Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 31, Number 5, 1 May 2014 — On the slopes of a volcano, finding refuge in the arms of a rainforest [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

On the slopes of a volcano, finding refuge in the arms of a rainforest

By Lurline Wailana McGregor Kahikāhealani Wight describes herself as a very private person. Yet, in her new ehook, Rainforest Pu'uhonua, she reveals her innermost thoughts and feelings as she recounts the journey

that took her into the high mountain landscape of the rainforest and the world that she had longed to know since her childhood days. From birth, Wight felt a felt deep eonneehon to the Hawaiian culture. She had many questions about her missionary and ali'i ancestors and the valley in whieh she spent her young years, but her father's only response to her curiousity was, "Haole way now, don't look back." Growing up in a time when the burgeoning Honolulu society of the mid-20th century did not value Hawaiian language, culture or landscape, she was allowed to listen to Hawaiian music but was discouraged from learning hula. She savored the words of the Hawaiian songs and hungered for knowledge of their meaning, whieh only amplified the pain she felt from being cut off from the 'āina and her Hawaiian ancestors.

In a self-published memoir, author Kahi Wight, a Hawaiian language teacher at Kapi'olani Community College, recounts her years living among the 'ōhi'a trees in Voleano. "Stories spring out of landscape," she says. - Photo: Lurline McGregor After graduating from high school and thinking she was finally free to pursue the studies of her ehoiee, Wight enrolled in a Hawaiian language class at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. Her adviser quickly informed her that Hawaiian was a dying language and would not allow her to waste time studying it. Instead she graduated with a degree in English, and heeame an English teacher after finishing graduate school. By the early 1980s, the renaissance in Hawaiian language was well underway, and after enrolling in and dropping out of Hawaiian 101 five times because of teaching schedule conflicts, she made a lifechanging decision. Wight left her teaching job andbecame a full-time student at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo in Hawaiian language and linguistics. As Wight reveals in Rainforest Pu 'uhonua, it was around this time that she was starting to question her purpose in life, feeling that she had nothing to show for herself as she approached middle age. She needed a pu'uhonua to retreat to so she could sort out where she was going and what she wanted to accomplish. A storm hit Hilo in late 1984 and destroyed the home she was living in, forcing her to move. Voleano had cheaper real estate than in Hilo, and she found a property that resonated with her spirit as

soon as she walked onto it. It was an old plantation house in a yard full of tall 'ōhi'a trees and native birds, within walking distance of Volcanoes National Park. No matter that it hadn't been lived in for many years and had no source of heat other than an old fireplace, in spite of being in the middle of the cold and damp rainforest. During her first night in the house, Pele announced her presence, and Wight knew she was meant to be there. She spent the next five years in Volcano, continuing to study 'ōlelo Hawai'i at UH-Hilo while leaming from the environment about native insects, birds and plants. She quips in her introduction to Rainforest Pu 'uhonua, "How ean a mere five years have changed me forever?" When Wight returned to O'ahu, she started teaching Hawaiian language at Kapi'olani Community College, where she still teaches today. Rainforest Pu 'uhonua is a memoir that reads like a diary of Wight's time spent in Volcano. Although it is written in the present tense, she didn't start composing it until 24 years after she returned to Honolulu. "I was inspired to write this memoir by the thought that stories spring out of landscape andthat our connection to the landscape of home is healing, grounding, kapu," she explains. Her entries are often whimsical, sometimes mundane and always through a Hawaiian way of understanding that she eame to internalize while living in Volcano. Through hō'ailona (signs), teachers with scientific knowledge, and her own observations and reflections, she learned about the fragileness of the rainforest, and she shares

the kaona, the hidden meaning, of how the survival of the environment is tied to our own survival. It takes very little, perhaps a rainy day in Honolulu, to transport Wight back to the rainforest, where she says, "I am home again far up mauka and I know that wao kele and wao akua are wrapped around all I do, all I am." ■ Lurīine Waiīana McGregor is a writer, fihnmaker anel author of Between The Deep Blue Sea and Me.

<NA PUKE v www.oha.org/kwo | kwo@OHA.org B00KS f NATiVE HAWAilAN » NEWS | FEATURES | EVENTS

REVIEW Rainforest Pu'uhonua

Rainforest Pu'uhonua By Kahikāhealani Wight Self-published ebook

Availablethroughamazon. eom or iBooks for $9.99