 Good afternoon. Welcome to Finding Happiness in Hard Times. My name is Ken Burtness and I'm coming to you from Haleiva out at the North Shore. Today we're going to revisit what we did last week and that is we're going to go back and try to give support to the people of Maui that are facing the difficult task of rebuilding. Today I'm very, very fortunate to have as a special guest, my friend, Elima Stern. Elima is a teacher and she's a writer and she is also a chanter. Welcome to the show, Elima. Hi, Ken. Elima and I have been friends for a long time. We both go to the Windward Community College writing retreat nine times out of the year. And it's always a pleasure. And one of the things that I look forward to most at the writing retreat is Lillian often asks Elima to start us off to begin the writing retreat with a chant. And every time Elima has done that it causes my heart to swell and certainly gets me in the mood for writing. And I've always really appreciated that. And so I've asked Elima to come here today to give support to the people of Maui through her chanting. And I just most appreciate you being here, Elima. And Elima has said that she would start the show with a chant. So Elima, I'm turning it over to you. Okay. The chant I'm going to do is called Na'al Makua. It's an ancient chant. It can be found in David Marlowe's Hawaiian Antiquities. And the translation I'm going to read to you is from the Edith Kanakaole Foundation. Ye ancestor deities from the rising to the setting of the sun from the zenith to the horizon. Ye ancestor deities who stand at our back and at our front. Ye gods who stand at our right hand of breathing in the heavens and utterance in the heavens. A clear ringing voice in the heavens. A voice reverberating in the heavens. Here come your progeny, Maui nui akama. Safe kardas, growth to the heavens, growth to the earth, growth to Hawaii chain of islands, grant us knowledge, grant us strength, grant us intelligence, grant us divine understanding, grant intuitive insight, and grant mana. Na'al makua mai kala ahikia kala kau mai kaho okui a kaha Hawaii. Na'al makua a kahi, na'a kua a kahi, na'a ala. Ya ka a kau i kala ni, o kihai kala ni, o wei kala ni, nululu i kala ni, kaho lu i kala ni. E a ka pula pula a oko o Maui nui akama. E malama oko yama ko. E ulu i ka lani, e ulu i ta honua, e ulu i ka pai aina o Hawaii. E hon mai ka ike, e hon mai ka ikaika, e hon mai ki akamai, e hon mai ka maupo pono, e hon mai ka ike papa alua, e hon mai ka mana. One law, chant is free. Thank you Elima, that was terrific. And right to the point for support and the people of Maui and thank you for that. Maybe a good place to start on the show today is to tell us a little bit about how you became a chanter, how you arrived at chanting because I know it's an interesting story. I came to chanting through hula, and I came to hula to learning Hawaiian language. In the 70s when the Hawaiian Renaissance became, you know, what's happening on my sister, how many and I, and along with our grandmother, who was not allowed to speak Hawaiian as a child. We took Beginning Hawaiian from local Maikai, Snake and Burke at an adult community, you know, studio at an adult community education. And so this is how we got into learning Hawaiian. And through there, I got into hula and along with my sister, we got into chanting and chanting kind of spoke to me. It made me feel good about doing it and I learned so much, you know, while learning the chance and about my own history and my own culture. So that's why I became so interested in chant. Wow. Can you tell us a little bit about the history of chanting in Hawaii about how that, you know, because it's been with us a long time right. Yes, it's been with us a very long time. Ancient Hawaiians chanted to greet the day to greet the dawn. They chanted at the birth of a child. They chanted when the house was completed. They chanted to ask for strength and they chanted whenever they entered the ocean and they entered the forest to collect greens for making lay and for their alters. They chanted, you know, for asking our gods and deities for help, but they also chanted to say thank you for all of these wonderful blessings that have been poured upon us, you know. You know, what really touches me is, you know, the part where you talk about how chanting is a request for strength. And certainly, I think that's the case with the people in Maui today and the case for all of us during these hard times is to look for and find strength. And certainly a chanting is a wonderful, wonderful way to do that. Yes. Tell us a little bit about the training for this because that's something that, you know, I've always been interested in because I've done some amateur acting, including a number of plays here in Hawaii. And one of the first things I learned when I was studying acting was how to project. And I was always envious of your chanting because, you know, they told me when I was training as an actor to be able to reach the last seats in the house. Well, you certainly always outdo me, you reach way beyond the last seats in the house. So I've always, I've always wondered what kind of training that that you were able to do to have that full sound come up in the chat and reach out to everybody who is listening and move everybody. Like you move us out at the writing retreat when you you chant for us. Can you tell us a little bit about that. Okay, I'm certainly not an actor, but I do. I heard about projection. Um, when we, when you learn chat, I've had several chat teachers. They tell you to breathe from your diaphragm, like you do when you have to sing, you know, and coral. I was in the high school course. Yes. So they tell you to breathe from your diaphragm and diaphragm and to bring it up. Also, they tell you to allow the breath to hit the top of your head. You know, just project it there. Okay. And then what they tell you to do is go to the ocean and try to chat over the waves that are beating on the shore. And that's one thing that, you know, I've done and I've tried to do. They also tell you that if you are in a room. And chanting that you need to, like you said, project your voice to the very last of people sitting in the last row, or the farthest people away from you. Try to get your voice to reach those people. Um, at one little workshop I went to, we were in a place near the ocean. Like, I can't remember exactly, but like near the docks on the Bono Harbour. And this is with the Kanaka Oles. And so they told us we were standing at one pier and to reach our voices across to the pier across from us. And that's what we tried to do, all of us that were there learning to chant. So if you need to work on your breath and you need to work on your breathing. And another thing chanting does is it helps you with your breathing. It helps you become a better, stronger, having a stronger breath, you know, getting your breath to come out stronger. So they, it works together, breathing and chanting go together very, very well together. Yeah. That answers your question. Oh yeah, yeah. And in fact, living out in the North Shore, and I live very close to the ocean, I live one house away from the ocean. And I've spent over 40 years walking the beach. And a lot of Portland events in my life have been at the beach and that beach out there in front of my house, Aiki Beach, is in the winter, very loud. The circus coming in and it's going boom, you know, and it's, it's hard to, hard to understand that I could stand there and do that and over, you know, over voice the ocean. But, you know, the one thing that the ocean does for us in the islands is, I think for all of us, is it gives us a feeling of the I know it gives us. We're so with everything. It's just a very spiritual experience to be at the beaches here, not only on Wahoo, but certainly of course on Maui and Hawaii and the big island and in all the the neighbor islands, which I've had the pleasure of being on. It's just amazing and that sort of brings me to my next question is, I've always been impressed with the connection to spirituality that the chanting has, and how it helps you feel spiritual it reaches your heart, and it reaches your spirit, and it reaches your soul. And I was going to ask you to talk a little bit about that. Okay, um, chanting is spiritual and for me, if it does feel my, feel my spirit, you know, um, I was told by one of my chanting teachers cool in Chenco. Well, my sister and I were in class together with him. So he told us that when we stand and are ready to open our mouths and chat. We're not standing there by ourselves. We have an ancestor on our shoulder, sitting there with us and helping us and giving us the strength to chat. So, whenever I'm asked to chat, I put that in my mind, I remember that I remember what Moon and Chenco told us that I, I look over and I think my ancestors here with me. And I gather strength from that, you know, and so when I open my mouth, I realize it's not just me chanting, but it's my ancestor or ancestors along with me. So it's very spiritual. It fills me. It's something that I do all the time because I'm a teacher. I teach chat along with in my classes. And when I prepare to teach a new chat work to my students, I make sure that they understand all the history and the culture, the meaning behind it. So that they're not just learning words, but they're learning what comes with all of these words. And that, I think, helps them to get that across in their chanting and it helps me to get it across in my own chanting. I think that's, you know, that's certainly so important, the fact that, you know, that you're not doing this alone when you're when you're chanting and that you're passing it on to the next generation. That's just such a wonderful thing. I know that, you know, I mentioned going to the ocean. You did in your training. When I go out to my beach. I'm never alone. Not only are there first and locals out there, but they're my people that are important in my life. My dad's ashes are scattered on my beach off my beach. And my daughter was baptized on my beach. And, and I'm sure that's not uncommon among all of us here in Hawaii is that everywhere we go. There is somebody traveling on our shoulder, like you say. And it's very, very moving. Yeah, I think and, you know, because you're at kiki, I've experienced kiki beats we did a wedding there my sister and I, one of our who is one of our who the students, you know, years ago. So I think you should go down and practice trying getting your voice over those waves because they're very powerful. I did do it. I went to Kylo Beach because I'm a Kylo girl grew up in Kylo. And so there were, you know, people walking on the beach in front of me. And I stood there and open my mouth and chanted and like, you know, do I want to be careful, you know, but it didn't intimidate me. I just opened my mouth and chanted and they look over and they thought, well, what's this woman doing, you know, what she doing. But Kylo Beach is very calm most of the time. So it's not like kiki, like, you know, where you are. But and about your father's ashes, my sister, you know, I know you know my sister died recently, and we spread her ashes at Kylo Beach. That's where we grew up and where we spent a lot of time in the ocean out there. So there's that connection to and she always felt that going to the ocean was very important for all of us. You know, it calms you, it fills your spirit like what we're talking about. And it's just a very important part of living here in Hawaii. Oh, it is. And that's interesting. I, you know, I hadn't realized that you had, you know, been at a wedding up at Gage Beach and that's that's great. Because I spent a fair amount of time at Kylo Beach. So I have a men's group that meets every other Sunday. And we meet at our leader, so to speak, his house is right on the beach. His yard extends to the beach. So at the men's group starts at 907 on Sunday mornings every other Sunday morning. So I always get there early. And I help prepare some a little bit of food for the people who are coming. But that gives me time to go down for 15 or 20 minutes and just sit on Kylo Beach and just enjoy that terrific view there and at the wonderful people passing by even wrote a story about all the people passing by because there was everybody. You know, it was people came in ones and twos and threes they came with dogs. They were running by jogging they were walking by they were picking up trash, you know, sometimes are looking for, you know, things at the ocean at the surf or just cooling their feet and the surf and it was such a community down at Kylo Beach that I always felt, even though I was visiting from the North Shore, I always felt very, very at home and very comfortable and at one with the people and there's a lot of people, my friend tells me that he's out very early. You know, like six o'clock or something jogging or walking on the beach and even then there are people there who are just being at one with that beach. So it's very special. You might have seen my sister she was she would pick up trash on Kylo Beach. Yes, you might have seen her there. That's great. Maybe you, you know, with all your, you know, the work that you do and the contact that you have with the people here through hula and chanting and everything. Can you tell us a little bit about how people have felt are been affected by what has happened at Maui and and maybe share a little bit about how our concern and our love and our aloha for all the people over there and the difficulty that they're facing now. So many people here have relatives on Maui, you know, my husband has three relatives there he has a niece, he has an uncle, and he has an auntie, and his uncle was living near Lahaina in the homestead area. We found out we were worried that, you know, we didn't couldn't hear from it for it from any of them, but we found out that he is house of one wall of this house burned down. But he is lucky that he just has to, you know, renovate and rebuild, just by adding up replacing that one wall. But there's so many people that have, you know, been are now homeless, and are living in hotels and living intense. And so, the people that I work with that I teach at my hello. We have, we held a vigil, you know, just by chanting, and by spreading, trying to reach Maui with our spirits. Like you saw at the writing retreat so many people are writing about Maui, and getting that out, you know, and trying to reach Maui in that way. Alex that someone read his essay. It's a wonderful essay I heard and read it at the writing retreat. And I think that a lot of these people should be writing to the newspapers, and telling their stories, their Maui stories, and letting them be known. There's so many people that want to donate. The woman who was my sister's best friend is back in Ophalaika, Alabama. And she called me and said, she hadn't heard from so many people but they remember that she lived in Hawaii. And she's heard from people she's never heard from in years. And they're all saying they are, they are feeling for Maui they are feeling so sad about what they see and hear that it happened on Maui. And they're asking about ways to contribute and ways to help. So I told her, I said, you know, they're overwhelmed with donations right now. The best way to contribute is by donating money to the Red Cross or other well known agencies, you know, but I mean, Ophalaika, Alabama, the people there are in sympathy to Maui. Yeah. I think one thing that, you know, we don't, we tend to forget that. And what you're saying is that the islands reach out to the mainland. We have so many connections there. One of my good friends that I've known for. Well, I hate to say how many, she would probably be upset if I said how many years I've known her, but she's always lived in California. But she's danced Hula for over 30 years in the in a allow there. And I'm hoping to, you know, one day be able to get her allow to dance via zoom for us. They and all the other people that are connected with Hula. And there are so many allows all through the United States. And she's been dancing, you know, forever and it gives her joy and, you know, and all of these people want to to reach out and, you know, and give their aloha to and support to the people of Maui. Two weeks ago when we had that show that you're talking about where Penny read Alex's poem there. We were able to read eight of them. But there were a number of other ones that I'm still getting submissions. People are sending me their poems and stories as well. And if anybody in the audience is interested, what we're going to try to do if there's an interest there is to put them in some sort of form either a digital form or a book form and make them available to people. So if anybody in the audience is interested, let think tech Hawaii know. And so we can work on that project because like it lemus said so many people wrote and so many people wrote moving things because the emphasis was on, we couldn't reach out and put our arms around the people of Maui at that moment. Being in Hawaii, we could send a message from our heart and that's what I think the people of the writing retreat did was they reached into their heart and tried to express their feelings of support and aloha to those, those who were affected so, you know, so tragically by this these wildfires. Well, our show is running a little down. So I'm going to stop talking and Elima has a wonderful chance for us to finish off and she'll tell us a little bit about the champ and she'll give us that that wonderful chant of, of hope for the people of Maui. This chant is called law of Hawaii. It was written by Larry Kimura who teaches that you a kilo and the melee to it the melody to it was put to it by Helena Silva who also teaches there. So I'll tell you the translation. The announcement of dawn appears as a growing streak upon the heavens. It is a narrow opening in the darkness herald in the day is a messenger of the purple glimmer from the East streaks of red stain long cloud formations, reposing serenely upon the pillars holding up the heavens. I turned to gaze upon this, focusing on the growth and the rising of a new day. Yes, they has arrived. We still upon us your radiant light here upon the earth filled with the spirit of life. Hawaii is in the brightness of day. It shines brilliant from its boundaries from the East to the West. It wears as its primary a myriad of knowledge of deep insight from the depths of antiquity. My soul duty is to embrace and to cherish. So it may be firm in the repositories of enlightenment. Yes, they has arrived. This is a poem for Hawaii, which has seen the light of day. Thank you, Elima. Thank you for that chant and thank you for being on the show. That was wonderful. And we're out of time. So I wanted to thank, of course, Elima and I wanted to thank the people at Think Tech Hawaii for all that they do and support us. Jay and Carol and Haley and Michael, of course. It's always wonderful to be here and with them. And thanks especially to the people who are with us. Joining us through this Zoom presentation and we wish you the best for the coming days and we will see you in two weeks at the same time in the same station. Aloha.