How Do We Live When Paradise Burns?

Just a week before the fires that devastated Lahaina , and ultimately Maui, all of Hawaii, and the world, I said goodbye to the banyan tree at the heart of that place that has become almost sacred to me. I literally spoke to it in my heart and thanked it for enduring as long as it has, 150 years. I imagined that the tree had consciousness and under its branches, it had seen so much like a Hawaiian Giving Tree. I looked at it as one would an elder and expressed gratitude and hoped that one day I could embody such wisdom.

It reminded me of its sister tree in Oahu that was now surrounded by fancy buildings and the wares of a society so far from the history of that place, a Tesla showroom and a Boba Tea shop mere steps from the tree's roots. But not in Lahaina. Even though Front Street was also a strip where people walked back and forth shopping and eating and you could hear some cars with loud music, with the old town feel of all that surrounded it, the banyan tree was still the main attraction. Now, it is the only attraction surrounded by the repulsion of an apocalyptic landscape that boggles the imagination. Paradise has burned. And I can't help but ask myself what it all suggests? What are we to learn? Who are we to become in response?

For centuries now, Hawaii has captured the imagination of the world. Marketed as a paradise, her people and culture gives some folks the sense of what it must have been like to live as human beings before we became human doings trapped in the ceaseless pursuit of more. If you ask many people where they would like to go on vacation, Hawaii often tops the list. And, it is the only place that I've been where the people who are not of the land want to be associated with the Ancestral Spirit of the place more than that of the conquerors. And yet, the idealism of the place isn't enough to keep it from suffering the pains of Anywhere, USA where the ethos of "more is better" and "faster, cheaper" push the people and the land to the point of hyper-extension. This is what arose to the top of my consciousness as I watched the images and heard direct reports from folks who thought hell had come to earth and engulfed Eden.

Sandwiched between time in San Francisco and Seattle, it was hard to not see the societal erosion happening to Hawaii even before the fires. In so many ways, it was already burning before the first flame touched the earth. Everything that is consuming every other municipality in America is devouring Hawaii as well. There's no need to list them here. And having arrived there with the experience of watching the glow of the Marshall Fires in Colorado burning away hundreds of homes from my own second floor window less than two years ago, I could see the potential for it in Maui as we drove and surveyed the thirsty landscape--the metaphorical primed to manifest in the physical. Damn.

What digs at me the most is when I learned about the fires, my mind did what humans' brains do. I went into regret. Looking at the dry grasses on the hills, I remembered thinking on our drives, "This is what it looked like before Marshall." And then I went into the assumption that, given all of the fires happening all over the planet and the fact that Maui is a tourist destination, surely information was shared and Maui would be over prepared for such an incident. I was so wrong. While still there, I even imagined calling someone and asking them about their preparedness plans. But, I didn't make those calls. I didn't inquire. I just assumed. And now I wonder how many others saw what I saw and made similar assumptions. Thinking about it takes my breath away.

The Breath of Life and the Cruel Sun

When most people hear the word Aloha, they think that it simply means hello and farewell. But, more precisely, it means "the presence of the Breath" i.e. The Breath of Life. And as some of my friends who are of the land of Hawaii have shared with me, it is akin to expressing "I love you." And in concert with breathing in the breath of another through the nostrils (because the breath of the nostrils cannot be used to lie), it is also expressing, "I LIVE YOU." These gestures in their purest form communicate, "The life in me is the life in you. We are alive together." Can you imagine a world where we all know that we are alive together? Well, if not, I think it is time to get started because this is the heart of true community--to be alive together and to create systems, processes, and policies from that heart.

When I met these friends more than a dozen years ago it was immediately before the islands were under threat of a tsunami. We met in a park the night before and chose to sleep in their backyard in yurts as opposed to the place we reserved. Then at about 5am I noticed that they were awake calmly preparing for the tsunami they were warned was on the way. I won't go into the whole story of what emerged. I will only say that as a result of this event, our friendship was solidified for life. We are now Ohana--a word commonly considered to mean family, but goes so much deeper because there is true Aloha between us.

So when I heard about the fires, I immediately contacted them to see if anyone in the wider Ohana had been impacted. Thankfully everyone in the immediate family was safe. But everyone knows someone who lost someone. The grieving will endure for generations. This says nothing of the homes that were lost and the memories incinerated. But, like always, my friends are rising to the occasion taking people into their home and letting folks sleep in the yurts and creating pathways for direct services even as questions remain. How can this happen in paradise, the home of Aloha, where the breath of life is so recognized? But then I remembered that fire also needs breath to live.

Lahaina, translated into English means Cruel Sun. It was named this because twice a year the Sun passes directly over that area at 90o so that objects below like a flagpole do not cast a shadow. When I considered this name in light of the fires, I thought about how the main ingredients for life are water, air, and sunlight in harmony. But, when any of these is too much or too little, it can be a cocktail for life's opposite as we saw when the heat of the sun absent of water sucked the air (breath of life) out of a place known for rest. Things like this should never happen in Paradise. But, as we know, this isn’t the first time and it won't be the last as long as we don't re-member that WE ARE ALIVE TOGETHER..

A Day That Will Live In Infamy

I had another friend from Hawaii that I met in Colorado named Shirley. She was in her 90s when she died earlier this year. She witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor. For years I kept saying that I wanted to make a video of her telling her account of that day. But I never did. Then on her last day in town before moving back to Hawaii to be with her younger sisters I said, "Shirley let's record it now." Shirley was so strong in body it was amazing to behold. But, she had a little superstition about being recorded on the video. In her mind, people watching her on video was something that would happen after she was gone. So she was hesitant. Instead, she proposed that I come out to Hawaii and then I could meet her sisters and record her on a beach telling the story. That sounded like an awesome idea and I agreed to do it.

On Christmas of last year, 2022, I was able to call Shirley and let her know that I was keeping my promise and that I would see her in July 2023 and we would record her Pearl Harbor story on the beach on Oahu where she played as a child. On January 10 of 2023, I got a call letting me know that Shirley had died suddenly. Even though she was almost 92 years old, somehow I still can't believe it. Just like my mind wants to tell me that paradise shouldn't burn, my mind wants to tell me that people as alive as Shirley should not die. Part of the reason for my disbelief was that I so clearly saw myself keeping that promise. Had I been able to do so, it would have made up for all of the times that we talked about recording it but put it off until the future that would never come. I also couldn't see someone as strong as Shirley just shutting off in her sleep. If you saw her, you would never think she was in her 90s. But she died as we all will. And yet, I can tell you that in the realm of my heart, she is as alive now as she ever was just as Lahaina is.

After Pearl Harbor, Shirley knew that she was going to leave Hawaii as soon as she could. Paradise had been destroyed for her. At age 10, any illusions that places of beauty are immune to devastation were dissolved for her. With a mother who was a nurse at that time, it was Shirley's job to wash the blood out of her mother's uniforms when she returned from long days caring for the wounded. Her reality was that one minute you can be a child playing without a care in the world and in the next moment, hell can come to earth. Mindful of this, after high school she left her home. And I was surprised to learn that she never returned for almost 74 years even after traveling many other places in the world. But, when I talked to her weeks before she died, she said to me, "Now that I am back in Paradise, I don't even know why I left." Words that I am coming to understand perfectly express the stories of our souls.

I am not of the land of Hawaii any more than I am of the land of Colorado. But, I am of the Spirit of Aloha. I know that the Breath of Life that is in me is the Breath of Life in all that lives and that WE ARE ALIVE TOGETHER. For far too long, we have forgotten this truth and as a result, that which fosters life on this earth is out of harmony--the essences and substances of water, air, and sunlight. We are stifling the conditions for life by sacrificing our consciousness on the altar of consumption. And it says something about who we are and who we are becoming that our symbolic paradises are burning.?

But, I believe that what we have in front of us in all of this rebuilding is an opportunity to learn from these tragedies and advocate for a return to and an expansion of the Spirit of Aloha--to rebuild both our cities and our citizens remembering that WE ARE ALIVE TOGETHER. But to do this, we must involve those who remember the Ways of Aloha as well as those most impacted by the downsides of our policies to be a part of the rebuilding so that when our paradises are reborn, it will not simply be buildings that are raised, but the consciousness of all of us who are ALIVE TOGETHER.