Wellness With Aloha offers healing meditation, emotional healing in the Heart of Hawaii, healing power to your body and soul, spiritual enlightenment, unique wellness experience on the island of Hawaii.
Such mixed feelings when I went to this website above. I have such agreement with Ululani's comments. And her point about the impact of bringing yet more people to the 'aina is a good one.
And yet, when so many foriegn people make great heaping gobs of money off the culture and have been doing this for decades - causing endless ripples of distortion and sorrow in the process - is it surprising that some practitioners feel the need to offer something that to them feels more authentic and may be perceived by visitors as more authentic? This is a very complex question. Is this being perceived like the difference between buying kukui bead strung in the Phillipines and buying a jar of jam made on the island? (The jam brings money to a local person, the beads do not.) Not that simple. The sad thing is, probably very few (if any!) Maoli people ever got to say anything about any marketing process that just comes in and decides to sells a portion of their culture. People just go in and whip something up and it's a done deal.
But I want to keep a little bit of an open mind. If 100% of the money charged goes to the cultural practitioners who are involved in marketing their services through this site, then... well, is that money doing some good in the Maoli community, helping their families and the families around them? Are those tourist dollars being well spent, in the sense that they are going straight to a more legitimate community source? Unfortunately, I have the feeling though that 100% of that money does NOT go to the practitioners and that the "concierge service" probably takes a big cut from them - and who IS the management of the concierge service anyway? It would be nice to have some transparency in these issues.
As for healing, I think the best thing is for people to form collectives and learn and share their own healing skills - for free, as much as possible - so that everyone in the community benefits and more knowledge is held and nurtured in the hands of people, not merchants.
Perhaps we could have some clarification about these things?
Growing up, my experiences with Kahuna lapa'au and Portuguese Brouha was one of love and concern. They never demanded money; but would accept offerings or donations. Naturally, we felt bad if we didn't have anything to give in return of their services. Their reply was always similar, "No worry, baby, maybe next time." We'd go out of our way to share fish, food, vegetables, material things, and even money when it was available. They were always humble and took our burden. We highly respected them.
As an infant, I had opu huli and my mom took me to a brouha who fixed it. Knowing my Mom, she must have given some money as it was a substantial healing. When we went to the western doctors, they had fees that they charged for an office visit. We used that as a guideline to donate to the kahuna lapa'au. It's like aloha; a two-way street. We try to take care of them as we are able because they would take care of us.
Uncle George Naope protected me from jealousies; Aunty Iolani Luahine kept my journeys safe and warded of f "kolohe spirits" and those that wished harm on me. Aunty Morna Simeona looked to protect my spiritual self, did some western things like interpreting my penmanship, reading my palms to create a better self-awareness. Aunty Kutchie Kuhns would protect me from harm and teach me many things, hai pule. Some of the tutus used herbs when I fell ill and a few did the lomilomi to nuture me back to health. Sometimes they would send back to the sender what was sent to me.
I feel blessed that they cared enough of me to protect and enrich me in ways that I can't thank them enough. Sometimes they only wanted to hear me sing. We'd sing, dance, kukakuka, and inu. LOL...
I will always be indebted to them and have much love and aloha for I feel they made a big difference in my life.
Thanks but I don't need to pay someone to be "healed." "Connect with the heart." I connect to the heart, mind, body, and piko.
I turn to my kupuna and to Ke Akua for that.
It's free.
Maluhia Package for $8495. Malama Package for $8395. I prefer to send that kind of money to some people who are less fortunate. That amount is crazy by the way. However for hula and other things like that I do not mind paying to support the teacher(s.)
For Spiritual Mumbo Jumbo though... thanks but no thanks. How spiritual can one be, how down to earth can one be... if one is helping to bring more people thus more pollution to the aina with their "spiritual" healing vacays that is adding more carbon dioxide to Hawai'i with the use of planes to bring people to the islands? That's not healing. That is hurting the aina. Some people do not make sense LOL
Replies
And yet, when so many foriegn people make great heaping gobs of money off the culture and have been doing this for decades - causing endless ripples of distortion and sorrow in the process - is it surprising that some practitioners feel the need to offer something that to them feels more authentic and may be perceived by visitors as more authentic? This is a very complex question. Is this being perceived like the difference between buying kukui bead strung in the Phillipines and buying a jar of jam made on the island? (The jam brings money to a local person, the beads do not.) Not that simple. The sad thing is, probably very few (if any!) Maoli people ever got to say anything about any marketing process that just comes in and decides to sells a portion of their culture. People just go in and whip something up and it's a done deal.
But I want to keep a little bit of an open mind. If 100% of the money charged goes to the cultural practitioners who are involved in marketing their services through this site, then... well, is that money doing some good in the Maoli community, helping their families and the families around them? Are those tourist dollars being well spent, in the sense that they are going straight to a more legitimate community source? Unfortunately, I have the feeling though that 100% of that money does NOT go to the practitioners and that the "concierge service" probably takes a big cut from them - and who IS the management of the concierge service anyway? It would be nice to have some transparency in these issues.
As for healing, I think the best thing is for people to form collectives and learn and share their own healing skills - for free, as much as possible - so that everyone in the community benefits and more knowledge is held and nurtured in the hands of people, not merchants.
Perhaps we could have some clarification about these things?
As an infant, I had opu huli and my mom took me to a brouha who fixed it. Knowing my Mom, she must have given some money as it was a substantial healing. When we went to the western doctors, they had fees that they charged for an office visit. We used that as a guideline to donate to the kahuna lapa'au. It's like aloha; a two-way street. We try to take care of them as we are able because they would take care of us.
Uncle George Naope protected me from jealousies; Aunty Iolani Luahine kept my journeys safe and warded of f "kolohe spirits" and those that wished harm on me. Aunty Morna Simeona looked to protect my spiritual self, did some western things like interpreting my penmanship, reading my palms to create a better self-awareness. Aunty Kutchie Kuhns would protect me from harm and teach me many things, hai pule. Some of the tutus used herbs when I fell ill and a few did the lomilomi to nuture me back to health. Sometimes they would send back to the sender what was sent to me.
I feel blessed that they cared enough of me to protect and enrich me in ways that I can't thank them enough. Sometimes they only wanted to hear me sing. We'd sing, dance, kukakuka, and inu. LOL...
I will always be indebted to them and have much love and aloha for I feel they made a big difference in my life.
Aloha ke Akua ia kakou,
Tane
I turn to my kupuna and to Ke Akua for that.
It's free.
Maluhia Package for $8495. Malama Package for $8395. I prefer to send that kind of money to some people who are less fortunate. That amount is crazy by the way. However for hula and other things like that I do not mind paying to support the teacher(s.)
For Spiritual Mumbo Jumbo though... thanks but no thanks. How spiritual can one be, how down to earth can one be... if one is helping to bring more people thus more pollution to the aina with their "spiritual" healing vacays that is adding more carbon dioxide to Hawai'i with the use of planes to bring people to the islands? That's not healing. That is hurting the aina. Some people do not make sense LOL