After a busy Memorial Day weekend, I was very much at a loss for a topic for this week’s blog. Putting it off until the eleventh hour was only increasing my anxiety. So, after a brief interlude in which I consumed the free world’s supply of pistachios, I came up with a way out of this “death by pistachio-procrastination”. In the words of the great Nike ad campaign:
Just. Do. It.
Or, to put it more poetically, Nānā i ke kumu. Look to your source.
My source is the well of daily experiences from which I draw inspiration and insight, combined with the spiritual practices through which I expand my self-awareness and increase my sense of personal agency. This is similar to what author and educator Mary Kawena Pukui intended when she authored a three volume series dedicated to Hawaiian families and children. The books were written to compensate for foreign influences that have compromised the ancient cultural practices, concepts and beliefs of this once-isolated island people. The results of these influences have been a plethora of problems running from unemployment to domestic violence, to a loss of cultural identity, and the attendant decline in physical and mental well-being. Pukui believed that these and other related problems might best be addressed by a return to the wisdom and dignity of their Hawaiian cultural roots. In volume 1 of Nānā I Ke Kumu (1978) the theme is explained thus:
“This is the value of personal well-being. Literally translated, Nānā i ke kumu means “look to your source.” Seek authenticity, and be true to who you are. Get grounded within your sense of self. Keep your Aloha at the surface of what you do daily, and celebrate those things that define your personal truths. To value Nānā i ke kumu is to practice Mahalo for your sense of self: Do you really know how extraordinary and naturally wise you are? Find out. Become more self-aware.”
Last Saturday I participated in an initiative that illustrates the value of Hawaiians returning to their cultural roots, as pertains to growing and sharing their food. When COVID forced restaurants and hotels to close over a year ago, it virtually froze the market for locally grown fruits and vegetables, along with the small-scale fish, poultry, pork and beef industry on the Big Island. As their customer accounts dried up, farmers, fishermen and ranchers had no way to make a living, and were left to feed their harvests to their livestock. In response to this problem, Mike Hodson, proprietor of WOW Tomato Farms and president of the Waimea-based Hawaiian Homesteaders’ Association, sprang into action. He created a grassroots program of food distribution connecting producers directly to consumers.
Years earlier, Mike and his wife, Tricia, had a vision of bringing farming back to the community. But they wanted to teach it in a way their people best learned: Not from a manual, but through hands-on practice, on their own soil. Told by agriculture experts that it was impossible to grow organic tomatoes in Waimea, Mike set out, in 2007, to prove them wrong. And he did just that. Spectacularly.
When his own greenhouse-grown, organic tomato business proved wildly successful (hence the name WOW Farms) he started a program called Farming for the Working Class, where other Hawaiian families could learn to farm again.
With funding from First Nations Development Institute, “the project was up and running, and true to Hodson’s vision, the impact on the Hawaiian people has been three-fold…benefiting farming, families and the future.
“Through the project, families grow food to feed their families. They generate extra income, and they trade food with other families, thus reducing their own expenses. In addition, Hawaii gets a source of locally grown food, which has become rare in the state, as 90% of food is shipped in from the mainland or Japan.
As for the future:
“By 2016 the project had increased the amount of farmed land by 50% [from 2 to 45 out of 115 lots] with hopes to increase it to 75% [in years to come]. Families are generating additional revenue. Income levels are rising, and Hawaii is able to reap locally grown food. Kids growing up in Hawaii have options for staying on the island and building a life. People are returning to their culture of self-sufficiency and self-determination. Families are seeing the therapeutic effect of farming, reconnecting with the earth and working with the soil. And the concept of community – extended beyond the family environment – is being embraced.” (Posted on the First Nations’ Indian Giver website, March 18, 2016. Tag Archives: Mike Hodson).
All of this was at risk of shutting down when COVID came to town. Enter Mike and his food distribution initiative. All of the families whom he had introduced to farming (and more) were recruited to sell their products, at fair market value, direct to consumers. The latter, who paid a nominal fee to receive a bag of locally-grown produce and proteins once a week, became what Mike called “micro-donors”, making them part of a collaborative solution to the supply and demand problems that COVID caused. Along with grants and donations from government agencies or others philanthropies, the initiative distributes about five thousand pounds of food, at a cost of around ten thousand dollars a week to approximately three hundred and seventy-five families. As of this past Saturday the program has been running for fifty-eight weeks, and will continue as long as there is a need.
Though Hodson was speaking of “Farmers for the Working Class” when he made the following comment, I can’t think of a better way to sum up what he, his wife and family, and other volunteers have done since the pandemic began:
“It’s bringing us back full circle,” said Hodson. “Being a whole community is in our DNA. It’s the way our culture is supposed to be.”
Isn’t that the also case for you and me?