Celebration of the Arts

March 30 & 31, 2018
The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua
1 Ritz-Carlton Drive, Kapalua
KapaluaCelebrationOfTheArts.com

Poetry by Lali Groth

Standing along the water’s edge of Kapalua Bay
at Honokahua Beach,
we listen to the practitioners:

“We are here to become, we are here
to tell our stories in our many different ways,
and to do that, we need to be out of the mundane and into our spiritual realm.
This ceremony this morning—this hiuwai—of going in to the ocean, of releasing
the negative, of letting things float away, is how we prepare.”
So says Lyons Kapi‘aoho‘okalani Naone.
E ala e, ka la i ka hikina.
Awaken, arise, the sun is in the east.

“When we go into the ocean, separated from everybody, we reflect,” says Iokepa Nae‘ole.
“We reflect on our lives and on the events that are happening in our lives,
and at the same time, we call upon our kūpuna, our ancestors, and our creator,
to help us make sense and relieve us of all our burdens.
So when we come out of the ocean, we do so
with an unfiltered mind.”
I ka moana, ka moana, hohonu
From the ocean, the deep ocean

As we wade into the church of the ocean,
blue surf swirling around our hips,
sweet salt cleanses our bodies, heals our mind and spirit,
and attunes us to the harmony of art
and ancestry and myth.
E ala e!