Orbiting the Piko

Two years ago, I wrote a beloved Aunty in my (our) community and asked her to mentor me. She instructed me to write down my big idea. And after writing it down, she told me to talk about it with as many people as I could find. 

It was really scary, I had to open myself up to criticism, scrutiny, to being visible across the many lines of difference I was used to navigating gingerly.

Born from the exercise, was this.

The big idea: Bring them back in, those who have fallen out of our orbit.

Piko Kea Kalo credit: ʻAuliʻi Nathaniel

The concept of an orbit is based on the idea that we are in relationship with our piko, the center of both our individual and collective universe.

Simply put, a piko is a center. It could be the center of wisdom, of our body, our spiritual footing, or our cosmology which, for us as Hawaiians, exists here in Hawaiʻi Nei.

And to be in itʻs orbit is to be in proximity of itʻs gravitational pull, where we are able to receive and give reciprocally, to be pono ʻin right relationshipʻ with this universe. It means that I am both a participant and contributor, belonged and recognized, beneficiary of and responsible to our ecosystem.

Long before I moved home, I felt this connection in various ways that aligned with a Hawaiian Worldview, guiding me toward connection, kuleana, community and service. 

As I was socialized into assimilation, my reality was constantly challenged, corrected, dismissed.  There was mistrust and violence as consequence for beliefs like mine both in and outside the home. That led to a dissonance within me as I reconciled feeling different, less than, less than human even at times. 

I was led to believe that I would have access to privileged spaces if I was willing to reduce myself and suppress my truth. I throttled my voice to stay safe, but the trauma and impact to my self-esteem took decades to navigate.

My conditioning of being culturally isolated with no Hawaiian/Indigenous providers, teachers, mentors to normalize my experiences conditioned me to question my internal truth, to stifle and scrutinize it. And the climate of Hawaiʻi at the time shared the vocal perspective that Hawaiians living away had nothing to contribute to the lāhui, thus rendering me useless to our people and breaking my idea of what it means to be ʻin orbitʻ.

I developed a type of imposter syndrome that is more commonly understood now. Burdened with shame, I felt had to ʻproveʻ myself in order to be ʻworthyʻ to come home. And without anyone in my direct line of family, I studied for years to feel credentialed as Hawaiian ʻenoughʻ.

The difficulty with this belief is that there was no way to challenge it inside of an assimilated context. I had no access to people who could support a worldview and experience like mine, embodying our culture while living inside white supremacy. And it would be decades before I would understand that we, Indigenous folks displaced from our land, would feel similar patterns of trauma and loss of our piko.

Similar to the idea that not all who wander are lost, itʻs likely that not all who stray from their relationship with their spiritual center need support to reconnect with it. However, those who feel lost, abandoned, gatekept or unworthy might. And without anyone skilled to validate their unique experiences of separation and help them build the necessary internal resources, they may never understand how to access their piko for themselves.

Aunty Manu Aluli Meyer reminded me that we are always whole and that the term ʻout of orbitʻ suggests a brokenness or lack. Indeed, we are always how we were designed, divine, complete and connected with, to, and from our piko. 

However, the social conditions that are present when we remove generations from ʻāina, community, and spiritual center lead to the perceived erosion and loss of this connection... the feeling that we are no longer in reciprocity with our creator, spiritual center, the lands that feed us, or our piko. 

There is also an assumption that folks need to be ʻbrought back inʻ, that there is some external thing that has to happen to make it so. This relationship readily exists within each of us, in fact.  But itʻs the access to this relationship that can be obstructed by external factors like colonization, white supremacy, capitalism.

We still need to get clearer on the patterns of trauma that exist among diasporic people (and those displaced from land). I long to collaborate with those folks to understand our disparate population (loving shout out to Ipo @ Hawaiian Diaspora and all we have built in connection since this was written). 

As a product of the Hawaiian Diaspora and provider now living in Hawaiʻi Nei, I want to become skillful in our traditional lifeways and healing practices, to continue my own healing and re-knowing my Hawaiian-ness through daily participation in community and relationship with ʻāina. And I want to blend a framework of western and hawaiian/indigenous mental health, social, economic, and spiritual resources that address the common patterns of trauma and cultural isolation inside the experience of land/cultural dispossession.

Healing is essential to restoration of the highest self in relationship to land and place. Our life ways remind us that we are not separate from our land.  And that our healing work also heals in all directions, healing forward and backward through our moʻokūʻauhau, as well as outward into community and into our relationship with Hāloa and ʻāina. 

There are many practitioners who have the skills needed to work with community here or on Turtle Island. But holding space for our lifeways requires providers to know their own way back to their piko. That is how we stand in our ability to see others in their re-membering process.  

And every time a new connection becomes a thriving, contributing member of our ecosystem, I am reminded that we exist, as part of, and that it is possible for us all to make our way home.

Ola loa

Ulaula Kumu Kalo with water collected in the piko. Credit: ʻAuliʻi Nathaniel