Everybody's Chains Come Off
On True Ho'oponopono
“This book kicks my heart in the crotch,” my editor Norm wrote me yesterday. He was quoting his student’s reaction to my book, Piko: A Return to the Dreaming. This student is in a class he’s teaching to incarcerated women in an Indiana prison.
The class syllabus includes some of my idols like Angela Carter, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Martin Shaw, and Anne Sexton. According to Norm, my book is their favorite so far, which blows my mind. Someone likes my book more than The Bloody Chamber? Impossible. But it’s true, and I think I know why. The book is relatable. In my dialogue with nature that takes place in the book, I don’t claim any special powers. I sit. I speak. I sit some more. And miracles occur. It can be that easy. The one thing I can claim, is I did not ignore them.
I am also not discounting the hard labor that went into the book, the thousands of hours of writing, or the experiences I had that led up to me sitting and telling those stories to those ponds. It’s easy to forget what a struggle my life was, and even though I’ve been writing seriously over 30 years now, and dreaming of being a writer whose work touches others since before I could read, I realize I still have some impostor syndrome, or at least a part of me does.
I’ll admit, the part that is still holding onto the old ideas of success as defined by having an agent, a big advance, royalties, a publicist, reviews in the New York Times, a book tour, and huge sales, or at least enough to support myself financially so I don’t have to have other jobs, doesn’t believe that I created something worthy because it hasn’t been stamped with all of the above as a worthy literary work.
Norm mentioned nominating the book for independent publishing awards, and my first thought was, “no.” I’ll never win. Why waste money on an entry fee? These thoughts may seem petty in the face of everything we are facing now in the world, but when I looked closer at my immediate negative reaction, I could see there was another layer underneath that did, in fact, have something worthy to say that applied to this uncertain and chaotic time in which we find ourselves.
When I say “find ourselves” it makes it seem like we just ended up here, as if we had nothing to do with it, when that’s not true. We made these times, and we can unmake them, although that’s probably not the best way to put it. It’s not a matter of unmaking. All we have done to each other and the planet has already occurred. That can’t be erased, which is how I feel when I hear people say we can just choose another timeline. Why can’t I believe in that idea? What am I missing that I can’t be more positive? Obviously there’s something wrong with me, so I’m going to get left behind on the miserable timeline where we kill ourselves and the planet. I feel negated when I say I don’t believe that’s possible, like my suffering means nothing, and that the clear vision I think I may have attained because of it, is an illusion.
I get the appeal of changing the story, of switching timelines, but it makes it sound easy. Maybe it’s easier than I think, but to be honest, I don’t think so. But there are plenty of people in Hawai’i who seem a lot happier than me who believe it.
I almost wrote I want to believe it, but before my fingers could get the letters out, I wrote I don’t want to believe it, because jumping to another timeline would negate all the experiences that have led us to this point, the trials and tribulations that have opened or closed our hearts to the great beauty of being a human. In that, we have choice.
I am not advocating suffering. I don’t wish it on anyone. But I accept it. If it is possible to jump to another timeline where everything on Earth is hunky dory, I don’t want to do it. That would just lead us into another age of amnesia without integrating and growing through all the experiences we are having in this one.
Firmly anchored in this timeline, where millions of my fellow Americans are preparing to surrender themselves to fascism because the cognitive dissonance of being a human on earth right now, knowing how much suffering we have perpetuated as a species on each other and the rest of our planet is so overwhelming, I play my little part by not being a succesful, socially approved writer. This doesn’t mean I don’t want readers. What it means is, if I stay true to myself, people will find my work through a root system rising up through the floods and ashes of the civilization dying around us now. It may not be a lot of people, but that doesn’t matter, What matters is my book, written out of my own ashes in blood on living bone, made it to these women in an Indiana prison because of big-hearted and super-smart Norm, who volunteers his time to teach them about mythology and literature.
This is not a matter of unmaking something. It’s holding both. I can’t imagine going into the prison is a pleasant experience, but when Norm enters, he creates a new “timeline” while fully acknowledging the one that has incarcerated these women.
I don’t know what any of them did to be imprisoned. I don’t know their names, their ages, what race they are; if they have children who miss them, if they cry at night, or have parents who abandoned them. What I know, is they don't deserve to be locked up. I don’t believe in punishment. Yes, I am an idealist at heart.
What I do believe in is ho’oponopono, which I recently learned is far more sophisticated than the “Please forgive me, thank you, and I love you,” formula adopted by the new age spiritual community. Not to knock forgiveness and gratitude, certainly not love, and I do believe words have power, that they in fact are power, but I never really believed in ho’oponopono until I heard Ke’oni Hanalei talk about what it really was. It always seemed too easy, just like the jumping timelines narrative.
True ho’oponopono, as conveyed by Brother Ke’oni, begins with acknowledging the greatness of everyone involved, including the supposed non-animate world like flowers, stones, ocean breezes, and frigate birds.
As soon as I place myself in that sphere, my impostor syndrome dissolves. I feel my own greatness, which doesn’t make me greater than anyone else. It takes me out of competition completely, and my book, Piko, has the opportunity to be its greatest potential, a prayer for humanity to remember its own beauty through relationship to the transcendent now, creating and uncreating itself through the awe-inspiring diversity of the life in the two small ponds where I sat for 21 days telling stories to the water and everyone who lived in it and on its edges.
I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have happened if the agent I had at age 31 had gotten me an advance and a book contract on that novel now stored in my parents’ basement. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t lived through many winters on a small, cold island as a hermit. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t made thousands of sandwiches for minimum wage at my friends’s deli for years. (There was a tip jar, but still, not exactly the job you’d expect someone with a Master’s Degree in English to have, and definitely wasn’t going to buy me a house.) I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t stressed about having money for food, gas, heating oil, health insurance. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t lived on a boat, a bus, and in a few tents because there were no other housing options. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have happened if my body didn't turn against me with an autoimmune disease. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been hospitalized four times. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have happened if my friend Renate hadn’t died from ovarian cancer, and Jada from breast cancer, if I hadn’t looked at pictures of them dying, and offered the water a handful of ash that had once been bone.
The old system may seem like it’s trying to shred us in its talons. Maybe you are even someone who likes being held in its grip. I see your greatness, too, and I’m willing to listen. What is your story? Who are you beyond what society tells you you should be, or should have been? Who will you be, and what will our world look like, when you….and you…and you…acknowledge your greatest potential, which could have nothing to do with achieving anything society deems worthy?
Once we proclaim our greatness and accept the proclaimed greatness of another, there can be no enemy. That doesn’t mean the conflicts—political, spiritual, and personal, will dissolve. It means we can now negotiate from a place of mutual respect founded on a truth beyond the limitations of the life-destroying systems who want us to believe we are without choices. We are not in prison, most of us. The jail door is open. And for those of us who are in prison, those women reading my book in Indiana, I see your greatness. Please forgive me for participating in a society that believes punishment is an answer to problems that are far deeper than any supposed crime. Thank you for being alive and persisting, for being open to the words I wrote in Piko, for letting yourself feel enough to feel your heart is being “kicked in the crotch.”
I know how easy it is to numb out. I still do it. But choice by choice, remembering all of you in prison, reading mythology books with Norm, I commit to choosing the painful route, if it will free me of thinking I’m not good enough. If I, who walks free and breathes air off the ocean, and gazes at stars above the mountain, can’t do that, I have failed you, and failed us all. Even though we’ve never met, I see your greatness. I love you.
As I wrote this piece, this song rose up to accompany my fingers on the keyboard. My friend Tim Frantzich wrote it, and I’ve been blessed to sing it in community many times with Tim, his brother Paul, and so many beloveds.
The Brothers Frantzich don’t have a recording of it, but I did find this recording of the song by The American Roots Revue, featuring the incredible Robert Robinson on lead vocals. Give it a listen. Crank it up! And join the chorus yourself. And let’s give it up for Norm!
Aloha mā
Feels so good to be free again
Big Island readers, I will be hosting a storytelling ceremony tomorrow night, Thursday, October 24, 5-6:30PM at Hennasphere in Kainaliu. Please text Anita at 808-765-1817 if you want to attend, as space is limited. Donations of any kind are accepted in exchange. I’ll be telling The Handless Maiden.
If you haven’t yet ready Piko: A Return to the Dreaming, here’s a link to purchase from Bookshop. It is also available worldwide from all online booksellers. I also have a few copies I could sign and send to you personally. Send me a note if you want to arrange that by replying to this email.
Purchase Piko on Bookshop Here
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Kō aloha lā ea
Concentrate on love by way of the light
Delicious as always! My kumu, Ali'i Keana'aina, says that "not all wisdom is found in one halau."
I preface my next sentence with that statement so that you know it is shared with humility, since my teachings do not have the corner on Truth -- but we all bring pieces of it to the table to be woven together when appropriate. So here goes . . . the other radical idea that lays hidden in the background of Ho'oponopono when practiced in community as it was shown to me by a Kumu in Maui, was the idea of taking full responsibility for our part in creating the circumstances. For example, if a family member has cancer, then WE have cancer, and we have all played a role in creating it. Without guilt or blame, and from this radical perspective, we all look for what role we play and what we have to contribute to its healing. I used this approach when I was courageously watching the news for the first time in 5 years because I couldn't turn away from how the forest fires were ravishing the West Coast of mainland America at the time. I closed my eyes and asked myself, "How did I create this?" Then I felt the place inside that feels like a voracious fire consuming everything in sight without regard for how it may affect others. I asked myself, "Where have I acted that feeling out before?" The answer surprised me. That's how I feel sometimes shopping at Ross where everything that sparkles wants me to buy it, consume it, and since I can afford the prices, I can fill up my cart without thinking about how my unconscious consumerism may harm the people and places from which the items was sourced. I then thought to myself, "Please forgive me. I'm sorry. I love you. Thank you." From this place, I am able to watch the news from time to time, and it certainly has affected how consciously I shop. Through this radical practice, I feel myself more in community with the planet from the Piko of my heart.
No surprise Piko is their favorite book!