Aloha

Hello!

I have promised to write about my Hawaii trip.

I have the outline done. (Honestly, I do)! I swear, the story will come!

Although I am remiss in completing the account of my trip, I want to share with you a brief note about the Hawaiian culture.

I love to study about places I visit. I especially love to know about the cultures, ethnics, religions and belief systems of those places.

As I am planning to spend a lot of time in Hawaii, I began to study.

I’m embarrassed to say that I had a very limited understanding of a simple but beautiful concept.

I am sure you have all heard the word “aloha”. I had, and thought it simply meant, “hello” or “good-bye”.

Here is a bit more information: (I hope you will find it as enlightening and lovely as I did).

‘Aloha’ is a greeting, and a word spoken in parting, but there is much more to it than a simple “hello” or “good-bye”. Aloha was a recoginition of the spirituality of another. The word comes from “alo”, which means presence, front or face, and the word “ha”, meaning the breath of life. When you combine them, they mean “the presence of Divine Breath”.

Part of the culture and use of Aloha has to do with a concept called “mana” which is spiritual energy or power. If there is life in all things (the trees, the ocean, the fish, the flowers, the birds, etc.) , then in all the world was life, was god, was Aloha.

Life, or Aloha, exists in all things.

Because of Aloha, one would give without worrying about receiving (a concept I mentioned in my article “Giving to Give”).

Aloha had spiritual energy or power = mana. A Hawaiian had to cleanse himself of hate or anger before speaking Aloha. It was not just spoken as a greeting, for it was something that must be felt from the heart.

If you saw the movie “Avatar”, you may have seen the way the blue people greeted each other by putting their faces together and saying “I see you”. This is Aloha. It is recognizing the divine nature of the other, and acknowledging his spirituality. They also recognized the life in all things – an awareness I think could benefit us all.

I am very much looking forward to returning to Hawaii, and to learning much more about this lovely culture.

Aloha.

Louise