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Rainforest Puuhonua
As a child, Kahikahealani Wight loved Hawaiian stories and songs and wanted to learn everything she could about her culture, but those years it was discouraged. Then in midlife, she purchased a cottage near the erupting summit of Kilauea in a native rainforest and lived there for five years. Rainforest Pu uhonua is her eloquent and moving memoir of cultural awakening amid the plants and ferns, birds and insects, mist and fires of Old Hawaii. Wright s rhythmic prose by local artists, convey the depth and magic of the east Hawaii bioregion, bringing ancestral stories to life.
229 pages, Paperback
Published November 12, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 28, 2024
Very flowery, descriptive writing, but very depressing.
April 7, 2022
Several times reading this, I found myself thinking the beauty of Wight's writing was like a Hawaiian Terry Tempest Williams. The way she bonds with the land and brings us into it is unforgettable. But perhaps it's just as fair to say that Terry Tempest Williams is a Utahn Kahikahealani Wight? The artwork alone makes this worth purchasing but when poised alongside Wight's writings it becomes an absolute treasure.
There are two stories in particular that I can't stop thinking about. The first is that of two nēnē geese in Volcano Park. Wight describes standing at the top of the caldera surrounded by a billowing, disorienting fog. These nēnē mates were fretting back and forth trying to figure out a way through this curtain of seemingly impenetrable fog. They were growing restless and noisy trying to come up with something. Finally, one of them worked up the courage and flew off into the cloud. Her mate spent several minutes even more frantic as he now paced and honked in fear of this unknown fog. At last, the urge to follow his mate overpowered his fear of the unknowable. Wight describes her reflections on this saying:
I had no further sight or sound of that pair of nēnē, those mates so tied together by instinct that one followed the other into the impenetrable unknown. But they stirred me to the depths of my soul and made me think that maybe trusting life, trusting instinct, and the deep tug of connection, are gifts we hold far too lightly and take way too much for granted.
The other story Wight shares that is forever etched into me is that of a young Tongan boy attending Hawaiʻi Community College. Wight tells of how he would carry a bucket of fresh-made ʻawa (kava) from class to class. He would share with anyone that wanted it and would carry that bucket every day with him. Wight writes that thereʻs something so: "essentially Polynesian, in watching him wander from class to class, unable to put that bucket down...needing to share the bounty of ʻawa that he prepares so well, needing to be numbed as ʻawa can numb the mouth, numb the body, numbed to the feeling of not belonging to a world full of cars rushing by, even here in slow-paced, tsunami-devastated Hilo."
She goes on to write of how he'd likely get a job after college at a desk, planted in front of a computer, "not paced by the swing of the sun through the sky, a job that probably wouldn't allow him to come into the office with a bucket of ʻawa in one hand and a coconut-shell scoop in the other...carrying the burden of two clashing worlds, one who needs his ʻawa, needs to be numbed."
Wight's insight and prose have indelibly touched me, and I'm grateful for the wisdom shared by someone who so fully embodies aloha ʻāina with her every word.
There are two stories in particular that I can't stop thinking about. The first is that of two nēnē geese in Volcano Park. Wight describes standing at the top of the caldera surrounded by a billowing, disorienting fog. These nēnē mates were fretting back and forth trying to figure out a way through this curtain of seemingly impenetrable fog. They were growing restless and noisy trying to come up with something. Finally, one of them worked up the courage and flew off into the cloud. Her mate spent several minutes even more frantic as he now paced and honked in fear of this unknown fog. At last, the urge to follow his mate overpowered his fear of the unknowable. Wight describes her reflections on this saying:
I had no further sight or sound of that pair of nēnē, those mates so tied together by instinct that one followed the other into the impenetrable unknown. But they stirred me to the depths of my soul and made me think that maybe trusting life, trusting instinct, and the deep tug of connection, are gifts we hold far too lightly and take way too much for granted.
The other story Wight shares that is forever etched into me is that of a young Tongan boy attending Hawaiʻi Community College. Wight tells of how he would carry a bucket of fresh-made ʻawa (kava) from class to class. He would share with anyone that wanted it and would carry that bucket every day with him. Wight writes that thereʻs something so: "essentially Polynesian, in watching him wander from class to class, unable to put that bucket down...needing to share the bounty of ʻawa that he prepares so well, needing to be numbed as ʻawa can numb the mouth, numb the body, numbed to the feeling of not belonging to a world full of cars rushing by, even here in slow-paced, tsunami-devastated Hilo."
She goes on to write of how he'd likely get a job after college at a desk, planted in front of a computer, "not paced by the swing of the sun through the sky, a job that probably wouldn't allow him to come into the office with a bucket of ʻawa in one hand and a coconut-shell scoop in the other...carrying the burden of two clashing worlds, one who needs his ʻawa, needs to be numbed."
Wight's insight and prose have indelibly touched me, and I'm grateful for the wisdom shared by someone who so fully embodies aloha ʻāina with her every word.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews