Revelation
Once I climbed a set of rough stone stairs on an ancient path that bridged two holy bodies of aqua water, bays where dolphins spun and sharks napped in lava tubes, where octopi cracked open cowries revealing the royal purple of their interior shells and sea urchins pierced the blue depths with red spines bright as the sun’s fire.
At the top of the stairs I walked to the edge and looked down. Right below me, a humpback whale floated in every shade of blue, fins churning indigo into turquoise, that finished in white waves, the culmination of every color in a song I couldn’t hear but knew was moving through me.
The whale was so close I could have jumped off the cliff and landed on its back. Maybe if I’d done that, I wouldn’t be here now. Or maybe I did and I’m a ghost writing to you. Or maybe I both did and didn’t and these words carry an echo of the whale’s deep song.
Can you hear it?
Reflection
Other times I doubt I saw the whale. That never happened, I think. How could I not have taken a picture? Why didn’t I tell someone so it became a story that lived on breath in the real world?
Yes, I climbed the ancient stairs, but when I reached the top and looked down there was nothing there. That’s the story I hear now. If you call the ocean nothing.
Did I imagine it because I wanted so much to see it? Why didn’t I take a photo?
Refraction
I didn’t have a camera with me, that’s why. Pretty simple. And those days I was always alone. If you can call hanging out with a whale alone. Maybe I’m being dreamed by the whale now and we’re watching a spider repair tears in its web the wind made by moonlight, eight legs moving as one weaving light and shadow.
Which is which? Tell me. I dare you.
Diffraction
I have learned all I can from anxiety, worried myself to the bitter end of a rope hanging way too far above the ground.
I have worried way too much what people think of me.
Current goal: be water, like Bruce Lee said, or a mare nuzzling her newborn foal to its feet deep in a fern forest, or a dog licking the hand of his drunk, raging master, or an octopus changing colors sometimes to hide, sometimes to reveal.
Interference
I am the light I want to see. Eyes aren’t necessary. I see in the dark even better.
Polarization
I could have chosen so many dreams instead of waiting to be chosen. Why have I waited around so much? That’s an answer I don’t have to reveal for you to have a revelation. No more drifting.
On the wings of a frigate bird, I sail past my tattered boundaries all the way to the sun.
Dispersion
The wheel spins the water into flour into wool into gold thread on the robes of my royal ancestor’s. I weave myself a cloak edged with gilt. No more guilt. I will walk in the world as the sun’s mistress and marry the full moon. I will leave them both when I’m ready. In the meantime, adorned with pollen and ashes, each step will be an offering. Here I am Earth.
Scattering
Snow falls in fractals, spirals call us in and through beyond direction. In you, I become the melting. In melting, I become you.
Completion
On the far side of a pond at the northern tip of an island that’s lost its stories, a mute swan half-turns in the twilight, its neck an arabesque curling on the sky’s domed mosque. Wings burst into flame, white-hot. The dome opens and the questions uncurl in answers the wind catches and releases over and over. We’ll never be quick enough to catch up.
But the colors return. The dune rising out of the pond glows violet, then indigo, and the water reflects the sky with a truth beyond any story we could tell, before black erases its contours.
The night is cold, but each morning when the sun comes back, I remember a little more.
The swan is no longer silent.
Hello Readers,
I’ve been very busy midwifing multiple creations into the world. I’ll admit I’m a bit dizzy from the effort, but I’m showing up and getting it done! It feels beyond wonderful to live each day with so much purpose. I always thought I’d feel like I’d arrived as a writer or a healer (or whatever), when my creations were out in the world and I was getting attention and yes, praise, from them. But now I can say no matter how my creations are received, bringing these visions in and giving them form is enough-and that feels, well, just incredible!
The poem/spell I shared above is structured on the 9 principles of the administration of a spell according to Heka, Mū Hawaiian magic. The principles are listed at the top of each paragraph, for those are curious. I will share more about them in future letters.
These principles correspond to the 7 recognized properties of light. I believe there are actually 9, and will go into this in my upcoming creation: The Art of Spelling: The Circumnavigation of the Po’ai. I’m not sure what form this is going to take yet, but it will be an online offering so I can expand my reach beyond the massage table and this newsletter. It could be an online group workshop, or might take the form of individual mentorships. If you are interested and have an idea of how you’d like to participate, let me know. I’m interested in hearing how you’d like to show up!
For those who want to dive into Heka now, you can purchase a replay of a workshop on the subject facilitated by Ke’oni Hanalei of Põhala Hawaiian Botanicals by following this link: Heka. I was honored to contribute a spell in the third segment!
In other news, Body Re-Enchantment sessions are up and running in Kona. If you are on Moku o Keawe and are interested in an in-person session please reach out. I am hoping to carry this work throughout the Hawaiian Islands, so if you’re in another location and interested, there is a possibility I could travel to you. Why limit the possibilities? Let’s see what we can create together. I am truly humbled to collaborate with pua’aehuehu in offering these sessions. The ferns are the most potent medicine I know, and combined with touch, offer deep healing and integration. I am in awe of what’s happened in the sessions so far.
And in book news, Piko: A Return to the Dreaming is in the hands of its editor and will most likely be in a physical book you can read sometime in 2023. I am so glad I haven’t rushed the book’s publication, something I have done in the past (out of excitement and a desperate need to have my existence validated or needing the relief of confession and just needing to be loved), because today I had an incredible session with a psychic on Maui who, when he heard about the book’s plot, asked me right away if I’d asked the stories permission before I told them in the ceremony I recount in the book.
“Whoa! I did not,” I told him. I had asked the land’s permission, but not the stories. Even though I knew the stories were living beings, I had not asked. I just opened my big human mouth and revealed them without their consent. According to the psychic (elder is a better word for him), my failure to ask permission from the stories was holding up the book and limiting its potential in the world.
This puts my relationship with the traditional publishing world in a whole new light. Because I’ve received nothing but rejection from agents and small presses, I was painting myself as a victim of an industry, as an outsider beyond their scope. This may be the case, but there are plenty of esoteric, poetic books that make it into the world and do reach a fairly wide readership. I’m curious to see what happens after I go into ceremony with the stories this weekend and ask for forgiveness, committing to making any corrections they ask of me. Hopefully I will still have a book! If not, I know the next one will come.
Finally, I’m thrilled that Martin Shaw, whose book Wolferland was my inspiration for Piko, generously read the manuscript and wrote me a testimonial. I highly recommend his Substack, The House of Beasts and Vines. Click here to subscribe:
“Jennifer Lighty is the real thing and has done us a great service with Piko. A modern woman working intuitively to contact mythic ground. Her language is fresh and imaginative, her intention five fathoms deep. I’m so glad she exists, and that she has turned some of her life’s work into a gift that we can cradle in our hands and feel the benefit.”
Martin Shaw, author of Bardskull
Talk to you next week! I’d love to hear what you think of all this or topics you’d like me to explore in the comments.
Kō aloha la ea
Concentrate on love by way of the light