james and i had lunch today with nyrell pattel and her husband and another friend (natives from australia) at wailana. it was interesting, and kinda like talking to ourselves. it took a little bit of time to share info that we thought might be relevant to starting a relationship. i hadn't met them before. rather, kuhio vogeler, a friend, had called from california to ask if i might meet with them and help them out with protocol issues (as if i could!). half hour into our discussion and lunch, we all realized that there was nothing any of us could share that the rest didn't already know about from firsthand experience: same statistics re health, education, economics, prisons, etc, etc. so we got that out of the way. then we talked about what she had in mind when she asked kuhio to help her connect with local people (hawaiians). nyrell wants to network with native people throughout the world to share strategies for healing generational trauma among native populations. she's a native healer as well as a western-trained psychologist. but she seemed to be in resistance to western understandings of illness. that was all good! but she also inferred she thought new age healing methodologies (including reiki) smacked of theft, like the white folks that now call themselves 'shamans' and 'healers' because they took training from somebody who had the 'gift'. nyrell believes that all healers heal because they have the gift of healing, not because they've been trained to heal. okay. i'll support that. then i'll have to rethink my own position on reiki. i know it works for me, or so my students and friends say when i work on their headaches that go away. i took training! yikes!
just as an aside, kuhio (my friend now in california) is on his way to estonia for 5 weeks or so to do research for his diss. he's comparing the struggle for independence of estonia, latvia and other baltic nations to hawaii's case. they were independent. then they were taken over by the soviet union. then they declared their independence again. what strategies did they use? what strategies could we use? i am reminded of a story that niklaus schweizer shared about national symbols, in particular the estonian flag. the people there would raise their own flag above the usurper's flag a little at a time, until one day it was flyin higher. just a small thing, and not many people noticed, but of course all the activists noticed, and they took heart by this action. small steps, indeed. reminded me of the time i was at the palace and someone came over to tell me that the hawaiian flag flying at the state capitol was upside down! i ran over (having my trusty camera on hand) and took photos. by that time, someone inside the building noticed and had come out to lower the flag and turn it right side up. i asked him what he thought happened, and he said it was probably an accident. but i don't think so. it wasn't the first time!
anyhow, back to the meeting today. the white woman in the photo with nyrell is a german woman who happened to be walking by outside the restaurant and offered to take our photo (which is why i'm in it!). so i took her photo with nyrell. she mentioned that it was a shame the terrible history of the u.s. in hawaii and how they stole the land. that made us all smile. james told her he felt germans were much more aware of such issues than most americans, and thanked her for her comments. he was remembering, of course, our friend and compatriot, sabine deiringer (now at cambridge finishing up her phd), who always struck us as being particularly cognizant and sympathetic to our efforts at resisting white american hegemony. not to mention that we miss her dearly.
we invited nyrell and her party of 4 to meet kekuni at his house tomorrow evening. hopefully he'll actually be there! last week he wasn't around, even though the meetings are standing meetings! oh well...
after we left the restaurant, i asked james to drop me off at waikiki beach near the police station so i could take surreptitious photos of tourists and others hanging out at the beach. something weird is happening to me. i've turned into a photo nut, trying to capture photos i think are interesting, colorful (i like red in particular), and catch some kind of action that tells a story all by itself. the photos above are two photos that i particularly liked. feel free to comment, if you're reading this.
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