An Apprenticeship with `Aina

Ha`ena Beach, Kea`au, Hawaii

 

I left my home city of Detroit with nothing on my keychain. No house, no car, no keys. Modernity made it relatively simple to journey across a continent and an ocean. Instead of taking months or years to travel by foot and boat, I simply shelled out the money to jump on airplanes, and my belongings will be flown over later by the US Postal Service.

My first initiation into this new stage of my life was shedding of my belongings, giving everything away that I could possibly part with. This took months, and still I was left with 18 boxes of drums, yoga props, books, and clothes. I still have not completed going through photos, and seemingly endless files, the bane of a writer’s life. Not only did I have to shed material belongings, I had to bid farewell to many loved ones, dear friends, teachers, and students. I had to cut short my apprenticeship to Detroit, with so many lessons still remaining, and so many projects left incomplete. My long journey from Detroit to Chicago to Los Angeles to Hilo was devoted to emotionally processing, grieving, and simultaneously closing and opening doors.

My first morning on the island began with rainfall, as it typically does. I borrowed an umbrella and ventured forth. My senses opened up to receive the overwhelmingly lush stimuli, such a far cry from the dormant winter landscape of upper Midwestern North America. Bird calls I did not recognize, plants I am just getting to know, unfamiliar fragrances, a different rocky soil under my feet.

Even though I lived here as a child, and I have been back numerous times to visit my children and grandchildren, I felt like a newcomer to the land. I brought tobacco from Waawiiyaataanong, my former home. I sprinkled it at the roots of trees as an offering, I walked across volcanic rocks and gave it to the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean.

To the spirits of the land, the trees, the animals, and the ocean,
Greetings from Waawiiyaataanong.
I come in service and goodwill.
I ask to be in relationship with you.
I ask you to receive me.
I ask you to teach me how to be your faithful student.
I ask for your guidance.
I promise to take care of you, and ask you humbly to take care of me.
I hope to live out my earthly time on these islands,
and I gently ask for your permission to be here in intimate relationship.
Please teach me how to be a loving servant to the `aina, and all living beings of the islands.
Please teach me how to honor the indigenous people of this land.
Please teach me how to tread lightly on the land, and be in loving service.
I know I will make many mistakes, and that my presence will inevitably be harmful.
Please help me learn how to minimize harm, and live harmoniously with the land, water, people, and all beings.
I ask you to nourish me, and teach me how to sustain myself, lovingly giving and receiving.
May it be so.

When I arrived in Detroit in 2013, Grace Lee Boggs asked me, “Why are you moving here?” I answered, ”To join the revolution.” White folks, entrepreneurs, and artists were bombarding the city, often to the detriment of communities. Many were coming for cheap rents or to purchase property or to start a business they couldn’t afford in their former cities. Instead, I made a commitment to be part of the fabric of community already here, and not to come as a colonizer. But old habits die hard, having grown up in imperialist white supremacist patriarchy, and I had my hand slapped a number of times when I did not adequately wait, listen, and respect the will of Detroiters themselves.

Detroit taught me how to be in community, how to apprentice myself instead of coming with answers and solutions. Detroit taught me how to consult and listen to elders, and what it means to be an elder. Detroit taught me how to be part of the land and water, how to share it, how to listen to it, and nurture it. At the energy vortex of several Great Lakes, and a national border, Detroit is a hub and crossroads for every type of being and interaction. Detroit paved the way for me to move back to the islands, as an adult, this time.

My second initiation back to the islands occurred three days after arrival. My daughter, Katja, and I decided to walk to the nearest beach from her house. The maps app told us it would take 1 hour, about a 3 mile walk. No problem. I put on my swimsuit, a wrap skirt and tshirt over it, and my sturdy walking “slippahs.” My daughter said, “It might be muddy, you might want shoes.” But I didn’t own any hiking shoes and I said, “I’ll just wash off in the ocean.”

Ha. Famous last words. Midwestern mainland mud doesn’t even begin to compare to Big Island mud. Not to mention the wildly uneven terrain of volcanic rock and roots of trees in the dense rainforest. I felt ridiculous holding up my skirt, skipping from rock to rock and over roots. Several times I miscalculated and sloshed down into mid-shin mud. Several times I lost a slipper and had to drag it out of the mud. I won’t even mention the mosquitoes. Any number of times I could’ve slipped and fallen. It’s only by the grace of the gods I made it through the rough trail.

Finally the trail opened up to a remote, empty beach, with breakers slowing down the waves to a gentle ripple at low tide, and a narrow strip of black and gray sand. My feet practically cried stepping into the soft yielding warm sand. The tiny bay was the meeting place of a river and the ocean, and the water currents flowed between the warmed ocean water and chilled mountain spring water.

I laid down on the sand and looked up at the cloud-dappled sky and the waving palms. “This is what it must feel like to be dead,” I announced to Katja: unbelievable beauty, calm, and ease, having gone through an ordeal, probably much more harrowing than my short hike, and a feeling of joy mixed with the grief of having left behind so much that you love.

After a swim and a delicious meal of leftovers, chips, and sliced mango, we decided to make our way back home before the predicted rain started. As we retraced our steps, each footfall became a prayer. Instead of shit, damn, fuck, I decided to say yes, thank you, please, I am here, I am listening, I am receiving. After a while, I started to use each step to bless the earth, to caress the stones, to send love to the `aina. It was still arduous, and I still fell in the mud once or twice. One false move and an injury could have required an airlift rescue, which happens frequently in Hawai`i. Thank god for my yoga practice and the moderate strength and balance I’ve managed to maintain.

When we got home, I had to wash off my slippers several times, scrubbing them with gravel and rainwater. Even after soaking in the bath, I could not get all the mud off the cracks in my feet and in my toe cuticles.

I asked the `aina to teach me. I am receiving my lessons. There will be many more to come.

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For those who’ve expressed a desire to come and visit me here, here are some recommendations:

• Right where you are, honor your own land, and seek to be in harmonious relationship with all the beings of your land.
• Learn as much as you can about your desired destination: history, politics, flora and fauna, language, etc. Read articles and books, listen to podcasts, ask questions.
• Create an altar of images or symbols of the desired destination. Consult with the spirits of this place, and request consent to be on this land. Express your intention for this journey. Wait and listen.
• If you feel a resonant “yes,” make plans to come in a responsible and respectful way. Bring with you an offering for the `aina. Include an offering for the indigenous people of the islands.
• When you arrive, make a point, as soon as possible, to engage intimately with the land and waters. Create your own prayer and ritual of exchange.
• Create opportunities to be in community, and to contribute your time and energy, which could include financial reparations. Come to be in relationship and reciprocity.
• Whenever possible, support the local economy and local people. Do your best to avoid exploitative, tokenizing, racist businesses, institutions, and platforms.
• Be humble and modest. Come to learn and to serve.