To Live in Growing Orbits, Part I: Nanaue the Shark Man
A Journey through the stories of Piko: A Return to the Dreaming
Dear Readers,
Today we begin an orbit of the stories I told in my book Piko: A Return to the Dreaming. For background on how the ceremony that became the book took shape, please read my recent post Living on Mythic Ground, where I reveal how I came to choose the stories, why the ceremony was 21 days, and how I came to discover the correspondence between my ceremony and the Major Arcana of the Tarot.
For those ready to dive in now, I’d like to begin with investigating the origin of the word orbit.
ORBIT: late 14c., "the eye-socket, the bony cavity of the skull which contains the eye," from Old French orbite or directly from Medieval Latin orbita, a transferred use of Latin orbita "wheel track, beaten path, rut, course.” The astronomical sense of "circular or elliptical path of a planet or comet" (recorded in English from 1690s; later also of artificial satellites) was in classical Latin and was revived in Gerard of Cremona's translation of Avicenna. The Old English word for "eye socket" was eaghring. (www.etymonline.com)
The original meaning of the word orbit referred to the space created by the bones that contained the orb-shaped eye. The eye, of course, is the body part that grants us physical sight, the predominant sense in modern times. I find the fact that the word for the space that holds the eye is also the word for a well-traveled path that becomes the word for the circular path of a planet or comet, significant and fascinating. It’s as if the eye, the organ that allows sight, by being held in a circular, empty space, transcend its limitations through the very words that define it. (Eye being I another correlation of significance.)
Piko travels multiple orbits, two of which are the 21 archetypes of the Major Arcana, plus the Fool, and the 17 traditional folk tales and myths I tell in the book. It also tells the story of my personal recovery from trauma that began with the naïveté of the Fool and ended with it. I relate in the book how I came to trust life and myself again, embodying a more expanded version of the Fool. The stories guided me into an unshakeable refuge within myself. This only happens because I completed the orbit.
Now I’m hoping to guide you through a similar experience. The stories that make up your life will be different than mine, and they are all part of a grander orbit whose path has been coded in the images of the Tarot.
Even if you know nothing of the Tarot, you are on this journey. Same goes even if you are literal and never remember your dreams. The mundus imaginalis will still speak to you, has already spoken to you—in moments you haven’t noticed, trying to get your attention through songs on the radio or feathers dropped in front of you on the sidewalk. The world’s soul cannot be silenced. Neither can yours.
My approach to this process is guided by depth psychology and my years of osmosis at The Great Mother Conference and The Block Island Poetry Project, where I got to learn from luminaries like Robert Bly, Gioia Timpanelli, Coleman Barks, Li-Young Li, Jay Griffiths, and Martin Shaw. I even met depth psychology superstar James Hillman, but to be honest, whatever he said was way beyond me, which isn’t to say I wasn’t smart enough to understand it. I was just learning more from listening to the sitar at the time. The music had taken me beyond the intellect into another orbit.
However, since completions are not only important, but essential to personal growth, ant to the evolution of the collective, and by that I don’t just mean the human collective, but the animal, vegetable, and mineral spiraling out from Earth through the Milky Way, who has a black hole the Mayas named Hunab Ku at its center, and past the Milky Way to an unimaginatively named galaxy M-87 who also has a black hole at its center, and out from there to what astronomers and astrologers call the Great Attractor, which doesn’t have a black hole at its center, meaning there is no event horizon, which makes it sound like nothing ever happens there, or that whatever happens there never comes to an end, depending on how you look at time—is it something that happens to us or does it happen because of us? If you’re into esoteric Mū philosophy you’d know the Mū say time is an experiment planted here on Earth by the Draco lineage, known as Mata Roro in the Mū dialect, which sounds like a combination of Hawaiian and Aymara, which I heard my friend and his dad speak at a ceremony at the United Nations that I attended years ago with my boyfriend Doug, who had eyes like Rasputin and wore snakeskin pants, and was maybe even a court jester, and was definitely the empty-handed painter from the streets leaving crazy patterns on the sheets Bob Dylan sang about in “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue.”
And though it may not look like it’s over—I’m still here writing—the energy now is whirling back up the spiral, empty and open to a new story, but carrying all it learned on its way down. In the case of me and Doug it was how to cry so hard lifetimes of grief were released, how to Leave your stepping stones behind/ There's something that calls for you/ Forget the debt you've left/ That will not follow you—how to let go— because it is all over now baby blue. The fool has stepped off the cliff into one of those wider orbits Rilke wrote about, even though he suspects he’ll never get to the end of them, but doing it anyway because he just might be circling around God, or an ancient tower, and the he could also be a she, or non-binary, or a falcon, or a great storm, but definitely a song, a great one like “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” which brings me back to where we started—an orbit, there you go—if you needed an example. They’re everywhere and all you have to do is choose one. Finish it or let it finish you, which at its best will look and feel like the same process. But before I finish this orbit, I want to circle back to what’s beyond the Great Attractor, who by the way, is steering thousands of galaxies if you can get your mind around that. I can’t, which is why I find myth and metaphor so handy, which scientists also seem to appreciate, even though you wouldn’t expect them to. Turns out we can’t actually see the Great Attractor. It’s blocked by a mystery body scientists have named the Zone of Avoidance, which if we were to translate into psychological terms might mean we’re blocking ourselves from coming as close as we can to our source because we’re afraid of being mocked or rejected, never taking risks because somewhere in our formative years we believed we don’t belong on Earth.
And this could be coming to an end, but it’s not. There’s more. Even though we can’t see the Great Attractor because of the Zone of Avoidance, scientists know there’s something beyond it, a void of space they’ve named the Shapely Attractor, guiding it all. And even though it’s name makes it sounds like it has a fine figure like a pin-up girl, this ultimate guide has no shape because its a void in space, which is impossible to comprehend through language, I know, but I have to try because I really want you to know you are a great song. That’s when we’ll know we are close to the end of circling around this tower. It’s going to fall. The Zone of Avoidance will not be able to keep up its defenses forever because all towers eventually fall, and if that is not to convince you, maybe this story about a dwarf-planet discovered in 2003, one of the fastest rotating objects in our solar system named Haumea will.
In Hawai’i, Haumea is the mother of the gods. She is Gaia, Mother Earth. Mike Brown, the astronomer who discovered this rotating rock chose the name Haumea to honor Hawai’i, where she was first discovered, I assume from the observatory close to the summit of Mauna Kea, where activists recently halted the building of another telescope on the scared mountain’s very summit. This world is full of paradox. Without the telescope, which at this point in technology has to be up high, meaning it has to be atop some mountain, we might not know Haumea exists. But do we need to know? Is desecration worth the knowledge?
Maybe a better path would be to enter the next spiral blind, one where we don’t need to see with our physical eyes in order to know. Remember, the eye, orb of sight, is named for the empty space that holds it.
Emptiness is active. What would Haumea, Mother Earth, want us to do? Build the telescope atop the holy mountain so we could see beyond the Zone of Avoidance to the Great Attractor and into the void in space beyond that is steering it all?
I’m going to say no, especially because right now Haumea, the dwarf-planet who is also a goddess, is activating this void, this Shapely Attractor, until 2026. In the language of astrology this means we are being impregnated with a great love for the Earth. Humanity is being guided into a psychic unity where we won’t need eyes to see or ears to hear. We will be the song. Will we answer the call?
What does all of this have to do with the story of Nanaue the Shark Man? I don’t know! Let’s find out.
Nanaue the Shark Man
Listen to the story here. Written text follows the comments after the audio for those who prefer to read.
This is the first story I ever heard that came from the place it was born. It was told to me by someone whose ancestors had lived in Waipi’o Valley since the very beginning of people in that place. I wrote about him in Piko, and though our story was filled with horror and pain, it also glowed with beauty and wonder. This essay’s orbit began with a Fool and ends with it, only now I’m proud of my innocence because it was earned. Yes, I was reckless and naive, but I might not have made the journey down if I hadn’t been so trusting. I gave myself to the shark man. I was dragged, but I was also willing.
What paradoxes in your own life called you down to make the necessary journey to the Underworld? Were you dragged or willing? Who do you identify with in the story? Are there any moments that arrest you, that make your face flush and heart pound? What images call you? How do you feel at the end of the story?
These are the kinds of questions we ask from a depth psychology perspective, but I’d like to encourage you to banish the an overly studious approach which can make the story seem inanimate, something made up, a fiction, and instead approach it as you would a human, a teacher perhaps, a sage, a holy man or hedge witch who knows a few things you don’t about the ways of the cosmos. How would you do that? Would you rush in with a camera and a microphone or would you enter the story’s orbit more quietly, with some reverence—not subservience—but with respect for all it has learned through all the mouths and rivers through which it’s passed. Introduce yourself. Ask if it wants to get to know you, too. Remember, relationships are a two-way street.
On a practical level, I like to create altars to a story I’m courting. Be creative with this, but if you’re looking for guidance, I can suggest arranging putting out a little plate and feeding it with herbs, candles, plant tinctures, poems, wine, holy water, turmeric and ginger, candied walnuts and your deepest secrets whispered into a seashell’s spiral. Feed it with your attention. Offer thanks and praise. If your altar is outdoors, notice how it changes. Did a mice run through and scatter the wine? Were the almonds eaten? Did the wind blow leaves over it or knock the twig mandala off-center? The spirit world will speak to you through the directions. Notice what’s in each and where you are called. Air, Fire, Water, Earth, Ether, the invisible that moves through all.
Once you’ve established a relationship, once you have the story’s consent (don’t worry, you’ll know), start asking it questions. You can begin with little questions like what should I have for dinner or should I go to Greece on vacation, they will always spiral out into something that really matters if you’re paying attention to the ripples. Again, trust the Fool in you. Let him ask. He’s always guiding you to the leap. And let the stories ask questions of you. Leave room for the other. Remember you are not in charge, the story can and will reinvent and reword itself because that’s the way nature works, always adapting to waves, visible and invisible.
I will be feeding each story through my altar at home as we make this orbit. I’m hoping some of you will join me. This is a way for us to consciously complete a journey of significance, something we need more of right now on our planet. Doing it together, our possibilities multiply.
So join me.
Next post I will share more about shark medicine and my personal journey with its potency. In the meantime, I’d love to hear about how the story is moving through you in the comments. And don’t forget the majority of these posts will soon be paid-subscriber only. If you want to keep participating I’m offering 20% off a year’s paid subscription through March 31st. If you don’t want to pay a lump sum, the monthly rate is only $7. I’m including a button for that, too.
Māhalo to Ke’oni Hanalei and workshop attendant Natasha for the info on Haumea and the Great Attractor that I gleaned from a recent Pōhala workshop, The Series of Ages: The Calendar of Lyra. To purchase a replay of the workshop just follow that green link.
Read Nanaue the Shark Man Here
There was a great chief named Umi, there was a valley called Waipi’o, and there was a beautiful girl.
The beautiful girl was named Kalei and she had thick black hair that fell like a wave to her waist. Bright-colored i’iwi birds stole strands of it with their curved beaks to weave into their nests. Kalei was part of the valley. Her feet, never bound by shoes, were so broad she never lost her balance crossing the streams that meandered to the ocean, and not even the sharpest lava rock could pierce the thick soles.
Her favorite food was a shellfish called ‘opihi, and she often wandered out of the trees to pick them off the rocks, slurping mouthfuls of ocean as she pried them off. Usually, some of the other valley girls went with her, but one stormy day they declined, so Kalei set off alone. The pool was sheltered from the waves. She was thrilled by the wild storm.
Now this pool was also a favorite spot of the shark god Kamohoali’i, and one day as he circled the calm water he looked up and saw Kalei dive off the rocks without a ripple into the water just above him. He hid on the bottom, not wanting to scare her, enchanted by her beauty. I could just grab her in my jaws, he thought, Take her before she knows what’s hit her, but he held himself back. That would be a violation of the pact he’d made with the first humans. They were not to hunt each other.
So yes, Kamohoali’i had big, sharp teeth, two rows of them, so if he lost one, another would slide right into place, and rippling muscles that could take a lover to the edge of death until they begged to be released from form, but he wanted more than that. These days we call it consent. If he took her, he would kill any chance for love. So, with the elegance inherited from 450 million years of ancestors, he transformed himself into a handsome young man and swam toward her dangling legs, surfacing next to her with a breath that sounded strangely like a sigh. He was a human now.
If Kalei wondered where this man came from—she hadn’t seen anyone else on the rocks—she didn’t say. One look and she fell into his black eyes and lost herself. But what she found—ah—nights of unsurpassed ecstasy. Together, they thundered like the valley’s waterfalls, and though her husband, for some reason, couldn’t appear in daylight, she didn’t care. She stumbled around the village with flushed lips and dilated pupils, brushing off her nosy neighbor’s questions about why her man didn’t show his face in the sun.
Things changed when her belly swelled. She was pregnant. Kamohoali’i, one miraculous hand on her belly, told her the truth. He was not a man. Their child would not be fully human. And he would have to leave her.
Through tears, Kalei listened to Kamohoali’i’s instructions. Our son will be born with my instincts and the ability to shapeshift into other forms. You must never feed him meat, my love. The results could be deadly.
Kalei swore she would follow his wishes. They kissed through clashing teeth and when Kamohoali’i leaped into the sea, her lips were bleeding.
In time, she gave birth to a black-eyed, healthy boy she named Nanaue, who was a normal human in all ways but one—on his back, between his shoulder blades, a shark’s mouth gaped. Teeth snapped at her when she reached toward them to see if they were real. This was going to be a problem.
Despite his deformity, Kalei loved her son. Whenever she looked at him, she saw the feral grace of his father. She remembered how it had felt to lay with him in the dark, how his teeth had nuzzled her jugular. How alive she’d felt! She would protect their son. She would hide the jaws on his back with a cape. The village would accept him. She confided in her family and recruited them to help with her deception.
Her son was not a monster. She wove him a cape from kapa, bark cloth, and told him to never take it off, even if he was hot or when the other boys teased him. Nanaue, like most kids, just wanted to be normal and hated wearing the cape. The only break he got from sweating bullets and being teased were the times the two of them hiked to a remote waterfall where Kalei let him take off the cape and swim in the pool. Even though he loved his mother, he also resented her, and that resentment grew as he did, until one day it burst through his skin and he changed into a shark right in front of her, chasing the small fish around the pool. Not one escaped. Dread settled like a stone sinker in Kalei’s belly. She knew this was just the beginning.
In that time there were many kapus people had to follow, sacred laws that helped keep order in the kingdom. One of the kapus was that adult men and women could not eat together. When a boy reached a certain age he had to stop eating with his mother and take his meals in the mens’ house.
Because he had no father, Nanaue’s grandfather was the man in his life. Nanaue had grown into a very strong and handsome youth, and his grandfather was proud of him. Wanted to show him off to the other guys. Look at him, he said to his daughter. He’s going to be a famous warrior. Time for him to join us in the mens’ house.
Kalei begged her father to let him stay with her, but he refused. When she saw she’d lost, she begged him not to feed him meat. Her father scoffed. Boys need meat, was all he said. Kalei wept as her son walked away.
Boys need meat. Nanaue stuffed his face. Pork juice trickled out of his mouth and fed the hidden jaws on his back. He grew rapidly and was soon the strongest boy in the village. Human blood is stronger than shark, the grandfather kept insisting to his tearful daughter.
Nanaue was still resentful. Even worse, he was lonely. He didn’t understand why he was born this way. He hated the jaws clacking on his back and the sweaty cape, and the way his mother was always following him around telling him he had to keep it on. He hated the way the other boys teased him so much, he eventually gave up trying to fit in and spent most of his time hanging out at two pools, the one up the gulch where he could take off the cape and swim, and the one by the ocean where his mother and father had met.
Everyone talked about him, looked at him sideways. Nobody trusted him. What was underneath that cape? He could hear the villagers talking about him like he was a freak. What had he ever done to them? Even though he was the strongest and best looking young man in the village, he hated himself.
Even though his mother was a nuisance, he was devoted to her. He always helped her in the lo’i, pulling and planting kalo. The villagers saw them working together knee-deep in the murky water on their way to the ocean, or to the back of the valley to swim in the pool under the waterfall. One year, about the time he began to eat meat, Nanaue suddenly became social.
Where you going? he’d call out when someone passed.
To the ocean!
To the waterfall!
The villagers called back.
Be careful, Nanaue, would say.
What’s he mean by that? thought the passing villagers. Kalei’s boy is strange.
That same year Nanaue began to eat in the mens’ house, something else started to happen. People started getting bit by sharks, which hadn’t happened for as long as the kūpuna could remember. And then it got worse. Swimmers started to disappear.
Nanaue’s mother quaked. She tried to keep him close, but when his grandfather died he fell under the sway of his uncles who teased him about being a mama’s boy. She lost control of her son. All she could do was weep when someone passed them in the lo’i and her son called out—Where you going?
Nanaue ignored his mother’s tears. He would do what he wanted from now on. Fuck the cape.
It was too easy. He dove in the water as a man and surfaced as a shark. They never saw him coming. Fear was even more delicious than blood. The harder they thrashed, the better the taste. It became harder for him to return to his human body.
Rightly terrified, the villagers went to their chief Umi and asked for help, who actually didn’t know what to do, though he couldn’t admit this. Knowing he had to take some action, he organized a work party to bring the valley together, mandatory, everyone had to show up, and everyone did, except Nanaue. Someone turned him in to Chief Umi.
Why have you disobeyed my orders? said the astonished Chief.
I had other things to do, mumbled Nanaue.
Other things! Umi was outraged, but he also admired the boy’s boldness.
Boy, you could make a great warrior, but you need discipline. Show up tomorrow to help and we can forget this. I remember your grandfather. He was a good man. Those uncles aren’t raising you right. From now on, look to me.
Any other young man would have swelled with pride at being singled out by Chief Umi, but not Nanaue. He knew even the chief wasn’t a match for him. He’d show up the next day to please his mother, but he wasn’t going to follow anybody. He would look to himself only.
The heat the next day was so great it scalded the lizards on the lava. Nanaue’s cape was drenched with sweat, but he kept it on, ignoring the teasing, though the jaws on his back were so enraged they snapped loud enough for everyone to hear.
What’s under that cape, Nanaue? they jeered, and suddenly it was gone. Nobody could say if the boys ripped it off or if it was Nanaue who flung it, but the jig was up. Jaws exposed, leering and jeering. The villagers shrieked. Some ran, some leaped on him. Blood started flying, but eventually Nanaue was subdued and dragged before Chief Umi.
Nanaue is the one killing us!
Chief Umi looked at the snapping jaws and the choice was clear. Put him to death.
The men started building a pyre because the only way to kill a shark man was to burn him to ashes. When the flames were lit, the will to live surged in Nanaue and burst the ropes that bound him. He fled from the bellowing warriors and screaming women to the ocean pool where his father and mother had met and leaped into the water, where in plain sight of the whole village who had chased him to the edge, he turned into a shark, swimming straight for the deep ocean beyond the reef.
Kill them! The enraged villagers turned toward Kalei and the uncles.
Chief Umi considered the situation. It was clear now Nanaue’s father was the shark god, Kamohoali’i. He remembered the original pact between humans and sharks. Kamohoali’i was a killer, but not vicious. He took only what was needed to live. His killing had a purpose. And he had lived amongst them, loving the woman Kalei, who with her brothers, were now the shark god’s relatives. Not a good idea to kill the shark god’s wife and even her no-good brothers. He also reasoned that if he killed Nanaue’s family there would be no one to keep him in check if he roamed the coast hunting humans.
Let them live.
The villagers were aghast, but they had to obey their Chief.
It’s not entirely the boy’s fault, Umi continued. If his grandfather and uncles hadn’t fed him meat this might not have happened.
He called on the village priests to make an offering to Kamohoali’i, who took possession of one of them so he could speak again in a human voice.
I am grief-stricken my son has violated our pact. I never meant for sharks to eat humans. This is a matter for the sharks now. I will take care of my son.
Will you kill him? the villagers asked.
No, the shark god answered. I will banish him. He can never swim again in his home waters. If he comes here again he’ll be executed.
The villagers were’t convinced this was the solution, but there was nothing they could do. The chiefs and gods were in charge.
And one more thing, Kamohoali’i said through the priest. Kalei is my wife and I still love her. If anyone harms her or her family, I will come back and terrorize you until the end of time.
Fortunately, Nanaue had no desire to go back to Waipi’o. The villagers honored their agreement with Kamohoali’i and didn’t harm Kalei, though they were never friendly. The rest of her days were lonely.
Banished, Nanaue swam to Maui and came ashore at Kipahulu, resuming his human shape. By now he was quite a charmer, he knew just the right things to say to allay the villagers’ suspicions about this handsome stranger who had turned up out of nowhere. He even married the local chief’s sister. He became part of village life.
He did his best to deny his craving for human flesh, he really did. But it was too much. The killing started again. And again, it was too easy. One second he was a villager going for a swim, the next he was a shark tearing into his new friends. Eventually he was caught in the act and fled across the ocean to Molokai. New island. Nobody knew him. He would try again.
If only his grandfather hadn’t fed him that pork. You know what happened. People started disappearing.
The villagers turned to their priest for help. It had gotten so bad they were starving, afraid to even fish in the shallows. The shark priest told them to hide by the shore and wait for the handsome stranger who’d recently come to live with them to appear. So handsome, so dashing, so helpful—it couldn’t be him, the villagers thought. Still, they did what the priest told them. They hid by the shore and waited.
It was him. Nanaue, the handsome young man was the killer they all feared.
Nanaue was so strong he shook them off when they leaped on him, but not before they ripped off the cape and saw the snapping jaws. There it was again, his dirty secret exposed for all to see. The shame.
He fled toward the ocean, but the men were faster. They caught him right at the edge and bound him so tight there was no chance of escape. Once again he had to watch as his fellow humans built a pyre to burn him to ashes.
A part of him understood. He was a shark-man. If he wasn’t incinerated, he could come back and take possession of a normal shark and turn it into a man-eater. He was exhausted, not just from this struggle, from all the struggles. He looked at the pyre and was ready.
But his instincts were stronger than his mind.
As he lay there watching the flames, he heard the lapping waves, and saw that if he rolled toward them, his feet would touch the water and he could shift into his shark form, arms would become fins, nostrils gills, and his teeth could slash the rope that bound him.
And that is what happened. But if you think he escaped again, you’re wrong, because the people saw what was happening and threw nets over the shark’s body. His fins were useless. Even so, as they beat him with clubs and pierced his rough skin with spears, he heaved toward the ocean, and he would have made it if the villagers hadn’t called on Unauna, a local god who lived in the uplands. Only another god could defeat him. He stopped struggling. It was over.
The villagers dragged Nanaue uphill to the waiting pyre. You can still see the mark of his passing in the shallow ravine leading up to the summit, now known as Shark Hill, and the stone around which Unauna tied the rope they used to haul the shark man to his death.
His wounds oozed so much, blood doused the fire, but Unauna told them what to do.
Cut bamboo from the sacred grove of Kainalu and make knives from it. Slice his flesh into strips and dry them. Then he will burn to ash.
It took the whole grove, and Unauna’s father, the god Mohoali’i was so angry at the desecration, he stripped the bamboo that grew back of its sharpness, so from that day on it was useless for anything but shelter and shade. You can go there and listen to the sound it makes as wind passes through it from mountain to sea, and back down again, wind haunted by ghosts who’ve forgotten they were once loved like Nanaue, a boy born, through no fault of his own, with the jaws of a shark on his back, who leaped into the water to find his true form and died, torn in strips, on a hill under a sky blighted by his own ashes.
Nanaue, beaten and burned for being himself, a killer. The flesh tasted so good! The men who mocked him, they were the ones who invoked his bloodlust, feeding him meat when his mother begged them. not to. Kalei knew what would happen. Her beautiful son, glorious in his feather cloak, bold and strong with shark blood, was not born a monster— he was made one. Yet the fear in the villages where Nanaue stalked! The grief of mothers— daughters and sons lost to the ravenous jaws, the weeping widows mourning unfulfilled lives. Could Nanaue have stopped himself? Kept the pact between humans and sharks made by his father Kamohoali’i? Kalei, living alone for the rest of her life. Mohoali’i’s grove desecrated. Humans afraid of sharks, forgetting kinship, losing ancestors. The web of life broken.
Kō aloha lā ea
Concentrate on love by way of the light