When most people hear the word Aloha, they think that it simply means hello and farewell. But, more precisely, it means “the presence of the Breath” i.e. The Breath of Life. And as some of my friends who are of the land of Hawaii have shared with me, it is akin to expressing “I love you.” And in concert with breathing in the breath of another through the nostrils (because the breath of the nostrils cannot be used to lie), it is also expressing, “I LIVE YOU.” These gestures in their purest form communicate, “The life in me is the life in you. We are alive together.” Can you imagine a world where we all know that we are alive together? Well, if not, I think it is time to get started because this is the heart of true community–to be alive together and to create systems, processes, and policies from that heart.
When I met these friends more than a dozen years ago it was immediately before the islands were under threat of a tsunami. We met in a park the night before and my family chose to sleep in their backyard in yurts as opposed to the place we reserved. Then at about 5am I noticed that they were awake calmly preparing for the tsunami they were warned was on the way. I won’t go into the whole story of what emerged. I will only say that as a result of this event, our friendship was solidified for life. We are now Ohana–a word commonly considered to mean family, but goes so much deeper because there is true Aloha between us.
So when I heard about the fires, I immediately contacted them to see if anyone in the wider Ohana had been impacted. Thankfully everyone in the immediate family was safe. But everyone knows someone who lost someone. The grieving will endure for generations. This says nothing of the homes that were lost and the memories incinerated. But, like always, my friends are rising to the occasion taking people into their home and letting folks sleep in the yurts and creating pathways for direct services even as questions remain. How can this happen in paradise, the home of Aloha, where the breath of life is so recognized? But then I remembered that fire also needs breath to live.
Lahaina, translated into English means Cruel Sun. It was named this because twice a year the Sun passes directly over that area at 90 degrees so that objects below like a flagpole do not cast a shadow. When I considered this name in light of the fires, I thought about how the main ingredients for life are water, air, and sunlight in harmony. But, when any of these is too much or too little, it can be a cocktail for life’s opposite as we saw when the heat of the sun absent of water sucked the air (breath of life) out of a place known for rest. Things like this should never happen in Paradise. But, as we know, this isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last as long as we don’t re-member that WE ARE ALIVE TOGETHER.
What Can We Learn?
We can more precisely measure the depth of someone’s growth from how they recover than from how they maintain. And whether we are directly connected to tragedies like what has happened in Lahaina or not, we can think in a future forward manner in bring into our communities what those experiences have to teach us. In other words, we can learn from without having to live through these experiences. That is a gift of thinking comprehensively as R. Buckminster Fuller put it.
Love is one of the facets of the IDEALS Framework. HigherUp describes love as involving nurturing and supporting others, showing kindness, empathy, and understanding, and often plays a central role in personal relationships, promoting a sense of unity and well-being. This is the essence of BEING ALIVE TOGETHER. People and organizations that create from and for a thriving future can only serve at their highest potential when they create from this place that can best be expressed as ALOHA.
Higher Up Consulting 