The Dream, the Dragons, and Necessity

We each have persistent themes in our lives. Why that is may have something to do with what the search of our soul for whatever it is the soul needs. Sometimes I think that once those particular needs are satisfied, the reason for the life of the body is over, and maybe after that you get a vacation from needs, a sort of retirement from those necessities.

I came to a tropical island seeking that solace before my time, and that is either another story, or part of the story at hand. There be dragons here, so clearly it is a part of this story.

Here is a short backstory on what has proven to be one of the most persistent themes in my life. I had graduated from the university, and times being as they were, finding a job that made any use of my degree proved so very difficult where I lived, in the Bay Area, that I "gave up" and took any old job. I felt defeated, but at least I would be able to pay the rent and buy groceries. What I did is not important - what mattered is that it made no use of my education. What also mattered is that in no way did I consider that this was the end of my career path, or that school had been a waste. The waste was the nothing job, better however than nothing at all.

At the time I lived in a house with four other people. There was Michael, already a published author, Bryan, a jewelry craftsman who worked with cabochons and silver in a casting shop, Boingo, who turned out to be a serial rapist, but no one knew until the police came for him, and Chaya. Chaya was my true friend in the house, and Bryan was her boyfriend. Chaya crocheted. She crocheted all day long, and smoked. She smoked a Marlboro cigaret every fifteen minutes. She drank water. She used chapstick on her lips as often as she smoked.

Chaya's crochet work was marvelous. She was in my world the ultimate Bohemian artist. She created for herself alone, wearable art, that she draped upon her stylish boy-like frame when we walked about in town. Bryan had his own room, as each of us did, and did the cooking for the two of them, except when Chaya made stuffed cabbage leaves. Chaya did not drive anywhere because she could not drive. It seems it had never been necessary for her to learn.

The source of Chaya's income was her step father, Gregory, a Hollywood producer. Whenever her mother Barbara and Gregory came to town, they took us (Chaya and me) out to dinner. It was always someplace extra fancy, and we listened to their stories.  Sometimes I would drive Chaya to LA and they would take us out again. For reasons Chaya never disclosed to me, Bryan was never along on any of our dinner dates or LA excursions.

There were times that I asked Chaya if she did not feel humilated relying on Gregory to support her, and she shrugged. If I mentioned her reliance on Bryan, she blew up in an anger cloud and days would go by until she agreed to speak with me again.

Last night in my sleep, I was at a party and Gregory was pouring drinks. He spoke some to me about Chaya, and her lifestyle. He was now supporting Chaya's daughter as well. We drifted our separate ways, and it came to me I could learn something from Gregory, as I too had daughters who were not able to support themselves adequately, or seemingly take care of their worldly needs. I followed Gregory out to the parking lot, where he was having trouble with his very large car. He was trying to park it on a hill without using the emergency brake, and ended up parking it on its side so it would not slip down. He crawled out through the window, and then lay down on his own side. I was alarmed that he was like an elephant, and he gestured to me to take his pet dragon and look after it. The dragon was a lot like my dog, docile under the right conditions, or not, so I handled the dragon and stroked it on the side of its head and felt that love you feel for certain beings that are yours. I indicated his dragon would be well taken care of, and then I asked him what he would have done differently. Gregory looked at me in surprise, and raised his eyebrows. "It is not a matter of what you would have done differently. We all do what we do, and the important thing is to find peace with your decisions. Do what you can do. Know that you did what you could."

In many ways, Chaya was very much like my mother. I determined not to be reliant upon others, and yet, my dearest friends have often been women who were taken care of through the largess and love of those around them. The dragon is the child who grows up to be the adult who demands that others feed it. Gregory and I are of course more alike than not. We followed our dreams and were either snagged or willingly entangled in the needs of those whose dreams had everything to do with taking from others, convinced that others had what was rightfully theirs. Gregory gave willingly and joyfully, never considering himself to be anything more or less than the comfy cushion of no needs that could not be met, when it came to money.

From a socially conscious point of view, there is a tangle here of needs and excess that my subconscious mind is seeking to address. When we love our dragons and vow to take care of them, our dragons are peaceable. Otherwise… those dragons are forces we cannot control. And those dragons sometimes demand far more than we are willing to give. Chaya never reached that point with Gregory - he was a bottomless well, and she was not greedy. But what do you do when the dragons demand a mountain? What do you do when you remember you are also a dragon, and the wealth is increasingly concentrated with only a handful of people, and they are nothing like Gregory?

Between Authenticity and Identity

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you." 

 - Margery Williams The Velveteen Rabbit

As an apparently utterly caucasion child growing up right next door to a cosmopolitan metropolitan city, I used to mourn my lack of color. In those early years I longed for something larger than myself to belong to, a group of people easily distinguishable from the rest of us, and possessed of a heritage of dance and costumery. I felt fate had consigned me to the heap of the least interesting people on the planet. 

And yet, because I was lucky enough to grow up in the time and place I did, with parents who were educators both by profession and by having absorbed that role as self, I had the great good fortune to complete my undergraduate education at one of the finest universities on earth.  While there, the world opened to me. I could study literally any discipline, drill down to the core of existence if I so chose. And I chose philosophy, social science, psychology; what makes us the way we are, how we interact, why we do the things we do. 

And all that time, I continued to search for who I was. Why was I here? Where did I fit in? Did I have any talents at all to offer up to the world, that justified my existence? I participated in the political world around me. It was rich. By the political world, I refer to the movements of all sorts growing like weeds in the grass. There was the new wave of Christianity surging forth as surely as the daisy chain wearing flower children with their peace signs. There was the anti - war movement. there was People's Park, the taking back of land owned by the university for the use of street people who had come to our university town because it was in some ways the center of action seeking equal rights for all, amongst other things. 

Time swept me along on its inevitable tide, and as I grew into my skin, and my focus became more allocentric, I became my own true self. It was a thing that happened to me. 

Now, I am living in the midst of a culture seeking identity. Hawaii, look at yourself. Kanaka maoli, look around you. We are a diverse people. We bring the richness of many cultures together. When I came to this island, I fell into a culture steeped in aloha. The fact that my skin is light and freckled, my build medium light and my hair thin and yellowish did not seem to matter to anyone. Although I wasn't concerned as I once had been about such things, it was so fine to feel so welcome. The spirit of aloha included me in everything I chose to pursue, whether hula and lauhala weaving or body surfing and snorkeling. There were people everywhere who welcomed me, and they were all my people, whether we looked something alike or not. And the culture! We have hula kahiko in the park, Sondheim and Rogers and Hammerstein in the theater, Cyril Pahinui and Amy Hanaiali'i, Jeff Peterson and jazz at the Blue Dragon, living history at Imiloa and traveling the globe via Hokulea and the voyagers.  This diversity is the authenticity of Hawaii. It is undeniable. It is time to honor who we inarguably are - a mixed people at the frontier of discovery beyond just ourselves. 

Hawaii has become what it is today through what has happened here, on this land. Hawaii has been chosen for certain roles in the world by outsiders. Truly Hawaii, everyone came to you from somewhere else. For yourself, you have chosen being a host to people passing through as your main enterprise. Astronomers seeking the best location for viewing what happens outside our own world have chosen Mauna Kea. What has happened to Hawaii is an identity has formed as home to an array of observatories whose role is critical in a community that spans the globe and includes universities and countries who have chosen to participate. Astronomy is about the elusive concept we call world peace. By its nature it is about cooperation and equality. 

Why the Mickey Mouse ears, then? We choose our personal expression based upon our unique sense of what matters. For some, the happiest place on earth is represented by a mouse with round ears. For others, maybe a hammock on a tropical beach at sunset comes closer…  For some, there is a fervent desire to bring back one's ancestral home, as a vibrant living identity in the present world.  Meantime, the diversity represented by Hawaii is an expression of the evolution of humanity, and that combined culture is most manifestly expressed in this island's contribution to space science. With the evolution of that science here on this island, children growing up here will have the same amazing opportunities I had in a privileged enclave when a first rate university education did not cause a life long monetary debt. We are lucky beyond imagining to have such an opportunity at hand on our tiny island.

The identity of Hawaii is expressed in the diversity of those peoples who make it home. Hawaii's spirit of aloha has caused it to rise up as a place where people from everywhere feel the love of inclusivity, the human warmth that expresses itself like the tropical breezes that bring our scented air in welcome to all who step onto our land.  

There is no need to declare that the voice of Hawaiian authenticity objects to the expression of space science on Mauna Kea.  Yes, if your true authentic self seeks identity in a culture of Hawaiian sovereignty, put your energies there. But do not deny those who share this island their rootedness and cultural and yes, scientific expressions of belonging to this place. The true authentic warrior does not need to identify an enemy, an other, but emerges as a powerful manifestion of truth of being. We all belong to this place, and this place, to us.