Aloha: It is not what it is sold as (because it is not for sale)

This is a photo I took in 2020.

I was sitting with my love, in his Jeep, one evening when we left his friendʻs house to get groceries. I was there for Valentineʻs weekend. He was house sitting.

At the beach.

He now lives at the beach. Just not in Southern California, but on the Central Coast.

I go there often. I love it there - two of my favorite things to do: hang out with my guy for days at a time....and to do that at the beach, with the dog.

I call her Nani Girl.

It is a lovely place, the beach.

It is the place that I grew up learning to do as many of the Hawaiian things that my parents did when they were children growing up in Hawaii, and that they could teach us.

ʻCept we were here, and this is our beach, is our Waikiki (called Venice Beach) and here, where this is our, or at least my, North Shore called Pismo Beach or the other end of the coast in Huntington Beach (and it is south of me, sort of).

There were always limitations, even if my father was genius enough to create ways around them - being a Hawaiian person born and raised on the mainland USA came with both its perks, as well as its perils.

Huntington Beach, California, suffice it to say, when I was not in Hawaii for a few weeks in the summer time, was the only ocean that I knew.

I danced Hula, by myself, several times, right here on our shores, on this side of the ocean.

I taught my kids how to body surf when they were just tiny little humans here, right here, in fact, at that beach in the photo - this is my Hawaii, this place called Huntington Beach.

Lots and lots of giant beach parties, typically at guard tower 17, on the state side, because it did not close until very late, always with the giant extended Hawaiian family (Non-Hawaiian Hawaiians included, of course - theyʻre called friends), singing Hawaiian music well into the night, a large group of island people gathered by the sea, where we ought to be anyway.

California.

I SOOOO dislike what is happening here on #TheRockin9th, in my ʻaina, the place that I was born, because right now, it is a taste of what is so NOT the Spirit of Aloha.

I sit here wistfully recalling those times in my life with people who I do not even really know anymore. Sometimes, it makes me sad.

It hurts to know the truth.

The truth is that it takes a whole lot more than ocean and sand to create, to cultivate what is the Aloha Spirit.

Seriously ...you have to be Hawaiian, have to be Kanaka Maoli - a Hawaiian Person- in order to know it, to cultivate it.

Ultimately, to be it and live as the representation of it.

Beach parties are cool, but, beach parties where there are a whole lot of Hawaiian people are the very coolest of all.

Because we are Ka poʻe o ka wai - The People of the Water, as much as we are Ka poʻe Aloha - The Aloha People.

But Our Aloha, and whatever is the rest of the worldʻs version of Aloha are two VERY different things.

I Promise.

I have spent a lot of time here in California looking at the ocean, knowing that on the other side of it was where everything started for every Hawaiian person on this planet, even if, like a whole lot of us, myself included, we were born on this side of the ocean.

I, and many others like me, were born here, on #TheRockin9th called California....Kaleponi, according to my Grandmothers. They called it The 9th island.

I call it The Rockinʻ 9th...what else would you expect from someone who grew up in the same place where Motley Crue, Van Halen, and some of the most well known guitar brands were created?

No matter where you are on this planet, if you are Hawaiian, Hawaii is always going to be right there with you, everywhere, anywhere.

But that is NOT what I am writing about, at all.

I am writing, really, about the way that some folks, in fact lotsa folks, deem Aloha - not even the place where the ghosts of my ʻAumakua - my Ancestors - roam - as being some sort of marketing phrase.

It isnʻt.

Being a Hawaiian person from this side of the ocean, and having been born and raised by Hawaiian parents, no matter how angry I always seemed to be with them, I have always known what the actual energy called Aloha is all about.

I have always known what Aloha, and everything that it means is. It is inherent in every Hawaiian person you have known, met, will see and never know.

The one thing that I know I was instilled with before I was born and while my mother talked to me in utero, was that to be a Hawaiian person means to be the very epitome of the Spirit of Aloha.

I know this, because my father told me.

Everything Hawaiian is very important to him.

It is the reason why it is so important to my siblings, and is the reason why, and very intentionally so, my parents helped me raise my kids. I wanted it this way, even though my own childhood, at times, left something to be desired. I wanted it this way because of all of the things that I grew up to be and to live as, a very Good Hawaiian was one of the most important ones to my parents.

It was also one of the very most important things to me for my children to grow up Hawaiian.

They are still doing that, even while their Grandmother, their Tutu Lady, watches them from Heaven.

The very and only place, and the very and only people who would be able to teach me to be this much of a Hawaiian kind of Hawaiian, on this side of the ocean, would be my parents, Unko Ronnie and Aunty Sheila.

It is unfortunate that there are still too many people who we share the air with who think like vacationers will, which is that they paid for the travel, and the hotel, and the car rental, and while they were doing so, had not one thought about the fact that Hawaii is a state (not really, but we wonʻt go there right now) and that human beings in this country and all other countries live in places called states.

And in this case, it applies, as well, to a state of mind.

The state of mind on that side of the water is that all Hawaiians just want you all to know that Hawaii is NOT just for you to go over and enjoy, to surf, to learn to dance Hula, to get married on a beach (in a service that most Hawaiians could never pay for, because that is not our Hawaii, but that of commerce) and do whatever it is that you would never be able to do wherever it is that you live.

And lots of you do not even pick up your trash when you go to the beach, as if somehow you are still in Los Angeles or New Jersey, as if someoneʻs little brother Kimo gets paid to clean up after you.

No.

He doesnʻt.

We (yes, I include myself with them because I AM ONE OF THEM) want you to think about the idea that if someone came to your pad, walked right on in, did what they wanted (drank the last beer and even smoked the last bowl of your best kindness) and then expected you to clean up after them, you might also be a bit on the angry side with travelers.

Most of us would LOVE IT if, once you get to Hawaii, you ASKED about real things that have NOTHING TO DO with anything "Disney" or anything "Gilligan" or anything that has not a thing to do with who we are, our culture, and the idea that we LOVE our ʻAina.

MANY MANY of us are willing to give up liberty and life so that the generations which follow do not have to, at least in terms of our culture, our land, who we are.

This is real.

This is what our Native American Brothers and Sisters have been trying to get people to understand for generations - that you see profits, and we see pillage.

And no one can change that one thing other than the people who keep on making it happen. Right now, the people of the water - my people - are making things happen.

Let Mauna Kea and all of our Kupuna - our elders - be the proof of that.

This thing called #TMT and our not wanting it placed there will tell anyone with five physical senses that much, and will tell anyone with a heart and soul that this mountain is far more than only a mountain, at least to all of us, all over the world. If all you see is a mountain, but not its sacred nature, then you cannot possibly see what we see and you cannot possibly know what actual Aloha is...because we all have it for that mountain.

The one that too many people believe is just a mountain. It was and never will be just a mountain. For us, it is where every Hawaiian person on this planet turns to, even from far away, so that we can connect with who we each and all are.

It has not a thing to do with at least MY not wanting to peer into the heavens.

Thatʻs ridiculous - part of my job is as an Astrologer. I actually need to see the heavens. Just not at the cost of the top of Mauna Kea, OR the top of any more mountains in that island chain. There are other mountains and other places more willing to allow it.

Hawaiians do not want anymore telescopes on top of Mauna Kea, and we also do not want tourists to show up in droves to those islands just because you can get there.

Again - people live there everyday.

Those people are my people.

And everyday other people go there and witness something that they do not know about, or ignore...the fact that a whole lot of native Hawaiians are living homeless on those beaches that our ancestors fought and bled and died on - Hawaiians are living in tents on the beaches because they cannot afford the rent in actual places to permanently live - but, lots of people do not know this, because it does not get talked about until the plane lands back on the mainland.

Then it is just the same old "these nasty homeless people ruined my vacation," and those who would say that behave as though it is impossible that this happens there, but it does, and it has for a lot longer than anyone believes.

It used to be a Kingdom.

Now the Facebook guy "owns" and lives on what are known as Kuleana lands....but tourists donʻt know that. They only know that they got a great deal on that website from someone who also has no real idea about what it means to be a descendant of land that was being saved when that guy showed up and just...bought it...because he could.

"Could" meaning he had the money.

It never meant he had the permission. It never meant that he even thought it might not be cool to do that, because it wasnʻt. That is land, no matter what has been agreed upon, that belongs to the Hawaiian people.

It happens more than it doesnʻt.

All we are doing is trying to save our people and the Culture that we love, so very dearly much. You cannot understand this. I do not know why others do not involve themselves in their own cultures but, then when I think about it....you have. A whole lot of you have

It is why I have written about this one thing a whole lot, for years even...Hawaii is not just some cool place to take a vacation. People live there. Our culture is misappropriated more than it is not. We are told to deal with it, and this after the actual truth of how Hawaii became the place in this country that it has today....but all of us Hawaiians, all over the world, voice it everyday - please do not forget that people live there, that our culture is real to us and is not for sale.

My generation of Hawaiians has been fighting collectively for our identity as Hawaiians - REAL Hawaiians, and not the grass skirt ones that too many people all over this world still seem to think is the truth of us - for all of our lives.

We know no other way other than the many flowing layers of lovely cotton adorned with inks and dyes and the love of so many Kumu Hula, Hula Aunties and Tutu Aunties who can still dance hula, even from a wheelchair (because we tell stories with our hands...no wheelchair will ever keep a hula dancer from doing what is second nature to us).

Hawaii is home to all of us, no matter where we were born.

All of us were taught to be respectful when we go to other peoplesʻ houses to visit, and it would be really great if people everywhere would just consider that there are things you do not think about when you are there.

And Americans, all of us know this one feeling very well - the idea that others come here without abiding by the laws, leave a mess and we are left to clean it up in one way or another. It is not that you are not welcomed here, but that when you come here then please BE HERE and if you make a mess, no matter what kind, have the decency to clean up after yourselves.

But too many do not do that - they instead take advantage of the kindness of others, make themselves right at home, cause a ruckus, break things, and when they do this in our neighborhood it is one thing, but, to do it without thinking that people live there completely sucks.

How does it feel when people from other places on this planet decide for you that they are coming to take over, and you have not one thing to say about it, because they are simply just NOT listening. What you have to say means nothing, and these others let you know so, all the damned time.

How do you feel when you are told that you cannot have what you ought to have, simply for just being a person who was born there, on that land, in that place that you and I love and honor so much, that is so much a part of who we are? How does that feel?

How do you feel when you see people from other places ignoring what it was that you so dearly wanted, which was NOT them NOT coming here, but them coming here and making the sacrifice of time and letting go of their allegiance to someplace else, because that is what we, as Americans, require...yes, even this one writing this, who is part of a Nation of People - Na Kanaka Maoli - The Hawaiians ...who want you to know that it is fine if you want to come here, but, please - do what it is that you would want us to do , and do it legally - is that too much to ask?

Or, in this case, use what you do not know is the actual Law of The Aloha Spirit.

People live there in that place that you seem to think you have all the right to defile, but no thought in your head that people - my people - live there. It is Home them.

And in my Heart and Soul, in many ways, it is home to this writer, as well.

It is Home, of Spirit, of Heart, of Naʻau - to lots of us all over the world, so please - kokua us....respect us, like you demand that same thing from all others.

We are not different, here, there, anywhere - the Aloha which you are paying for is NOT The Aloha Spirit which is inborn and within every Hawaiian person on this planet.

Even if the only blood quantum that you have is at 0.0001% - you are that amount of Kanaka, meaning that you are also privy to and required to live up to that thing that is within us all called The Spirit of Aloha.

For Hawaiians, it is different, but still, is the same.

It is the thing that your Tutu Lady taught you, along with all of the cousins who you no longer talk to, and who also no longer talk to you. Not because of anything more than that you all have lives - it does not take away the love, the essence that is Aloha and Ohana. It is the thing that makes you be a human being, but, a human being of the Hawaiian sort.

And, being a human being of the Hawaiian sort is totally about a blood thing, a Culture thing, an Ethnicity thing. Our skin does not wrinkle too easily, and like our Ancestors who traversed the ocean that too many have taken for granted, we have those same benefits which require NO surgery....

...not because we do not age, but because we age well, because we know that age is a badge of honor bestowed upon those who were bad ass enough to be here and breathing when things got ugly - that is who we are, because that is who we were taught to be. It is in our blood, in our bones, in every word we speak, whether it is in our Ancestral language, or that of the colonists - we are the Aloha which the world seems to have regarded as fodder for Disney cartoons, episodes of Gilliganʻs Island where we were the enemy on our own land, rather than the people who would be able to explain to you, things that you have no clue about.

Things like why the ocean ripples like it does, which makes the birds fly in a different direction at different times of the day, let alone the year.

Things like why we do not wear grass skirts when we dance Hula, and things like the real reason why Hula one of our most beloved parts of our Culture.

Things like food and music, family and friends who become family, and things like sharing memories on two sides of the ocean and knowing that either way, you are Home.

Things like explaining to your own children the stories that came from stories that were passed down and caused their big giant middle names with 26 letters or more (my poor kids haha).

Things like knowing that your partner is intrigued by the language that is not their own, not native to them, and yet, they understand everything you have just said to them, and not because you told them what all those things mean, but, because it is filled with that realness that only comes from those who are part of the energy of Aloha, by blood, by history, by the very luck that the heavens have placed on you.

Right this moment, I am in Los Angeles. I am on my side of the ocean.

I have always told my kids that when we are at the beach and you are on the sand, you are on the mainland, but, the moment that you put your two feet in the water, even if it is just a couple of inches up your legs, you are in both places at one time.

This is the understanding of all Hawaiians - that we have a duty to Malama ʻaina - to care for the land. We, as those Hawaiians, are included with that, because from the earth we came, and to the earth we will return, making all of us the actual land.

Please remember this the next time that you travel someplace cultural - that people within that culture actually live there.

It is because of those people -my people - that our culture yet exists.

Please kokua us, all of us, and remember all of this when you go there.

The Aloha people actually live there.

You cannot buy Aloha, cannot visit it and then come home without it touching who you are for real, and forever. It is a gift that never ever goes away.

It cannot be purchased at Waikiki International Marketplace or through your travel agent. It is not for sale and never has been.

The kind you like exists in Hollywood.

Go there.

Canʻt hurt Los Angeles more than the government leaders already have.