Hāwane Rios Instagram – when i am heartbroken i find refuge in my memories of hōlanikū when i am in reflection i listen to voice of hōlanikū she is ever present with me in every moment of every day i give thanks deep sigh. i’m exhausted to the core my being so i am resting my heart in the glow of the sky over Wehenaalaula. That is the name that I gave to this beach as offering and as honoring. i have spent two very poignant seasons of my life here on these shores of our eldest land in Hawai’i. most don’t know what it is like to live on an atoll with only two other people. what it’s like to work your body every day for the purpose of healing a land that you love more than you even know you had the capacity to. my love for these shores cannot be described in english. it is ancient as time. i did not exist in the world in the people when i was there. i existed in the world. a world of spirits and of birds. a world of ancestors and sacred teachings. a world of hōlani, where the heavens are the earth. the world of people could break my soul if i didn’t know any better. it could shatter my mind if i didn’t know my truth like i know this place. i spent three months here building five ahu that i still tend to and still pray to. ku’u piko, ku’u iwi, ku’u koko, ku’u ewe, ku’u hōlani the soul of my soul the bones of my bone the blood of my blood lives in the places of prayer that i set with my own two hands with legions of ancestors at the four corners of my body. it was and remains the highest, most sacred offering i have ever bowed down to make. when i close my eyes i am there at sunrise and i am there at sunset, chanting to the sky with all that i am. it is the most in harmony and the most in tune and natural human state of being that i have ever experienced in my life. it is the closest i have ever gotten to truly knowing in my living body what it feels like to be in union with everything that the earth is. it felt Hawai’i. it felt mauli. it felt maoli. it made me feel so fully and beautifully alive. and i miss that feeling as i walk in the land of people. amongst people who don’t know what sacred is because they don’t know what it really feels like to love like this.