Braiding themes

Max is the time wave traveler, showing up in story and places; appearing as bridge and conduit.  In one story he arrives to reconnect with his mate and meets Lokahi a girl born outside of kapu.  Another time and place this same "Max" appears first in dreams of a woman who is lost to her gifts in the time she lives in the body.  Daring to loosen her grip on definitions, this time Max will take EL back into time to connect 1700 England and Scotland with Onomea on the Hamakua Coast.  The third theme and story that includes Max weaves Queen Liliuokalani into conversations with three other young women.  This story is the plot for a book She Would written by characters in a story I am writing called Splinters.

The motivation for this intricate braiding is bred from the marrow.  Genetic inspiration, and perhaps Liliuokalani's words

THE Hawaiian people have been from time immemorial lovers of poetry and music, and have been apt in improvising historic poems, songs of love, and chants of worship, so that praises of the living or wails over the dead were with them but the natural statement of their feelings. My ancestors were peculiarly gifted in this respect, and yet it is remarkable that there are few if any written compositions of the music of Hawaii excepting those published by me...To compose was as natural to me as to breathe; and this gift of nature, never having been suffered to fall into disuse, remains a source of the greatest consolation to this day.

Time and Themes for the novel

Before Kapu
-'bowl of light'
-mo'olelo, mo'o kiha

The Kumulipo
-recording beliefs into chant
-how all is named
-how water-ocean births the rest
-the wa
-the connections

Kapu overthrown
-what values sustain inspite of the formal overthrow of 'kapu'
-how do the values play out in the everyday
-how does the na'au remember the values
-how does the mind grooves trauma
-and the allowance for more than trauma?

Hawaiian Kingdom overthrow January, 1893
-the ali'i are gods
-loyalty
-mana
-how the land continues to be 'aina
-politics and economy

Sugar is King
-plantation brings the world to the 'aina
-Plantation is another world of control

Piece work, piece-meal

Madeleine slit the tops of the plump Pippin pies in a swhirl of repeating "Ss". Her days were long, but not so much longer than any other woman in the countryside who lived servantless.  The sugar mice required time and patience, and a cautious and deft process.  The sugar syrup needed to be boiled hot and steady to get the temperature to the proper degree.  The two wee children helped with scooping the dry granules, but once the pot set to boil, Madeleine made sure there were other activities to keep them safely away from the stove.  Kainoa, the boy, near a man before his time really, watched as his mother turned flour, lard and a pinch of salt sprinkled lightly with water into balls of pastry for crust.  "A light hand on the pastry, Kai.  Always light on the pastry ...but heavy on the fillings,"  she winked at her assistant busy with his hands mixing the sliced Pippins with the sugar and cinnamon mixture.  Mounds of fruit heaped into her largest pin tins reminded Kainoa of mountains that seemed a dream-like memory.  No mountains surrounded the cottage or village of his home.  But, somewhere there were mountains.  Memory was funny he thought to himself, and then the thought persisted and became a thought uttered.

Madeleine looked from her pie-making, pushed a tendril of black hair from her eyebrow.  "Memory is a funny thing, young man.  And, as you grow Kai memories will stretch making it possible to include things, people, who were not part of the memory in the first place."  She looked at her son for a read on the idea and saw that it had already crossed the boy's mind, his experiences so much broader than boys his age.  Boys.  Hmmm.  The two continued with their joyful endeavor.  Kai memorizing the steps for making pastry crust that would hold just perfectly any filling, yet melt tenderly under the pressure of the fork on its way to an eager mouth.  He watched how his mother rolled and lifted the heavy wooden rolling pin across the balls of dough.  There was a technique to it, an ease and dancing sort of movement.  "Mother,"  he said before all eight balls of dough were rolled.  "Can I try it?"  Madeleine smiled and handed the wooden pin to him.  "Here you go."

Mothering and baking were arts the woman embraced while knowing that it was like so much of the work she did day in and day out.  Piece-meal.  She did not come fully informed of the whole process, but had a comfort with the parts that she was good at.  She loved the hard work of birthing never fear-full of the ardent passion it took to push her babies through the birth canal.  She knew pain. Confident that it was as natural as life itself, she never waivered in her knowing when it was time to help her children from one place to another.  Her body was strong and her muscles well-toned from the work she did in and around the cottage.  As well, her genetic memory was keen and though she rarely displayed that knowledge openly, the ceremonies of daily course always included knowing what sustained.

There were things about being wife that were most definitely piece-meal.  She was a woman with memory of independence and near fearsome solitary ways.  Becoming wife was something she had had to learn episode by episode.  They told her somethings would be learned only through the doing.  Payment for the learning of things like being wife would not be in gold pieces.  Instead, the value of her lessons as wife would be defined as she learned them.  It would be part of patience.  The waiting part of becoming.  Madeleine was glad that her husband was away for long periods at a time.  She needed the separate life as mother and home-maker to prime her for the things she was getting incrementally, and seemingly in no organized fashion.  Within the next ten moons, her husband would be home.  She would know then how well she had done at her piece work, to date.

Sugar and Salt

In another place ...

"Her father is a military man, trains people to fight.  Her mother is a homemaker." She listened to her son talk hesitantly, allowing his mother to feed him questions he digested slowly.  She has learned to be with her son's deliberate ways, and enjoyed the information he gave back as precious food.  The two of them walked the uneven shoreline, the smell of seaweed and the flapping of noisy seagulls creating timeless background.  She imaged her son partnered into a family like that and weighed gently the prospect of her long role as mother to her son and the timelessness of homemaker.

::::::

 

"A pound of sugar and a quarter pound of salt please."  The woman handed her empty cotton pouches to the shop keeper.
"Preparing for the Harvest are you?"  The keeper had filled many sugar and salt bags today and would be glad to receive the coins and paper promises for the two white commodities that preserved the harvests of his village's people.  If they knew what it took to bring the sweet grains of sugar to this village, oceans away from the plantations that turned cane into granules, would the pleasure of the sweetness be quite so rich?  The woman smiled and nodded to his question.  Neither one of them, for all the years they have known one another, never letting on to the places in their imaginations.  The fact that the woman was a shade of brown that few in this cold clime were familiar with in their own lineages, might have been a clue for the openly curious.  But, curiosity was rendered secret or at least quiet among these people.
Safely filled, the woman counted out the four coins thanked the shop keeper and said, "Good Harvest to you and your wife." 
"And the same to you."  The woman tucked the bags of sugar and salt into her basket and stepped into the day just begun.  She loved the half-mile walk from the tiny village store to the cottage and farm where she kept a family well-tended.  The smells of Equinox were clear and the sky was bright.  Time passed easily, her boots striking the dirt road still dry from the summer heat. 
The boy could hear his mother's walk from the doorway, he was waiting for her.  The barrel of Pippins was full.  He'd picked the windfalls and the fruit still clinging to the four old trees that made up the orchard in the south patch of ground along-side the cottage.  The pears were already picked and made into Pear jam.  The small glass jars filled the cold storage. He loved the taste of Pear jam on the soft white cheese in the winter.  But it was the bags of sugar and salt his mother sought that turned his thoughts to a treat he hoped for today. 
"Picked them all did you?"  The woman was always happy to see that works that needed doing always got done, and knew that in the process her son would ask for something that he himself could not do, yet. 
"I did.  And there were so many of them, still firm and crunchy, too."  His mother saw the core of two apples in the pail for feeding the goats. She smiled.
Inside the twins were busy with the games. A length of string wrapped around the one's fingers lifted as the other moved it quickly.  "Sugar!"  They both squealed as their brother reached for the sugar tin. 
"Pippin and cinnamon pie!"  The boy exclaimed chiming for his favorite Harvest food. His mother offered up a counter and looked teasingly at the two girls held with string between them, "Or, perhaps Sugar Mice a few for now and a few for hanging on the tree new cycle through." 
The girls in chorus, said "Sugar Mice.  Sugar Mice, or please the mice, the mice."

The boy knew his mother had enough sugar for one or the other.  To feed his family and the men his father would bring when he was home from his season of war, she would bake four pies if she baked any.  Not much such was needed for pie, but sugar mice were all sugar.  The girls loved the confectionary, and it was a once a sun cycle treat, so they ought to have them.  He had outgrown the taste of so much sweet.  Weighing as was his way, the woman knew her son was balancing the needs with the long view.  He was Libra and she was Scorpio.  She knew.

The Pippins, such an abundance of them this year could be cut and hung into garlands and dried across the hearth and eaten throughout the winter.  The elderberries saved from last year and wrapped round the apples would flavor yet a crate of the generous fruit.  Pie was best baked with the set of the freshness still glowing, and there were renderings for lard for a good four pies.  The sticks of cinnamon she horded for special occasions would satisfy her son and she would love to see that look fill his countenance. 

"There is enough for both, pies when the men are back with the dark moon.  Sugar mice tonight."  The girls danced a jib of delight and went looking for the metal trays their mother used to mold the white sugar creatures.  The boy smiled, hugged his mother tight while counting in his head the phases of the moon before bright Hina went dark.  He could wait.

Continue reading

'Oli

Lokahi felt the coolness of the la'i as she slowly ran her hand over the freshly picked leaf,  knowing she was with all-time and in the presence of past and futures to come.  She inhaled as she saw her mother as clearly as she saw Kawahinemahina, dressed in the colors of their family lineage.  Max stood to her left, Andy stood with the wool-wrapped makana.  With a smooth and powerful exhalation Lokahi began the 'Oli Kahea:

Ano `ai kou kakou mea ho`okipa la ea     
A me na mea hanohano                                  
Ke ho`ohiwahiwa `ia nei makou la ea         
 E hui pu i ka waiwai                                     
O kou kakou mau kupuna la ea                       
Ia hi`ipu`u ia kakou i ka lokahi                      
Ka nalu imi ia kakou mai kahiki mai la ea        
Me ke aloha nou kakou apau           

Greetings to our host and dignitaries
We are honored
to join the tradition
of our kupuna (ancestors)
that binds us in unity
We are the waves that come from a far off place
We come with love for all

It was her mother Kapapakeawe who beckoned, and welcomed them in traditional response.  The words of ancient people is as ocean remembers to crest into waves.  Celeste and Andy felt the transformation of their friend, aware that her 'oli had criss-crossed time.  Both girls felt the wave of mana rise from a woman they had heard about as if in legends, briding for them the possibilities that were up till today, a faith sight unseen.  They didn't need to see to believe, but seeing was definitely making a difference.  From his place beside Lokahi, Max winked from within this body neither girl had known.  Lokahi was in her own zone of reality and probably reckoned time through different eyes at this point.  Celeste instinctively reached for her ipod.  It was gone.  "Just as well, " she said to no one and everyone.  She knew it would be a challenge to remember and repeat what she was party to this day in Wailuku.  She returned the wink, with classic michieviousness and knew she would recall every word, every nuance.

The cement walkway climbed to the section that became more like the inside of the nautilus.  The shell like feel of the structure now included the sound of ocean waves, gentle, but powerful.  Celeste and Andy looked carefully at their feet to make sure they were still on solid ground.  It was difficult to be sure of where, or when they were.  Max spoke, reading their anxiety, as Lokahi and her mother moved steadily forward.  "This is the inbetween time.  Where there was solid ground during the Kapu the woman Kapapa was also my woman.  We were bound by the kapa, recognized as mates.  I have crossed time to be with her again, and to be with you and you, and ...Lokahi."

Kapu

The girl sat beside her mother and answered, "There was a place for everything, a time to plant and a time to harvest.  Clarity lay as a malia day's ocean, understood as deep the people planted and tended kept the kapu relating to food and restorative cycles; worked while the sun was high and rested when the sun set.  The rhythm of life beat like the pu'uwai, solid and sure." 

"Ah, that is a sweet and simplified version of it girl.  There was more, so much more." Lokahiokamahina was kapu, she was a sacred child, recognized as special and gifted with the sight for dreaming.  While her mother was alive, Lokahi was taught in the old way shown, spoken to, and engaged with the connectivity of flesh, plant-life, lepo(dirt), water(both fresh and salty), air and winds, clouds, stars and the turning and transporting of time and thought.  But, she was uncommonly exposed to the old ways because she was encouraged to question her mother and teacher, at any time.


Kapapakeawe "Keawe" would serve her daughter for fifteen years, teaching her everything she recalled from her own life as wahine kapu.  Her call to return to Spirit would change her daughter's tutelage until one day, a teacher who crossed time as easily as drinking melted sherbert asked, "How is it with your girl, Keawe?"  And the goddess said, "She remains curious and sweet."  

Kaumakalani's office was spacious, though small by comparison.  The observatory, was her real space of study and that was the piko, the central pulse of the college.  She kept the 10x10 office neat, with her large long table along one wall.  A comfortable and supportive chair kept her body at ease when she worked.  Simple folding chairs for visitors leaned against the black file cabinet.  Her laptop sat at one end with a wall covered first with what looked like burlap, but was instead a course-textured kapa she had pounded her.  In sections, she lay a covering that allowed her to create a kind of imagery board tacked with clippings from newspapers, 'olelo noeau (proverbs), pictures of her family, and in the center section, photographs of the sky at different times of the year hung from strands of knotted Hawaiian cotton in the ki pu'u style of cordage.  A three-draw file cabinet and a book shelf equally as high covered the third wall as well and the door to her office.  The fourth wall was glass and looked out over the second level of the pu'u and out to the ocean beyond. 

This clipping from the archives of a local Honolulu newspaper dangled from cordage.  Darkened and circling from age, Kaumakalani have been reading the article when her daugher called telling her about a stray Lokahi had found at the shopping center. Andy said, "Kanaka niho'ole kela."  The man's toothless.  That was nothing unusual, but it was the description of his wool coat and black bowler hat that set the tone for the afternoon.  A time of huli.

Kapu

Extract from an interview with Ruby Kawena Johnson
By Michael Coleman
 
MC: But didn't the change come because Liholiho (Kamehameha II) was just too weak to resist Kaahumanu and Keopuolani (Kamehameha's most powerful wives)?
RJ: No, Liholiho was the freedom fighter, you could call him. Liholiho is the one who did not want the taboo to continue. Present-day writers are always using Kaahumanu and Keopuolani because of the emphasis on women, which is OK.
MC: What was Liholiho's motivation then?
RJ: Well, the captains who were on the boats who took the news around and in their writings, they're the ones who say it was Liholiho's decision, with Hewahewa (the chief priest). They leave the women out. They didn't even mention them. And they say that Liholiho made the decision, and all the priests of every island agreed before they even did this. That's what really happened. But the history books don't tell you that.
MC: So the priests wanted to hang out with women? They were tired of eating separately?
RJ: Maybe there were other reasons for Liholiho's, and Hewahewa's, decision. One of the things, I believe, that caused it to move in this direction was to end the number of deaths from the ritual sacrifices, because you needed 21 to 26 men to go down every time they consecrated or built a lua kini, the big heiau. Also, every six months one of the chiefs had to forfeit his eye, for the taboo on fishing when they changed it from the aku to the akule season. That's the ka hoali'i rite, for all those who were descended from Kane. They were all high-ranking chiefs sitting in council and they would ask ka hoali'i, who was the caretaker, who among them has to give up his eyeball, and they do it. They'll say, "You," and that's it. They take it out right there.
MC: Ay yah!
RJ: They did it all the time. That was one of the things about being the alii. It wasn't so easy on them because they had to do it. Every six months they did it.
MC: They just showed that movie "Hawaii" on TV a few weeks ago, and the queen dies, I don't know which one it was, and then her husband jabs his eye out, and he hits his face on the rock until his teeth get knocked out.
RJ: Oh yeah, that was it. You knock out your teeth to show how much you love your uncle or your father. That's part of the funerary process, bereavement.
MC: So you had a lot of people walking around with one eye and no teeth?
RJ: Chiefs!

The protocol of words

Keawe reached for the words, drawing them into her like sweet nectar.  The sight of her daughter and her companions filled the space that is spirit, making her passage into flesh a gentle movement.  The smell of puakenini rose from her.  In place of the toothless man next to Lokahi, a broad-shouldered man with a kihei made of thick la'e, the thick waxy leaves of the ti leaf grown for kahua stood with a smile as big as a calabash.  "When I am reborn I will remember all who I was,"  Na'ea repeated the promise and between them the lovers carefully took the child now grown to woman across the stone walk.  Keawe had waited.  Na'ea had waited.  Lokahi knew not to wait and instead grew beyond the Kapu. 

The girls observed.  In their young lives protocol was as clear as the lessons of learning to speak the language.  They were the 'schooled-generation' the second of the 'opio who benefitted from the Renassaince Era of the Islands during the '70's, the latest evidence that the culture was alive and enduring.  Still, the transformation the pair witnessed was graduate level protocol and neither girl had words in either language to describe the events.  Celeste automatically reached for the ipod and found it, "A-mazing."  She nudged Andy and lifted her kihei, "Is this for real?"  She whispered knowing already that she and her best friends were part of a great adventure.

"Press RECORD ... and ask for permission while you're at it."  Andrea Essentia was the daughter of a historian and was not without her wits when it came to seeing how her ancestors treated time.  All around her the smells and feel of the winds of central Maui came to witness and to partake.  The dry sand dunes upon which the college was built was now a terrace of lo'i kalo and the irrigation ditches -- the auwai, ran loudly with running water.  Andy allowed her fertile memory to reverse time and knew Kapapaweave and Na'ea had taken them to Maui B.S. before sugar, long before Sprecklesville, before the uncrowned sugar king had turned her island home into sugar plantations, and long before sailing ships brought whalers, disease and the bible.  E ho mai, akua lani e.  E ho mai. E ho mai.