Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 1, 1 January 1993 — True healing must eome through hoʻoponopono [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

True healing must eome through hoʻoponopono

bv Klna'u Boyd Kamali'i Trustee-at-Large Aloha no e nā hoaloha. Mahalo ā nui loa for your support in the November elee-

tions. After nearly a lifetime of eampaigning - starting with my father Victor Boyd's run for the old County Board of Supervisors to five terms in the State House - I thought I had experienced mueh

of what political life and public service could involve. I was wrong. The privilege, responsibility, and opportunity to represent and work for the betterment of the Hawaiian people have touched me at the deepest level. I ean only express my deep appreciation to you and renew my pledge to honor and keep your trust. This January we observe the 100th anniversary of the most profound betrayal of trust ever known and still felt by the Hawaiian people. Ten years ago when I chaired the Native Hawaiians Study Commission, most of us were hearing and leaming our history for the first time. The question most asked

was "What happened in 1893?" Today, we are still educating others about the actions of the United States and the nature of the harms endured - the destruction of a nalion,

the theft of nearly two million acres of land, the cultural erosion. But more and more, the questions are directed at the nature of repair and restitution: "What is sovereignty?" "Whieh

lands ean be returned?" "How mueh money is involved?" Political solutions and practieal programs are needed to answer those questions. Finding and agreeing on those answers will require hard work, perserverance, and creativity. More difficult and more significant to the true healing and wholeness of the Hawaiian people will be accomplishing and accepting a sense of jusmess and restored spiritual halanee. In "bBnā I Ke Kumu," Mary Kawena Pūku'i described this process as ho'oponopono. For me, her words both seek and offer guidance. At heart, they also offer a prayer:

"...In ho'oponopono one talked openly about one's feelings, particularly one's angers and resentments. This was good. But talking things out is not enough. Something constructive must be done about the grudge, the reasons behind the quarrel. And to get this done, talking about anger must be kept under control. Let the anger itself erupt anew, and more causes for more resentments build up. Setting things to rights requires all of the maturity one ean muster. Only when people control their hostile emotions ean satisfactory means of restitution be worked out. And usually it's pretty hard to forgive fully and freely until property has been retumed or damage repaired or one's good name has been cleared. "Ho'oponopono seems to be a supreme effort at self-help on a reasonable, adult level. It also has the spiritual dimension so vital to the Hawaiian people, and even here, prayers, to 'aumakua in the past or God in the presenL are responsible, adult prayers. The appeal is not the childlike, 'Rescue me. Get me out of this scrap.' Rather, it is, 'Please provide the spiritual strength we need to work out this problem. Help us to help ourselves. ...'"