, “Are we journeying together?”
Perhaps this is an argument in semantics, but I think words matter. They help us see what kind of world we are practicing into being. For instance, how could Hawaiians be satisfied with stones, the astonishing food of the land? And yet…the melody to the song Kaulana nā Pua was written by a patriot who happened to be a Filipino immigrant. When the Kū‘ē Petitions were circulated, citizens of the realm signed, regardless of where they were born. They all had a common cause.
In such a divisive time, it can be hard for us to work together, to align. We have been through a lot. We do not always trust easily. There are power dynamics. People with money often appear to have power, but many times they are isolated and lonely. People in community have mana. They have genealogy. They hold our histories and our stories. Things that can’t be purchased. They understand the undercurrents of community and what it takes to feed, shelter, protect, and care for our people.
That agency is growing.
So how do we align for our better collective future? How do we move beyond exchange and into shared direction? How do we practice mutuality, not just as a principle, but as a way of walking together?
Aunty Pua’s poem He Alo Ahe Alo comes to mind. Face to face. Not from a distance. Not from the top of the cliff. Come down here and learn the big and little currents. Come help us dig the loʻi deep.
Maybe that is mutuality.
Not help from above.
Not partnership on paper.
Not exchange.
But face to face, shoulder to shoulder, hands in the mud, for generations.
Mahalo,
D
He Alo Ahe Alo
He Alo Ahe Alo
(Face to Face)
That’s how you learn about what makes us weep.
He Alo Ahe Alo
(Face to Face)
That’s how you learn about what makes us bleed.
He Alo Ahe Alo
(Face to Face)
That’s how you learn about what makes us feel.What makes us work
What makes us sing
What makes us bitter
What makes us fight
What makes us laugh
What makes us stand against the wind
What makes us sit in the flow of power
What makes us, us.Not from a distance
Not from miles away
Not from a book
Not from articles you read
Not from a newspaper
Not from what somebody told you
Not from a “reliable source”
Not from what you think
Not from a cliff
Not from a cave
Not from your reality
Not from your darkness
But,He Alo Ahe Alo
(Face to Face)Or,
Else,
Paʻa kou waha (Shut tight your mouth)
ʻAʻohe o kahi nana o luna o ka pali;
Iho mai a lolo nei;
ʻIke i ke au nui ke au iki;
He Alo Ahe Alo(The top of the cliff isn’t the place to look at us;
Come down here and learn of the big and little current,
Face to face)And come and help us dig, the loʻi deep.
Dreamt and written down a long time ago by Puanani Burgess
Photo taken in Waihe‘e, O‘ahu, 5/13/22