Hawai‘i’s Soul Is at Risk
Housing prices are up, trust is down, culture and heritage feel threatened, and Lahaina broke our hearts. With record numbers leaving the state, what can we do to bring back our soul?
An illuminating attribute of people from Hawai‘i is our aloha for one another and our Islands. Aloha exists because we come from Hawai‘i. It is the compassion, kindness and respect we have for one another and the birth sands of our ancestors, the island home of our childhood, and the sanctuary we share as family and community. Aloha thrives because of the culture and mana of Native Hawaiians that have shaped our collective history and tapestry of local culture.
Hawai‘i shall endure because we are the humanity the world seeks because of aloha ‘āina, Island consciousness that instills within us an affectionate pilina or connection to the spiritual elements of our lush mountains, the radiant sun at sunset, the enormous surf as high as mountains, breathtaking breaches of whales from the ocean’s depths, and the gentle breeze of tradewinds that caress our cheeks. It is living with Island consciousness—the understanding that the well-being of our unique kaleidoscope of cultures, communities and multiethnic peoples is inseparable from the health of earth’s life cycle.
It is our kuleana to use that awareness to care for Hawai‘i and for each other with tenderness, so that people and place thrive together as one. We all have the obligation to emulate this quality to teach our families, communities and future generations to perpetuate the Hawai‘i of our forefathers. This is true aloha and the core of what Hawai‘i is really all about. This is mana, the essence of Hawai‘i’s soul.
—Kamana‘opono M. Crabbe, executive director of the
Rediscovering Hawai‘i’s Soul initiative
