All women on the stage
Young, old, thin, and round.
Hair of black, gray, straight, curly
Covering minds of myriad memories
Thoughts of love and loss,
Small kid time,
The trivial and the esoteric,
Counting in groups of fours: forties, four hundred, four thousand.
Recalling the ancient pahu drums
Syncopated with the cell phone jig
They exposed just the tip of the iceberg
A ground swell of raw emotion
Waiting to be aired.
Hawaiian women all
Of various shapes and forms
From various backgrounds
and one hanau
The proud and the humble,
The bold and the shy
Speaking their words with repressed emotion.
Private thoughts for a public venue
Ho'okupu
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Kanaka Thinking - Imperfection and Beauty
Pu'upu'u lei pali i ka 'a'i.
An imperfect lei, beautified by wearing
Even an imperfect lei looks beautiful when worn around the neck--as beautiful as flowers and greenery on the slope of a hill.
From 'Olelo Noe'au #2765
Hawaiians were able to find beauty in their environment. Flowers, stems, leaves, roots, fruit, seeds, gourds. They took things from nature and looked into the possibilities. Leis or garlands were fashioned in a myriad of styles using various materials. Dried leaves were cleaned, stripped, and woven into beautiful mats. The bark of trees were gathered, soaked, lovingly cleaned, stripped or pounded into fiber cloth or woven into strong cordage.
Amazing people, our kupuna.
An imperfect lei, beautified by wearing
Even an imperfect lei looks beautiful when worn around the neck--as beautiful as flowers and greenery on the slope of a hill.
From 'Olelo Noe'au #2765
Hawaiians were able to find beauty in their environment. Flowers, stems, leaves, roots, fruit, seeds, gourds. They took things from nature and looked into the possibilities. Leis or garlands were fashioned in a myriad of styles using various materials. Dried leaves were cleaned, stripped, and woven into beautiful mats. The bark of trees were gathered, soaked, lovingly cleaned, stripped or pounded into fiber cloth or woven into strong cordage.
Amazing people, our kupuna.
Friday, January 15, 2010
'Ohi'a Death?
'Ohi'a die back
White skeletal trunks reach skyward
Forest desolation
Just a natural hiatus
New growth midway toward the sun.
White skeletal trunks reach skyward
Forest desolation
Just a natural hiatus
New growth midway toward the sun.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Food is Love
Gather a bunch of people in Hawaii together and the main hub of activity will center around food. Food is love...love in creating the dishes, love in eating the dishes, love in talking about the dishes and the dishes past, love in cleaning up. It is all about love.
Certain occasions call for certain menus. The deluxe menu will include all the difficult to get yummy dishes. If you were to go to a lu'au, you will see kalua pig that was cooked in an underground imu. On the menu would also be lomi salmon, poi, sweet potatoes, chicken long rice, some poke, haupia and maybe if you're lucky kulolo. A deluxe lu'au much like the kind you might see in real Hawaiian communities like Hana you would see dried 'opae(river shrimp), raw a'ama crab, opihi (limpets), wana (sea urchin), ake (raw liver), pipi kaula (jerk meat), dried opelu (dried fish)and squid lu'au (squid cooked with taro leaves and coconut milk). If you don't have kalua pig, you might have one pound laulaus made with a chunk of beef, a chunk of pork, and a piece of salted butterfish, wrapped with a thick layer of lu'au (taro leaves).
Hawaiian food is labor intensive to cook. You need to gather your seafood, seaweed, produce, and proteins. You need to prep your items. Buying taro leaves or lu'au costs about $7 for two pounds. You need to wash the leaves and remove the veins and tips. To make an imu, you must have firewood, the right kind of rocks for baking, banana leaves and stumps, ti leaves, burlap bags and about 8 hours for cooking.
Most of the Hawaiian food are celebration foods that were for special occasions. Most modern Hawaiians have forgotten the everyday foods like lomi opelu with poi, sweet onions, and some seaweed on the side. The traditional diet was full of seaweed, vegetables, and a small amount of protein, all accompanied by poi.
Food is love. We need to revamp our love affair to promote healthy living and yet, feed our families the love without all of the calories, the sodium, and fat.
Certain occasions call for certain menus. The deluxe menu will include all the difficult to get yummy dishes. If you were to go to a lu'au, you will see kalua pig that was cooked in an underground imu. On the menu would also be lomi salmon, poi, sweet potatoes, chicken long rice, some poke, haupia and maybe if you're lucky kulolo. A deluxe lu'au much like the kind you might see in real Hawaiian communities like Hana you would see dried 'opae(river shrimp), raw a'ama crab, opihi (limpets), wana (sea urchin), ake (raw liver), pipi kaula (jerk meat), dried opelu (dried fish)and squid lu'au (squid cooked with taro leaves and coconut milk). If you don't have kalua pig, you might have one pound laulaus made with a chunk of beef, a chunk of pork, and a piece of salted butterfish, wrapped with a thick layer of lu'au (taro leaves).
Hawaiian food is labor intensive to cook. You need to gather your seafood, seaweed, produce, and proteins. You need to prep your items. Buying taro leaves or lu'au costs about $7 for two pounds. You need to wash the leaves and remove the veins and tips. To make an imu, you must have firewood, the right kind of rocks for baking, banana leaves and stumps, ti leaves, burlap bags and about 8 hours for cooking.
Most of the Hawaiian food are celebration foods that were for special occasions. Most modern Hawaiians have forgotten the everyday foods like lomi opelu with poi, sweet onions, and some seaweed on the side. The traditional diet was full of seaweed, vegetables, and a small amount of protein, all accompanied by poi.
Food is love. We need to revamp our love affair to promote healthy living and yet, feed our families the love without all of the calories, the sodium, and fat.
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