Month: November 2015

Transition

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Transition Last December, I went through the rites of ʻūniki which, in the tradition of my hālau, is a formal graduation ceremony marking ones transition to becoming a kumu hula or a teacher of hula. Every tradition is different. Some hālau do not ʻūniki students, while others do. I share this image with all of you because it was a defining moment in the ceremony. It was the culmination of my lifelong career as a hula student and the beginning of a new chapter. A kumu hula from a different tradition tied on my pāʻū kaula and was the first to greet me into this prestigious guild of hula masters. Becoming a kumu hula has been something I’ve reflected upon hundreds of times in the past year. I continue to mourn the end of my time as a hula student and although my new role demands its own attention, I now have time and space to properly process my transition between death and rebirth within the hula realm.

Gratitude

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Several years ago, I vowed to cultivate a daily attitude of gratitude instead of stockpiling everything for Thanksgiving. It’s easy to get bogged down in the negative, to look at life everyday with a cynical eye of what I don’t know or what I don’t have and wallowing in what I think makes my life “difficult”. On this day, every year, I am even more grateful for the basic necessities I often take for granted. There are still places in this world, including here in Hawaiʻi, where people are not safe from threat or harm, where human rights are being violated, where people don’t have access to clean water, food and medicine, where people live in abject poverty, where education is a luxury not afforded to all. These are the times we live in, but they don’t need to be the world the future lives in. I wish you all a heartfelt thanks-giving, wherever you are.

We’re Back!

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It’s been a little over a year since our last official post and since then, a lot has happened to each of us. In case you’re wondering, no, nothing happened between us. Our friendship has remained in tact. It’s just that for the past year, our respective lives required us to drift in different directions and so our friendship flexed and endured, as any strong friendship should. We have continued to love and support each other despite the distance, through celebrations and triumphs, through trials and tribulations, just like we’ve always done, even before Holoholo Girls. Although we felt guilty about letting our little blog go, the time away was good. It provided us with a bit of perspective. We are different now than we were a year ago. Much different. We are stronger, smarter, and more mature, and so our blog will reflect that growth. We will continue to blog as a way to explore our changing and emerging perspectives, but our collective focus may make a slight shift, so bear with us, as …