by Kumu Nālani | Oct 20, 2022 | Blog Posts, Spirituality
Our Ancestors were lifelong students of the Universe, Existence and their place within it all. Everything they learned was transportable and transferrable to other parts of their daily lives.
They learned, understood and were 100% in the Knowing how their every breath had some kind of relationship to everything around them. They learned and understood breath as an element of common lifeforce with all around them…
It isn’t enough just to “know” of these things. The Ancestors taught was that we must know “the how”, “the why”, “the when” and so forth of the “what” we are doing. For example, many Lomilomi Practitioners and other Healers will use hot stones in their healing treatments.
…But they will not know “why” they are using them. The “why” goes way beyond the physical – the “why” is the Spiritual Practice of using stones in healing treatments. Just one example. An example that applies to all of us…
Our Ancestors studied Place, their Place and its relationship to other Places…and then they’re relationship to place and other Places. They knew they could not study one without studying another. Otherwise there learning would be fragmented, non-sensical and, because of their isolation, dangerous to the collective survival.
Spirituality is all about collective survival. It’s not an individual thing – although it does start with an individual’s decision. A decision that has its roots in a feeling, usually of “something just isn’t right here”…meaning “here” as “here within me”.
That’s where it always starts. Even if you’ve grown up in a family that practices some kind of spirituality – religious or otherwise. There’s always a feeling. Even in the most free-flowing families there’s still “the feeling” of “something”.
That’s where the enquiry really is. In the feeling. The feeling that there’s “something more, else, in addition to”. Some people will express it as a “call”… whichever way you name it, it’s still a feeling.
Feelings are our piko/our centre, very personal to us. Our place where very deep, insightful, intra-communication can form between ourselves and Other. However, if the inner space isn’t clear or understood, then the Feeling Piko can also be one of compromise. Turmoil. Entanglement. Deprivation. Horror. Self-hate. Frustration. Suffering. Repression. All expressions of conflict which arise from not having a firm relationship with Place.
Place, where you come from and where you live now, is not always at the forefront of spiritual thinking and living in these modern times. But they were very much in the Teachings of the Ancestors. We must understand Place because it is part of our singular and collective identity.
We must work actively to clear ourselves of anything that gets in the way of finding, discover, growing, nurturing, living our relationship with Place. If we do not find Place, we will never find our Place within it or the Universal Place of which it is a part. We cannot “half-do” our spirituality, which is what is happening large-scale across the world today.
You cannot cherry-pick Spirituality. It’s either the whole thing or not at all…
Sink into Place. Let it find you. Do you “know” what is happening beneath & within the land on which your currently sit? Do you have a pilina/a relationship with it? What about above the land as far as you can see right now? What is your pilina with it? And now above your head into the clouds – what’s that relationship like? And further into the inky darkness that you might call Space, where is that relationship?
Do you know the Winds of your Place, the Rains, the Moons, the Waters, the Stars – how they move and flow together and what that means for you? What is their name – they will have one. What is the quality of each Wind or Rain of your land – do they come from different directions, at different times of year, are some warm and gentle, or cold and brittle?
Where does the Sun rise and move to, and the Moon? What shapes are in your landscape – how do they move and change throughout the Seasons? What grows, what colours are they? Which insects and birds come? What about the Waters – fresh, rain, ocean…so much to observe, record and take in.
And then, YOU. Where do you fit into all of this – what does all of this observing tell you about you and your massive web of pilina/relationship? This is what the Ancestors studied, recorded, shared, lived by. Years and years of continual study and observance until it was lived moment by moment. And the people just “knew” and lived by that “knowing” and then they shared that “knowing” from generation to generation – keeping it clean, clear and accurate by living it.
Sadly, it’s not that way today. Spiritual Seekers want to cherry-pick, select the bits that appeal to them. It’s this dilution that can leave Seekers open to spiritual attack…
…why are you using hot stones…Aloha x
What next, Kumu?
- If you don’t know Place, get on out there and start observing it, sitting with it, recording your observations. Do it for a month at the same time and place. Get to know it. And then the next month, do the same things at a different time. And then keep going. Every month or two, sit and reflect on your notes – what do you notice? What can it mean? How are you feeliing?
- Get going in our Spiritual Intelligence 1 Course – it’s all about attuning. What we’ve been discussing is Spirituall Intelligence, a layer of it at least. So this course, fully DIY with learning resources and access to to me and the Wise Guides, will get you started
- If you feel all clogged, entangled and not sure of your “feeling” – book a 1:1 Ho’oponopono Session with Kumu or Deborah Rose Hālani + thereʻs the other Wise Guides with whom you can book sessions too…
by Kumu Nālani | Aug 31, 2022 | Blog Posts, Changing, Growing
We think about the Spiritual Path as being fairly straightforward, but it isn’t really like that at all. Which is why people fall off the Path. Finding your way along the Path takes real commitment and tenacity. For as long as the memory within our stories tells us, Humankind has had to meet and face one uncomfortable truth – the truth of their humanness.
Sometimes it’s used as an excuse for our failings and mistakes. We can write them off as being “Human”. But is this level of our “Humanness” the same level of being “Human” as the Ancestors lived it?
So the real question is: what did they know that we do not? What is it that prevents each one of us living from the same level they did? And if we did, how would our lives be improved in some way, or would they?
When a set of Teachings is given within any traditional Cultural framework and you begin experimenting with what it’s like to live within them, each one of us is confronted with the weaknesses of our humanness because they are exposed and magnified by the Teachings we’re engaging with.
The roller-coaster of emotions (often labelled as unhappy ones) we experience is our resistance to letting go of what we have allowed ourselves to believe in for many years as Truth. As Humans we do not easily let go of anything we believe has valued and served us in some way. It is the not letting go that keeps us in a place of feeling stuck and unsatisfied. The more we hang on, the more rigid we become. We cannot move.
Often it is the very beliefs we are holding on to that are keeping us stuck – but we cannot see it because those beliefs have gotten us to where we are now. It is the Now that is telling us we are stuck and need to move, but it is the valuing of beliefs that we have outgrown – at some level we intuitively understand this even if it is a very vague intuitive sense – that is preventing the movement.
Every Tradition tells us that to prevent movement is to create suffering. We are the source and architect of our suffering…
Most people cannot take the roller-coaster of emotions. The roller-coaster feeling is the tension between holding on and letting go. Because we cannot cope with the intensity of the feeling, and because we have not learned how to experience the wide gamut of emotions in a healthy way, we resist the movement, telling ourselves all sorts of familiar fabrications: “I’m fine as I am”, “this is as far as I need to go right now”, “I’m OK, I don’t need to change”, “I like myself less now than before”, “itʻs normal to…” and 101 other one-liners.
All of them are the Voice of Resistance – we just don’t recognise it because itʻs a familiar voice and feeling the roller-coaster of emotions isn’t. When something isn’t familiar or when it fails to meet our imaginary view of what “becoming” looks like and what “light” feels like – we assess it as Bad or Not Good…what is really happening at the most profound levels is CHANGE…
And most of us arenʻt taught how to recognise it, embrace it, ride it out and live through it until it becomes our “norm”.
Which, if you really think about it, is why we actively seek out Spiritual Teachings in the first place – to make sense of ourselves…
People do not change because they cannot (or will not) go the distance. They haven’t learned basic coping mechanisms for being uncomfortable with uncomfortable experiences. They are thirsty for the quick fix that instantly makes them feel better and more approving of themselves – and that’s when the old “Stories of Resistance” like those one-liners really kick in.
That we have those thoughts is a normal process of personal change; that we allow them to keep us nailed to the same spot, is not. Are these words “pinging” you strongly in one way or the other? Are you feeling “the Yips”? Are you feeling uncomfortable? We hope so. That’s why we have given them to you. We want to be controversial. We want to create the Depths of Thought within you. We want you to objectively assess your own beliefs. We do not want you to stay nailed to the cross, sacrificing the finding of the Truth of Light within you. That is the mission of all Traditional Teachings in their pure form.
Uncorrupted Teachings help you to fight your way through; corrupted Teachings do not serve the Truth of You, they serve the corruption of your Spiritual Essence keeping you contained in “unpotential”, which is a wasteland, literally a wasting of your spirit and a wasting away of your potential. Uncorrupted Teachings teach you the Skill of Discernment, so you can see the Truth, corrupted Teachings will make it sound like truth, but really they’re hiding the Truth from you. They blind you to all that you can be. To all youʻre supposed to be.
You will only ever know this for yourself when you go the distance and follow the path to its end – in the process you will experience life unmasked. The roller-coaster of emotions is the first raw experience of unmasking. Only when you are unmasked, are able to decide the Truth. Which doesn’t require a decision at all…
How can I develop myself further Kumu?
- Join the School of Spirituality Spiritual Intelligence Training – Stage 1: 4 x Sundays in November 2022 @ 09:00am – 10:00am with Kumu Nālani live online or start the DIY Course and reach out to Kumu when you need to. This course is suitable for everyone
- Join the School of Hawaiian Spiritual Studies: Path to Paʻa. 7 x Mondays starting mid-October 2022 @ 6:00pm – 8:00pm with Kumu Nālani live online. This course is for those interested in learning about Hawaiian Spiritual Practices, Practitioners of Hawaiian Healing like Lomilomi and those thinking about becoming Lomilomi and/or Hoʻoponopono Practitioners.
- Get in on our mailing list to get our Free Magazine, overflowing with articles to get you thinking about life, growth and then what…👉🏽 join our community
- Do a 1:1 online Hoʻoponopono Session and start clearing the stones from your Path: Kumu and Wise Guide Deborah Halani both do these sessions Or doing live online Healing Sessions with one of the other Wise Guides – each Guide works with you in a different way
by Kumu Nālani | Jul 29, 2022 | Blog Posts, Spirituality
IT ALL STARTS WITH A SPECIAL KIND OF LISTENING. A listening, that is so deep, so clear, so unencumbered that there is no mistaking what you are hearing. It is in PŌ – The Place of Origin – that the Ancestors reside. The Ancestors who know and your potentials. They know all that is possible for you. Want to heal and develop personally and professionally? It all starts with discovering the interconnectedness of your own identity. It is only through that process you will truly understand your spiritual sacredness and the sacred nature and importance of your relationship with “place”…
Listening…to the “song” of Place is to listen into the “songs of PŌ – The Place of Origin. You might have a different name for it in your Tradition or way of understanding things.
We MUST come to understand the Place of Origin, if we are to really understand ourselves. Our history tells us how…
We can go back to the very first Kahunas, the first Kahunas of the First of the First Nations people. They migrated through the South Pacific trying to escape Spiritual Corruption.
Spiritual Corruption continues today and each one of us experiences it AND contributes to it at some point. That’s a confronting thought…
…at some point the Kahunas knew they would have to stop running. There was no escape from the corruption the human mind, the Ego, can inflict on the Practices of Spirit. There was only one decision, to stop and make a stand.
And that’s what they did.
They brought with them profound and intricate understanding – the level of understanding that can only come from Pō, the Place of Origin.
From the level of understanding of Pō, they constructed a way of life around the Teachings of Pō that encapsulated the Spiritual Energy of Pō into a way of thinking about life. And themselves as part of life. One fed the other. Because the thinking was uncorrupted, daily life was also uncorrupted…
And so it continued for generations… The Kupuna/Elders provided the direction of life which included the reverence of care of the land, which was not only part of life, but considered part of the family.
They ensured each person was educated in the TEACHINGS OF PILINA – Relationship, developing Protocols and Ceremonies that upheld AND continued the understanding of the INSEPARABLE UNIFIED NATURE of their relationship with land, the ocean, rivers, streams, rain, sun, clouds, stars, animals, birds, insects and fish – everything that could be seen, heard, touched, smelled, felt, tasted and everything unseen, unheard, untouched, unsmelled , unfelt, untasted as well.
People lived at a different level to most of us today.
They lived at a level of uncorrupted Spiritual Pilina that translated to HOW they lived in each day. They didn’t have to think about their Spirituality, they were it.
They understood themselves. They understood the Cosmos, the Universe. They understood Pō – the Place of Origin. They heard it, touched it, smelled it, felt it, tasted it and learned to see the unseen, then add this learning to how they lived their daily lives.
They heard its “song”, the many voices that are present within Pō. And because they heard its “song”, they could hear and understand the song of their Place, their land, where their homes were built. They understood that there was a COMMUNICATION between their Place and the Place of Origin – a PILINA.
One song is part of another song – the sound of your Place is the sound of Pō. That’s what makes a place SACRED.
Your ability to hear it, understand it and communicate with it – to understand and make yourself understood in return – is what gives you your SPECIFIC & UNIQUE PILINA with YOUR place.
It gives you your IDENTITY. Becomes part of you. You become part of it. It’s a reciprocal relationship. You can’t become separate from it – but when you do experience separation, that conflict you feel within, is the sound of place calling you back.
Your identification with Place, as part of Place, is what gives you AND It, sacredness. You both hold the mana/the spirit energy of the Ancestors, which reside within Pō, the Place of Origin. It’s like a fingerprint, and you and your Place carry it. Together. Sharing the same breath and the same life force.
Both of you powered by the Mana of Pō.
In our School of Hawaiian Spiritual Studies, we learn this type of Pilina has a name: WAHI PANA AU PAU. You and your Place are the sacred story of Pō. When you come to know Pō, which is ongoing by the way, you come to know more of yourself. It’s then that you really begin to understand yourself better.
Your unfolding story of Pilina, gives your Place more mana/spirit power. Makes it more sacred bese you come to know your own sacredness, and this is what you give back to place each time you remember it.
It’s you that keeps your place Wahi Pana – Sacred. And vica versa. Your Place is You…Pilina with Place is Pilina with yourself…
☝🏽 Where to next Kumu?
- Get to know your Place; what is it now? What is it’s history? What are First Nations stories about it? – doing you research can lead you into an exciting adventure and deeper connection with People & Place
- Get to know your Place by visiting a spot you feel drawn to: maybe intuitively, maybe through your reserach or other knowing and quietly meditate or pray in this Place. Observe Protocol 👇🏽
- Develop Yourself: our Spiritual Intelligence Courses 1 – 3 take you on a journey of self-discovery starting with yourself, then Nature and finally the Cosmos. You can do these by Distance Learning, at your own pace with support from Kumu and the Wise Guides when you need it 👉🏽 bingo
- Join our Path to Pa’a Course: this is for both Spiritual Seekers and Practitioners and is all about the Foundation Teachings of our Ancestors from Halawa Valley Molokai, including teachings about Wahi Pani and how you can develop your relationship .👉🏽 check it out with the free course intro
- Join our Hawaiian Studies Club: classess, forums, resources, biz building help, discounts on sessions 👉🏽 go here for more
📧 I’d love it if you keep in touch and get to know the SoHAD and what we do better. Every couple of months we send out our free News Magazine with Course Information, articles, first looks and Course Premieres and other goodies from ourselves and our friends.Get on the list if youʻre feeling it 👉🏽 here 😊
by Kumu Nālani | Mar 5, 2022 | Blog Posts, Growing, Hawaiian Studies Club
When we grow we create a bridge between healing and change. That’s what growth is. Growth is the mid-point, the transitional process that leads to change which is the transformation from one state to another. Within these states of transition another process takes place. We learn to become strong and unshakeable – or what is called Pa’a in our Hawaiian Lineage.
We can only get to the stage of Growth because we have moved through the cycle before it, which is healing. Healing continues through Growth, but it is a different more aware and advanced stage of Healing. Healing itself will always be continual because all new growth spurts require healing to be entered into first.
We cannot heal without first learning – which is why learning, healing and growth are a web of interdependent cycles that we must move through if we are to attain the state of Pa’a and stay there. Change is the part of the process where we learn to stay Pa’a.
As we teach in our courses, Pa’a is not the zenith or peak, that once there we simply perch and stay. That’s impossible because the energy of the world moves and we must move with it. In all things and time periods this happens.
When we resist, we experience pain and suffering by trying to hang on. Often we lose sight of what we are really hanging on to – but if we have worked the process of learning, healing and movement into growth, we come to understand the true nature of it and what’s in it for us to keep hanging on.
The revelation of the “what’s in it” for us to hang on, the illusional reward, is a step on the Path to enlightenment. One bulb lights up with each step and it’s this that enables the next bulb to light. All through life we are stepping and lighting – that’s how we get to shine but the shine will only last as long as we stay Pa’a. Which is why we must continue to step along the Path.
Each time we do, another layer is revealed to us. These layers of Beingness and Understanding can only be stripped back and revealed because we are Growing. Growing is part of the lifecycle. It isn’t always easy and painless. It isn’t always fast. In fact Growth that is too fast can create the state of Fear – fear of being powerful enough to have the awareness we are simultaneously shaping and participating in our lives at the very same moment in time. Sliding doors moments…
When this happens and we have awareness of it, without the learning, healing and growing in place first, it can be so overwhelming that we reject our own power because we haven’t been taught how to companion our power and use it as a force for movement towards Source. As humans we do not really understand power. Our Hawaiian Teaching of Mana gives us a way to understand spiritual power and transcendence of physical limitation.
By the very word we learn that within it’s two syllables there is a sacred meaning that holds the key to understanding Growth. We always say, the sacred meanings are held deep within the language. Understand language and you will understand the Ancestral Teachings, and this applies to the origins of all languages including the olde English. When we study Mana, we are studying deeply into the understanding of Growth, its orgins, its present and its future. Mana gives us an alignment that moves through time and space.
Mana teaches about the formless power of our true nature, our spiritual essence and how it moves, transcends and moves again. We are in a constant cycle of movement and growth. We may deviate at times and feel lost. This is because we have stepped off the Path in the way we live. The Teachings are those that bring us back again if we understand what they are really telling us.
The Teachings are both the Path and the map to finding our way back onto the Path when we have stepped off. Fear causes us to step off the Path as we have already shared with you; impatience causes us to step off the Path; Ego is another cause – which is really dressed up Fear. Ego is the compensation for not feeling worthy or good enough. It arises from feelings of disempowerment.
If we understand Mana and spiritual power, we will also understand empowerment and all its many layers. That’s why it is a study of laying down one layer at a time. And it’s also why our Teacher Kumu Lawrence says people are in too much of a hurry to get to Z that they don’t pay attention and put the work into the knowing all the layers of the ABC’s. Meaning, everyone wants to get to the end, the outcome, but the outcome you want can only come from doing the study to understand all of the steps along the way.
You will only have lasting empowerment if you learn to understand, apply and live from the Source of Power – which is also about living from your Spiritual Intelligence. It all fits together and all of these skills and knowledge must be developed so that you can move into Change.
If you think about it in this way you’ll see that Growth is the period of Personal Development…and if you can see that, you have lit a bulb of Enlightenment…
☝ Learn more about Growing and living from the Spiritual Path in our Path to Pa’a which is the Foundation Course of Hawaiian Spiritual Teachings. These Teachings are the spiritual ground from which healing modalities like Lomilomi Massage and Ho’oponopono grow. If you want to learn those modalities, the Path to Pa’a is your starting point. You can do this course DiY or in a class live online with Kumu Nālani. Another way to develop is to do the Spiritual Intelligence Courses, start with Phase 1 which can also be done as DiY study or in faciiltated classes with Wise Guide Deborah Rose Hālani. ❓’s are always welcomed as our only desire is to help you learn, heal, grow, change and aim for something higher. Here to ask Kumu for help and guidance: Hey Kumu!
#hooponoponocourses #lomilomicourses #watertheseed #authentichawaiianspiritualteachings
by Kumu Nālani | Dec 15, 2021 | Blog Posts, Changing, Growing, Hawaiian Studies Club, Healing, Relationships
WHEN THE YEAR STARTS TO DRAW TO A CLOSE & THE NEW ONE IS ON THE HORIZON it’s time to start looking forward.
When the hurly burly of Christmas & the Holiday Season ramps up it’s easy to get caught up in the distraction as you swing from crazy to chaotic – end of year targets, an endless round of socialising, holidays, Christmas lunch & dinner to think about, as well as co-ordinating visits to the rellies – family. In all of this, there’s one simple question to answer, “are you happy?”.
You might answer sometimes, generally, usually, not always – we all have things in our life that make us feel happy, but deep down are you happy?
If you find yourself saying “I’ll be happy when...”, it’s time to clear the clutter to uncover what truly makes you happy. Finding happy isn’t a chase or a goal to go after, it’s finding where your happy place is within you & the rest follows.
How about making 2022 your year of personal growth, change and development – free from being weighed down by past baggage…
Unfortunately there’s still a lot of stigma about Counselling but Counselling is really all about Personal Development – working one-on-one with someone to help you get where you want to go, to stop doing the things that prevent you from being happy and start doing more of the things that do. It’s that simple.
📅 A Year of Personal Change – what you can do:
1. Let go of expectations of yourself, others and how you think things should be
2. Stop trying to please everyone – it takes you away from your true self
3. Repair resentment, guilt and shame – find its root cause and heal it. Remember we all makes mistakes – it’s how we learn
4. Find forgiveness and you’ll find authentic connections with yourself and others
5. Say goodbye to draining, de-energising relationships – it’s tough but you’ve got to know when it’s not for you
6. Release all the busyness – have you confused it with status and achievement? Or avoidance? It doesn’t give you more of anything except stress and (often) lower self-esteem
7. Money doesn’t buy happiness – of course you need it but what have you traded-off for material gain & earning more & more? And how much do you really need anyway?
8. Let go of fear of abandonment – it leads to poor decision making
9. And let go of fear too – that’s one thing the Kūpuna/Elders always advise. Fear is the distortion of the Ego which is designed to help you in this school of life.
A list is just a list without action and action is hard to take on your own – that’s why you need a Wise Guide to help you access the places you would not be able to go by yourself and cheer you on through the tough stuff…they also make sure you’re holding yourself in love and not judgement
☝ If this strikes a chord and you want 2022 to be a milestone year, then make a time with Mark or one of the other Wise Guides and get set for 2022…
