There are many things to share about Taylor Camp, most of all I could say it was life saving in the post war era that didn't happen until 50,000 US soilders died and millions of Vietnam civilians mostly farmers died too. In truth, I only stayed there for a few days and decided this wasn't for me or my children. However, I did live near the camp at the Camping Area at Haena. Nudity, hiking, picking up puka shells and just peeling away at both cultures US and missionary influence that dressed and confused who I was.
Taylor camp will be screened at 7 p.m. Tomorrow at Bambu 2.0, 1144 Bethel st. Tickets are $10. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for more information, call 223-0130
I don't know if it's possible to go nude anymore, but it is quite an experience. We did it because of the war, the war was killing people and it needed to be stopped from within onesself. Every now and then, I get to feel that sense of who I was/am by drawing on the days of Haena and Hanakapi'ai. I don't know if I would describe Taylor Camp as " ..sweet, innocent feeling of what Kauai was like in the 60s and 70s," as John Wehrheim says in Sunday 6/27/10 Sec.G. Maybe the aina, but certainly not Taylor camp. It stunk with paka, do do and shi shi and everyone was stinky because we were detoxing (coffee, menstrual, bad soaps, meat, sweets etc..), everyone had bad body odor, we were always wreaking. All that incense and stinky hair, nope not true--we stunk!
Wehrheim likes to romanticize Taylor Camp eventhough the people in the camp tried to tell him--NOT! In the beginning there was two crazy locals myself and Anthony Prem, soon after everyone else joined in. Mitchel-boy Alapa in the movie was too young and came way after, he is my first cousin. I was there in the early 70s and what Gordon says "I think most of them were looking for a timeout, an escape,.." the rest of what he says is boohoo, if you want to depict the essence of Taylor Camp. Money was not even connected to time. If anything all that we thought of was how we could live freely off the aina and without the use of money and think of ways to kick the habit of money. That was the true essence of both camps Taylor Camp in Haena and Valley House up in Kapaa.
Taylor Camp people had the imprint of capitalism in every cell of their bodies, but they knew if they shed capitalism they could stop the war and all that killing. Hey, I didn't wear a bra and so what if my breast hangs, besides I can still feel the warmth of the sun on my breast because of those memories. A few years later I nursed my babies and drew on that experience each time. I see the sun in all my children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren--just as my ancestors did before the stupid missionaries arrived in 1825 with their sin and shame.
I was scared and terrified at times and 'talked stories' with the stars, sun, moon and rain the 'universe' yes we reached outerspace with our fears. We all did this at one time or another that's the true market--billions of stars. I didn't do drugs, not even paka! My children still thinks I'm nuts having to be around so much paka and not doing it--seemed too odd to them. Especially, when I strongly believe in the use of it for medicinal reasons. When you have so much people dying around you, paka is the best thing. But, that's another story. Besides, I was too missionary in my head.
The word 'cult' I don't remember hearing or knowing that word until way later's. Spirituality, it was a new sense of love for humanity that was without boundaries for everyone. Everything was alive and you were aware of that sense in your body. There was a natural order of things that surrounded us and it was okay to live within it with the bare minimum of material things. There was no need to aquire, assert, adjust, but to just be. Yes, I do believe "There was the power to heal." race, color, it didn't matter cause we just wanted to stop the killing. If making love was it-- (imagine).
If it means swimming along the Na Pali Coast with one end of a string tied to a plastic container with pot and the other end of the string tied to your naked body--that is the true reflection of mother earth in ones universe. Peace (Pono) my man! Peace!
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If one reads "Huge tent city takes root by Dan Nakaso 6/27/10 one can see how the colonizers work together with all walks of white 'haole' American Corporate Greed Exploitive kine. The 2010 Censors takers are playing a huge part in the colonizing and force attacks. People (humans) are just trying their best to survive. The colonizing comes after the true settlers that do good for themselves at first--the essence. If the native (aboriginal) Hawaiians had control over their lands and not the colonizers, then that huge tent city in Waipahu would be thrieving with working humanity-community. As in family, collective living, like an ahupuaa. Everyone would have a job and building their skills to take care of their portion of the aina.
If one ever work under a 'master' with morals and ethics one would revere (sp) that master for the rest of one's life. My 'master carver' Tuinei Puloto is that person for me. Leon Siu and I was just having that conversation this past Monday. We were talking about the need for a 'pahu'. For me a pahu should be in every kanaka household, in the movement and one's community that you live in.
Before Taylor Camp was colonized in film there was an essence and beauty of white man unburdened and just in the universe and soulfully connected. There are many times ever since my Taylor Camp experience that I connect with these soul's and I never want to see that connection be redefined for me. I applaued the original Taylor Camp for their tenacity in this film in trying to communicate that essence which like UH Manoa they never get or publish correctly. Today we have film producers that never get it and just tell the white lies and not the very essence of who they are depicting in their film.