Mele Murals: a documentary that speaks to me and fills the puka made from separation

MELE MURALS 

(click on the title to read about the documentary)

Where is the latest writing?

I was on the phone today with a good pal and a long-time reader.

"Where are you writing!?" she was frustrated because she couldn't find the latest of my writing. We walked through this site, as I said, "I'm writing the new medicine story Banana Skin and Ginger." I wasn't trying to make it hard for her, or you, to find my writing. I am just writing. Really!

There are two ways to find my latest writing:

Either go directly to Banana Skin and Ginger, and remember this is story in process. Go here to start reading. Then you can bookmark the link and have it for your easier access.

Or if you are on this website, go to the Medicine Stories tab (at the top of the page). Scroll down to find Gathered Magic where all my medicine stories are. Banana Skin and Ginger is at the very bottom.

Thanks jt, I'm glad you asked!

A thousand wings

Across the sand and gathering place of trees in their lying down position, the Kolea cousins,
Sandpipers before and after they flew in formation.
Hard to spot them at the water's edge at the top of the photo.
Sunlight Beach, Whidbey Island

A thousand wings
Move the air
Coming toward me
As one body
I hope to remember
That sound
For a very long time

Yes, this is what it was like though not quite as many in numbers. Magic. Wild. Nature. Sandpipers

Beginning to swim Na Kai `Ewalu the eight seas of the Hawaiian Islands
(my first week of online study of 'Olelo Hawaii Hawaiian language and culture)

Click on any of the underlined words in the content below to find out about the online study program Niuolahiki.

To understand the many levels of mele, one must

digest
believe in
invest in
defend 
and commit

to Hawaiian cultural practices and Hawaiian language arts.

The Hawaiian cultural knowledge one possesses, along with the clues presented in chants

CREATES A STAGE for enlightenment--a junction

where MEMORY and NA'AU meet and produce instantaneous moments when ancestral knowledge is reborn again.

Know your culture and language well enough so these special moments do not flee without recognition.

- Pualani Kanaka'ole Kanahele, from Ka Honua Ola

Mouse Woman

"Spirit of Haida Gwaii" Sculpture by Bill Reid

"Crouching under the Raven's tail is the Mouse Woman who is the traditional guide for those who travel between the human world and non-human realms of Haida mythology." 

Raven and Mouse Woman

"There could not be two more opposite individuals among the Spirit beings of the Northwest Mythology than Raven and Mouse Woman.
Raven was the Creator-Trickster of the Northwestern Indian mythology. A voracious glutton, his appetite was only matched by his enthusiasm for mischief. A shape changer, he could take many forms. He loved to upset things and cause trouble.
As he sought to satisfy his appetites and often as a result of schemes and tricks that backfired, Raven established the ways of dealing with the chaotic natural world, taming it for the benefit of mankind.
Mouse Woman was the busiest of busybodies and the tinest of Grandmothers. Upset whenever the proper order of things was disturbed, she always sought to restore order and maintain balance. She was as dedicated to undoing mischief as Raven was in creating it. As a Spirit person, she could go anywhere and her mouse ears often overheard trickery in the making.
In the stories, it was unually a violation of some custom that placed someone in peril or unleased and attracted monsters such as Cannibal Woman, or Monster Killer Whale.
But Mouse Woman's help always came with a price - her one weakness - a fondness for items of mountain goat wool, which she delighted in unraveling into a mouse nest of fur. To maintain balance, there must always be something given, if something is to be received in return. Of course trickery deserves trickery in return.

From Raven we often learn the reasons for various Indian customs and taboos, while from Mouse Woman, we see the consequences of failing to observe them and ways to restore order and balance."

Source Credit: http://www.eldrbarry.net/rabb/rvn/raven.htm

"Music ... what words would love to be if they could" - John O'Donohue