00:01:06.600Haoli is a three-time national poetry champion, poetry mentor, and a published author.
00:01:12.240She is a proud past Kaipuni student, Ford Fellow, and a graduate of Kamehameha, Stanford
00:01:19.440University BA and New York University MA. Her book, Remembering Our Intimacies, Mo Olilo,
00:01:27.500Aloha Aina, and EA, was published this fall with University of Minnesota Press.
00:01:38.200Well, Jamaica, thank you so much for joining us today. I would just really love for you to
00:01:45.840introduce yourself a bit further, however you see fit, or perhaps share a poem if you feel called
00:01:52.340to. Okay, well, aloha mai kakou, o wauno o Jamaica, heo li mali kalani osorio. I was born and raised
00:02:01.040on the island of Oahu in the Palolo Valley. I'm a native Hawaiian artist, wahine woman, queer person,
00:02:10.960poet, professor, scholar, educator, storyteller. I come from a beautiful, large family that most of
00:02:20.760our family actually grew up on another island, the island of Hawaii, in the malu of Mauna Awaakea.
00:02:26.980But these days, a lot of us live on Oahu, and me and my partner and our newborn child,
00:02:34.280she's three weeks old yesterday, along with my parents and my two sisters and brother,
00:02:39.900We all live in Wahiawa. Most people know me outside of my own profession as a poet and a
00:02:45.080performer. But these days, I spend much more of my time working directly with students at the
00:02:50.180University of Hawaii. I teach Native Hawaiian and Indigenous politics at our university. And I am
00:02:56.640what I consider to be a longtime Hawaiian activist and Kia'i protector. And those things really
00:03:02.700inform pretty much everything about my life. And since you asked, I guess I could share a poem.
00:03:07.940I know I was asked to prepare if I wanted to share a poem, and I didn't really think about it, but now I want to.
00:03:13.940And this poem was written in what we say in the malu of Mauna Awaakea, in the shade and protection of Mauna Awaakea, in 2019, July of 2019, when thousands of us Native Hawaiians and our comrades had gathered to block the movement of construction vehicles up to the summit of our sacred mountain.
00:03:34.940And I joined a number of other people who lived there at the semi-permanent encampment, kind of committing to not leave until the construction vehicles left.
00:03:47.140And so this poem is about that time on the Mauna.
00:03:49.720And this is also about the time when I met my partner and fell in love and now have this beautiful life that I have now.0.86
00:03:57.540ask me about the mauna and i will tell you about 30 kanaka huddled shivering in an empty parking0.79
00:04:05.300lot praying the lahui would answer the call i will tell you about two nights spent caught
00:04:11.160sleeping directly under a sky scattered in stars in air so clear every inhale is medicine
00:04:18.360how every morning i woke to a lahui growing as if we were watching maui fish us one by one from the
00:04:25.100see. Ask me about the Mauna and I will tell you how on the third
00:04:29.180morning I watched this 30 became 100, then 100 became 1000, then
00:04:33.3801000 became us all each and every one of our Akua standing
00:04:37.100beside us. Ask me about the Mauna and I will tell you the
00:04:41.580mo'olalo of eight people chained to a cattle grate and the
00:04:45.220kukua who sat beside us how we were never alone in the malu of
00:04:49.220the Mauna how no one is ever alone in the malu of the Mauna
00:04:53.520ask me and i will tell you about the hands i held through the blistering cold and extreme heat how
00:04:58.480i learned love from the subtle tilt of her temple pressed against mine or the solemn promise of her
00:05:03.840eyes how the evening before i braided prayers into her hair hoping they would hold ask me
00:05:11.680and i will recount their names all 38 kupuna one after the other who showed us moopuna how to stand
00:05:17.840how i wept and wept and wept as i quietly held their names in my chest ask me and i will sing
00:05:24.000the song of our monowahine linked arms and unafraid who stood in the face of a promise of
00:05:28.880sound cannons and mace ask me and i will tell you i have been transformed here but i won't have the
00:05:36.320words to quite explain i will say i do not know exactly who i will be when this ends i don't know
00:05:43.760exactly who we will be when this ends but at the very least i'll know that this aina
00:05:52.000did everything it could to feed me that will be enough to keep me standing
00:06:04.880Oh, wow. What a way to start this conversation. I am left very stilled and chilled. And
00:06:19.300I'm just catching myself. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that and hearing your
00:06:28.540passion behind each word and your inflection was just
00:06:34.020left me in a state so hopefully I can get myself together enough to keep going you know we got to
00:06:44.200start with the deep stuff right go right into it right into the people as my people would say
00:06:48.500right into the center well to continue going deep into the center i'd like to ask you about
00:06:59.760polina as explored in your most recent book remembering our intimacies and for listeners
00:07:07.180who are unfamiliar i'm going to share a passage from your dissertation remembering upina of
00:07:13.920intimacies, wherein you write, quote, if relationships are about intimacies, then this
00:07:20.700dissertation is also about considering the many forms intimacy can take, and how certain
00:07:26.600relationships and intimacies are pursued and practiced. Some intimacies are realized through
00:07:32.560sex, some through experiencing together a sunrise or a cold rain, some through the simple yet
00:07:38.940important act of sharing names especially in the face of a settler colonial project that has worked
00:07:45.120towards punishing mocking or eliminating certain forms and practices of intimacy it is important
00:07:52.280that this project take intimacy seriously in its many shape-shifting forms end quote
00:07:58.820and i'm just particularly struck by this notion of shape-shifting intimacy you know intimacy that
00:08:08.800is expansive. So I'd love if you could begin by sharing how limiting our colonial understanding
00:08:15.920of intimacy is, and non-comparable, the abundant nature of a pre-colonial intimacy.
00:08:26.240Absolutely. Such a great question and really well-timed because this is exactly what we were
00:08:31.060talking about in my classes this morning. So I should be fresh. I'll talk a little bit about
00:08:36.000this from the perspective of a native hawaiian wahine queer person and scholar who spends a lot
00:08:41.760of time uh thinking about how our cultural norms have been transformed uh erased policed via you
00:08:52.080know colonialism and belligerent occupation and a lot of this is can be really easily related to
00:09:00.400one particular word in hawaii that that a lot of people not even just hawaiians but a lot of people
00:09:04.960seem to have some kind of familiar familiarity with and that's that word is aloha and as as you
00:09:11.660folks might know aloha has such a grand audience right everyone almost everyone's heard the word
00:09:18.360before but very few people actually know what it means and so many people are invested in a
00:09:23.560particular defining of aloha these days in hawaii that definition is crafted to sell a product
00:09:30.360and that product is hawaii right this place is the product and we and our culture and our practices
00:09:36.020are a part of that product and it it generates massive wealth for a small number of people who
00:09:42.280have no kuleana no responsibility or authority in hawaii but that's also part of a much larger
00:09:49.060problem so before as some might say in kava oivi vale the time of just the natives right before
00:09:56.520the arrival of people like captain cook and all his homies and then of course the abcfm mission
00:10:02.200my people practice a really as you say expansive practice of aloha and intimacy and care we were
00:10:10.380not heteronormative by any stretch of the imagination we did not practice compulsory
00:10:15.180monogamy or compulsory heteronormativity we practice what folks like uh who's a brilliant
00:10:23.340Hawaiian scholar. She calls it moi aku moi moi, the sleeping here or there. And there were a lot of
00:10:30.260things about Hawaiian society that were heavily regulated and spiritually regulated, but pleasure
00:10:37.540was never one of them. There was no expectation for you to have one partner of a particular sex.
00:10:43.100In fact, the only expectation there was is that you enter into consensual relationships and that
00:10:48.540you respect those relationships and you respect whatever boundaries you set up with the people
00:10:53.260you are in relation to. And that's important because those pilina, those intimacies we shared
00:10:58.820between people, we shared them in that way because it was also reflected in the aina, in the land,
00:11:04.380in that which fed us. We learned how to give each other pleasure through pleasuring the land or
00:11:09.700through watching our other than human kin pleasure each other or the land. You know, a great example
00:11:16.520is watching a manu'o'o, a honey creeper, sip the nectar of a lehua blossom. That teaches us about
00:11:23.960giving pleasure to women, that we see ourselves as a part of aina, a part of land and a part of
00:11:30.520creation. But of course, a lot of that changes with the coming of foreigners. The first kind of0.98
00:11:36.020wave of that change, of course, is with Captain Cook and these early, early arriving Europeans0.99
00:11:42.700and their interest in buying sex essentially buying women um and of course that changes the0.99
00:11:51.500way we think about about intimacy it changes the way we think about consent it changes the way
00:11:56.060and all of that comes with all kinds of problems around disease and death and so even the the early
00:12:03.300hawaiian kingdom is having to reckon with our norms around intimacy are no longer safe for us
00:12:09.420because we are dying from these venereal diseases that we never had here because these1.00
00:12:14.920dirty haole men are coming here and sleeping with women when they know that they're sick1.00
00:12:19.120so that's like the first wave but what becomes actually a much more powerful wave of influence0.96
00:12:24.680is in the 1820s when the missionaries arrived in hawaii and when the early first missionaries
00:12:29.660arrived in hawaii they one of the rules for these missionaries is that they had to be married
00:12:35.380so many of these missionaries from boston went out and found wives so that they could come on
00:12:40.300this mission and that's really important because an essential part of what they came to teach
00:12:44.940was what it means to be in a virtuous relationship what it means to be a virtuous person
00:12:51.100to be close to god and so on and so forth and so when they come to hawaii
00:12:57.960they start to import really particular ideas about what what kinds of intimacy are appropriate
00:13:06.760and what need to be policed out or mocked or removed and here is where we see this really
00:13:12.360drastic transformation in the way that we conceive of our ohana our what some may call families and
00:13:18.600we go from these really expansive practices of pilina multiple partners um you know no such
00:13:25.480thing as an illegitimate child uh our ohana expand beyond the nuclear to these very rigid practices
00:13:35.720of what a family is and some people may think like okay well this is only having a a really
00:13:40.840small influence it's just on the family um but if you think about the way that my ancestors used to
00:13:46.600practice ohana and you think about the fact that we didn't have words for auntie and uncle that
00:13:52.120everyone in the generation above us was makua was a parent and everyone in our generation was a
00:13:58.040sibling when you look at the way christian christian um christian ideas around around
00:14:06.920intimacy and relationships what they really did is they reduced us into these really
00:14:11.000isolated households and that had a really tremendous effect on how we lived with each
00:14:17.000other but also how we live with our land and so when we when we talk about this more expansive
00:14:22.280practice of aloha whether it is you know two wahine um seeking pleasure from each other or
00:14:28.520two kane two women two men seeking pleasure from each other or multiple women and men or people
00:14:33.480who do not fit anywhere near this very strange gender binary seeking pleasure with each other
00:14:39.320in ways that are ethical and then reflecting the intimacy of our land with each other
00:14:47.000When we talk about that, we not only make room for so many more of us who have kind of been cast aside by society really intentionally, we also recognize that the way that Hawaiians and other Native people, this is, I'll speak for Hawaiians only, but I know from conversations with other Native people that there's lots of resonance here.
00:15:08.220That the way that our people have been removed from our land, displaced from our land, alienated from our land, that happened at the same time that they were removing us from each other, displacing us from each other, alienating us from each other.
00:15:23.860So when we talk about, as Hawaiians, as Native people, when we talk about nation building, when we talk about governance, when we talk about land back, we also need to be talking about how do we come back to each other?
00:15:38.220Because it is those intimate practices of pleasure and consent and desire that actually create a different world that we can live in, right?
00:15:48.260So we're not just talking about, a lot of people like this conversation because they like the sexy stuff, but we're not just talking about who's sleeping with who.
00:15:55.480We're talking about the most intimate ways that we all relate to everyone around us, which means we're talking about how we make community, which means we're talking about how we govern, right?
00:16:07.380Which means we're talking about what world we're going to live in.
00:16:11.140And so, you know, my work and my research takes a really close look at some gorgeous and sexy and exciting examples of other ways we've lived before this strange world that said the only real love is the one that exists in the imagination of the Bible.
00:16:29.780and and it asks us or it reminds us that it hasn't always been like this which means it doesn't have
00:16:39.620to be like this forever and we have so many examples of other ways we can live so why not
00:16:45.080we just do that instead why not topple capitalism why not topple patriarchy why not burn so much of
00:16:53.600this, to the ground, and start again, with something that not only is more authentic to
00:17:00.800who we are, but will also give life back to the earth, give life back to that which feeds
00:17:07.660us and give purpose back to our lives. And that is what that is the aloha that the Hawaii
00:17:15.660tourism economy doesn't want you to know about that the state of Hawaii doesn't want you
00:17:20.100to know about certainly the united states of america does not want you to know about because
00:17:24.480that kind of aloha is radical and will inspire intergenerate and has already inspired intergenerational
00:17:33.300revolutionary movements for change and we just need more and more of our people to know these
00:17:39.400stories and know these songs and and believe in them and and have faith in themselves once again
00:17:44.000to change the world bringing it again wow okay this is just such a
00:17:56.880rich and embodied conversation already and i'm just so particularly drawn to the way
00:18:08.140in which you describe nets of intimacy, which shows reverence for our inextricable connections
00:18:15.480to one another. And I'm thinking back to a recent conversation I had with a dear sis,
00:18:22.060Nidia Alicia, who spoke to something similar as well, pointing out that our understanding of
00:18:28.040self-care is somewhat of a fallacy if it doesn't recognize that our care is actually found in the
00:18:34.580care of each other. Unfortunately, this past year and a half, almost two years now, I think has
00:18:42.560shown us how dominant society refuses to acknowledge our collective health, opting to
00:18:48.780fight for a very hallowed understanding of freedom. So I wonder if you could share any reflections you
00:18:55.800have right now on nets of intimacy and collective well-being versus individual desire.
00:19:02.140for sure such a great and important question especially right now but i think always for us
00:19:09.160to come back to as a kanaka mauli as a native hawaiian i am constantly reminded that there is
00:19:15.780no such thing as the individual that i as an individual do not ever exist outside of my
00:19:22.480relationships to those to everything that is around me and to pretend that i could exist outside
00:19:28.980of relation. It's not only really strange, but it also just sounds really lonely. Like,
00:19:34.420I don't understand why people would want to live that way. And so this is another thing we learned
00:19:39.080via colonialism, right? This really ingrained individualistic idea of what it means to move
00:19:46.720in the world. When we think about upenna, these nets, these fishnets of intimacy,
00:19:53.000that that metaphor is really important because it shows us how every relationship we enter into
00:19:59.660connects us to other relationships and and in the book i i use the example of this really important
00:20:05.640the moolalo and i talk about this one wahine this one woman who um she has multiple female
00:20:15.080intimate partners and multiple male intimate partners and many of these partners even if they
00:20:19.660haven't met each other refer to each other as intimate partners to themselves and so this whole
00:20:26.560new world opens up when you really sit in the truthful understanding that to enter into any
00:20:33.580relationship means if I love you I have to love everyone who loves you I have to love everyone you
00:20:39.580love and not only do I have to love them but I have to be accountable to them and now my capacity
00:20:46.580for pleasure is certainly exponentially compounded, but my capacity for responsibility
00:20:53.720and accountability skyrockets. I have to always see myself as a part of this larger collective.
00:20:59.460And if I fail to do that, my actions not only harm myself, they harm the collective.
00:21:05.040And so when we look at something like, you know, this very strange
00:21:08.900understanding of freedom and individual pursuit of freedom and rights, I have to remind my own
00:21:19.160people that freedom is not a Hawaiian value. It is not something we ever valued as a people.
00:21:25.880This idea that you have these natural rights you were born with that don't come with a
00:21:32.660responsibility that don't come with a with with another side of that coin our language makes this
00:21:39.100very clear the word kuleana the word for right the word for authority is also our word for
00:21:46.460responsibility there is no such thing as one without the other they are always in relationship
00:21:50.820to each other and so i i like to from a from a hawaiian perspective i like to remind folks that
00:21:56.400you know these western values are the values that brought us to this moment are the values that
00:22:01.480put us in this situation they are not going to be the values that are going to help us survive
00:22:07.680let alone help us thrive in life again so when we think about self-care and and collective care
00:22:16.380when we think about our kulena to the world around us i i like to center that idea that none of us
00:22:25.560walk on this planet alone that every step you take has an impact and that shouldn't that shouldn't
00:22:33.400deter us from from trying to move the world that shouldn't deter us from trying to change the world
00:22:39.400but it should certainly remind us that the things we say matter that people are listening that the
00:22:48.920actions i take on or don't take on will have a compounding effect and so when you're living in
00:22:53.000in a time like this, when you're living in the middle of a pandemic, the greatest, worst pandemic
00:23:01.280any of us living have seen, and there are people around you who are worried about
00:27:16.720Under the earth as the moon of the summer sea
00:27:24.100I feel like the more I learn, the more of what you're speaking to is the priority for climate
00:27:33.940justice, for environmental justice. We can't get out of being relational. There's no solution
00:27:43.020that we're going to stumble upon or invent or some technology that's going to be found
00:27:50.440that will be more important than relationships so yeah I'm I'm so there with you and I've I feel
00:28:00.440like I've just been in a huge process of embodying that knowledge in a way that I didn't know was
00:28:08.740possible so I'm I'm just really happy you spoke to that and uh yeah I'm thinking about how you
00:28:17.940recently shared some reflections on Instagram called quote COVID the end of the world and
00:28:24.060finding ourselves and in this video you candidly reflect on the way we're talking to each other
00:28:32.220specifically sharing quote our relationships with each other are going to save us or destroy us
00:28:38.280end quote and this is an acknowledgement I've been feeling really deeply and I think many listeners
00:28:46.720might share this recognition as well as we become more polarized, not only against those who might
00:28:53.880share opposing views, but even in our own circles and movements. So can you expand upon this
00:29:01.260sentiment and the importance of coming home to relationship? Yeah, this is something that
00:29:10.000Like COVID certainly didn't teach me, but my commitment to this lesson had to be elevated because of the things that were happening that continue to happen around COVID.
00:29:22.500And at the center of this, this idea, right, our relationships with each other are going to save us or destroy us.
00:29:27.600at the center of this is a real desire as a kanaka to not forsake any of my people because i am a
00:29:34.660kanaka who who because of western ideology that had been imported into my community had been
00:29:41.380forsaken there is to me a direct correlation between the ways that many hawaiians have bought
00:29:48.480into the idea of heterosexuality as virtue and you know the only way to be in relation is for a man
00:29:55.020a wife to have a child like all that bs there's a correlation between that and and the way that
00:30:00.780these other very strange anti-vax anti-science anti-collective care alt-right centering of
00:30:12.220american freedom and rights uh have gotten also strangely imported imported into my community and
00:30:19.500And so as a queer person, I recognize that violence and I recognize the impact of that violence.
00:30:30.160And it's not just in the example of being queer or living in the pandemic, but it's also in the example of looking at the impact of the U.S. military on my community
00:30:40.820and how there are many people in my community who are not critical of the U.S. military,
00:30:45.220who serve in the U.S. military and celebrate the violence and destruction of the U.S. military.
00:30:52.260And still, those are people who are a part of my community.0.74
00:30:55.360Those are still Hawaiians. Those are still Ohana.
00:30:58.540And so that the work, the real work, is not just me standing on my soapbox saying,
00:31:04.840the military is not just destroying Hawaii, but it's destroying the world.
00:31:08.060and the U.S. military industrial complex cannot stand if we want to live, that's not actually
00:31:13.940the real work. The real work is being able to still stand and live with and build relationship
00:31:20.380with my community so that we can heal and come together to design a world where we will thrive,
00:31:27.560right? If it's just me and my, you know, radical friends standing in a corner talking about this
00:31:32.980beautiful world we're we're going to build and so many of our ohana are are not with us then what
00:31:38.880what what is this world for and so that's what i really was thinking about in that one particular
00:31:45.920video and you know the context around that video is that i kind of stepped all the way into the
00:31:53.080polarized mud around to vaccinate or not to vaccinate because i was getting so frustrated
00:31:58.940not just with what is certainly a large group of new age strange cross over white supremacy
00:32:10.580groups in Hawaii kind of creating their own misinformation about COVID and the vaccine
00:32:16.600but what I was really troubled by was how many Hawaiians were repeating those same narratives
00:32:21.600and I got so frustrated I just you know instead of being in conversation and community with
00:32:28.200i just started shaming people who did not think the way that i did um and that was in direct
00:32:36.280opposition to these these larger more important idea ideas around how important our relationships
00:32:41.720are and so since then um i think i've learned a lot and the people that i'm in community with
00:32:50.840we've we've learned a lot and we're struggling a lot with that work there is no more valuable
00:32:57.240work than building relationships, and there is no more difficult work than maintaining them.
00:33:03.340But the impact of that is tremendous. I mean, you talked about, you know, climate activism and
00:33:11.180the work of climate justice, and you look at what was happening at COP26, or whatever the number is
00:33:16.960now, and all the amazing work happening outside of the building, all the amazing organizing and
00:33:22.440activism and leadership coming from young people, from the Pacific, from, from all parts of the
00:33:27.720world, all of that is possible because of relationship building. You look at Black Lives
00:33:32.800Matter in, how Black Lives Matter in 2020 slash 2021 gained so much more, gained so much more
00:33:43.700attention and had such a wider impact across the world and especially across what we consider to
00:33:49.220the united states of america so much of that is about relationship building you look at what
00:33:53.460happened on mauna kea in 2019 so much about of that is about relationship building we did in our
00:33:58.900own lahui but also solidarity and relationship building we did with other native people
00:34:04.100from standing rock to line three um and across turtle island and so that's really what that
00:34:11.940means right our relationships with each other are going to save us or destroy us if if we don't
00:34:17.860center pilina in the process and also in what we hope to be the product of our work we have set a
00:34:26.420very low ceiling for what we will achieve and what we are also saying by that is that we are okay
00:34:32.820with getting to the finish line with only some of us and i just i can't think of a world i can't
00:34:39.780think of a universe where in the values i've been taught by my my ancestors and our moolalo where
00:34:47.380that would be appropriate um all that to me sounds like is you know our people creating institutions
00:34:56.340that look like the same institutions that violate us it looks like the military industrial complex
00:35:01.300it looks like the medical industrial complex it looks like the prison uh and police industrial
00:35:06.260complexes uh and i don't want to do that i don't want to be a part of that work uh and so that you
00:35:12.100you know a part of that video too is recognizing like oh it's really easy to fall into that trap
00:35:20.740so the work isn't just about being perfect the work is about recognizing when you are
00:35:27.540as leanne simpson would say siding with the colonizer recognize it own it take accountability
00:35:34.580for it and then change your behavior and see if that change of behavior will inspire others to do
00:35:40.820the same and see what you can build on that fertile soil oh so deep and meaningful and I
00:35:50.500find myself in a community a small community now with loggers and miners and I was just getting
00:36:01.620firewood and gosh thinking about conversations with old growth loggers and here I have been
00:36:10.540a fierce defender of old growth logging for over a decade and still the humanity in relationship
00:36:22.320and still we're humans and I think that for the most part people are doing their best
00:36:29.260I actually think that people who are making different decisions than me that I might think
00:36:34.480to myself what are you doing how could you even how how why are you not saying this I actually
00:36:48.400into we don't live in a vacuum from each other and so I can't imagine a world where everybody
00:36:57.340who somehow thinks differently than me even if they are being violent towards the earth somehow
00:37:02.640just disappears and then a whole new society is created I don't see that happening so if that
00:37:10.340isn't going to happen then how are we going to move through this together how are we going to
00:37:15.200find ways of relating and changing each other because we're being vulnerable not because we're
00:37:24.000demanding it of one another just the practice of humbling oneself becoming more vulnerable and
00:37:31.520more connected to even the folks who feel so far from us. Yeah, completely challenging.
00:37:38.480Well, and I think you're right that, you know, most of the people in the world are doing our
00:37:43.060best and everything about the society we live in has worked to alienate us from each other. It's
00:37:49.660not an accident that we have problems connecting, right? It's not an accident that we don't have
00:37:55.800generative relationships all of that is intentional from you know the political polarization to the
00:38:02.100like relational polar all of that so we're not going to change each other by me saying like oh0.99
00:38:07.980you're stupid because you believe these things if we can't actually sit at the table and like build0.99
00:38:11.960a relationship I mean I do believe that there are some just like evil greedy people but by and large1.00
00:38:17.960by and large most of us are doing our best and most almost all of us are making decisions
00:38:24.260impacted by fear and fear is such a powerful powerful emotion and we can't address fear if
00:38:33.980we can't look each other in the eyes right we can't address fear if we can't talk to each other
00:38:37.500and that's where that like that idea of peterina that idea of intimacy you say vulnerability same
00:38:42.720thing i can't address why both of our responses to fear are opposite unless i can actually see
00:38:50.200the fear in you and when i see the fear in you i see the fear in me and we are both giving back
00:38:55.660our humanity right we're both humbled by that um and i that i think is such difficult work but
00:39:04.140such important work especially in a time like you know in the in the covid world where some of us
00:39:10.360haven't seen each other in two years even the people we feel closest to we haven't seen them
00:39:16.480in two years. We haven't made new connections with people in two years. I thought this before
00:39:23.380COVID happened, that we were starving for intimacy. And I think now we're in a crisis
00:39:29.560of intimacy that we really need to attend to. Absolutely. Yeah. And again, there is no way
00:39:38.740around this intimacy for healing there's there's no shortcut there is no carbon sequestering
00:39:46.840technology you can't pay it off right you can't right you can't work like that for it there's no
00:39:53.140net zero yeah you're either doing it or you're not yeah yeah oh gosh well i could literally have
00:40:00.260a hours long conversation with you just on this alone yeah but um i do want to transition
00:40:08.140our conversation and now look at the concepts of aloha which you started to mention at the
00:40:14.500beginning of our conversation and i'm particularly interested in asking you this
00:40:20.380in context of the ways that this idea of aloha has been not only appropriated but transmuted
00:40:28.340into some sort of unrecognizable saccharine selling point um in a plenary address that
00:40:36.760your father Jonathan Arizo you share quote I'm not speaking of aloha as it has been watered down
00:40:45.060and evoked by the tourist industry as passivity I'm speaking of aloha as a radical form of
00:40:50.860activism and healing and it is also a form of resistance and a world full of violence hate
00:40:56.980and oppression what could be more radical than choosing love over hate choosing love over fear
00:41:02.960choosing inclusion over exclusion nothing end quote so please share what it means to embody
00:41:12.580aloha and to reclaim it amidst its commodification what sort of yeah what sort of world is reopened
00:41:21.880when this happens yeah this is this is a great question and i can't that quote i remember that
00:41:30.800plenary address with my father you told me just you totally just took me back however many years
00:41:34.960ago that was i feel young all over again um what is aloha so they're like i said a little bit
00:41:44.480earlier and like like you gestured to just now there are so many people invested in what aloha
00:41:50.000means um and there's that whole tourist industry trying to sell aloha you know aloha sells
00:41:56.400everything from hawaii the destination to pest control to food products to lotions to
00:42:06.560sexually transmitted disease apps and so on and so forth everyone has a vested interest in aloha
00:42:13.200because what they've seen is that it's been used in the greatest marketing scheme of all time
00:42:19.200right the selling of hawaii as a as a destination as a product but aloha hasn't
00:42:25.520just been misappropriated for that purpose aloha has also been used against us native hawaiians in
00:42:33.120policing our behavior so in that larger scheme of aloha selling hawaii uh there's this idea that
00:42:40.640aloha means hospitality aloha means you're always welcome here aloha means i am submissive and
00:42:47.440accepting of whatever you bring to my shores right anything outside of that is not aloha and therefore
00:42:53.920If Hawaiians are all about aloha, anything outside of that is a behavior not becoming of a Hawaiian.
00:42:59.600So we see this really strange, strange policing, kind of similar to the way that, you know, women are told, like, that's not very ladylike.0.94
00:43:10.700So we see this very similar policing of behavior, as you would see with women, right?1.00
00:43:16.280Women need to behave in a particular way.1.00
00:43:17.700Hawaiians need to behave in a particular way.0.95
00:43:19.180And they create, there's the state of Hawaii, this magic institution, created the idea of the aloha spirit, right?
00:43:28.400And the aloha spirit is not this thing that my kupuna talked about, not this thing that we read about in our mo'ola aloha and sing about in our songs.
00:43:36.120It's this heavily crafted list of behaviors, norms of behaviors, right?
00:43:48.060Aloha never steps outside of the church. And so somehow these ideas, a lot of them have been internalized in our own community and we use them to police ourselves so that when nine Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiians in the 1970s, they land on Koho'olawe, an island that had been bombed, continuously bombed as target practice by the U.S. military since World War II.
00:44:14.880um when they land on that island saying you're not going to bomb this island anymore
00:44:18.640other hawaiians call those hawaiians bad hawaiians and they aren't practicing aloha0.87
00:44:24.480it's crazy like beautiful magic trick right where we turn our people against each other
00:44:29.520using a word um completely misusing a word but also
00:44:35.360forcing us all to participate in the state in a particular way and we see the same thing over and
00:44:44.160over from koholave to protesting the h3 to protesting mauna kea there's always this contest
00:44:52.560over whether or not we are acting with aloha um you know when you stand in front of a line of
00:44:58.320police officers and you refuse to move are you acting with aloha well the state of hawaii would
00:45:04.160say no the state of hawaii will say that we are criminals that we are vagrants that we
00:45:10.960are violent even though we're singing and chanting and crying
00:45:17.040but my kuhuna my ancestors and our moolah will tell us there is no greater act of aloha than
00:45:23.200to protect each other and to protect our land so that is the work of kind of re-embodying and
00:45:30.800reclaiming aloha from this unrecognizable idea and a part of that is returning the word aloha
00:45:38.960to this shortly longer phrase aloha which means to love the land which means i learned to love
00:45:45.120from the land which means i will do anything i can to protect the land and each other
00:45:52.000that work is about insisting that no one understands aloha like we do and that we as
00:45:59.360hawaiians have the authority to say what is and isn't aloha and the state will never have that
00:46:05.040kind of authority and when we do that work right when we when we look at the bs that is the marketing
00:46:11.840scheme to sell the aloha spirit people are trying to sell the aloha spirit by telling you to like
00:46:18.720drive with aloha or act with aloha and we can look at all that in the eye and in the eyes and say
00:46:24.080someone is benefiting from this very narrow vision of aloha in the same way that someone
00:46:28.880has benefited from this very narrow vision of ohanna of community of nation what do we have to
00:46:36.480gain and learn and return to if we just open that up again if we say uh you need to check your
00:46:44.000sources you don't know what you're talking about here are all these examples of what allah is
00:46:47.760what kind of world do we open up well we open up a world beyond the military we open up a world
00:46:53.520beyond prisons because there's nothing there's nothing about the prison industrial complex that
00:46:59.280is in alignment with aloha there is nothing about a system that says some of us are not worthy of
00:47:05.600being honored as human that is represented in aloha you open up a world beyond police
00:47:14.000because there's nothing about aloha that says some of us should walk around
00:47:17.680with unquestioned authority and weaponry that we use to harm others so so like you asked right like
00:47:24.960what do we create we create possibility we create answers to some of the most pressing
00:47:30.800and challenging needs of our time in the in the same way that aloha asks us to
00:47:37.440recognize each other it also asks us to recognize our relationship to the aina to the
00:47:41.680to the land to that which feeds us with that which is around us right so we're also talking
00:47:46.560about opening up a universe in which nothing is more important not your economy not your
00:47:54.560you know your global military force not your own ego is more important than figuring out how to
00:48:00.000honor the earth and not just for the selfish reasons of the earth we only live if the earth
00:48:06.080lives but for the real intentional and intimate understanding that the earth is our ancestor and
00:48:14.320we are still in relationship to her and she deserves as much life and thriving as we do
00:48:22.000and so those are you know those are just a few things that open up with aloha and
00:48:26.480the the reason this space is so contested right is because there are still so many people benefiting
00:48:32.320from this watered down policed version of aloha it continues to fuel the tourist economy
00:48:39.280It continues to fuel the state of Hawaii. It continues still to this day to successfully convince many Hawaiians to not stand up and use their voices because they are afraid that they will be seen as un-Hawaiian.
00:50:02.620we'll turn around and just start over we'll turn around and just start over
00:50:10.860yeah i can only imagine like the feeling that i would invoke in you to see aloha being used
00:50:28.220and so many ridiculous ways to sell things that have nothing to do with the spirit of
00:50:36.740your people that's really disturbing and i'm grateful that you have
00:50:42.640had the grace to stick with it and express how wrong that is and what truth is around aloha
00:50:55.600because i think many people who have heard that word have no understanding of the death yeah
00:51:03.120it's the word that everyone everyone's heard but nobody knows you know aloha means hello
00:51:08.800it means goodbye it doesn't mean those things right and and you ask most people like what makes
00:51:14.240hawaii special uh they'll tell you they'll either say the beach or they'll say aloha
00:51:20.560and when they say aloha they are in their minds repeating this very intentional crafted version
00:51:32.060of aloha which means everything about us is a misnomer everything the world thinks about us
00:51:39.300even what we think about us it has been crafted by the hawaii tourism authority
00:51:43.620by disney movies by lilo and stitch by by every single tv show that ever did a hawaii episode
00:51:51.140that's how people come to understand what hawaii is and who hawaii is um so to me you know in
00:51:59.480centering this idea of pirina and relationships because of course aloha is all about relationality
00:52:04.020and relationships there is no more critical question for our people to constantly be
00:52:09.560interrogating and building around and loving around then what is aloha and how do we reclaim
00:52:16.520the aloha that our ancestors promised for us and wished for us and how will reclaiming that
00:52:22.840like if we can't do that we can't we can't get our country back if we can't do that
00:52:27.480we can't get our land back maybe we get our land back but then we just reproduce the same violence
00:52:31.880if we can't do that um so a lot of that has to do with the the same thing that folks in other
00:52:37.720places will will say like we're talking about going beyond inclusion we're talking about
00:52:42.360transformation and that transformation just like we said beginning it has to begin at the people
00:52:47.320at the center otherwise we would say poho like waste time yeah i'm right there with you on every
00:52:57.960word i'm nodding well i'd like to ask you about what your work has reminded you about
00:53:05.080intergenerational wisdom. You shared that you are, quote, concerned with how these teachings of
00:53:11.500Mo'o Lilo, of our ancestors, are instructive in our modern movement building and organizing,
00:53:18.880end quote. And I'm curious to hear your reflections on this, as well as the ways in
00:53:24.080which younger generations are filling in the gaps created by settler colonialism.
00:53:28.320them this is a great question and and it's a complicated question because as as you probably
00:53:34.880know and and maybe many of the listeners know the the movement to assimilate native hawaiians into
00:53:41.280a western civilization was in many ways very successful and so there are whole generations
00:53:48.240that you know my my father's generation but certainly my grandfather's generation he's like the
00:53:54.160the prime example uh his generation is the prime example uh didn't learn their language didn't
00:53:59.920learn our stories many still learned our songs because you know because that was this one thing
00:54:06.400that was seen by missionaries and and kind of the larger oligarchy that were harmless which
00:54:11.680they were wrong about the songs carried a lot of a lot of ike a lot of knowledge but anyway
00:54:16.080didn't learn a lot of these things that we know today and so when we talk about intergenerational
00:54:20.320wisdom there's there's a lot of complications in the way that that we organize together
00:54:26.240because there is this older knowledge and this older knowledge is is held in our hawaiian language
00:54:32.880newspapers we have over a million pages of writing by by our ancestors from 1834 until
00:54:39.760you know the 1950s in our own language stories songs political commentary news all in our
00:54:46.640language so there's this older knowledge there there's also this older knowledge that's still
00:54:50.800held within within our music within our hula and the practitioners who have been entrusted to guard
00:54:58.720that knowledge so we're talking about kumu hula which are like uh the simplest way for me to
00:55:04.780translate that is like hula teachers but really they are they are guardians of knowledge of a
00:55:11.580certain knowledge. So they hold that older knowledge. There are some other people who
00:55:16.060practice other ancient Hawaiian practices that were passed down for generations, and they hold
00:55:21.420that older knowledge. But there's also this whole new generation, maybe last two generations of
00:55:28.340Hawaiians who have been alive during the most recent Renaissance, and in particular,
00:55:35.100a revival of Hawaiian language, right? So folks in my generation who went to Hawaiian language
00:55:39.640immersion schools who learned these stories as children who learned our language as children so
00:55:43.220when we sing our songs we know what the songs actually mean as children who went back and
00:55:48.040studied from those older sources of Hawaiian Ike who as you say are kind of filling in the gaps
00:55:54.640that were created by settler colonialism or settler colonialism are those big caverns
00:55:59.440that were created by settler colonialism and there is an understanding I think as
00:56:05.420respectful humans, but also, you know, as, as Native Hawaiians that we honor, we always honor
00:56:12.020the generations before us, right? We honor our parents, we honor our grandparents, and we honor
00:56:15.900the, the ancestors before them. And when we do work, when we, especially when we're organizing
00:56:22.440today, that's critical to the work that we do, that young people don't just go off and do any
00:56:27.820kind, as we would say, we don't go off and just make any kind and not listen to the teachings of
00:56:32.100at the same time there are some pretty big political differences between some of the folks
00:56:41.380in my generation and the younger generations and the generation of my father and the generation
00:56:46.500of my grandfather a lot of that is shifting a lot of that has you know is directly correlated to the
00:56:53.460trauma of colonialism of you know my grandfather living in a time where you weren't allowed to
00:56:57.940speak hawaiian where being hawaiian there was no value seen in anything hawaiian which is
00:57:03.700the exact opposite of what it's meant to grow up in my time and so we have had to be more dexterous
00:57:14.900more i don't want to not careful more intentional we've had to come from a place of healing we have
00:57:22.500had to really take the time to to listen and speak and see each other in the organizing that we do
00:57:30.180because inevitably the the vision of the future from some folks in older generations is very
00:57:37.700different from the vision of the future of my generation and those younger and a lot of that
00:57:41.700not all of it but a lot of it has everything to do with growing up with your language or not
00:57:46.580and i tell this to my students there is no greater thing you can do to to not just change the world
00:57:54.660but to change the way you see the world than to learn your native tongue 100 no greater thing
00:58:00.040you can do when you learn as a hawaiian when you learn the hawaiian language not only do you see
00:58:04.620the world a different way because the language creates the world in a different way but you
00:58:09.580open up yourself to like i said those million pages of writing by your ancestors that you never
00:58:14.760could have read before and in those a million pages are examples of different worlds that we
00:58:21.360could live in are examples of worlds we've lived in before um and so the way i think about it now
00:58:28.440as someone who's been really blessed to be involved in in different movements from the
00:58:33.240movement to protect mauna kea or you know other movements is that the the honoring of
00:58:41.240intergenerational wisdom is always there and the honoring of our kupuna of our elders
00:58:45.480is always there but respect and compliance are not the same thing
00:58:54.060and there will be times in the work that we do because this work requires us to trudge through
00:59:02.160all kinds of trauma and violence and fear and ideas around scarcity and possibility
00:59:10.260it's going to at times require young people and i'm like aging out of the young people category
00:59:18.180now right i'm i'm a parent i'm a makua um so i'm not an opio i'm not a i'm not a young person
00:59:23.540anymore in that sense in terms of our generations uh young people are going to have to stand by
00:59:31.620the beliefs that they have they're gonna have to be open to the teachings of their ancestors and
00:59:36.020and their elders, but they're also going to need to trust those teachings and trust where those
00:59:39.940teachings lead them. And this really reminds me of something that Noi Goodyear Kaopua wrote in a
00:59:45.060blog post when she said, there's no shame in being the grandparents of the seventh generation.
00:59:51.360And she talks about how, you know, the older generations or herself, like she didn't learn
00:59:57.360about the Hawaiian overthrow or speak her language until she was out of high school,
01:00:01.780but that her children had those lessons from birth her children had the language of our
01:00:06.540ancestors on their tongues since birth so our elders prepared young people to take us into a
01:00:15.540more expansive future and so the hard work then is those of us who are older and aging we have to1.00
01:00:22.520trust that foundation that was built and we have to trust that these keiki these opio these young0.92
01:00:28.660folks, they know where to take us because we prepared them to take us there. And to me, that0.83
01:00:36.040trust in that, even when that perhaps creates conflict, even when that means that young people
01:00:41.980have a different idea of what should happen than maybe the elders in the room, trusting in that is
01:00:47.360actually trusting intergenerational wisdom. It's trusting an intergenerational process that brought
01:00:52.760us to this moment. But again, that's, that's hard work, especially in a time where settler
01:00:58.560colonialism, as we know, is it's not an event, it's systems and structures around us all the
01:01:04.340time. And it's constantly trying to get in between us. And it's constantly trying to
01:01:09.800face us with limits, right? Ideas around scarcity, ideas around what's possible,
01:01:17.900what isn't possible, and who better than our young people to see through that BS.
01:01:22.760we need to trust them that that wisdom the intergenerational wisdom which i think we
01:01:28.760don't think about as much goes both ways it doesn't just mean heed all the words of the elders
01:01:35.100it means trust the foundation the elders built in you trust the vision and um center good relations
01:01:45.140and we'll be okay yes trust is also something that i've been practicing a lot lately and i'm
01:01:57.960really grateful that you brought that up because i think there's something around intimacy and
01:02:02.360trust and surrender and relationship building that's all woven into the same tapestry and
01:02:12.160i also see youth knowing so much they're like popping out already with so much knowledge and
01:02:20.280wisdom and a really deep knowing and kind of almost like a no bs type of understanding of
01:02:26.400things i'm constantly amazed when i talk to young children and kids and teenagers i'm like
01:02:32.380what you know so much and you're you're you're so present with what is and and it does give me a lot
01:02:40.300of relief and excitement and yeah trusting that they got this not to walk away of course like
01:02:48.020support yeah to step into their lives and gosh there's so much that I came across while preparing
01:02:57.220for our conversation but there was this interview where you shared the ways in which after a certain
01:03:03.760period of time and great success, writing poetry felt like a burden when you were expected to
01:03:11.760create content for others, but you felt you had run out of things to say. I imagine you no longer
01:03:18.900feel like this, but I think so many listeners might be struggling with this sort of personal
01:03:25.140and artistic burnout while also feeling guilty that the mediums wherein we can feel beyond
01:03:31.740thought, you know, become stagnant. So can you revisit these sentiments and how you emerged from
01:03:40.020it? Yeah. Well, you know, I think, I think capitalism is really messed with us all in
01:03:48.960terms of how we think about productivity or how we, how we conceive of ourselves
01:03:56.460in relationship to our productivity I remember people telling me and me really believing this
01:04:02.400that like a poet is someone who wrote today and I get the sentiment these days I look back and I
01:04:09.420get the sentiment right like to be a poet is to practice to be a poet is to you know make make
01:04:15.680beauty and make real of the world around you but the way that those ideas have been really deeply
01:04:21.760ingrained in, in, in our manao and our thoughts around my value comes from what I can produce
01:04:28.300is really, really harmful. And so I think a part of my, I think a part of a lot of our burnout
01:04:35.600is so much of our lives is around production, whether it's in our jobs, like we have to produce
01:04:41.060in a particular way, or it's even in the things that we do because we love them. And for me, that
01:04:45.360was poetry was, was never supposed to be a job. It was never supposed to be something that, that
01:04:50.580paid the bills. And, and I got kind of lucky slash unlucky that, you know, there was a lot of,
01:05:00.620I had a lot of opportunity as a poet. And it did end up, you know, paid for me to go to college,
01:05:08.120and it did all these great things. And so I started to see it as an occupation. And I started
01:05:13.140to, and somehow as seeing it as an occupation, I started to see it as connected to my value.
01:05:18.020and I don't think there's any way to go through life like that without burning out eventually
01:05:24.380like if we connect the things we do to who we are in terms of our value again like that's a
01:05:31.220pretty low ceiling we're sending or setting for ourselves and these days I wouldn't say that I
01:05:39.380have nothing to say like in those moments before like I felt like I had run out of things to say
01:05:44.440or run out of new ways to say old things because that's really what poetry is right nobody's
01:05:49.440actually saying anything new you're saying something old in a new way in a way that will
01:05:54.940capture someone else that will create resonance with someone else which is why poetry is so
01:06:01.540amazing because it's something that can be put out into the world and connect to people who have
01:06:06.580never seen each other never met each other never touched each other and yet for that moment they
01:06:10.880touching uh they are reverberating off of each other like gorgeous um so i no longer feel like
01:06:17.280i have nothing to say but i do feel like the world i live in the reality i live under makes it very
01:06:25.040difficult to find space to connect enough with myself and the environment around me to say
01:06:31.360something worthwhile which which is to say i spend too much time on my computer teaching not
01:06:37.440i love teaching my class but doing all the things around teaching my class tied to my job so that i
01:06:42.560can keep my job so that i can pay my mortgage so that i can buy food for you know my family so that
01:06:48.800i can put money away for my kid to go to college all of these pressures that we're all living under
01:06:54.400to differing degrees depending on our privilege and i'll recognize that i have a i have a great
01:06:59.440amount of privilege in terms of the the job that i hold that i am able to survive under capitalism
01:07:04.720when so many of our people are certainly barely surviving under the weight of this ridiculous0.89
01:07:10.220system. But capitalism doesn't have space for creativity. In fact, creativity is dangerous to0.57
01:07:19.900capitalism. Creativity will lead us to a place that will tell us there's another way to live
01:07:24.140beyond capitalism. And so I think when a lot of people talk about burnout, or they talk about,
01:07:29.100you know, they're just tired creatively. I don't think people are tired creatively. I think people
01:07:34.360are tired of living under these unlivable conditions that we have convinced ourselves
01:07:41.180are livable because we have also convinced ourselves that there's no other way to live
01:07:45.640and so if like if people are are wanting you know my advice I don't know why anyone would want my
01:07:52.100advice but if people are wanting my advice to that then it's it's not that we need to think
01:07:56.160new ways to create it's that we need to think of uh find more ways to tumble and and tackle and
01:08:05.520destroy or burn down capitalism yeah i think about as an example right i think about the work we did
01:08:14.880and continue to do at mauna awakea to protect that mountain um and i think about how difficult
01:08:21.520that work is how people left their jobs how people left their families and lived on the foot of a
01:08:27.360mountain for some people for nine months not me i was there for maybe three months um and they lived
01:08:35.040in the most unforgiving one of the most unforgiving um climates in the world right you can go from
01:08:42.080uh danger of frostbite to danger of heat exhaustion in less than an hour and people
01:08:48.160did that because they loved they loved this they love our aina and they love each other but they
01:08:52.240also did it because because the system we live in that has been devised the people whose job it was
01:09:02.240to protect that mountain our leadership they weren't doing their job so the maka i nana the
01:09:05.760common people the everyday people we had to do their job and our job and that creates burnout0.57
01:09:10.560right when we're living in unlivable situations and yet we refuse to just comply and die we say
01:09:17.600no we're going to take on the beast and i think about what is really the job of the common person
01:09:23.920the job of people like us it is to you know it is to tend to our gardens it is to grow food
01:09:34.320it is to write poems it is to compose music it is to surf and enjoy the aina and the environment
01:09:42.880around you it is to spend time with your family but none of those things are possible if the world
01:09:48.400is telling you you need to at the very least work a nine-to-five job in order to keep a roof over
01:09:53.920your heads um and so capitalism is the death of creativity capitalism is the death of of creation
01:10:05.280and and and vice versa creation and creativity are the death of capitalism so if you feel burnt out
01:10:11.920take a rest, take a sleep, practice community care, but then come back to it. Because as Mari
01:10:18.640Matsuda says, artists are going to save the world. And if the artist dies, the world dies.
01:10:26.140And I don't know, I think there are better things waiting for us that we should keep fighting.
01:10:33.080That was honey for my heart. I needed to hear that personally. Oh, gosh. Yeah,
01:10:41.660I think it's easy for us, especially those of us who find joy in creating the pressure
01:10:49.760and the overwhelm of just trying to navigate through this time and create things that feel
01:10:59.360true and inspiring and meaningful while, you know, sometimes the world burns.
01:11:08.320It's like really intense. And then all just the pressure of figuring out how to survive and how to take care of ourselves and our families and each other. So, yeah. Oh, gosh. Yeah. That was really, really, really good for me to hear. And I'm sure so many others will feel relieved, too.
01:11:27.120and gosh jamaica this has been so amazing and i really don't want this conversation to come to a
01:11:37.160close but as we are starting to come to the end of this moment that will hopefully never fully end
01:11:45.680i i just like to ask you about this idea of an abundance of realities remembering our intimacies
01:11:54.320calls readers to recognize the future is in ancestral pasts. And I've heard you speak about
01:12:01.800how many alternatives there are to capitalism in the history of your people alone, a sentiment
01:12:08.260shared by almost all indigenous peoples across the globe. And I think what this reminds me of
01:12:14.960is, yes, there are other visions, but so many will never see those visions. And I wonder if
01:12:21.680you could just respond to that? This recognition that the vast majority of society refuses to
01:12:27.480open themselves to possibility. Yeah, that's a great question. And I think it goes back to
01:12:34.960something we talked about a little bit earlier in the power of fear and the real success of
01:12:43.780the evils of the world, right? Like we said, most people are doing their best and there are a few
01:12:49.020kind of evil folks, evil, greedy folks pulling the strings who are benefiting from the destruction
01:12:55.220of the planet, who are benefiting from the destruction of our people and the death of
01:12:59.180our people and destitution of our people. I think one of the biggest lies that's ever been sold,
01:13:05.060even just in Hawaii and perhaps around the world, is this idea of scarcity, this idea that there
01:13:10.380isn't enough. And I don't know who came up with that lie. They must have been a really great
01:13:16.140marketer because it's spread across the world like wildfire this idea that there's not enough
01:13:22.200for all of us and that idea has been used as justification for hoarding of resources whether
01:13:29.300it's you know uh you know minerals or or any other kind of like water and any other kind of
01:13:35.700resources that that give or take life and so many of us believe it i mean good hearted beautiful
01:13:45.160even activists right we believe that there's a scarcity of resources there's a scarcity of time
01:13:49.960and the more i think about it and the more i read about our our histories and the more i even look
01:13:55.480like if you spend time with the you spend time with the land the more you realize that there
01:13:59.960is no scarcity that has not been created by greed scarcity is not a natural phenomenon in the way
01:14:06.200that we've been taught there is more than enough there is abundance and and you think about what
01:14:11.720is the greatest threat to capitalism the greatest threat to capitalism is abundance this idea that
01:14:18.280we don't need to hoard that we don't need to maximize what we can draw in profit from the
01:14:23.880earth in labor from people uh through violence upon both and i think if anything if anything i
01:14:33.480wish more of us could see it's how much abundance is really around them how much abundance is within
01:14:38.520us right because even we have been told as people that we lack we lack what it takes to
01:14:46.920to be productive in society to contribute to society in a particular way to change society
01:14:52.440we don't have the answers all of that is bs marketing from the guys holding the capitalist
01:14:58.840strings um and the more we can get people to see even in even in hawaii i think of examples like
01:15:05.480you know in our in our own small communities can you see the abundance in your own community
01:15:09.080where society has said there was none right can you see that and the island we talked about
01:15:15.480before that was bombed for a number of uh decades by the u.s military as target practice can you
01:15:21.720see that place as something more than barren can you see that place as something that still has
01:15:26.840life that still has something to teach us can you see mauna kea the highest peak in the pacific the
01:15:33.880largest mountain in the world when measured from its base can you see it as a sanctuary can you see
01:15:40.120it as as a as a holy land even though there are already 13 telescopes upon it can you see its
01:15:47.880abundance can you see what it what it will teach you because if you can then the only logical i
01:15:55.720think the only logical next step to that is how do we open our eyes to all the other abundance around
01:16:02.760us and how do we come to recognize the way capitalism itself the way that we've organized
01:16:08.680our society around capitalism as the center central most important value uh to americans
01:16:15.960and certainly to the western world how can we use the abundance around us to see the lie of
01:16:21.000capitalism to look it in the face and to see the way that our fear is keeping us from living beyond
01:16:27.960it there is an there are enough forces in the world that will tell us capitalism cannot fall
01:16:33.240we do not need to be one of those forces we need to be the voices that remind all of us
01:16:38.920our parents ourselves our children our grandchildren that not only is another world possible later
01:16:46.360so many other worlds were happening before capitalism in fact in the grand scheme of
01:16:50.440things when you look at the age of our indigenous communities right some of us have been here
01:16:54.360our stories go back to darkness we are much much older much much more sophisticated than this
01:17:01.480strange society we live in and and the only way we get to live in that beauty again is if we have
01:17:10.260the courage to see beyond now if we have the faith in the teachings of our ancestors to see beyond
01:17:18.720and create beyond now and as as kind of a final thought that i that i've been thinking about a lot
01:17:25.600these days is there's there's a lot of us who some of this fear is compounded by the you know the
01:17:32.940climate catastrophe that we're living in and we are living in a climate catastrophe and there are
01:17:37.060people around the world who are suffering greatly already at the hands of climate change well not
01:17:43.820the hands of climate change at the hands of those who have created climate change out of greed
01:17:48.020um but in Hawaii last I don't know last spring when Hawaii was closed for a number of months
01:17:57.640to tourists there were places that had not seen sharks or fishes or certain plants in in decades
01:18:08.300because of our impact on the land those places those sharks came back the fishes came back the
01:18:14.060I know was transformed in a matter of months, which I want to remind people of this, to tell
01:18:20.240them that even the things that we think are far gone are not far gone. And that the land we live
01:18:25.900on is so incredible, not just Hawaii, right? All the lands we live on are so resilient that they
01:18:33.380will come back if we do our part to get out of the way. And when we get out of the way,
01:18:40.660we can imagine and create beyond capitalism again that there will be abundance again the fish will
01:18:46.320come back we don't need to ship in all of our food from around the world and hawaii so that
01:18:51.520we don't produce any food of our own the fish are here they will feed us the aina can be restored
01:18:57.320we can feed ourselves there is really and this is hard to say sometimes because we do live in a
01:19:05.080scary dark world there is really so much to look forward to so much within our control
01:19:10.740that we just have to have like we said a little trust in each other a little faith
01:19:18.160yes i'm with you and i am committed to doing it and i feel that those listening are also
01:19:28.100dedicated to that commitment. So thank you so much. I'm really
01:19:36.580moved and inspired by this conversation. I really hope to have another one because I just,
01:19:45.480I can't let my mind rest thinking that we're not going to have another conversation in the future.
01:19:50.520So this is just a pause. So listeners, don't worry. This is a pause. We'll come back to you.
01:19:58.100I can't wait. Thank you so much for having me. It's been it's been really wonderful. Maybe, you know, and our people, everyone says Aloha means goodbye. Aloha doesn't mean goodbye. We say until we meet again, because we know we will meet again. And we will build beautiful futures in that meeting.
01:20:14.380thank you for listening to this episode of for the wild podcast the music you heard today
01:20:24.600is by pura fe rising appalachia and justin cromer for the wild is created by ayana young
01:20:34.300ali constantine erica ekram emily guerra and julia jackson