Fear Of Focus

I was browsing through some very old notes and came across the following piece, written to myself at a very crucial time in my life. It isn't very long, but I think that reading it might be useful to people who might find themselves in a similar state at some time in their life.

"It's time to review and set clear-cut goals. The past few days have been a torment for my Lono because radical changes are necessary and my priorities and directions are fuzzy.

I think I have a very deep issue about commitment to a single purpose. There is also an issue about what's important, about working in the present with trust vs planning/programming for the future, about what I want and what gives me pleasure, about security and service, and about focusing in the creation of an organization or focusing on the spread of knowledge.

From everything I know, success will require motivation, confidence and concentration. Motivation comes from believing something is important. Confidence comes from trusting oneself and the universe. Concentration comes from each of those. You can't concentrate if there's apathy or fear and doubt. In another sense, concentration comes first because there has to be something to be motivated or confident about.

We are back to the issue about commitment to a single purpose. Even thinking about that stirs up strange feelings akin to fear. Probably why I've found it hard to commit to a single technique, also. This is a prime issue. I see that the way I've coped with it before is to shift focus within a broad area or find a distraction. So I shift from peace, to love, to power, to energy, to success, to prosperity, to presence ... all within the context of Aloha International and Huna. Even when I 'make a commitment' to one focus, I either forget it the next day or begin to have huge doubts.

If there is such fear, there must be an anticipation of pain or danger as a result of such commitment. Is it a fear of power and what that might do to me or to others? Is it a fear of rejection or criticism if I'm 'too' committed? Is there a fear based on some other model I've seen or some other life I'm living? Is it a fear of loss from too narrow a focus? Since all of these have come to mind and provoked varying degrees of feelings and releases, it's probably some of each. 

What a complicated interlock! No matter which focus I try in my mind, fears and doubts and excuses come up as to why it's not a good idea.

So it isn't the particular focus at issue, it's focus itself. What would happen if I were to focus exclusively on one thing (I even found it hard to maintain focus on this sentence!)? Right now my head feels funny, my chest is contracted and my shoulders feel heavy. I would say the main issue is criticism/rejection. What would I be criticized for if I maintained intense, sustained focus? Here's a scenario that just went through my head: If I commit I'll be very successful, if I'm very successful I'll be noticed for being outstanding, if I'm outstanding I'll be criticized for being different and egotistical, and if I'm different and egotistical I won't have anyone to love me. Whew!

Lawa! Enough! I hereby commit myself to focus on practicing and teaching the Power of Love, 24 hours a day!"

Note from the Present: Well, I'm not up to 24 hours a day yet, even many years later, but every day in every way I'm getting better and better.

Fearlessness

We were born to be fearless.

We do not inherit fear from our ancestors. It is not an instinctive reaction, nor is it necessary for survival. Caution, yes; recognition of potential danger, yes; but not fear. We have to be taught how to be afraid.

I remember when I was a young boy watching my younger sister walk down a hallway in our home while smashing spiders on the wall with her hand. I thought it was disgusting, my sister thought it was fun, my Mom thought it was horrifying. I can still hear her screams when she saw my sister happily diminishing the spider population, and I remember how quickly my sister changed her attitude and behavior toward spiders after only one intensive spiders-are-awful-be-afraid-of-them training session.

One minute we can be fearless, and in the next we can learn to be fearful. For the moment let's put aside the question of whether fear has any value. The issue at hand is whether it is inborn or acquired behavior.

Here is another example, opposite to the one above. On a sunny day on a broad beach in Africa, when the ocean was like a calm lake, I noticed that my four-year-old and seven-year-old sons were having fun the water, and my three-year-old son was having fun on the sand. No problem with that, except that I also noticed how he scampered out of the way every time the smallest wavelet came within two feet of him. This looked like a job for "Parentman!"

I picked up my three-year-old, talked to him soothingly, and carried him a few steps toward the water. He immediately tried to squirm out of my arms, even though the water was only around my ankles. He was clearly afraid, so I stopped, calmed him down, and took a few more steps forward. Of course, he reacted in the same way. Very slowly and gently, using a classic psychological method of desensitization, I was able to get him to accept being in the water ankle deep, waist deep, chest deep, and, finally, we even ducked under the water together. After that I returned him to shore and let him develop his own relationship to the ocean. After he graduated high school he became a US Navy Seal.

One more example to illustrate my point. I teach a self-help behavior modification technique called "Dynamind," and one thing it is very good for is getting rid of phobias. During a seminar demonstration I had a young woman on stage who said she was afraid of water. We further refined that to be a state of paralyzing panic when facing a swimming pool. Even further refinement produced the interesting discovery that the panic occurred only when the pool was closer than two meters, more than one meter wide, and the color of the water was blue. In fact, regardless of the size or proximity of the pool, the panic disappeared if the color of the water was green.

In the first example above, my sister had no fear of spiders until she was taught to be afraid by our mother. Her first reaction to them was the instinctive one. In the second example, my son was afraid of the ocean, not the water itself. I know this because I had seen him happily splashing bath water all over on numerous occasions. I have no idea what event taught him to be afraid--and he doesn't remember--but his ability to get rid of the fear in such a short time definitely indicates a learned behavior and not an instinctive one. And in the last example, the fact that so many specific conditions had to be met before the debilitating fear occurred is indicative of learned behavior as well.

This would be a good time to define what I mean by "instinctive" behavior, because many people confuse it with "automatic" behavior. Behavior is automatic when you have learned it so well you don't have to think about it anymore. It is basically a stimulus response like Pavlov's dog salivating at the ringing of a bell. For many people, riding a bicycle, using silverware, reacting with fear to specific events, or getting cold symptoms when you get your feet wet in street shoes, but not in beach sandals, are common examples of automatic behavior. Such behavior is linked closely to individual experience and cultural expectations.

Instinctive behavior, on the other hand, is common to all humans and not dependent on individual experience or culture. Breathing is instinctive; breathing rates are learned. Eating is instinctive; food choices are learned. The urges to get warm when you are cold, get cool when you are hot, seek security when you feel insecure, or move toward or repeat pleasurable experiences, and move away from or avoid unpleasant or painful experiences are all part of humanity's repertoire of instinctive behaviors.

Another important difference is that learned behaviors, automatic or not, are capable of being unlearned or modified very quickly, whereas instinctive behaviors can only be suppressed, amplified, or redirected.

It is a fact, supported by abundant research, experiments and experience, that fears can be unlearned, often quickly, without suppression, amplification or redirection. This alone puts them into the learned behavior category.

Part of the misunderstanding about fear comes from early experiments in which babies were tossed into the air and observations were made of their behavior. The instinctive reaction of seeking a connection to something secure was interpreted as an expression of fear. Actually, as long as you don't drop them, some babies get immense enjoyment from being tossed into the air.

"As long as you don't drop them." This brings up the subject of how fear gets learned in the first place. For that to happen, three vital factors must be present: self-doubt, a memory of pain, and an expectation of pain. To be completely accurate, we really don't remember pain itself, but the memory of having experienced pain.

Self-doubt is the most important factor, for without it fear doesn't occur. Self-doubt is also learned behavior, but it can be learned while you are still a fetus. Basically, self-doubt is born when an individual interprets a feeling or sensation as meaning that one has lost contact with their source of power or love. To the degree that this interpretation is repeated with similar feelings or sensations it becomes learned and automatic behavior.

Memories of some kind of pain are present in everyone, but everyone is not affected by them in the same way. Fear is born--and eventually learned--when self-doubt is present at the time a painful experience occurs because, due to the self-doubt, an expectation of pain arises under any stimulus that resembles the original pain. When I was about seven-years-old I was playing with some friends and we decided to climb a tree and jump off a large branch. The other boys did it without a problem. They didn't have any self-doubt, at least in relation to jumping out of trees, so that even if they had gotten hurt in the past from leaping off a branch they had no expectation of pain from doing it again. I, however, had sufficient self-doubt, and a memory of a previous painful fall not related to trees, that I crouched on the branch, frozen with fear, for a very long time. The other boys simply crawled around me and jumped to their heart's content. At long last I suppressed my fear, gathered my courage, and leaped into the unknown. It was my first experience of branch-jumping. Fortunately, I had a good landing and it was so much fun I did it over and over, unlearning my fear in the process.

One of the last sentences in the previous paragraph reminds me of another aspect of fear that needs clarification, the so-called "fear of the unknown." There is no such thing, folks. It's always a fear of the known. Or, rather, a fear of not knowing. If we experience something truly unknown we will either be curious or we will ignore it. Fear only arises in this case when a new experience reminds us of a previous painful experience and we have an expectation of another painful experience because we don't know what to do.

Here is the moral of the story. It doesn't matter if we have self-doubt, or painful memories, or fear of anything whatsoever. We learned how to act one way; we can teach ourselves how to act differently. Self-doubt can be erased by teaching ourselves--over and over and over again--to trust in ourselves and/or in a higher power. To trust, not that nothing bad will ever happen, but that whatever happens we will be able to cope, and that more good things will happen than bad. How do we know? We don't. The future is never fixed, but now is the moment of power. What we do and how we think in the present moment may not control the future, but it has more influence on the future than anything else. There is no fear without self-doubt. Self-doubt begins with a decision. It can end with a decision, too.

Checking Your Values

One day I found myself wondering why we celebrate New Year's Day on January 1st. After all, what's the point? Nothing special is happening in Nature on that day. The winter solstice happens more than a week before. Christmas, of course, is exactly one week before, and December 25th was celebrated as the beginning of the end of winter in many ancient cultures in the Northern Hemisphere, but so what? What does that have to do with January 1st? My curiosity led me into doing a little research.

First I checked out the whole idea of a New Year celebration. I found out that the oldest one recorded took place around 2000 B.C. in Babylon, which was in what we now know as Iraq. However, the ancient Babylonians celebrated the New Year in late March because that was the beginning of their new cycle of Spring planting. Before the planting, though, they spent eleven days in celebrations of thanksgiving for all the good that the gods had provided the previous year. In a very similar way the ancient Hawaiians celebrated the New Year in November, with four whole months of thanksgiving feasting and gaming and getting ready for the next season.

Some kind of New Year celebration has been part of virtually every culture on earth as a means of giving thanks for past things of value, and making preparations for another year of more things of value (hopefully).

Still, why January 1st? It isn't a harvest time or a seeding time in either hemisphere. As a point in the orbit of the Earth around the Sun it doesn't have any particular significance.

As it turns out, my research revealed that natural events are not the only things that humans consider significant.

During the early Roman Empire the first day of the New Year was January 1st. Weirdly enough, their January 1st fell on what we now know as March 25, at the beginning of Spring. Because various emperors and high-ranking officials placed great value on extending their terms of office, they fiddled with the lengths of months and years until the calendar got so out of whack that Julius Caesar had to put January 1st on its proper date again (March 25) in 46 B.C.

Enter the Catholic Church. As the leaders of that body became more politically powerful they decided to establish their own January 1st, in opposition to what they considered a pagan fertility festival. So they created a brand new calendar and made the New Year begin on the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus, exactly one week after the birth of Christ by their reckoning.

The transition to this new New Year wasn't immediate. From the 11th to the 13th centuries, the Spanish and Portuguese celebrated the New Year on the Catholic January 1st, the British celebrated it on March 25th, the Italians on December 15 (which was Christmas day at that time) and the French on Easter Sunday. Meanwhile, and still today, the Chinese, Jews, and traditional Hawaiians celebrate New Year in their own timing. Because the Gregorian calendar is so widely accepted today, the latter get to celebrate the New Year twice if they want to.

It's time for a valid question to arise. What is the point of this article?

The point is that people everywhere have always acknowledged in some way the ending of an old cycle and the beginning of a new one. The exact timing of the cycle depends on the value--the importance--that people give to the cycle. As described above, some people may think natural cycles are more important and others may think religious or political cycles to be so. In addition, people everywhere have decided that the beginning/ending of the cycle is a good time to reflect on what they consider important in their lives, and to confirm these values or change them.

It doesn't matter whether your favorite cycle begins on January 1st, your birthday, the spring equinox, the winter solstice or Boxing Day. There is something inherently, humanly powerful about declaring that one cycle has ended and a new one has begun, and then using that transition time to give thanks for value received and make plans for value to come.

Your values consist of whatever you believe is most important in your life. Your values themselves have value because they govern every aspect of your personal behavior, and they influence the behavior of the world around you. In any situation in life you will always act according to what is most important to you at the time, no matter what the circumstance or what anyone around you says or does. If you are ever surprised by your own behavior, it's because you are not aware of your own values.

As an example, I was discussing values with my adorable wife and we each discovered something we didn't expect. We value our relationship highly, but during our discussion it came out very clearly that we value personal freedom even more. Our relationship has such a high value that we constantly accede to each other's wishes even when that means doing something we don't want to do, or not doing something we want to do. Since there is so much give and take on both sides, and so much joy in other aspects of the relationship, we consider these restrictions on personal freedom as easily tolerable (although I grumble sometimes just for the heck of it). In other words, the relationship has a higher value than these minor restrictions on our freedom. However, in playing the game of "What if...?" it came out that if these restrictions became "excessive" (by subjective evaluation) then the value of the relationship would diminish accordingly.

The discussion got even more interesting when we discovered that "relationship" and "personal freedom" are very abstract concepts. Behind those abstracts were the things we really valued most: the pleasure of our mutual admiration and respect; and the emotional satisfaction of making our own choices.

Behind all abstract values--love, power, health, freedom, etc.--are the very specific values, i.e., the really important things, that move us emotionally and motivate us behaviorally. At any given moment you will always move toward whatever holds the potential, in your estimation, for the greatest pleasure or the least pain.

In both California and Hawaii you can almost always tell who the carpenters are: they are the ones with surfboards in their pick-up trucks. They bring their boards to work, and when the surf is high enough the worksite is abandoned. The abstract view is that they value surfing more than working. The specific view is that they think the thrill of riding a big wave is more important than sawing wood for someone else (unless they are in dire need of money to pay the rent). They will usually stay on the job when the surf is mediocre, but when the waves reach a certain height...

Another example is the person who works so hard "for the family" that he or she ignores the family to the point where the person ends up alone and confused. Here the abstract value of "family security" is probably based on a very intense personal fear of being criticized for failing to support them. In the pursuit of avoiding criticism the actual family is lost from view.

The value of the discussion between my wife and myself was that we became more consciously aware of what we value. At the same time, because of our Huna background, we realized that it was all arbitrary. With the flick of a thought we can change any of our values that we choose to change. We can make important things unimportant and unimportant things important by our will alone. And the value of that is that we are more consciously aware of, and careful of, those values we choose to live by.

Changing what you value most in life is an act that has profound consequences for you and those around you, because the values you have now also have such consequences. If your life doesn't seem to be working out for you, there might be a problem with your values. If life is working out for you, then values are also involved and it might be a good idea to know what they are.

Any time is a good time to examine what is most important to you, in order to confirm it or make some alterations. Therefore, now is a good time, too.

Modern Shamanism

"You look more modern than I thought you'd be," said the visitor as we sat in my comfortable living room overlooking the ocean that surrounds the island of Kaua'i. He glanced at my large screen TV, the VCR, and the Tabora seascape on the wall with a faint trace of disapproval. Clearly I did not fit his model of what a shaman is supposed to look like.

His remark was typical of many visitors who expect--perhaps even hope--to find me wearing some kind of robe or sarong and living in primitive simplicity in a cave or a forest far away from the amenities of civilization. The general idea is that such a setting would somehow make me more authentic. I have even considered finding such a spot, having a ti-leaf skirt and cloak made, and giving all my visitors a nice show that would comfortably fit their preconceptions. Today I do live in a forest on a live volcano, but with my three computers, iPhone and iPad, Apple TV and hybrid Prius close at hand. Shamanism, however, is not limited to a particular location or style of dress or cultural environment. It is a way of thinking and acting that defies boundaries and limitations of any kind, and yet uses them when it fits a purpose.

In the old and ancient days the shaman--who was a healer of mind, body and circumstances--was right in the midst of tribal or village life. He or she might also play the part of priest/priestess or chief/chiefess if there were no one else to fill those roles, but the primary role was always that of the healer. The shaman took part in the work, play and cultural activities of the village and often used each of those for healing purposes, especially the cultural activities of art, song, dance and ritual. In some cultures the shaman wore distinctive clothing and only engaged in certain activities, while in others it was impossible to tell him or her apart from anyone else unless you were family, friend or acquaintance. When the shaman's services were called upon there was always appropriate compensation in goods or services of some kind, according to the local economic structure. In old Hawaii, for instance, those who made use of the shaman's healing abilities might in return give fruits and vegetables, livestock, tools, mats and/or clothing. Or they might give their services of fishing, farming, handcrafting or cleaning for a certain period. The important point is that the shaman was a part of the community, sharing its life and hopes and dreams and proximity. Isolation of the shaman from the community occurred only in times of religious or political repression, and even then there were always links maintained with a few members of the community.

Now shamanism is experiencing a revival of interest and freedom. Now the shaman is coming back into the community where he/she belongs in a viable, vital, visible way. It isn't necessarily any easier now, but it is extremely important that the new shamans who are remembering and reviving the ancient skills become fully a part of today's society, become modern shamans in every sense of the word.

A modern shaman (or "urban" shaman, as I often say) is one who uses the ancient knowledge in the context of our present social and cultural environment. I will frequently tell my apprentices that anyone can be a shaman in the woods (where there are no people to get in the way); the tough task is to be a shaman in the city. And yet the shaman belongs where the people are. That does not mean the modern shaman must live downtown or in a crowded barrio, or in a fast-growing suburb, but it does mean that he or she integrate with and be accessible to those who are to be helped. The tough task of being a modern shaman is made tougher by the fact that shamanism has only recently begun its revival, and it does not have a strong basis of support in today's culture. In the absence of such support, shamans need to help each other. The success of modern shamans, then, will depend on adaptability, integration, and cooperation.

Shaman knowledge has to do with an awareness of, and the ability to direct, the powers of mind and the forces of nature. Adapting the ancient wisdom to modern society is a fairly simple process because human beings still have the same desires for health, wealth and happiness, and the same emotions of love, anger and fear. And Nature still has the same basic elements of (to use the Hawaiian version) Fire, Water, Wind and Stone. The shaman's healing work is still, as it always has been, to change beliefs and expectations in order to change experience. The wisdom and its application are the same, only the context is different. An ancient shaman in the deep forest of a volcanic island using his hands to heal a wound from a wild boar and a modern shaman in a high-rise apartment building using her hands to heal a wound from a domestic cat use the same wisdom. An ancient shaman diverting a lava flow to save a village and a modern shaman calming the wind to keep a forest fire from burning a suburb use the same wisdom. The shaman skills of telepathy, energy release, manifesting, shape-changing, blessing, belief-change and inner journeying are not affected by time. All that has to be done is to adapt them to existing circumstances.

Integration is more difficult in today's society because of its variety and complexity. Most ancient shamans only had one or very few socio-cultural systems to deal with, and therefore a limited number of beliefs to work on. Today, however, there is such a vast mixture of radically different social, cultural, religious and philosophical systems that the modern shaman must constantly expand his or her knowledge and maintain an exceptional awareness of the prevailing beliefs of his or her community and its individuals through heightened development of the intuitive faculties, as well as by paying close attention to information supplied by the media.

More than ever, there is the need for cooperation among modern shamans in order to maintain and extend the wisdom, to give each other moral and practical support (even shamans need friends and helpers), and to broaden the application of shamanism to modern problems. My solution has been to form Aloha International, a world-wide network of people studying and practicing the Hawaiian shamanic tradition, but there also needs to be cooperation among the shamans of different traditions. It is truly cooperation that is needed, because shamanism is a non-hierarchical, democratic philosophy. There is a tremendous amount of healing work to do, on ourselves and for the world in general. Let us do it together in a spirit of real Aloha.

Teaching Huna To Children

From time to time I am asked whether any books or courses have been designed and presented by anyone specifically for children, or whether I might consider doing one.

In the first place, I think it would be great if someone would do that (and let me know so I can tell people who's doing it). In the second place, I wouldn't do it myself because I think Huna is so simple that anyone of any perceptive age can understand and apply it. As a matter of fact, most of the time when I'm teaching adults I have to make it more complicated than it really is so they'll accept it. It's often the case that when Huna is presented as simply as it really is, scientifically-trained and intellectually-conditioned people tend to dismiss it as not worth pursuing.

When parents ask me if their children can attend one of my courses I always say yes, as long as they are interested enough to participate in the excercises, discussions and questions. The youngest participant I ever had in a Huna workshop was a young boy of five and a half. He turned out to be one of the best students, with the most vivid experiences and some of the best questions. The only thing I had to make allowance for was his meditation technique of quietly rolling back and forth underneath his mother's chair.

Personally, I don't find any need for a special course just for children (although some parents might). Children have the same basic kinds of problems that adults have (love, fear, anger, success, etc.) and the same desire to be happier and more effective. As long as a child has something he or she wants to change, then they are ready for Huna.

Naturally, it's important to tailor your language to your audience. When I'm teaching a group of mostly adults with a few children I make it a point to include examples the children can relate to, and to cut down on intellectual discussions so they don't get too bored. When I'm teaching a group of mostly children with a few adults I include examples the adults can relate to and toss in an intellectual idea or two so they don't get bored. And I allow both adults and children the freedom to come and go as they please, using the theory that you are only going to learn what you are interested in anyway. Part of my job as a teacher is to make it as interesting as possible for all the participants, but I'm not obsessive about it.

If I were going to teach the Seven Principles to a group of children I would probably re-word them a bit. After all, there is nothing sacred about the wording. As long as you get the concept across you are being true to their spirit. So I might state them in the following alternate ways:
1. The world is what you think it is - How you feel depends on how you think.
2. There are no limits - Everything hears what you say and feels what you feel.
3. Energy flows where attention goes - What you want is more important than what you don't want.
4. Now is the moment of power - Things don't happen yesterday and they don't happen tomorrow; they only happen right now.
5. To love is to be happy with... - The more happy you are, the more lucky you are.
6. All power comes from within - There's always something you can do.
7. Effectiveness is the measure of truth - Always do what works (and if what you do doesn't work, do something different).

These are just suggestions, of course. In a particular situation or for a particular group I might change them in another way.

Children (like adults) tend to be very responsive to imagery, and that means it's important to use a lot of descriptive words full of sensory content when you are explaining something or leading a meditation or other inner experience, because the more abstract you are the less impression you make. Take this line from a guided meditation I've heard: "Now you are in a wonderful place where everyone is happy." Well-meaning, but it doesn't really evoke anything. Here's a more evocative alternative: "Now you are in a park where birds are singing beside a waterfall surrounded by pretty flowers, and lots of children are playing games and laughing." The guideline here is to describe something that could be a specific place or event, and not just any place or any event.

With children in your audience (and certain adults) it's also a good idea to allow for more movement than you might ordinarily. Most adults in modern society have been thoroughly trained over many years to sit quietly in a class situation. Human learning, however, occurs much faster and is remembered better when both mind and body are involved in the process, and children know this instinctively. When children are in my audience I let them do whatever they want, as long as it's not disruptive to the class as a whole. Over the years I've learned that some people learn better when they are walking, lying down, looking away from me or just moving rhythmically. Since children are more apt to be this way than adults I give them as much leeway as possible.

Children don't have to be educated differently because they are children. They have to be educated in a way that allows for their language level, their concerns, and their ability to learn in ways that work for all humans, regardless of age.

Hawaiian Facts

As I have discovered in my travels, it is a mistake to assume that people know very much about our fiftieth State, so here are some facts to give you a better sense of the spiritual home of our teaching.

The State of Hawaii is a fifteen hundred mile long chain of 132 islands, reefs and shoals stretching from the southeast at about the latitude of Mexico City to the northwest at about the latitude of Houston. However, 99.9 % of the land area is on a fairly close group of eight major islands around the lower latitude. In land area only, the State is larger than Connecticut. 

There are about one million and a half persons living in the State, with 80% of them living on Oahu. About 23 % are haole, or of Caucasian descent, about the same are of Japanese descent, and about 21 % of Native Hawaiian descent. The rest are from all over. Even those born in Hawaii are not called Hawaiians. That word is reserved for Native Hawaiians and part Hawaiians only. As a side note, there is no such word as "Hawai'ian" either in English or Hawaiian, so please don't use it.

Hawaii, "the Big Island," (or Hawai'i in Hawaiian) from which the State gets its name, has about two-thirds of the land area. No one knows what the name means because it is probably part of a much older name, but one possibility is "Place of the Water of Life." The island is famous for its orchids, coffee, macadamia nuts, and volcanoes. In fact it has five large volcanoes. Mauna Kea (where it snows sometimes) and Kohala (in the north) have not erupted in historical times. Hualalai, overlooking Kona on the west coast, last erupted around 1800. Both Mauna Loa (tallest mountain in the world measuring from sea bottom and also where it snows sometimes) and Kilauea (legendary home of Pele the volcano goddess) still erupt fairly frequently. A new volcano, Loihi, is erupting underwater about twenty miles off the southern coast. 

Maui, the second largest island, is shaped like Tahiti with two volcanoes and a valley between. Many believe it is named after the shaman hero of legend, Maui Kupua. Its largest volcano, Haleakala, last erupted in 1790. Maui is famous for pineapples, Lahaina (an old whaling port and modern tourist mecca), superb sweet onions, and condominiums. Maui also produces some very good pineapple and grape wines. On the northeast coast are the lush jungles of Hana and the Seven "Sacred" Pools (which were used for bathing and laundry and have nothing sacred about them at all except for the fact that they are part of Maui).

Oahu (or O'ahu), third largest, is usually called "The Gathering Place" which may come from ahu meaning "collection" or "heap" or may just refer to it as a population center. However, it if is really named O'ahu, then that refers to a coat or a cape and no one knows what that is supposed to mean. Oahu is famous for Diamond Head, Honolulu, Waikiki, and Pearl Harbor, as well as many military bases. It is "in" to put down Waikiki as a tourist trap, but it still has the best shopping and one of the finest beaches in the islands. The Bishop Museum in Honolulu is a wonderful place to study old Hawaiian culture. Oahu is also famous for some of the best surfing in the world on its North Shore, and sometimes the most dangerous (30 foot winter waves).

Kauai (or Kaua'i) is the fourth largest island. Called "The Garden Isle", its name can mean "The Great Rains." Today it is considered by Hawaiians as the most spiritual place in the islands. It is famous for its magnificent natural beauty, including the Fern Grotto and the Na Pali Coast, for the legendary Menehunes (Hawaiian elves in the very old sense), the high mountain forests of Koke'e, the dangerous and mysterious Alaka'i Swamp, and Mt. Waialeale (wettest spot in the world with 451 inches annually).

Molokai (or Moloka'i), the fifth largest, is now called "The Friendly Island," but a few years ago it was called "The Lonely Island." A desire for tourism prompted the change. I think the name means "to train (ka'i) to tie bundles (molo)" and refers to the training of kahunas, for it is a fact that there were more schools there than anywhere else. Molokai is famous for its former leper colony, its mule rides down cliff trails, its many temples, and its low level of development.

Lanai (or Lana'i) is the sixth largest and called the Pineapple Island because that's mostly what used to grow there. The name Lanai means either "stiff-backed," referring to its single ridge, or "porch" (referring to it as the porch of Maui, perhaps), but Lana'i means a type of sweet potato, a very important crop in the old days. The pineapples are gone now and resort development has taken their place, but there is still a lot of empty land and isolated beaches. The island's population is around 2000.

Niihau (or Ni'ihau), the seventh largest, is called "The Forbidden Island" and a lot of tourist hype is played around that. Actually, it is forbidden because the whole island of 70 square miles is a private ranch, owned by the Robinson family. The Hawaiian name is a type of yam, another important crop. Tourist agencies like to give the impression that the Hawaiians there live in the old ways, but what that really means is that they live in a company town like the plantation era of the 1800s. The island is famous for a particular kind of shell necklace made there and the population of the single village is about 200. Hawaiian is the first language through 3rd grade, according to the last I heard.

The smallest "major" island is Kahoolawe (or Kaho'olawe), only 45 square miles. The name means "The One That Was Taken Away." I don't know when that name was given, but that's how the Hawaiians and the State of Hawaii feel about it today because after Pearl Harbor the Navy took it over for bombing practice and still won't give it back. There is currently a strong movement to make it into a center for Hawaiian culture, and some progress has been made in that direction. The old name of the island was Kanaloa, also an ancient god of the sea, and it was an important place for navigation training.

The motto of the Monarchy, the Republic and the State is Ua mau ka 'ea o ka 'aina i ka pono, usually mistranslated as "The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness," which sounds nice, but makes no logical sense. In context, the statement was made by Kamehamena III on the occasion when the British government restored sovereignty to the kingdom after it had been illegally taken over by an over-ambitious naval officer. A more appropriate translation would be "The sovereignty of the country endures because of proper behavior" (on the part of the British).

Scientific Magicians

One aspect of the modern scientific view is that if something can't be measured in some way then it isn't real. This has led to some pretty unreal conclusions that most people today in scientifically-oriented societies accept without question. Take public opinion polls as an example. When you hear that a scientifically designed poll has determined that 67% of Americans (or Germans, or Japanese, or Pueblo Indians) favor this or that policy, this or that person, or this or that flavor of ice cream you tend to accept the results as having some realistic basis. The unspoken assumption for most people is that the 67% is a percentage of the whole population, which is, of course, absurd. In any given poll there is neither the time, the money nor the technology to ask everyone in the country what they think about something. 

What happens is that the pollsters ask a few people (sometimes a hundred, sometimes more or less) what they think and give you the percentage of that group. Using complicated mathematical formulae to justify the process they pretend that what the small group thinks is what the whole nation thinks.

For a poll to be really scientific you would have to ask everyone whose opinion you wanted. Using a small group to represent a large group isn't scientific, it's magical. 

A fundamental premise of what is called "sympathetic magic" is that a small thing can represent a much larger thing to which it is symbolically connected, and that by acting upon the small thing in some way you can influence the behavior of the larger thing.

Among some Inuit Indians in the Arctic region, when a man goes out to hunt a whale his wife stays home and lays down on the floor under a sealskin. For this purpose the sealskin represents the ocean and she represents the whale. During the whole time of the hunt she stays as still as possible so that the whale her husband is hunting will also stay still and allow him to harpoon it. It is my understanding that the symbolic connection ceases the moment the husband casts the harpoon so that the wife is not symbolically injured in any way. It is assumed by the Inuit that purposely deciding to have the woman represent the whale sets up a magical (or at least decidedly unscientific) connection between her and the cretacean in which her behavior will modify that of the sea-going creature. This is an example of sympathetic magic.

In old Hawaii foot travelers would carve semi-circular patterns on lava boulders around their camping grounds in order to ward off malicious or unfriendly spirits. The pattern was in the shape of an arch called hoaka, a word that means both "arch" and "protection." The carving was supposed to have the same power as the alternate meaning of the word it represented. This was also a form of sympathetic magic.

In the USA (and increasingly elsewhere) people give and receive valentine cards on February 14th. These cards have hearts on them that represent the physical heart of the giver or that of the receiver. The physical hearts in turn are assumed to represent the affections of one or the other party. By getting the receiver to look at the card the giver intends to influence the receiver's emotional state, thereby influencing the behavior as well. There isn't anything scientific at all about this. It's purely sympathetic magic.

When a poll is undertaken it isn't being done for altruistic reasons. It is being done to influence people. The pollsters themselves are actually magicians dressed up as scientists, and their mathematical formulae differ only in form from the incantations of ancient wizards. The use of a small group of people to symbolically represent a much larger group of people is nothing more than sympathetic magic. The use of the opinions of those people to influence the opinions of the larger group falls into the same category. When you hear or read the results of polls, just remember that it's a magical result. It might also be useful to remember that, just like science, magic sometimes works.