RE: Kiaʻi : To My Friends (who I Adore so very much)

(Photo Credit: Randy Jay Braun)

This is for my pals on this side of the ocean who are seeing my Indigenous Me…

My personal Ohana, I find, is bigger than just blood…it is heart, soul, Aloha… 

Most of those who are the closest with me, who are part of my heart and soul, who have been there for years, who are there now and who know of my own personal life struggles over the years – those people, while they know that the energy to fight that which does not resonate with my Soul will not be tolerated, they also know that I am not one who will give up, give in, let go of things until I can see no other way towards my own emotional survival than to do exactly that – release that which does not somehow serve the purpose – MY purpose – in this lifetime and in this energy. 

You each and all know that I have a very hard time letting go of things, of what it is that my soul knows is real, even when it is that what my human self knows is detrimental to my Spiritual well being – you KNOW that I Am this person who loves beyond what is normal, or perhaps considered normal in your minds and thoughts, about a lot of things.

You each and all know me well enough to know that I will champion anything and anyone until I have exhausted every reserve of patience in me, until I have been found to be soul sick, sometimes to the point of tears that can last for days, sometimes even weeks. You know that because of everything that you truly know about me, about who I Am for real, that any time I am able to, I will do what I can, even if it is an effort in futility, to try to take away even the tiniest amount of pain that any one of you has had over the years.

Thatʻs just  me. It might be irresponsible on my part, sometimes to a fault, but, that is the truth of me…is the Kapu Aloha that is mine, that will not ever grow smaller, and with time, you each and all know that it only gets bigger. You all know that if you have been good to me, even in times of trauma that is your own lives, that I will reciprocate that aloha that you have showed to me, that is unfiltered, and sometimes, it hurts.

But that is only because you were brave enough to make it well known by me that you are tired of watching me cry, of hearing the pain in my voice as shown by the tears, of watching me run myself ragged in circles ….it is just me and who I Am – I love with everything in me.

You each know that this is the truth that is mine, is my testament in BEING Hawaiian, in not being angry with any of you because of who your ancestors were -it is not your fault that for many of you, your peoplesʻ history is not that great, is rife with robbery of entire cultures, of hatred for people who do not or did not think like they did, nor worship the gods that they did, and who did everything in the name of whatever was NOT Aloha, was NOT the Truth, and was not at all right in its energy…was not Pono – ever. 

So to you all, know now that you are not these people who are to be thought of as wrong, just because of your skin color, just because you are non-Hawaiians…to me, you are all Hawaiians.

The idea that we Hawaiian people live in an awareness of what seems like struggle at all times, while that, collectively, as you all watch those who I consider the Global Ohana, the Kiaʻi, and the part of Aloha, with me, you each are, might be the truth, what is also the truth is that we just do not give up, at all.

It is only when our efforts towards anything becomes futile enough, almost, at times, for plenty of us, that we end up physically ailing, that we stop doing that which we do, which is Love. When the Love becomes something that detriments our lives, even as we continue on, eventually, we stop.

We do not give in, and we truly do not give up – we simply stop. We stop because we know that above all else, it is in our death that we are remembered, but, it is in our lives that we do the most living, the most good, the most truth bearing and the most building up of others.

I Am Rox… I Am Mapuana….

…and there may well be some folks who we share the air with right  now who know me and would tell you that I do not know Me, but you each know that I know EXACTLY who I Am, and Who I Am is Roxanne, your crazy island friend who grew up here in Los Angeles, as well as in Hawaii.

You know me, too, as Mapuana, the person who, from the core of my soul, is Me.

I Am the Me who you all know as that very dearly Hawaiian girl from Covina, the one who never wore shoes and who still does not, unless I have to. You know me as that one friend who not only danced like the demons within me wanted me to, but more, you know me as that person who grew up to teach these things, from an island point of view, even though my ʻAina… our ʻAina is The Rockinʻ 9th island called California. 

I Am the one who, every time you were hurting, even if I was hurting, taught you what is Aloha, in action, and gave to you each and all what you have gifted me with, which is that same thing in return. Our loyalty to that much….the Soul of Aloha within …. is what we have given each other over the years.

Now, in this time, not only in my own life, but in the lives of Polynesian people all over this planet, here you each and all are, my personal Kiaʻi, my army of do-gooders who do good things for other people just because that is how you roll.

Sometimes, it takes us by surprise, the amount of Aloha there is involved in all of Life.

You did not learn this from me, and I did not learn this from you. We live this, in this great big reciprocal energy that is this phrase that you have learned is an actual thing with me, with mine, and now, with these words, you know this of yourselves, as well.

I recall every good thing that you have each done, for me, for others, and even for yourselves, and a lot of our lives, to this point, hurt like hell. Yet, here you all are, still here, still caring, still telling me that I am as much part of your life as you care to be part of mine.

You can think about my words and my context, and a lot of you can hear me saying it, all of it. You can hear my laughter at things that you cannot understand anyoneʻs reasons for anything at all, but, at the same time, in that laughter, is our own misunderstanding of things that we do not tell anyone at all.

That it is funny to any one of us is one thing, but, that we get why we are laughing is where the beauty is, is where the Aloha, lives.

It is what makes you my Ohana. It always has.

When we were kids, we defended our street, and then our neighborhood, but always, depended, not just on ourselves, but each other.

And always, Ka Lahui…the one to whom, no matter when, or where, but why it was then that I still and now consider you this with me…Ka Lahui Aloha….you are, like they are, My Nation…you are my family, are my people, are like me because You Are Me, and I Am Also You. This is who I have known you to Be.

This is Who We Are.

And that term, Lahui, does not apply to people who cannot see it as that – this protection effort in my native homeland – The Kingdom of Hawaii – where the MOST SACRED MOUNTAIN LIVES, and breathes, and feeds those people on that side of the ocean, who all of you on this side of the ocean know I love so very dearly fucking much….those people with whom I share a common ancestry, and one with royal roots, and one that is not going to stop protecting that mountain, and one that is Unified, this world over, our Kahea being the same.

It is not that we are stopping anything, but, that we are not stopping.

It is not that we are trying to do any harm, because so much has been done to us, all of our native lives, and until now, none of my Ohana, the ones who are not my blood, now know that it is IN my blood, this energy that is Lahui….that is “Nation” and yeah, I am Kiaʻi, and you all know how I roll.

And lots of you never knew how much it meant to me, how much it has always meant to me, to Be Kanaka Maoli …now, you know.

Or maybe you have always just known.

You who have never questioned what my motives were, and were just glad that I was there. You who never flinched when I asked for your help, for your ear, for your time, and there you each were. You who knew and know that I pride my life in this body as being the vehicle through which my ʻAumakua, my Ancestors…My Kuleana…their message was meant to be given to this planet in the form of that which the only thing that I have ever known you to Be is Hawaiian, at least in my personal world.

It is not the quantity of Hawaiian ancestry, through blood quantum, that matters – sometimes, it cannot matter, who is and who is not, ʻblood Hawaiianʻ…

What matters is that here you all are….still in my life….

Some call it Aloha…

I call it Love….

Mahalo….

KŪ KIAʻI MAUNA !!

Click on “ALOHA” to learn more about Protecting Mauna Kea

 

KA LAHUI ALOHA

Photo Credit: Blenderartists.org (from images.google.com)

KAPU ALOHA

(TRUTH)

It appears that we have a big giant protection energy going on, and not only in the Hawaiian Islands – but the world over.

While it is that I was born and raised on this side of the ocean, I was raised by Hawaiian women, and regardless of what they wanted to teach me, in terms of personal preference, the one thing that I learned from them was that at the core of everything that we do is the Sacred nature of Aloha, is the energy that is protecting, no matter what it is that we love, who it is that we love, no matter where we are on this planet, if we are not able to do things that we want to do, for anything or anyone, and when our hands are proverbially tied by the lives that we live in the real, the one thing that we do, for real, is Love.

Even from a distance. …because sometimes, it is the distance that keeps the Love Pono, keeps it encased in the energy that is Kapu Aloha…which is TRUTH.

This is what this entire world is witnessing at this time, and while there are some who know me personally and very well, and who would state that I do not know what I am talking about, I will tell anyone at all, that indeed, I DO KNOW WHAT LOVE IS, and right now, I am, along with everyone else who has eyes in their heads, and a soul – it is not a secret.

When I Love, it is with this pounding energy of Aloha…it is real, it does not go away, because it always IS.

…pounding like my ʻipu heke drum, and pounding like the cadence that is any Kumu Hulaʻs mele kahiko, pounding like the drums of our earthly indigenous brothers and sisters the world over. 

…pounding like the heartbeat of the Mauna, reverberating through the Universe, returning to us, the sound of the Kahea, the call out to the Gods and Goddesses of our people, of the Past which is Sacred but not to be lived in, because the only thing from the past that exists is the  memory, and the memory is what brings the pain and the energy needed to protect that which is Sacred, and we all know that LOVE IS SACRED AND REAL TO US. It is the cellular memory, embedded in our DNA, is the thing that our Kupuna, our ʻAumakua, both living in this consciousness, and in the Ether, have told us all of our lives, have made us aware of from the time that we were tiny little kids, who still are with us, chanting not war, but peace and Kapu Aloha, again – meaning “Truth.”

For us, TRUTH IS THE ONLY WAY THAT WE LIVE, and not one human being can deny at least this Kiaʻi from this side of the Ocean that much….for all of my life, I have loved in Truth, have told the Truth about anything I Love, anyone I Love and those things do not change, cannot change me and will not change….because I know that the truth and only ONE TRUTH in the bible is that we can have faith, we can have hope, but, in order for those to make a difference or even matter, that we need the greatest energy of all, which is Love….

My generation was taught, for all of our lives, to live in the light of Aloha, to Be Pono and live gently until we are prompted to rise up and take a stand, never standing down for the sake of someone elseʻs lies, never taking for granted the things that are inborn within us, and never ever allowing it, from this point forward, forever and ever, for the rest of our lives, and the lives of our Keiki, and the lives of our Moʻopuna, and the lives of our descendants for whom this Kuleana is ours to take care of….we were taught this.

We were taught to see ourselves in every living thing, to be bear witness to the beauty that is Love, that is doing what we can within reason, that which and all we can do, for any reason, for anyone, for our very selves…to do what we can, and we can do no more, not because we do not want to, and not because the things that we have done in the past have failed us, but, because we have tried to do those things….so the only thing that we can do, every now and then, no matter how much it hurts us each to not be able to do more….we Love, because Love is the only Real Thing.

Love is the only Real Thing.

I stand in that energy, not just for Mauna Kea, not only for the Global Lahui, but for those who hold place in my world, in my heart and soul, in my naʻau… because without Love, we do not thrive. To know that we are loved, to know that it is real, to know that who we are is enough for anyone at all to care…this is who we are, is who we have always been. We have been told, for generations, who we are, how to be, what we want and what we do not want, and as time has passed and continues to pass, we prove the world otherwise. We are able to do much, and we are able to make it so that no matter what – Love is the thing that is seen, is known, is had, and not even in limited form. It is only limited when anyone else tells us that none of it is real. It is only limited when it is called fake. It is only limited when it is not the thing that anyone else does not see what is their own personal ideal of what it is to be truly, dearly Loved. 

This has been our struggle, for many generations, for many lifetimes, and to this point, we have been collectively and singly been trying to make these things clear about who we are, about the true nature of Aloha, about the idea that we are human, the idea that we do not like to be called what we are not, which is weak, superficial, not worth the time it takes to take us seriously about the things that we say, that we do, that we are, and what we are is the Global Ohana, here and now, our children and families, much of those families comprised of others who are not part of our DNA, but are absolutely part of our Ohana, are filled with people who have the heart and soul of Kanaka Maoli, if not the genetic proof of blood quantum. Our Kupuna would state, have stated, publicly,  that it is not about blood, is not about property rights, is not about more than respecting our culture, is not about more than those who are in the grip of false power doing things for themselves, doing things the opposite way of how they were raised, and how they were taught. (yeah I am indeed talkinʻ to you Mr. Punani Ige….I said it, will keep saying it, so damned well deal with it, bruddah…)

Again, it has everything to do with who has the right and the say so of what goes on at the Mauna, versus who believes themselves to hold the right to lease out our culture, our history, our IDENTITY to the highest bidder.

It is about this thing, this energy called Aloha.

Aloha is not just a simple greeting that the world knows is ours, but is the lifeblood of our culture and who we are. When we are told that it is not enough, are made to feel like we are not enough, we rise up, in Truth and in the spirit of the collective, and rather than “fight” anything, we just prove, everyday, that we are Ka Poʻe Aloha – The Aloha People, and as such, it is not only ours to protect, but to show proof of, without taking anything away from ourselves. Aloha is literally the breath of Life, and taking it from us, or telling us that it is fake is another dent in our psyche. To tell anyone who is part of Ka Lahui Aloha that the thing that we are known for this world over is not real is breaking our hearts, privately and collectively, reverberates through us, stabs us in the heart and the soul, and makes us die, just a little bit, every fucking time we are told that it is not the real thing.

I promise you, all of you, no matter WHO YOU ARE OR WHO THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU ARE…this is our truth. This is MY TRUTH, is MY KAPU ALOHA, and NO ONE GETS TO TELL ME IT AINʻT REAL. IT IS THE REALEST THING IN THE WORLD….

We, collectively, have this deep and abiding Love, every single one of us, and that Love is fierce, is the Truth of us, is the thing that, within the heart and soul of every Kanaka Maoli person, is the realest thing in the world and the lives of who we love the most.

We do not make sense to a lot of people, and we are not meant to be anything other or more than the show of Aloha, of Gratitude, of the human collective who now is gathering, is becoming The One who we all have been told that we will not ever be a part of, because for a long time, it has been the world at large that has kept us apart from it all -as though who we are is just meant as this shiny jewel in the middle of the sea, meant to be seen but not heard. 

In KAPU ALOHA I THRIVE

In KA LAHUI ALOHA, I AM

In this world, I Am the thing that the Ancestors hoped for….

…someone who lives Aloha

No one can take that away from me, ever, no matter what. When you live in the energy of Truth, of Aloha, you tend to know them easily, tend to see through and break through the Aloha that is part of your own genetic make up. When you know nothing other than to Love, even if it is the only thing you have, and someone else tells you it is not enough, you will rise up to prove otherwise

I do it, everyday

No one – not one person, no matter WHO THEY ARE, can say different

Ever.

#KūKiaʻiMauna #ProtectMaunaKea #LosAngelesKahunaRox #TheRockin9th #MetalMaoliGirl #KAPUALOHA #AʻoleTMT #GTFOTmt

Photo Credit: Millicent Cummings

 

NEI – TION

WE ARE HAWAII NEI

WE ARE MAUNA KEA

Ka Lāhui Aloha…

We are proving to be a force to be reckoned with.

Our Kupuna were arrested …willingly…at The Mauna by choice, and how dare others decide, namely those certain others, who would use shame and guilt, let alone fraud and the art of the grift, to elicit some sort of reaction out of us by using those who would be the story tellers, the myth keepers, and the voices of the ʻAumakua?

They want to scare us all away, want to make us feel ashamed, want to make us feel afraid, want to make us resort to violence.

They will not stop us , no matter what. 

They cannot.

They never could.

And those whose false power, the sort of power that is bestowed upon them by humans, and not by the ʻAumakua, who never ever bothered to think that maybe, just maybe, we matter, even if we are not there on that island, there on that summit – we are here, and we are there, and we are everywhere, and we ainʻt leavinʻ…

We have not even begun to come out in force, have not even reached the masses all over this planet, and have not allowed ourselves as a people to raise the energy to its highest peaks, and the only thing that anyone is thinking is that we will just stand down and let them have their way and no…no we will not.

No.

Aʻole !!!

Keep going, Hawaiians, keep going. 

Keep standing firm – ONIPAʻA … ALOHAʻAINA! KŪ KIAʻI MAUNA….

The whole world is watching us NOT be weak, nor aggressive, is watching us be peaceful.

The whole world is watching us BE UNIFIED, BE THOSE WHO WEAR THE LIGHT OF ALOHA, is watching us BE KANAKA MAOLI, and onward we go forth, and we do not look back, with our eyes on our Eternal Mother – Sacred Mauna Kea.

She gives us life, and hope, and Mana…and each other, at all times. 

We Know Who She Is.

We Know Who We Are.

We are Na Mamo – the cherished ones, and we are Keiki O Kaʻaina, and always, we will fight for our Mama, our Kupuna, Mauna Kea

To the rest of the world, Hawaii is a vacation place, created as everyoneʻs favorite get away, but that is our Homeland.

We will protect our Kupuna – For all us guys, She is, She will remain Ours. 

We Are, must remember that We Are Ka Poʻe Aloha – The Aloha People. 

This is not about property rights – but is instead about human rights.

This is not about defiance in the face of presumed authority, but about the Mana that is ours, collectively.

This is not about tradition, but about Kuleana, about Alohaʻaina…

This is about Us, as Hawaiians, protecting not only the land called Hawaii Nei, but, the energy of it. 

We are the Monarchy.

We are the Nei-tion….

#NeiTion #KūKiaʻiMauna #AʻoleTmT #HEWA #HawaiiNei #AlohaAina #KaLahuiAloha #Kupuna 

Please click on this photo to Support the Global Lahui…please help us protect Mauna Kea.

KŪ KIAʻI MAUNA

(STAND GUARD OF THE MAUNA)

 

 

KŪ KIAʻI MAUNA

Kaulana nā pua aʻo Hawaiʻi

Kūpaʻa ma hope o ka ʻāina

(Famous are the children of Hawai`i…Ever loyal to the land)

( Kaulana Na Pua Written by Ellen Kehoʻohiwaokalani Wright Prendergast)

You are damned straight we are…loyal to the Land.

Malamaʻaina…Alohaʻaina….fuckinʻ A ….loyal….that is what we are, what I Am.

I KNOW that I AM…I AM LOYAL TO MY ROOTS, because I AM THAT – I AM HAWAIIAN… I AM THAT… I AM !!! 

I Am part of this… honoring our Kupuna, the mountain made recently more famous than in years past, and this time, done so by greed and things that are completely apart from who we, as Hawaiian people, are, for real.

People have asked me plenty of times what the big damned deal is about this particular mountain and when they ask me, I tell them the truth – as a Kanaka Maoli, Mauna Kea is not just some stupid mountain that tourists flock to, but, is part of every Hawaiian person on this planet.

Even the shitheads who ought to be ashamed of themselves for putting anything else, namely greed, and privilege, before that which is the duty of all Kanaka Maoli…to live in the light that is Aloha, and the lifestyle that we all ought to be living, which is Alohaʻaina, and most of all…to do that which we will, but, to make certain to harm no one.

Apparently, this definition of Alohaʻaina does not fit certain big-headed people who hold power, and how the hell it is that the governor of the land of our ancestry (you know…da guy who get da BIGGEST Kuleana to #LiveAlohaAina ) (I would call him “da bruddah” but it seems more appropriate to call him the bitch in charge….yeah…he a BITCH…keep reading, please…) has turned his back on his own people, our Ancestors, and our duty to each other to remain solidly behind one another in a state of unity….that he would also think that we would be okay with this shit and we are not.

We are so, so NOT.

It is not OKAY AT ALL.

He reminds me of others who have the same thinking as he does, in that, he got the governorʻs chair, so, now what?

Gotta do like your owners tell you, dude? (Yeah, bitch I went there…deal with it)

You gotta sell out your people and everything that YOU KNOW scored you some sort of power at the time you were elected into office?

I see how the Hawaiian voices mattered when you were kissing their asses to get that chair, but now, you are kicking all of ours, and in the name of some bullshit, because that is what this is….fuckinʻ bullshit.

And you, Mr. Ige….you fucking know this is the truth. 

You know it is the truth, regarding our beloved Kupuna, the Mountain called Kea, the altar which ALL OF OUR ʻAUMAKUA GUARD and here you are, the bitch in charge, being the bitch of “science” but, in reality, you are enslaved to them, and that is why you sold us out – because you are that.

You are a sell out.

But this is not about that only, the idea that we donʻt matter when I promise you that we do. This is not like the first time some damned foreigners, NOT TO OUR ʻAINA BUT, TO OUR WAYS, came and invaded that which is not theirs, threatening our people, putting guns and firepower in their faces, and no…no we, the global collective… Ka Lahui Aloha….yeah, brah… #ALLUSGUYS ….over here on this side of the water, too, are really disliking your weakness, are really not liking the idea that once again, someone who is not us has you by your guavas…how sad you nevah evah had control, because you let the intellectuals, and the monied mother fuckers steal your soul

It is one of our most Sacred and Beloved places, and as a Hawaiian person whose life is lived via the ….hell yeah – fuckinʻ inborn yet unwritten rule, to live as part OF the land one calls home, instead of in the manner that too many greedy people, too many people “in the name of science” and even OUR OWN PEOPLE WHO OUGHT TO FUCKING KNOW BETTER HAVE AND DO…which is to believe that you are apart FROM the land, thereby making you as “having dominion” over it….like your bible tells you to, rather than the Kumulipo from which your …OUR….Ancestors remind us through those words of exactly where we each came from, and, exactly who we are….no part of it states that we are allowed – ANY ONE OF US – to make the choice to allow others to steal our Mauna from us, once again…not for science, but, for practicing the science of lying for the sake of greed and false power.

Trying to steal the Mauna will never ever allow it that you and yours will steal our MANA, and it is our MANAʻO … KŪ KIAʻI MAUNA….oh HELL YES and INDEED!!! 

No one has the right to do what is being done right this moment, way over there on the other side of the ocean, where mine and every other (just about) Indigenous personʻs heart is now feeling the duality of emotion caused by this bullshit about needing yet another damned telescope on our Sacred Mauna – Mauna Kea. FUCK YOUR TMT…. Aʻole TMT….stay HEWA TMT….

I have friends who are actual friends and actual relatives who live there and are there, at the Mauna, and there are our own people on this side of the water who are watching this all happen, never once thinking that it would be in our lifetimes that the people who are meant to keep the rights of the Kanaka Maoli as being the first thing that needs and by law MUST BE adhered to FUCKING DONʻT!!! 

Instead, the mother fucker called Ige and all his piece of shit people are not even paying attention to our rights as indigenous people, and those who HAVE THE RIGHT TO NOT WANT THAT FUCKING TELESCOPE ON THAT MOUNTAIN.

Hell yeah…I Am One of Them.

And all of them are a big part of me.

As is EVERY OTHER KANAKA MAOLI IS, NO MATTER WHERE THE HELL IT IS THAT YOU CALL YOUR ʻAINA – JUST NO FOʻGET TO #ALOHAAINA and #MALAMAAINA and make certain that you live everyday like one good Hawaiian.

Period.

Alohaʻaina is the freest thing in the world, is the best energy ever, and with it we can change our own lives but, right now….these buggahs need to NOT.

#FAKAS

Alohaʻaina

The best way that I can and have and continue to teach people about our way of life and living is to know always that we are each part OF the land, and that wherever we are, Hawaii is there, too (Thanks Kumu Mark) and more – remember that what your Tutu Lady taught you is the right way to think about who you are as a Hawaiian person.

To read, to watch, to hear from people over there, and here, too, about this crap that Mr. Ige allows to happen – and all without a bond…hey…Ige…you ass hat – you let them onto that mountain without a bond, which means that if this gets fucked off, the people of Hawaii – the common folks – are who will have to pick up the tab and clean the mess that a handful of people decided that they would make, no matter what.

You forgot about a lot, dude, and because of this, you are now just as good as that stupid  guy who would also like to make this country great…supposedly again….when there is no proof that it was ever great, which is all we have ever said, any one of us with a brain in our heads.

You forgot about the reason why you are in that position to begin with…no, not as governor, but as a fellow person of Hawaiian ancestry who ought to have figured that much out as soon as you raised your right hand and swore to uphold OUR RIGHTS AS THE ACTUAL NATIVES OF THAT CHAIN OF ISLANDS was BECAUSE OF THE PEOPLE WHO YOU HAVE SOLD OUT- and because of this shit, you are now known as the most hated man in the general population of Hawaiian people the world over.

And possibly MORE than only your own People, dude…because while we are your people, indigenously….believe it when I say it…we are so NOT YOUR FUCKINʻ PEOPLE, YOU WEAK ASS !! 

Your thugs in police uniforms whose names are like everyone elseʻs, with all of those vowels and punctuation that, for a writer like me, when I see that betrayal,  are the slap in the face to even what they – YOUR FUCKING THUGS –  know is right.

This is not right, and you know it isnʻt.

While my writing and communication is not in our ancestral language, the fire in my belly IS, and while it might mean nothing to you that this is going on (oh wait…it DOES…it means a net sum and some false fucking power), and maybe you canʻt figure out why everyone is mad at you, it is because you are letting the descendants of the people who came and stole our land last time get away with what their ancestors did THE FUCKING FUCK AGAIN, BITCH !

You want to let them take what is ours, and that which is ours by right of our indigenous bloodlines to that land and specifically that mountain.

You are representative of every other person on this planet who decided that you could just fuck with people – a WHOOOOOOOOLE LOT OF PEOPLE….and that we, as that collective known as #ALLUSGUYS, would just let fucking go of this, and no…no we will not, ever.

Not on your life, dude.

Never that.

NEVER EVER THAT.

Unlike most of us, you are a traitor, and this time you are hiding behind science that ainʻt science (even though lots of people make it a science and an art to fuck people over and “all in the name of science”…theyʻre called pussy grabbers and they get away with everything….yeah we donʻt like that fuckinʻ guy, either) to us all, namely not to this scientist who, no matter where on this planet that I Am, so, to, is the rest of my Island Nation. 

Brah, no matter where the fuck I Am, I AM HAWAIIAN, TO DA MAX, and to my very fucking core, dude.

Yeah – I was born and raised in Southern California, but, that does not make me less Kanaka than it makes a haole more Hawaiian for being born there….think that way, okay?

Over here, namely when we were born and raised here? WE HAVE TO THINK THAT WAY and yeah – we have the benefit of having been raised ON BOTH SIDES OF THE OCEAN so, please, do not discount who we are on this side…we matter, too and let me tell you…all of you, this  much.

I was wanting to apply to the UC system, but, I am having my second thoughts about it now, and namely because it is that they are in on this.

As Kahuna, I have to… HAVE TO… take this into account, because there are two ways that I can see this…the first way, with my feeling traitorous in that choice or the other one, which is a friendlier thought which is that I might HAVE TO go that route, and be part of the UC system…so that maybe I can change it up….

I have no idea…what I do know is that this shit is bullshit.

You fuckers need to get your bulldozers and fucking arrogance off of that beautiful Mountain and we all call our Kupuna and just back the fuck up already.

I mean…there is all this other water that you guys could be able to utilize but you donʻt. I can only imagine that it is because doing “research” this way would afford at least two “damned haoles” and four “mother fuckinʻ palangis” their guaranteed living vacation in Paradise while my people sleep in tents on the beach…yeah FUCK YEAH SOME OF THEM BY CHOICE….donʻt fucking judge, fuckers….because that land is THEIRS TO DO WITH WHAT THEY WILL, because they are, we are, #ALLUSGUYS the fucking same people and it is time to recognize and respect us as such because regardless we ainʻt waitinʻ for your approval…

And #FUCKOHA too…fuck you guys…all of you, no good mother fuckers. You can rot in your colonial hell… Kuʻe, bitches….Kaluana Na Pua O Hawaii Nei…KUʻE! KUʻE! (Mahalo, Sudden Rush ❤ )

The ʻAumakua have our backs….I fuckinʻ promise…

KUʻE !!! KAULANA NA PUA O HAWAIʻI NEI !! #KUE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KAULANA NA PUA …from shore to shore…

HEY! ALL YOU FOLKS! PAY ATTENTION!

It has come to all of our attention, if you are Hawaiian, or connected to any Hawaiians, that we are yet being…bullied…out of another Sacred Place – Mauna Kea.

I am using language that is particular to MY specific belief, which simply means that this is not about memories, and is not about tourism being way too much at this point, and more importantly, in terms of our Sacred Places, Mauna Kea is THE Altar…

Our blood runs red with the ʻAumakua, who are, right now, crying, as I am sure that I am not the only one, who right in this moment, and while I was busily, and of all things, getting my brain ready for class next week…Kumu Audis ….she sends me and everyone else in her Facebook friends list the news that the Thirty Meter Telescope bullies are putting our natives in jail. It was published in the Star Bulletin…click here, and see what I am talking about…then come back and finish reading this.

The damage is bad enough as is, and if you read this, and then click on the links to see the 80 others who supported this protecting our most Sacred of all Places you will find out why I am writing this.

It is not just land.

It is so much more….

I hate to break it to you, but, if we do not get more vocal about and more involved in protecting Mauna Kea AND the rest of Hawaii from all of this kind of crap, and instead of fighting over who is for or against the damned president or who owes who which piece of land…listen to me, please – for once in your lives would you kindly please read this entire writing, and know NOW that this is the thing that a lot of us fight for! Places that historically, culturally and Spiritually, in the very deepest part of na ʻiwi….the bones where it all lives within each of us.

It is part of our identity, you guys. Think about that one for a sec if you will please.

Lots of us are bugginʻ about other things…but what the hell about this?

I hear more about who owns which parcel of land but, you guys….this is the MOST SACRED PIECE OF LAND THAT IS OURS AND THAT THESE PEOPLE WANT TO FURTHER DESECRATE AND well, you also might want to think about the environmental impact that this thing will have. Read the article, like I mentioned, and then come back and finish reading this (please).

This is important for the generations of Hawaiians who, unlike me, unlike my kids, wonʻt get to see these things as they are NOW, let alone at some point in the future.

We are talking about MY future Grandchildren….MY Moʻopuna….. MY Hapa- Hawaiian Kidsʻ kids….and some of yours, too.

I will only be able to tell them about this place where I spent a lot of time when I was little (and bigger, too) , this place called Hawaii, that was one time one of the most beautiful places on this planet, and that their Grandmother – Me, and their parents and they, too – we all come from a Kingdom, that their Kanaka Maoli roots are firmly planted in their Grandma, their parents, and them.

If this sort of thing does not stop, there is the entire generation of parents who are now only beginning to become immortal through the passing on of their Maoli Ancestry to and through their grandkids.

We know that the blood will always run true, deep, and filled with Aloha but, the only Hawaii that they will ever know is the one that we recall, that their parents recall, unless we stop this shit….like, already.…namely you who sit in the offices of the OHA and who continue this madness of giving up of our ʻAina and our very ,very important and Sacred Places.

Mauna Kea is a giant, vital piece of our history.

….and that is not just us telling all those guys to STOP picking on the people of Hawaii, stop making it as though the more that we are made to fight, the less that we will have to fight for, because either way, you will take a whole lot of ….well, everything that we are about….but mostly our Sacred Nature as Ka Poʻe o Ka Wai….The People of the Water, on both sides of the water, away from us.

Again.

This is the part of me that can only hear my motherʻs voice in my ears, telling the child who was Me to appreciate my Hawaiian roots, because I come from a Kingdom. I can hear my fatherʻs mother, singing Hawaiian songs, teaching us about what it means to be Na Mamo….Keiki O Kaʻaina….the cherished children of the Land. I can see my grandfather sitting in his backyard here on the mainland, playing I Kona for my grandmother….I Am named after her.

I named my only daughter after me. Our inoa …our names, they tell stories. Mine is not different, but, it means something different for me than it did my grandmother, as much as it means something different for my daughter than it does for me. None the less, they are Ancestral names, and because I was raised Hawaiian I know these things. 

It is the same thing with our Sacred Places…I know these things. 

I grew up Hawaiian, in Southern California, but, this did not stop my mom from her….intention, and eventual manifestation, of raising good Hawaiians, and I Am only able to speak for myself, with my own kids as the culmination of those roots based in the Kuleana that is ours, as Hawaiian people, to honor the common things about us.

One of those common things about Hawaiians, the world over, no matter what – we are taught to live our lives as being a part OF the land, and not apart from it.

And so now, here we are, all of us, on this planet, telling the world that this Sacred Mountain is ours, and no fucking body asked us what we thought of their plans, NOT towards more scientific discovery, but, towards one more time people with too much money, too much education to the point of mind-bloat, too much say so and way too deaf ears to care, and sadly, lots of those people might have crazy 26 letter long middle names like mine and my Tutuʻs….but have only greed and false power in their hearts and minds, and to hell with the rest of us.

Fuck those guys.

Once you are done reading this, please click on the photo of the protesters, and listen to the song that is in our DNA as Kanaka Maoli.

It is bad enough that part of the land got sold to two rats…one from Anaheim, and, the other from cyberspace…and I am not going to give their names more power by writing who they are….Kanakas….we know which two vermin from the mainland bought property….a resort….and a compound….and both of those guys can fuck off.

Those two rats should not have been allowed to take more than has already been, and neither should this Sacred Mountain – Mauna Kea – be allowed to also be taken

This is not about real estate, and neither is it about money, at least not for us.

This is about who we are, and what we mean, to ourselves, to each other, to the keiki who call us Mom or Dad, Tutu, Aunty, Unko…

Stop taking the land.

Stop misappropriating our culture.

Stop acting like who we are does not matter

It matters enough to all of us who are screaming, loudly, from the pit of the volcano our song reverberating across the ocean….

Stop desecrating the Sacred Lands of Native Peoples.

#MaunaKea #ProtectMaunaKea #Lokahi #AlohaAina #ThinkAboutIt #NoTMT #GetTheFuckOUT !

From the mountains, to the sea…

Mt San Antonio/ Mt. Baldy

The Port of Long Beach

The Mainland Maoli Perspective of Mauka i Makai

Hawaiians.

We are inextricably connected to the sea, to the land, to each other. Those photos were taken  May 1st, which, all Kanaka Maoli know is May Day (and it is not only in Hawaii that the phrase “May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii”…it is wherever any one of us is…keep reading…). I was on a field trip with my Oceanography Lab class, my professor, one of those people who is so very passionate about what she does…she unwittingly reminded me of who I Am, at least in my own life, in the lives of those who I love the most, in the life that I live as a Hawaiian person born and raised on the Rockinʻ 9th island of California.

I learned a whole lot from this professor, but most of all, I learned how much I love my ʻaina…yeah – Southern California. I will not apologize for it, and neither will I ever make another excuse for this love, because it is where I was born.

It is my Hawaii. In fact, there are a lot of us here, in this state…it is OUR ʻAINA, and no matter what, like Kumu Mark Kealiʻi Hoʻomalu says…“Wherever I Am, Hawaii is there, too…”  and I totally live by that sentiment.

This is The Rockinʻ 9th, and he is one of our Rock Stars.

Again…this is All Us Guys over here on this side of the Pacific…this is OUR HAWAII…

I was born Kanaka Maoli, and my mom gave me a big gnarly Hawaiian middle name, taught me how, as a human being, I needed to behave, and most of all, she taught me, through her own show of aloha, by example, at least until I began to mold my own ways to my own self as a person, how to Malamaʻaina, how to live a lifestyle of Alohaʻaina.

She taught me to appreciate our love for the land, no matter where that land is, and she taught me to be very curious about the living natural world around us.

She taught  me that part of Mauka i Makai….to appreciate all I Am, and, as well, to appreciate my place in the energy that is protecting our ʻaina, Mauka i Makai…from the mountains to the sea. 

It took  little more than 49 years for me to understand what is my own love not just for the land, but also, my very deep love, my obsession for the ocean and all of its life beneath the surface.

I would…I Am a Pisces.

All Maolis -we are oceanic…in fact, all Polynesians are oceanic.

All Pacific Rim people…all oceanic.

We do things, #AllUsGuys, through the teachings that were passed down through the generations, from the ancient chiefs all the way to …haha…yeah – me, and everyone in my generation, on either side of the ocean….it is inherent, for us all….the concept of having a very deep love and respect for our lands, our oceans, and everything and everyone in between.

It took me time to really have love for the behemoth Pacific, the ocean which, as a child, and even until now…I felt powerless next to Her.

I knew, very young, that there is this instinct that all ocean people have…we know the power of the sea, and we know that we are here as stewards of the land we all live on, here to connect with the ground beneath our feet, and no matter where you live on this planet…the dirt that lots of folks want to believe is somehow not okay, will kill us, will not ever come off of our bodies if we do not hurry up to get some sort of detergent on it…because …you know – having dirty feet is somehow bad for us…. us Hawaiians do not adhere to that thought, at all, unless we are going to eat…and sometimes, some of us, donʻt care then, either …yeah, itʻs gross but….still, the dirt is not going to hurt you.

It isnʻt. This is just what we were told, just what our Ancestors were made to believe,  a very long time ago, and long before any one of us was alive, even most of our parents and grandparents.

It is not a sin, first of all, to love the olive toned skin you are in, and no – not now, nor has it ever been a bad thing to get your hands AND your feet dirty, to get your manicured hands into some dirt and feel the life that is there.

That energy that you feel is not some nasty critter that is going to make you sick. That is your own aversion to having dirt on your hands because you were taught that it is shameful to have dirty hands.

No the fuck it ainʻt.

In fact, for a whole lot of us, and many whose lives I have, even for a brief moment, been an influencing factor in, in terms of remembering what too many of us have not ever been told….because, for the most part, it is just inborn, in all Maolis, in all Native Peoples…please…hoʻolohe mai….pay attention…

We are a part OF the Earth…and never have been apart FROM it…

On May Day this year, I went on a field trip with my Oceanography class at school.

I have not been the same since. I have come to love my fellow humans, even as they are fairly misguided, egotistical when it comes to their own carbon footprint, believing that by right of their birth into this consciousness as Ka Poʻe O Ka Wai – The People of The Water – that somehow, by some sort of Ancient magick they are excused from the ancient “thing” that we all know about, because we are raised to know it….to Malamaʻaina…to care for the land, again – no matter where it is that you call Home….you gotta malama your ʻaina, no matter what. 

Being born Pacific…you are most responsible, with your Kuleana in place and in your face….you have to do what your ʻAumakua have been SCREAMING AT YOU TO DO, which is CLEAN YOUR DAMNED MESS..no be lazy, yeah?

It is one thing to know that we are part of the vast Pacific Ocean, but, is quite another thing to experience this knowing while on a boat on this side of the Ocean, in my ʻaina, called Southern California, right here at the Port of Long Beach.

It was one of the best, most spiritually Kanaka day I can recall, and one that I KNOW my ʻAumakua chose, specifically for me, for nothing else than to be able to remember Who exactly it is I Am.

And it was my haole teacher from Germany who was once one an Earth Sciences  Professor at Texas A&M, who chose to teach at the JC level, so that she could plant it in the heads of students who would choose to go on to University level studies in anything having to do with the environment, the epitome of this great love for the sea.

It seemed impossible to me, until that day, for me to think that anyone who was not somehow culturally connected to the ocean to love it as much as anyone Maoli does.

This woman from Texas, originally from Germany,  proved me WRONG.

She was all over that boat, not even really making a big huge deal, at least not immediately, about the idea that all of us were just in awe at the day  – beautiful, bright, sunny, even as it was a little chilly. It was the very epitome of #TheRockin9th island which I love so damned much – California.

The reason that we went was that it was a requirement, and I know that the reason why I had to wait to pass that class and why it took as long as it did…it was because even as I have always known who I am in the Hawaiian way, I still did not know what it meant to appreciate what is here, as opposed to there in the Motherland of Hawaii, in terms of our environment.

It was like being a 7 year old kid, all over again, first time on a boat on the Pacific Ocean, the wide and bright sky above us, the birds chasing us….and yeah hahahahahahahaaa…dolphins…lots and lots of happy, playful dolphins, surrounding the boat (they LOVE the waves created by the boat) and right out there, just a little ways away from the port.

Out on the surface of the water, even though for a long while, I have had issues with feeling confined, of feeling like if I do not feel comfortable someplace that I have to have a way out….#PTSD is a son of  a bitch if it is not controlled by the person who experiences it…for the first time in a long time I was free.

There is a group of people who knew, and still know, that I was freaking out until that day, which was a day that, like just a very few others, made a huge, permanent mark on my psyche, and all the way down to #TheBonesOfTheSoul in me.

The only other dates?

Feb 8, March 8, March 11, June 17, July 19, July 24, April 8, June 8….

I donʻt have to tell anyone what the significance of those dates are.

They just are.

Mauka i Makai 101

So, we had this assignment, and that is why every term, this professor assigns two field trips for all of her classes. Little had any of us known that the project that we were assigned that we presented yesterday for our final exam was part of the reason for our going on the CalState research vessel….the Yellowfin…

On that day I came to terms with my fear of closed spaces, even though we were in the  most open space that this state can even think it has – off the coast here in California, on a research vessel, out on the vast Pacific Ocean which connects all of Polynesia, and all Polynesians.

That day taught me a whole lot, but, the thing that it taught me the very most about is how dearly we humans, but very very dearly all us Maoli people, are connected, not just to the sea, but to the land…Mauka i Makai….from the mountains to the sea….

The Sea, she taught me much on that day.

She taught me to appreciate everything that is ours at birth, and as a Maoli mom who has always taught her Kanaka kids this way of life, I see through the eyes that are the Ancients, that are my ʻAumakua, that told me the story in completion as our time on the boat grew nearer to a close. Going back to the harbor was not the same experience I had had in the past.

This time, when I looked at the surroundings, and even when we went to the Southern California Marine Institute I could sense my ʻAumakua there with me, speaking to me as I looked into the live tanks of black sea bass, “petting” them as they circled near me in the pool they were being observed in and that was no where near what they, in the wild, are used to.

On the ride back to Mt Sac the feeling in my soul was that I knew my place, that I had already been there, in that place, and that it was, through that professor and her prompting us that the reason we study the ocean is because the ocean gives us what we need in more ways than we believe it does – and there is no DC hired scientist who will be able to get it past ANY Polynesian person, but specifically not this one writing this, that we are not making a bigger mess of this planet every single day, that we are not fooling ourselves, that, worst of all, we are not making the excuse that we each wonʻt live forever, so we might as well party not just like rock stars, but rock stars like Motely Crue AND Def Leppard, back in the 80s and 90s, at the same party, without any sort of thought in our heads that the damage we do, no matter what, impacts life on this planet.

I had a lot of time to think about our health and wellness in terms of the environment, and my professor…hahahahaa…told me when we were choosing our topic that since I was choosing what I know so well – the creation of health and wellness using only what we are and have, no matter what our body type is, from the damages done to us in the emotional, and sometimes physical sense, that a lot of us encounter in life through domestic abuse.  She, even as she laughed about her own comment regarding Yoga and meditation and picking up cigarette butts off of the beach, had no idea what I would be presenting when I told her that I would be “presenting the very Hawaiian way of life called Alohaʻaina,” and that through it, I would also tell my younger classmates about their part in all of this caring for the land that they are part of.

In 18 weeks, in a lab classroom on a college campus in Walnut, CA, I learned and remembered what is so vital to us as Polynesians, as a tribal people who has collectively endured, all the way down to our very DNA, the atrocities that people the world over are very dearly aware of.

If we are to save ourselves, we must carry the energy that is malamaʻaina, and it HAS TO BE MAUKA I MAKAI – from the mountains to the sea, no matter what part of the world you call home.

Wherever we are, our Ancestors walk with us, live within us, teach us through others what we so dearly need to know.

Through these 18 weeks I remembered who I Am.

I remembered that as Kahuna, I have a Kuleana, NOT to practice the weird things that I love about all things spiritual, but, that it is my duty to live as the example, no matter what it is that I am doing. 

Whether I am explaining that there is no such thing as “earthing,” or that Hula is not just some pretty dance done primarily by brown-skinned women from across the sea, or that aloha is not just a word to us and it is not the fuck for sale…. no matter what, it is my duty to teach others that it is a gift to be part of, rather than believing that we are all apart FROM the earth. (and for the record – EARTHING IS A STUPID NAME FOR SIMPLY TAKING OFF YOUR SHOES AND BEING A NATIVE HUMAN BEING….it is FUCKING STUPID…eh – haoles….stop renaming ancient things as though your fuckinʻ asses “discovered” something new…taking off and going no moʻ shoes is a NATIVE thing– we ainʻt the ones who invented shoes – that would be YOUR ancestors. Leave Ancient Things ANCIENT…I said it…deal with it…)

The time, you folks, is now, to remember who you are in the great big WE who is the collective of Native Peoples around the world. It does not matter one bit that your car is nice, or that you live in a giant house in a private community –  you folks are the ones who I Am shouting this to the very loudest and the very most. 

We are not now, nor have we ever been apart from the ground beneath our feet.

We have believed the very colonial way of thinking that we are here to be in servitude to the almighty dollar, but what happens when currency no longer has the capacity, simply because there just is not enough, to clean up the messes we have, as human creatures, made, all in the name of having a better car, a nicer house, a big fat business that ignores the needs of this planet that we are all living off of, like parasites without regard to what we are doing. 

We must malamaʻaina, live in the energies and actions that are Alohaʻaina, must think about it every time we decide that throwing that plastic water bottle on the ground or those grocery bags that too many creatures have met their demise because of, and in some cases, have become extinct, into the storm drains, or even into the wrong waste bin provided by your city. 

No one can make the Ancient Soul within me, and neither can any human erase the message that the ocean told me, through the birds, the dolphins, the water surrounding us all that day in May –  no one can tell me that we are not responsible for any of these things that are daily, by the minute, killing our common Ancestor, the mother who is all of ours. 

No one can tell me, namely if the only thing that anyone will say to me is that the earth was here long before we were, and it will be here after we are gone. This is the truth – but, what those people do not understand is that whatever we do or do not do now, in service to, through constant stewardship, through Alohaʻaina, for this planet, we also do or do not do for our own descendants.

You either care or you are careless.

You either know that everyday is a chance to lend to the healing of the planet, or, you know that you are making it worse with your indifference, and by that inaction, might as well just stand at the storm drains and pour chemicals into them without regard, might as well dump your used motor oil, your pet waste and some soiled diapers there, too. 

You know that you are ON the planet, that you do not own it, that you truly do not even own everything that actually owns you, all by right of how much you spent on it, or how long it took you to have it, and it is a rare person who can look past all of that to the truth. And the truth is fuckinʻ ugly, because the truth tells us all that we are who has caused this damage, some of it irreversible, most of it by things that a misguided populace has been told to take as not being something that we can do anything about. This is the biggest lie of all. 

The thing that we can do the most is remember that we are part OF, not apart FROM this planet. Once a person does that, everything else falls into place. 

Imagine, if you will, what it would look like if All Us Guys practiced this, for real, for just one day. One day of our lives to love our common ancestor – Mother Earth. 

Once we, as human beings, and more, as Keiki o kaʻaina, even if the ʻaina is NOT Hawaii Nei, ACCEPT our Kuleana as stewards of the land and place ourselves in that energy, it all changes immediately.

All it takes is a clue and a whole lot of Aloha.

Do like your Tutu Aunties taught you, taught us all….clean up your damned mess, you folks! No make messy….

Indeed…no make messy…need to be all pau making messy….

#ListenToTutu #MalamaAina #AlohaAina #NoTMT #ProtectMaunaKea #NoMakeMessy #LosAngelesKahunaRox #SoulFusion22 #PlantMedicine #LaāuLapaAu #AncientThings #NoMoShoes #SCMI #ARISE #ANAPISI #MtSac #Aspire #DREAM

 

Dashboard Mentality

Since when did anyone Maoli look like, act like or live like this???

” …Now this looks like a job for me …So everybody just follow me…’Cause we need a little controversy…” (Mr. Mathersʻ Empty Without Me) 

Seriously

When in the hell did anyone whose ancestral name has uku-plenty vowels in it look anything like those plastic dolls?

When in the hell was it that somehow, and since the rest of the tribal peoples in this country are already in the faces of those who would dare turn us into….just another fuckinʻ Halloween costume idea, just another stereotype, just another thing to make a few bucks off of our culture and everything about us, namely and including the one that Hollywood and the television and film industry, from the moment that movies could be made and music could be recorded, created for us….when the fuck did any of us tell anyone at all that this is who we are, or rather -that this is somehow acceptable?

It ainʻt.

When in the hell was it, again, that we looked like these ridiculous renditions of what we are so not?

Mr. Mathers had it right….hahahahaaa this looks like a job for me, to remind everyone, on either side of the water which too many people wanna believe divides us when in reality, it is like the magic elixir, the potion created by the Earth, the shit that makes us who we are, regardless if we are on this side, or that side, that connects us…..#AllUsGuys on this side of the water, and #AllUsGuys who call the #OG8 home…

…and you thought you could make us hate each other.

Or maybe you didnʻt.

Maybe all of you who have no idea of who we are for real did not realize that we, no matter which side of the water anyone of “We” are…#AllUsGuys want you to know that your assumptions of us, namely the ones that make it so that you get to make some money off of your bad jokes, your thoughts that we will be cool with whatever it is that you THINK you are going to get away with, and that only now are you and yours beginning to understand that your great-great-great-great-great-great granpappy was not aware that our Ancestors would also beget descendants.

And I am pretty certain that said same great-great-great-great-great granpappy did not think, for real, that anyone indigenous would be so not cool with all this bullshit about he-said-she-said whatever he or she said about indigneous people and how it is that your great-great-great-great-great granpappy (and plenty of that guyʻs descendants) believed then that we would not, as much as lots of people believe the same bullshit about us to be the truth and assuming that we are not going to stand up and onipaʻa for our own….

Guess the fuck again.

I might not be the only one who does, but, I know that I am one of very few who is on this side of the water who is no longer choosing to play nice with people about what the fuck you think of my people, or any people who ainʻt of the colonial mindset.

Yeah I have been gone from these writings for a little bit of a long time now and in that time away from my keyboard I have been there at the forefront of things that have everything to do with Native People of all origins on this side of the water and apparently I Am that One Heebie-Jeebie Aunty called Rox who is in your face and up your okole about things of  Maoli Nature.

It has become my….Kuleana….to teach the things that are the truth of my people, of human beings and to not give a tiny little pebbles worth of a shit about what anyone thinks of what I say or that does not match what they want to assume of any of us.

This includes a few of my own people who believe that we who call this side of the water our ʻaina are somehow damaged and no the hell we are not – all we are is over here, and some of us were born here.

Deal with it.

Deal with the idea that there are a lot of us all over this planet, and that if anyone over there wants to tell us that we who are Maoli over here are not as Kanaka as anyone would be….go tell my mom that, and see what that Tutu Auntie named Sheila has to say about what you think of her eldest daughter out in the world defending our values, growing our culture, on this side of the water, on a college campus even, making certain that our culture lives on, one student at a time, one faculty member at a time, one human who has no real clue about who we are for real, at a time.

And if you donʻt like it, bite me.

When the hell did I stand to listen to people who want to make certain that the division between us that is not even real is still the realest thing to a lot of people who are still hurting from the cellular level? It is not okay that you compare you folks there with us guys here. To continue that madness, which really – not one of us here cares to carry it on because we are all the same big giant bambucha kine Royal Family and in order for that to be the energy that we give to the rest of the world ya kinda gotta let go of your ridiculous hatreds of things and namely YOUR OWN PEOPLE over here…that ainʻt cool and you actually NEED OUR NUMBERS so, please do not forget that shit – and hahhahahahahaaaa all those colonial ways that you detest?

DIVIDING US BY AND PITTING US AGAINST EACH OTHER IS ONE OF THEM !!!

Stop being so lolo about things, okay? We have a culture to take care of and we over here are not lesser than you over there. I do not know who keeps on making you think that way but stop – it really is a very small number of you who still harbor hatred for people who were not there when those hatreds began.

Your silly okoles were not there – so, knock that shit off already – we have work to do.

Your strengths and abilities and that beautiful inborn Maoli Soul is what is needed and not all this self-hatred that you do not realize you are actually showing the world. How in the hell do you expect to come from strength when what we are being prodded to do TO each other is fight with each other using the weaknesses that others placed on us?

And I am making no apologies for the shit that I say, write, do, that may offend those who have no fucking clue about how offensive it is to see shit like that picture that was not just sent by one young person, but several….and I dislike it, a whole lot.

I dislike the idea that these…dolls…while I know that anyone with a clue and  brain in their heads will not ever see these kinds of things as the truth of us….it still pisses a lot of us off, and namely when it is that I do not know of any young Maoli women, from any Pacific Tribe, to EVER LOOK LIKE THOSE DOLLS, EVEN VOLUNTARILY even though HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA I AM THAT VERY AUNTY WHO WILL ENCOURAGE THE YOUNG WOMEN OF MY ANCESTRY TO DO WHAT IT FEELS LIKE THE WORLD DID FOR YEARS and when you choose your Halloween costumes this year, girls….hahhahahahaaa dress up like these ugly dolls….all the way down to the pink hair, and why?

Because we can, and how funny it would be to take pictures with all those people who dress up like they think we do…for, of all things….HULA….

I mean really, bitches? This is what the fuck you think I look like dancing that dance? This is what you think I teach? This is what the beauty that is the most recognizable icons of the Hawaii Maoli culture is to you?

Aye yuh….get it straight, folks

….that dance, no matter what an actual Island Person wears, NEVER looks plastic.

It canʻt….here I am in jeans and a tank top…not looking like the botox Queen who I wonʻt ever be and I probably look not a thing like those fuckinʻ stupid plastic dolls do.

For the record, the photo below it?

Same thing….

Click on the photo to support MAOLI WELLNESS !! #StrongHealthyAndBadass

These are the Maolis at school. To learn more about the AANAPISI program at Mt. San Antonio College, ARISE, please click on the photo to go to the website.

 

 

I have been all over this ʻaina, this place I call #TheRockin9th and been talking to people and correcting their thought that has been wrong since the days of the Kingdom of Hawaii being stolen from my Ancestors all that time ago, and I even got a chance to make it and KEEP ON GETTING THE CHANCE TO MAKE IT known publicly that the way that we treat others is the way that we will be treated in kind.

Regard this writing as my responding in kind….

And it might be anything but kind, the things that you are reading here, and it is with grand purpose that it be stated….yup yup…hahahahahahaaa I Am going to turn out to be quite the college educator when time comes for it, and I have the nerve to get here in front of the world and let yʻall know about it…let yʻall in on the fact that we are needed, all us akamai guys whose faces have been “in the books” our entire lives, telling the tale with out saying a word that, even way back then when the coolest alien known to anyone was Chewie from Star Wars….we knew who we were.

When I was a little girl in Private (colonially thinking) School, from the time that I was in Kindergarten until I graduated from public high school (where at least they were curious about my culture…never mind that the swim coach put me in detention every time I chose to tell him he was wrong about us….keep reading hahahahaha) – the photo up there depicts what I can only call the wrongest thing about us, and more wrong than is the famed and fabled dashboard hula girl.

It is wrong because for all of my life, and within my specific generation, no matter how exotic we were (and the fuck ARE still) and no matter how much more we knew about our own selves, no matter what the hell we were able to do as those Maolis, some damned….Haole…Palangi…”descendant of colonists”…always had shit to say, even if the smirk on their face was what was “said.”

To those of you who do not realize that each time you …create…what you think is the truth of us, NAMELY of us Wahine….in our Native image, what in the fuck it is that you think is cute, I will have you know that it is only cute if you are fucking idiot, and it is only cute if you canʻt think past grocery store math, and it is only cute if you are one of those people who like saying that “some of my best friends are (insert Native or darker shade of beautiful human race member here)” ….but for real, it ainʻt cute when you are one of us, and it ainʻt cute when you are not willing to see past what you refuse to see is WRONG. 

And it is wrong that there are people who have tried to use our language for their means to their monetary ends. It is wrong that you believe that just because it is a National Park that somehow you have the fuckinʻ right to invade, and it is wrong that every time we turn around, someone else is calling our Sacred Homeland – The Kingdom of Hawaii – “property,” “real estate”….anything but what it is – which is Sacred Ground for us all.

In the name of all that is Sacred, in fact, I could bind you, all of you demons who seem to think that we are who needs to let shit go, who are in the mindset that since the military is there, somehow, we will stand down and let you trample what is rightfully ours…namely that thing called our culture, which we will not allow you people to do what you think you can, which is continue to (try) to kill it again by completely bastardizing our arts, our foods, our language (really mother fuckers?) and to exploit who we are, using the “50th state” excuse, every time.

You canʻt – we will not let it die, and we will not, as you are all finding out, let your sorry asses get away with it.

We will stand proudly in your faces, no moʻ shoes on, speaking the way that our Ancients did back then and now, as they speak through us….the time has come, you guys….we are here to collect on generations of taking what is ours and turning it into whatever the hell it was that anyone would think was correct.

It was not one event, nor one slight, neither was it anything that was in the news that I am writing about or that caused me to write this – it has been waiting to have wings for weeks now.

It is the culmination of all the things and ways of being that too many people thought would be okay to take and to turn into your profits and then leave in your wake of bullshit all this mess and then have the nerve to think that we are who is wrong for not wanting your people to continue to whore our culture out like you have been doing for longer than I have been alive.

When we are talking about the misappropriation of another culture, and are talking about specifically OUR MAOLI CULTURE….up until ….Mark Kealiʻi Hoʻomalu and the Kam school choir back in the days of Lilo and Stitch got it right…you are talking about a group of people (read: My Generation of Maoli people being prodded on by my motherʻs generation of Tutu Maolis…) who are not going to stop until you get it – you can no longer take and have what never was yours to begin with. You can no longer stop us from being who we are and you and the fuckinʻ Kodak hula show can no longer make a mockery of what is so essentially ours that it would take the entire army of Maolis the world over to make it well known that the shit stops here and now.

I grew up on the Mainland, USA, and even back in the day, when Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker hung out with a big hairy guy named Chewie….and long before that time which was 1977 I have been righting and correcting people. My mom taught me that no matter what – I Am Hawaiian, always. At that time, she was telling me this because of all of the Hawaiians who wanted to continue to compare who we are over here with who they were over there.

When the time came and the Maolis of my generation who were born and raised on this side of the ocean were able to get out there in the great big world and be all the Hawaiians we could be, it was the world that tried to shut us up, and here we are now, where that same world would like to shut us down, via the wrong use of our language and court filings over it where people who have no right to use what is ours without some sort of permission are being told to go fuck themselves, via the idea that this shit called “earthing” is actually a very ancient thing and there is no need to label the fuck out of it -simply just take your god damned shoes off and do like the People of the Pacific Ocean from the very highest top of that ring of fire to the very bottom lowest way down yonder way in Australia….you donʻt need to keep on taking what is not yours and renaming it to be yours.

I suppose that my point with all of this is that my mom used to show her colors, for real, when I was a kid. She was not shy about calling people out, or more than that, calling people “damned haoles” if it suited the moment.

Lately, we have been having a LOT of those moments, and over the course of the last few years, I guess people have figured out that we actually come from warriors, that the beautiful place that is our ancestral home has been taken, again and again, and in the midst of all of this shit that this fuckinʻ guy in the oval office has allowed, we, ourselves, wonʻt ever allow it.

We will never ever stand down….

And no….we are not plastic….

HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA

Those dolls….I MEAN REALLY???? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA

….HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHHAAAA

WOW LAU LAU HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

#TheRockin9th #LosAngelesKahunaRox #MainlandMaoliGirl #HeebieJeebieAuntyRox #TheCottellWitches #MtSac #ARISE #AANAPISI #Hula #LiloAndStitch

To Maoli People Worldwide…Malama YOURSELF

It is not too late

OKAY so….this is not only for just MY specific people – Na Kanaka Maoli, and neither is it ONLY for the rest of the global Maoli tribes….but for the Tribe called The Human Race…but really, I would like for those of the Maoli persuasion to PLEASE…kokua me and hoʻolohe – TRY LISTEN, YEAH????

It has been a long while since I have written any of my blogs.

It is with good reason – I have been recreating my own life.

In doing so, I have rekindled my own love for being Strong and Healthy, like all humans ought to be, but in particular, my fellow Maolis worldwide.

And to my Maoli Sistahs all over the world

I want you to think about all of the people in your lives who are sick – I mean really sick, with chronic conditions that seem to have taken our loved ones to that place where we feel like there is no returning from anything that we think is permanent. The only thing that stays permanent is the thing that is human and inside of us – that thing is called the Will to Live coupled with the desire to Thrive.

Throughout the course of  my almost 50 years on this planet, the thing that was the message to me, and the thing that no one thought that I would take to heart, and the thing that I turned around and keep turning around, is the lie that we are told, throughout the course of our lives, that tells us that we are GOING TO live through the familial curse of not just bad emotional habits, not only bad physical habits, but, the bad habit that is mental and that brings into play the Soul, the Body, the Mind…all in an unconscious assault, not only on our bodies, but, on our lives.

I am talking about our collective propensity, due to genetics, bad habits, and yeah…the belief that we are just going to have to get sick with the thing that me and others like me call “The Family Curse” which, I have chosen to call the biggest load of bullshit that any one of us has chosen to believe as also being our story which ultimately brings the end of our own personal stories.

I Am not different – I also have a story that is just like any one of ours, and the sad part is that what is being shown to the world (since the early 2000s) is that along with all of the health issues that we are told we are predisposed with (heart disease, stroke, diabetes, breast cancer) our plight as victims and survivors of domestic violence is now out there for everyone to know about.

DV brings another health issue – a mental health issue, and this Wahine knows what those issues can bring in to anyoneʻs because for the majority time of my adult life, I was someone elseʻs victim of violence.

It took me a long time to come to terms with that word “victim” and in that time that passed, in that time that I was balancing those things out in my head, I learned that when we choose to create a certain sense of balance in one area of our lives, that quickly afterwards, the other areas also become that much more important, and far more than they were prior to that realization.

The thing that I learned about was that there are things in our lives that will cause us emotional turmoil, and for the most part, those thing have to do with three areas of our lives that are part of what we have been told are our survival areas – they are our family life (and family ainʻt always blood), our working lives (and yeah, I am aware that there are a whole lot of us in my generation and who are also Maolis who are trying to find something that fulfills us as much as it pays our bills) and yeah…our relationships with the people who we are closest with (and more importantly, no longer talking with those who we once were close with and who we have less in common with than we did at one time in our lives…please, keep reading…).

The last 7 years have been very revealing for us all, and in that time, we have, as a culture, as a people, as Maolis, watched things go out of control, watched our people become more and more public in our fight for our identity (throughout Pacifica), and most of all, we have been trying hard to make sense of all of the changes that we feel are being done without our say so.

People, all of the things that we have lost, and all of the time that we have taken to dramatize over those material losses have caused a whole lot of us to experience health that has become questionable – what we lost, at least a lot of us, is our belief that we can live in a state of wellness.

We are not as sick as we used to be, as a people, but, there are too many of us who have chosen to just …wear…the illnesses that we have been told, for all of our lives, and all of our mothersʻ lives, all of our fathersʻ lives, our brothers and sisters lives, our Aunties and Unkos lives, our cousins lives….and of course, our own very lives…that no matter what we try to do, we will always be stricken with these maladies that happen to the body, so we might as well just accept it that way.

I call bullshit.

And eh…no get all okole sore because I cuss a little bit (or even a whole lot) and no get futless because I write the things that we all know is real but that we have, and in the cellular manner, just invited and even allowed these things to become our reality.

I Am living proof that not one of us HAS TO go through what we think we do, in terms of our health, and we can teach our children to be #StrongHealthyAndBadAss….and yeah, it matters, given that we are not in these bodies into eternity, as much as we are that much in our spirits. 

My own parents, even as they are well into their years, were able to manage, in particular, my mother, over the course of my lifetime, to maintain whatever level of lesser-than-healthy level of health…because she bought into the lies. She accepted that she would also have to go through what she is going through right now. She believed in her lesser vitality much more than she believed that she could do something about it that would have at least eased it some and not make it so that she would have gone through what my kids and I watched her go through.

I am made aware that she is doing better and getting better.

I Am more aware than I have ever been that her health issues could  have been avoided had she just been able to think another thought – had she just believed that she could be who was in control of her wellness I would likely not be studying to become a wellness professional in every sense of the word – personal trainer, and yeah…hell yeah….life coach studying to teach at the college level, all these things that keep us healthy and well in the mind.

This is not saying that there are some of us who live a lifestyle of wellness who are not, right now, battling things that they WERE preparing for…because sometimes, it just happens….

HOWEVER….and for the most part, in regards to how much all humans believe in the worst and need proof of the opposite of “the worst”

For MANY Maolis, from ANY island nation, the truth is that we are so inclined to take on the energy of our being those people who eat everything, who live to eat everything, and who have a very ….unrealistic…way of looking at our health. We want to be able to eat what we want, and we want to hang on to those ugly memories that broke our hearts as children and that have the propensity still of giving us those energies and those feelings that cause us to have an actual physiological response to the things that we emotionally experience.

When we believe in our sick thoughts that are rife with emotional poison, and we believe that we are caught forever in a spiral of Karma that brings us back to the place where that same belief in our lesser state of health and wellness….we end up presenting to the world that belief and we are not aware of it until we get a diagnosis.

For me, that diagnosis was #PTSD

#AllUsGuys are very feeling people – I mean, we are Ka Poʻe Aloha – The Aloha People, and by that much alone, we are born into the energy that is #LiveALOHA, that is thriving in the love that is ohana (even if that ohana is NOT your blood), that is a rich spiritual life (no matter if your particular black book is a Bible or your Book of Shadows…okay, so my black book is called my Book of Secrets but that is neither here nor there…again, please keep reading…) that is a life that you create but one that you are likely NOT planning to be sick in the body throughout. 

For the record, I am certain that I never ever offered myself and neither my soul up to the gods of modern conformity, and I never wanted to be the target of bullying adults as a child, and neither was I prepared for the long lesson in what is not love through a marriage that lasted far too long to the very wrongest of men and a man who was not able to tame or train his own personal demons and who took his shit out on me.

…all that stuff took its toll on me emotionally.

I had to figure out a way to not have to suffer the thoughts that would have dearly caused me, had I not at least done that much, to slip into bad health habits which most assuredly would have also caused it that I would go through the things that too many of us volunteer for, which is typically just believing the things that we have been told about disease and how we end up sick in the body. I had to choose to save my own life, in lots of ways, but the one way that I had complete control over was choosing to thrive, even with all of the bad habits in every way that I watched a lot of people in my family accept as their own fate, accept as the family curse and what no one thought about was how that “curse” carries on.

I thought about it, still think about it, and it is the reason why I have become not only an advocate for nonviolence in all of our relationships but more, doing that thing that we think is only meant for the Land, for the ʻAina that, for generations we have collectively fought for and still fight for…our lands …our ʻAina…our Hawaii Nei….but even those lands are not going to mean a thing if collectively we are too sick in the body to do more than just enjoy the memories instead of also doing everything that we can to create more.

We have to want to be healthy, and we have to want to learn another way to believe that we will be able to carry on, to thrive and to be everything that we are meant to be and want to be and how much it means to any one of us at all that we be here to experience our lives to the very fullest. We have been taught the colonial ways of life, and it is what has taken too many of us for far too long to undo the idea that we CAN change things for ourselves.

We have been given the repetitive theme song of a lot of our lives that we are fated to these ailments that truly – even as we are born into those energies, we are the ones who have to make them real.

The way that a whole lot of us has made those things real is to believe that we will end up being sick like our ancestors. We have bought into the idea that we have no way out of the ailments. We talk about them like we own them, like they are ours and like no matter what – we are GOING TO get sick.

I was different.

I Am still different.

I learned, very well, the lesson that she doesnʻt know she taught me…

I chose to learn the things that my mother does not know that she taught me.

I love her like a good kid would but, I could not and still will not, agree with the belief in the strength of acquiring the same life-limiting ailments, never ever thought one time that those things would befall my life and they have not. It is not only because I refused to get physically ill and refused to let the physical body and the belief in the mind that everything that I saw happen to my mother over the course of my life would also be the thing that took me out – I would not, could not, will not ever, as much as I can help it, let that happen.

I am still not wanting that happen and I do not want it to happen to any of my global family.

This is a plea to us all – Please… Kokua me and take your health seriously. 

You do not have to believe that you are cursed to be sick, just because your Tutu  guys got sick. 

Even though I watched lots of my ohana get chronically ill, and while I have had my fill of the stories of maintaining those illnesses just enough for anyone to talk about them constantly, I chose, years ago, apparently, to NOT be one who believed it all.

And I repeat…I still do not.

I refuse to live with the belief that because it CAN happen, that I do not have the right, nor the ability, nor the desire to become all that I Am, and All That I Am in manifest.

I am not willing to state here that I am not somehow stricken with something (It is called the mental aspect of our health, but, I chose to also not let that become who I Am, either…) but even that is and has not been allowed to become who I Am. Rather, I use it to build Who I Am becoming, and the one thing that has been the very wish of my Soul, the one thing that I Love, the one activity – is Hula. 

Yes…our dance, and yes, I use it as a fitness tool and yes, I make no apologies for not teaching it the way that we typically do (even though that is also becoming the reality again, just not the way that I used to do it…you will all hear about that in the coming months) …and  yes, I have been able to watch not only the ones who I have already done this with, but, most importantly, I have experienced this…joy, this love, this….energy…again and again, all because I cared enough about Me to Be Me as I Am Now, which is very healthy, even though I have treated my own body as less than the Temple that It Is Meant As.

This applies to us all.

I often wonder why it is that we do not take better care of who we are, because we take care of our cars, and the house, and we take care of the garden, and the chickens and pigs and all that other good kind stuff…and even though at this time in our history as human beings on this planet, we are very much more aware of our health than we have, as a species, in many generations – still, there are a whole lot of us who believe that caring for our entire selves is somehow …a colonial thing, rather than a human thing.

We have been taught that if we get sick, it is because someone went put a heebie-jeebie on us, or, maybe because Karmically we earned it and on that you would only be partially correct in that you , we, any one of us believed that shit – that we were fated to be sick in the body because we watched our living ʻAumakua get sicker and sicker as they got older, and throughout our lives, we chose to listen to their stories about their living ancestors at those times in our collective lives and some of us, myself included, decided that we would be who broke that chain of belief.

The women in my culture, even though we have been honored, there are plenty of us who might not be experiencing abuse on the physical level, but because we have listened to the things all of our lives that told us that we would never measure up, that our dead ancestors are watching us love people who our dead tutus would never want us to marry (for whatever reason anyone would have …most of them reasons born of racism and self-hatreds that are centuries old and no longer applicable on the personal and singular level) we have believed the abusive beliefs of those who came before us.

This must change.

This must change at the collective level, and we must desire to be that change, and we must take ourselves, and our lives, very seriously when it comes to our health and well being. We must Malama more than the ʻaina that we want to claim back as ours, and we want to thrive to continue to teach our children that they are Na Mamo, that they are the cherished ones who are meant to keep the Aloha Soul of the world alive and well. We are meant to be here for the purpose of Being the Aloha that we care to see in our lives and in this world. We are here to be more than just our roots, more than only what we have been told we are, because we are so very much more than only what we have been told. We are here to build the future with the past as the foundation of Strength, of acceptance of others, of being of good kokua, of being the willing participants of the collective Kuleana that is ours, which is to perpetuate our Selves…we can only do that if we are strong, healthy and as bad ass as we keep on telling everyone else on this planet that we are….

We have to take care of each other, and more than that  – we HAVE TO MALAMA OUR ENTIRE SELVES, NOT ONLY ON THE COLLECTIVE LEVEL AS AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, NOT ONLY AS THE MAOLIS WE ARE, FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA, but, as our very battle-worn, scarred and gorgeous selves as Souls….without it, we cannot expect to build the energy…we will be too sick in the body, the mind inundated with the thoughts that we are not in control of our health, our wellness, Our Selves…we are Ka Poʻe o Ka Wai…the people of the water…far more than that, we are Ka Poʻe Aloha…the Aloha People. It is time that we began to show our Aloha to ourselves as much as we #SpreadAloha to the world…we have to Malama our very selves. 

Our stories…they a beautiful, even as they are rife with pain. As much as they are rife with pain, they are rife with the richness and the beauty that is our struggle to Be Who We Are As We Are and As Those Who Are The Ones Who Pass On That Torch of The Aloha Soul, not only to Those Who Follow in Our Footsteps, but also, in this moment called Now, our very beautiful Aloha Selves as Souls….taking care of our own selves is key…so please do what you can for posterity….please take care of you. You are important. You are part of the collective of Ka Poʻe O Ka Wai…ours is the ocean to traverse, and on those travels we must malama ourselves. I will repeat it over and over again to please please please Malama your Selves as the ʻAina…we are the Land, the sea, the sky….are Ka Poʻe Aloha, and we are loved by the ʻAumakua whose mission it was for us to thrive so that we could continue the Aloha through the generations which come after our own…

Please…you folks, Malama….

It is that important…

#LiveALOHA #MalamaYourSelf #NoMakeHammajangs #LosAngelesKahunaRox

 

Auntie said NO! – Love Ought Not Hurt…

The saddest thing in the world to me at this time in our lives as Kanaka Maoli, is that we have yet to realize that it is now our generationʻs “turn” to create great change in our lives, specifically for Na Wahine….we need no more leis floating on the ocean…not one more…

I make it no secret – I am a survivor of Domestic Violence. 

I do not only recognize this month as the time of the year that we will raise awareness. When you are someone who has been there, done that and knows that you busted your okole just to get to safety, the last person who anyone wants to take to task is that person, that expert and as that expert and someone who raises awareness, I get a bit… nuha… about things.

Yeah…unfortunately, I Am a Domestic Violence expert, and the way that I got to be this was experience as someoneʻs victim. While I cannot state that the reason he abused me for almost three decades was that he was haole because not all haoles are evil. My ex was entitled, a spoiled brat, a person who liked things to look like they were lovely and quiet and idyllic, but things were anything but that. They were ugly, and that experience traumatized me. People in my extended family started talking stink about me, saying that I must like the dirty leekenz, making jokes at my expense and making my already shattered state at the time that much worse.

My life partner now, whose name is David, is not Maoli, but, in his heart and soul, he is every bit the guy who my mom would want me to have in my life.

For one good reason – David is not violent, at all.

He loves me.

He tells me this everyday of my life, and yeah, because he is not Maoli – of course he does not realize that pineapples are not indigenous to Hawaii. I was born here on #TheRockin9th….meaning that in the “where were ya born, mang?” sense of things, technically I am also not indigenous to the mother land, even though my roots are.

He calls me Pineapple… and it is fine that he does.

The reason being…???

The man has never raised his hand to me, and like all men, has raised his voice once or twice but, typically, he remembers that I am human and that even I, no matter how much he loves me, knows that I am not perfect…no one is perfect, and it usually is over something that might have offended him, or more – hurt him, something I said that triggered him, because he has been through what I have been through.

#IPV also is a guy thing, and one that a whole lot of men have gone through.

Women, I will agree, do things from an emotional place….it does not excuse it, but, it gives you a clue as to what happened to anyone when they were kids….yes, even men, and yes, in every way that a hurtful woman can hurt a man.

I am not the hurting sort, and he is well aware of this.

I Am Hawaiian.

We are raised to speak Aloha fluently, to live in the Love and Light that is Aloha.

It is my duty as part of that energy to do as I teach others, which is to remain in the Spirit that is ALOHA.

Sometimes, I will admit, I let my podaghee moutʻ get a bit on the waha side and when that happens, it is done so in writing, just like this is being done, right this minute. 

Anʻ I tell you folks what….I Am very GOOD at getting real, real….Wild Auntie….about things, but truly, dearly and definitely when it comes to our place in this world as Wahine but more, that our places in the world in the literal sense are free from abuse. 

In another writing, I let it be known that this is a very bad thing…and what is making it worse are television shows where the “stars” allow it that their abusers be allowed to come back into the home. And in that instance, as with many of them that we hear so much about – children are present. 

I am writing today on behalf of us all….even the guys….it is not that I am only addressing the issue that we are continually turning a blind eye to – #IPV, also known as Domestic Abuse …but more, that we have, all us sistahs, without our realizing it, become da Aunties of da world ….and on behalf of all of us, I have a lot to say today, namely to the women who comprise the Aunties of the world, but more, about the idea that it is ours, now, to help stop this other… disease…. this scourge called Intimate Partner Violence….Intimate Partner Violence…. 

So, yesterday, I wrote about #DomesticViolence, and how my kids and I were able, after a very, very long set of years, to make OUR abuser be gone from our lives. Currently, there is a court order – a few of them – that our abuser violated, and likely at the behest of a group of other abusers I know very well.

Wherever they are, those particular abusers, right this moment, to me, does not matter.

I am one of those people who believes what her mother told her and that is that “we ye sow, so shall we reap.”

And in my own language….anʻ harm ye none, do what ye will…. 

While I know that this is not our Ancient language, the meaning behind it is the same….do whatever you like do, but, no hurt anyone, yeah? (I Am from Los Angeles, and we have to adapt the things that we learned from our parents, the majority of them from that side of the water – I take the Wiccan Rede to be one of the most important pieces of literature for ALL humans to read and to adhere to…please….kokua me and keep reading….mahalo )

So, imagine what it must be like to hear that on both sides of the ocean, there is another “disease” that takes us out of life as does all the others that for generations, we have heard about and at least where I Am and some of my cousins are concerned, we have made it so that we are more aware of our health as being ours to take care of. Included in that “taking care of our health,” is keeping ourselves safe from harm. When the harm lives in your house, it is not easy to get away from.

Earlier I was asked about a couple of things, and one of those things was what it is that I have an opinion about in regards to how long it will be before there are new, unspoken rules, and when will it happen that those unspoken rules will become what we live by, and most importantly, when are the Aunties going to change it all up?

To which I only have to state to the women in my culture who are almost 50….sistahs – WE ARE THE AUNTIES NOW, meaning that we have some pull in terms of what is and what is no longer acceptable for the future of our people. The one thing that is MOST unacceptable to a whole lot of us is NOT floating leis on the ocean, but, floating leis on the ocean which memorialize one naddah sistah whose life was taken by someone else, taken through means of violence…

I Am made sick by the stories, stories of my cousins being in comas, fighting for their life, and tired of knowing that for a long time, my brilliant, multi-lingual cousin, and one who is in charge of the lives of others in terms of keeping families safe….also, in the emotional, psychological sense, as well as another who was swept away to the windy city, for as long as I was gone from what I knew to be real – to be and to have what every mother wants for her kids, but specifically her daughters, to have in their lives as the marriages that were our parentsʻ and marriages that to this day, have lived on and at this point for several decades.

Truly being “until death do we part…”

We are now the Aunties

We are now that group of women who, when we were children, were like our other moms – my life was rife with Aunties, and in my life, I can only recall my Auntie Liz and my Auntie Kalei and all the ones who were their Aunties and how much I loved those women, lots more than I knew I did.

They were who taught me that there is nothing more important than to Love other than to be safe. They were also who taught me that no matter what, as long as I knew myself, as long as I was a good kid, that one day, I would be rewarded for it all. This was my first lesson about Karma, about sowing what we reap.

You cannot imagine, like I cannot imagine, what must have gone through their heads when they learned of the uninvited energy that was violence against me, that was what I never saw, at least by my father to my mother.

I never thought that I would be an abused woman, but I was, and I never thought that what I saw others go through would also be what I would have to go through…yes – have to….because no one I knew or who knew me went through this.

If they did, they did a very good job hiding it.

My fatherʻs mother hid it, but we all knew Waltah was abusive, was a drunk, was someone who no mother of any daughter would want as their son-in-law. I recognized it after it was happening to me, and I was very vigilant in making that old man know that without a doubt, while many in the family knew and did not say anything about it to him, I did. And I did not care that that old fucker hated me for it, did not mind that I was that one who bothered to take it as a slight when I was told by a few people that I ought to just take his shit because that is how things were done – we let abusers abuse while we look away and no one will think that that shit exists in our family.

My grandmother hid the abuse as best she could, but I always knew.

When she fell ill after Waltah died is when, through her fading short term memory but her memories that made her flinch when someone was arguing, the way that she hid in her room when someone told her that my dad was going to be home…she went and hid in her room, sometimes crying could be heard through the door. I had no idea that what she was experiencing was her memories, and memories that were sparked by hearing me and my ex exchanging heated ill feelings for each other.

I never hid it.

Hiding it is not going to help stop the leis from being floated on the Pacific. Hiding it is not going to make it go away. Hiding it is not going to make abusers stop abusing.

Hiding is only going to make it grow moʻ big, because as a planting people, we know that Pō is the darkness, and in the darkness is when things germinate and grow and we also all know that eventually Ao will be what happens – the light will come and will show, through that light, the truth of things.

I made it known, and folks donʻt realize that I left more times than they knew I did, and that when I called on them, it was the last thing, and they were the last people who I wanted knowing, and it was because of my history with THEM excusing the abuse for the entirety of my life, and abuse that is now central to my research in the Psychology of Abuse, abuse which is the thing that fuels me, every single day of my life, to make it known to the world that we are pissed and we are no longer willing to be placed in memoriam, to be represented by a lei floating effortlessly on the Pacific Ocean.

The Truth of Things

The truth of things is that our women are dying at the hands of the people they chose to love. The truth of things is that our younger women are trying hard to not accept this happening but what they do not understand is that it is they who will stop it from happening to themselves, but for the rest of us, it will be Ka lahui wahine….all us Aunties who are now here and ready to tell all those younger women that they do not have to stay in the violence, that they are not meant to be targeted by anyone, and that most of all, we are here to listen to you, to help you, even if we are way over here on this side of the water. 

It is, in my opinion, our duty as these women in the collective lives of Maoli women everywhere to make them all know that the rules are being rewritten in terms of safety, in terms of good leekenz and when it is appropriate, of everything that we saw and felt was wrong but had to accept because it was our lives and our lives, at those times, as keikihine, were rife with abuse.

No one can tell me otherwise, and no one will make me believe anything else.

We have a very real problem with abuse in our culture, and for generations it has been ignored or worse – called discipline and either way, it was through those energies that abuse on women and children was made culturally acceptable.

It is so not.

Since when was it okay to make it appear that a woman or a child was somehow meant to be “disciplined” in the “old Hawaiian way,” and a way that keeps the elders in the family worshiped rather than honored ?

When was it okay that beyond reason, we are here to take more and more abuse, more and more people shaming us, teaching us how to hate those who are not Maoli, but at the same time expected to respect ourselves, and how can we do that when the elders in our lives helped promote the abuse, helped make it a joke, that thing called “Dirty Leekenz witʻ da mud on top” ? 

When are we going to make it that, as Ka Poʻe Aloha – the People of Aloha – we are the representatives of that in action as much as in our words, in our promises, in the way that we honor the lives of those who taught us, perhaps unwittingly, that corporal punishment is still acceptable, is still the way that people are made to respect others and when is it that we will no longer be who has decided for ourselves and the future that we do not accept this way anymore…that we never believed that in order for us to be good Hawaiians, we had to deal with really, really bad ones? 

You can get okole sore all you like but you cannot get away from the facts.

And you can sit there stating publicly or to yourself that I have been brainwashed by the smog and the hippies here in Southern California, can make this be one of those things where an entire whole of us will deny me what far too many of us agree on and that is that the time for dirty leekenz has truly come to its end. When the thing that kills women faster than will anything hereditary can, and when it is that entire families are still calling abuse – no matter what kind – discipline ….it means that the new generation of Aunties needs to now come to the forefront of these issues that are not just global, but, also is unfortunately part of our world as Maoli people.

Hui !! Sistahs…Hoʻonāna … please kokua me and pay attention…

Because we have each and all reached “Auntie Age” it is now upon us not only to preserve the things that make us be the people we are meant to be, Ka Poʻe Aloha…The Aloha People ….it is our kuleana to now take up the reigns and take all our behbehs into the future…for #AllUsGuys….so that those kids who call us Auntie, Mom, Tutu….so that those kids will know that they were born out of Love, that they are here for a reason and that reason is for them, not for someone else to decide. When was it ever a good thing that a child believes that he is the reason why his mom or dad or auntie or unko is behaving like a dickhead, and when was it that we, ourselves, ever thought that we were lolo and was it okay that we would be these people who those people, some of them, would take it upon themselves to carry on the tradition of violence at home?

When?

Never.

Thatʻs when.

This is ours, Sistahs, to make it our rallying call, our Kahea to the world that tells everyone living on it hoʻonānā and hoʻolohemai…. to pay attention and to listen… PLEASE LISTEN and KOKUA!

We are dying, you folks, everyday. Sometimes it is from illnesses that are hereditary, sometimes it is from an actual accident, and sometimes it is from the worst possible thing to have to live through…and sadly, we donʻt all live to tell the secrets we hold on to, out of shame, out of disbelief, out of the idea that our families will tell us that we deserved it, returning us back to those times when we were little kids and those same people blamed us for an adult going straight up pupule on a child, who beats that kidʻs ass with the family telling the kid that they should have behaved because if the kid would have behaved, the kid would not have gotten his or her ass kicked.

Granted, some kids get leekenz because I am certain that no one who has been told to not play with matches and then the house is set on fire is not directly related to it….even I do not have THAT much faith in people. THAT is different, but even THAT does not warrant an ass kicking that no one who is an adult can recover from, let alone a kid….my question there is who left the damned matches where he could get to them, and why is it that every time a kid fucks up, even setting the house on fire, that kid is a bad kid for the rest of his life? I was that kid…no one believes me. It was not my parents, but the assumption made by the conglomerate I called my family that opened the door for it to be normal to me…how many times has any one of us heard, in our lifetimes, and how many of us hear it in our sleep….”Hit first. Ask questions later” ? 

…and more…how many times did your auntie or your unko or your tutu or even one of your parents show you that it was their truth, that they were violent, and how many times did your family laugh, stating that that person was just like that?

How many times was it that you hid away in silence, tears rolling from your eyes, and how many times did you say you were sorry for pissing some adult off, and how many times did you hear the story about your evil deed as that child being repeated to the rest of the adults in your family….and more….how many times did your own parents just excuse the violence because for them, the violence was a normal everyday part of life and even though no one would say it – it was also, because of cultural norms that we now have the right, the power and the Kuleana – the DUTY – to change, not only for ourselves, but for the future generations of Maoli people the world over?

How many times…???

A lot…that is how many…a whole fuckinʻ lot….

On the whole we are a culture whose time has come where we have to stop this unneeded violence placed on to the women and the children of our people, of ALL people.

We have to #UnSilenceTheViolence, make it known that the days of unwarranted, and even warranted, Dirty Leekenz, needs to be made real. We no longer have to live in the energy that is the shame from the past.

We are the Aunties….and we need to change our world….

#UnSilenceTheViolence #NoMoreFloatingLeis #KaLahuiWahine #LiveALOHA #LosAngelesKahunaRox #StopTheViolence #NCADV #SouthernCalifornia #LosAngeles  #Hawaii #Maoli #Samoa #Tonga #NewZealand #AllUsGuys

ALOHA IS NOT FOR SALE

All Hawaii Join Together

I know, I know….it would never be this big of a deal if our peoplesʻ history was not what it was, and it would not be this big if we, as an indigenous people, had the same recognition that does every other indigenous people who call the USA their …place of address…because apparently, #AllUsGuys are not being taken seriously.

And we want people to take us seriously, and in not taking us seriously, we come to this breaking point where one might think twice about using words that have nothing to do with the thing at hand and the thing at hand, always for anyone Maoli, is that we are meant to preserve and protect our culture so that we can keep it alive.

We donʻt need baboozes from Chicago taking advantage of something that he barely knows the meaning of, all for the purpose of profit. Add to it the insult that is the letter written, NOT to apologize, because in order for it to be an apology, there has to be the element of empathy and in reading that letter I found not one tiny little bit of it – just more of the same thing….some damned settler telling us pretty much to get over it, with his covering his sorry ass with the words that only make us more angry.

And EH ! FRIEDLANDER…HOʻOLOHE MAI…PAY THE FUCK ATTENTION

You do not get to take advantage, then try to sue people, then expect those same people to give a shit about what you have to say in your defense, and really dude – that is all that was…your stupid letter is anything but sincere, and if it were, it would not matter because the bottom line is that we are not here for the further whoring out of our culture, and damned skippy we are NOT GOING TO TAKE IT VERY well and neither kindly if you decide that you somehow can make a buck and pretty much tell us that we have no choice in who uses our language for their own profit.

That ainʻt gonna fly, you bald headed man bitch…ever, ever, ever….oh, hello…let me introduce myself with my settler name….Itʻs Roxanne…but Hawaiians…shit, Maolis from all over Polynesia….refer to me as Aunty, or Mapu…and in either case, you probably do not want to argue with a wild heebie jeebie Aunty, and I know of no human being who trusts an ape to keep them safe….you donʻt want to argue with either

Either way, you are done. You pissed off an entire culture of people, and we even have one of our lawmakers in on it….you are so so so PAU HANA with your business venture.

I said it.

Deal with it.

You turned what is OUR culture into YOUR profit, then you went on to brazenly behave as though somehow we are all a bunch of stupid savages when in reality what you have in your face now is an entire nation of people who are fucking tired of who you people think you are. You are not the people who you want the world to think you are, and you are not here to make our culture any better with your pretty poke and your ugly face – besides, brah….RAW FISH AINʻT SUPPOSED TO BE DRESSED IN DRAG…and that is what your poke looks like..the drag queen of all poke.

And I promise…I have a LOT of friends who are drags, and none of them, after I told them to look at your post, cares to any longer eat your decrepit fish and only because your fancy fish can never ever come close to the Aloha involved in preparing the correct kind of poke – the kind that is prepared by your Tutu Lady in her kitchen in Pauoa valley in the city of Honolulu…for many, many generations.

You took what was ours and did so with little regard for an entire indigenous people. You stole it, tried to take it by force using the law, as if our word is your Standing Rock moment, and then tried to make it better with your phony apology (again…Standing Rock) – good gracious cannot have a bunch of indigenous people crawling up your ass for anything, right? And OH NO! Theyʻre EDUCATED !!!!

Yes. Yes we are…lots and lots of us are very well educated, and lots of us are sitting here looking at the things that your people think is ok to do because your ancestors did it to ours, and well, no can do, bruddah….that part of your peoplesʻ ugly, selfish, sheltered, greedy, vanilla-white-boring culture is OVER WITH.

Your blatant use of our language, and the lies told about their use, the way that you excused the use and then to try to make us believe that you are sorry for insulting us?

You need to think about the injury to an entire nation of indigenous people, and you need to realize that we are not in the times of the indentured folks, even though the guy in presidential office seems to believe that he will get away with the crimes that he has committed, against families and cultures, and here you are taking that same risk as if we are not going to stand up and make a big fat noise about it..think the fuck again.

We are not those people who you saw on Gilliganʻs Island, and neither are we the Kanakas who people used to make fun of, call us “Dan-O” and make certain that the laugh was on us, as though even as children we were not able to see your issues with a people more rich in culture and beauty than your ass is…I said it, DEAL WITH IT.

You like be Kanaka?

I donʻt think you can hang.

In fact, what proves me right is that you thought so little of our gorgeous culture and our ways of Aloha that you would take advantage of it and try hard to make your initial bullshit better by telling us that you are going to do what you want with OUR language, no matter what. This is just like other people trying to bring a fucking tea house to the middle of the ʻhood where NO ONE DRINKS THE FANCY FUCKINʻ TEAS THAT THAT STUPID BROAD BROUGHT WITH HER, and you are not different in any other way than that the world can forgive a woman for being a woman but a sordid man with no thought in his head other than that of profits is inexcusable.

We are Ka Poʻe Aloha – the People of Aloha, and you have taken what is our greatest identifier and made it into a means by which you will profit. You should think about this for a bit, because we are not taking this shit or your shit lightly, and if you try to use our language for YOUR profit, we are going to stand up and make you stand down, no matter what you think. Be it profits being lost, or the closure, one after another, of your establishments that ought to have never even been opened, given that you took what is so …ours…and put a dollar amount on it, just like your pale-faced settler ancestors.

In some places, doing what you have done can be considered a hate crime, because we are all feeling like you tried to steal the Aloha for profit and no, brah, it is so not for sale. Your bullshit caused yet another collective wound to our collective Aloha Soul, and because of the indigenous thing, to us it is ALL A HATE CRIME.

You are the very epitome of indifference.

You are whoring us out, and we donʻt even get the sports car or the apartment that your partner in life might not know about…that is, until we make some noise about it.

You need to stop already…did Tutu Pele teach you NOTHING about how Maolis get things done?

Do you even KNOW who Tutu Pele is?

To My Fellow Maolis, the world over…

It ought to be very clear to us, just with this Friedlander guy, that our work in this world and in the furtherance of the Aloha Spirit and our collective Maoli culture is far from over.

We can think of this as the Mercurial retrograde coming to life, all over again for us, in that we are being revisited with the whole Kalalau Valley stuff, only this time, it is not over the use of our Sacred lands, but, over the misuse of our language for profit.

It is our duty as Maoli to protect our cultures, to provide for the future generations, not only of our own children, but that of others through our children, to give to them the Aloha that we are most noted for – it is, after all, our Kuleana, as well, to make certain that we also teach them the things that we were not taught, at least not all of us.

Most of us were taught to talk stink topically but to covet what others had, and we were taught to judge who was different than we are and then one day there were people there in our lives, people who refer to us as “Mom” or “Dad” and people, by right of their own growing Maoli pride, who are not allowing it that the powers who think they be take further advantage of everything that is collectively ours.

And at the same time, ALL OF US were taught that Aloha is OURS to give, and never one time were any one of us told that it is up for sale like our lands were up for grabs, and now there is this …frikkin guy….who thinks his words are anything but hollow….that much doesnʻt matter. That guy is a representative of everything and everyone we have spent generations trying hard to break free from, and here is this damned haole guy.

His words, his apology …Theyʻre as hollow as a nose flute….and with twice as much hanabattahs

#BoycottAlohaPoke #NoAlohaPokeCo #FightForAloha #LosAngelesKahunaRox