(Muku or) Hilo Daytime; Pule Ho'ulu'ulu

 The temperature was like summer. The air dry. Only a very gentle breeze. Perfect day for preparing a new bed for pole beans, summer squash, and herbs. 

Sifting the lepo to get loamy soil ... tilth

And bare feet!

Perfect weather for drying clothes, too

As I sat taking a break at the picnic table I saw something big in the lower chicken yard. A flash of black. A flash of red.
Pileated Woodpecker.

Mary, our friend and land-mate said she thought we were now hanai-parents (adopted parents) to a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers after the land across the road was clear-cut this family lost their habitat. They're welcome here.

Sunset. Bright orange ball through the trees. In the west.

Later in the evening the sky and the forest was a shade of violet.

This was ka la (the sun) at sunrise on this po. In the East.

The opening line to Pule Ho'ulu'ulu

"Na 'Aumakua mai ka la hiki a ka la kau!

Ancestors from the rising to the setting sun"

Last night when I was pau with playing in the dirt, I had a big WOOW. We live in a place where we can see the sun rise in the east and set in the west. Sacred space. Mahalo na 'aumakua, hilo ia a pa'a. 

Anahulu Ho'emi (the week) leading up to Muku (Spring Equinox and Lunar Eclipse)

The first Camelia are blossoming in the woods around our tiny homes. They hua much later than the Camelia in town which are already expended themselves, petals fallen in the past weeks.

Up-island overlooking West Beach on the Northend of Whidbey, the Kane tide is gently dancing leaving a small shoreline beach.

The heavens kiss the mountain range (The Olympics)

Winter has been dry. Only a scatter of snow caps the mauna. There is drought.

As Pete takes pictures of ke kai and the mauna beyond, Eagle hunts from the utility pole, turns to look at Pete. Pete retreats to the car.

On Muku nei this morning, hei (spider webs) have begun to gather the potential of raindrops

Evidence of a northearterly makani (breeze) ... very gentle. But it has brought the smell of some hewa from the forest. Later, we would discover the source. Slash burning of a new logging project. Man is making way for more storage units.

La'au Pau (yesterday, March 9, 2015)

This is from Pete's notebook yesterday. He recalled his busy La'au pau day in South Whidbey...

EARLY MORNING: fog from Useless at Bayview. Wet grass about 9:00 A.M.

NOON: Clearing, allowing Ka La (the sun) to warm things up

UPPER LANGLEY: warm, then northerly breezes off of Saratoga Pass cooled temperatures down

BACK IN THE WOODS AT HOME: warm and clear skies in the early evening

MAXWELTON VALLEY: Around 4 P.M. Quade Road warm and sunny; Ewing Farm ... spotted 20 Canadian goslings warming themselves on the grassy patch by the pond.

MIDNIGHT: Hina very low in the S.W. sky

La'au kukolu (today)

The temperature is warming, a little. We left the la'i (ti plants) out overnight. In the background is the Rose of Sharon (Purple Hibiscus) that I bought for my brother David's memorial last May. It's slowly sprouting new growth.

We woke to a foggy morning. This shot mid-morning Ka La (the sun) is breaking through the remnant fog. The lucky fish wind sock is still; no breeze this morning.



Wana au ... the shaft of light

BIRD SOUNDS: While I park here at the keys, I hear the work of the woodpecker, Flicker or Red-Head? Raven is also very close (they usually are) making galumping sounds in the trees. Sparrows and Towhees are busy in the huckleberry and wild blueberries. They have been feasting on Pete's sprouting winter wheat berries. The birds think the berries are for them, never mind the humans who think the tender greens Pete will juice is for them:/

Hilo 'Ia a Pa'a ... braiding a tight cord of knowledge ... A New Year of Counting on the Moon

Aloha and Welina kakou,

Welcome (back) to the on-line workshop wa'a where we began to explore the practical, personal and collective journey of using the Hawaiian Moon Calendar to notice our relationship with Mahina, the Moon. Back in 2011 my husband Pete and I created this blog and this virtual space to share our practice of living with the Hawaiian Moon Calendar. We were newly excited and informed (in the early years of practice) by the renewed value that my kupuna my ancestors knew to be 'sustainable practices' of being Earth and Heaven influenced beings. My kupuna related to the whole of creation as surely as they understood that water and air are necessary for life.

Contemporary life has distracted us, most of us, from the values and practices that are foundational -- that is, some things are greater than ourselves, our believed entitlements. In 2007 those distractions and beliefs that were my world washed out with the tide. Homeless. Health bereft. Humbled. While we relearned what was sustainable, Mahina the Hawaiian Moon rose from the ocean over the horizon off the Eastern shore of O'ahu as we made our bed for the night. From our car which was our home for many months at that time, Pete and I literally began our journey of counting on the moon. We have rebuilt a life, and rooted ourselves in a new island-based community in South Whidbey Island in the Salish Sea (Pacific Northwest America/Washington state). Our practices as elders in training (Makua o'o) are magic made manifest like the braided cord.

Hilo 'Ia a Pa'a ... the phase comes from the Moon Phase Project. I'm using it here to describe the noticing and journaling process we wish to encourage as the Lunar New Year of the Green Goat (Chinese New Year) is freshly beginning. We will be braiding the knowledge of noticing what happens where we (you, me, all you gathering here) live while Mahina, the Moon, is in the thirty phases of light and darkness.


For the next twelve months, beginning with March, 2015 we will:

Notice
Share
Record
and then

Compare and consider the implications of climatic conditions/changes for us as Indigenous Peoples. We are all Indigenous to the place we call home. If we will notice what Nature is doing where we live we will braid a tight cord of knowledge that can become wisdom if we apply what we have observed.


On September 23-27, 2015, a Pacific wide lunar conference called "Aimalama" will be held at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on the island of O'ahu. Kalei Nuuhiwa's website describes the upcoming conference here.


What we would like to do here with this Count on the Moon blog/on-line workshop is involve people in the process of making connections between moon phases and growing/Nature's 'output' to prepare us for inclusion (in a meaningful fashion) with other practitioners throughout the Pacific.


From our community in South Whidbey Island in the Pacific Northwest we invite you to join us. Please come back often, and interact with us from wherever on the Planet you are.



How exciting it is to work hard at something that will sustain and feed you.


Aloha,
Mokihana and Pete