In my longing to catch the right relationships inside an ʻupena, Iʻll say yes in a flurry to connection and then be scarce in the time it takes to care for everything caught inside itʻs breadth. Itʻs like a complexity of my own making, like a bundle of knots that I threw into a suitcase haphazardly and am now trying to untangle from the inside. It takes time to build community. It takes intention and creativity, and risk. And sometimes I go like hell with all of that. Sometimes I fall out of...

In the before times, my moku was dense with Pūhala. They create long lau with razor sharp niho along each side and down their spine. As the leaves turn brown, they fall and can be collected and prepared for weaving. Skilled weavers made priceless items like mats that rolled out over the floors of family rooms, over generations, carrying a moʻolelo to be stewarded over time. A stranger might disregard these ancestors as ʻrubbish plantsʻ, fast growing with their formidable teeth and habitat...

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. ...