Day 5: Manaʻo for Cohort Kaulua Friday, July 25, 2025

Mahalo everyone for a wonderful week together! From our closing ʻumeke exercise, here are the post-it notes of wisdom that we can take from our time together during the July cohort: 

• Humility – understanding
• Invitation: How over the years I have received invitations and accepted them and all of the invitations have led to our Kaulua cohort and will inspire me to accept so many other invitations to create more moʻokūʻauhau
• “Look under your feet” 
• Sometimes making change is slow and uncomfortable
• You’re important and you matter to your kaikaina and kaikuaʻana <3 
• Have an open heart and mind
• Pili + Pilina = Cherreh + Schmean 😉 <3
• You are powerful, your voice matters, you can change the future for the better
• Everything will improve. You will undergo your situation one day. You’ll become stronger.
• Respect and value others
• 3 boys: to better understand their moʻokūʻauhau and kuleana to ʻāina; To pause
• E mālamalama ka pilina me ke ea o ka ʻāina <3 
• Work to build pilina
• Moʻokūʻauhau: deep significance, multi-faceted genealogy; Learned multiple ways to explore/get to know it; New awareness
• Keep mālama ʻāina and kuleana to build pilina
• Know the stones that make you! 
• Be more chill
• Kuleana/malama respect our aina; listen more speak less
• Pilina is power! So don’t run from the opportunities to build it. 
• You won’t always be kaikaina, but when you are, hoʻolohe. You won’t always be kaikuaʻana but when you are, choose your words and actions with care. 
• Listen
• With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. 
• You are vital to a long, complex, and beautiful genealogy. Holomua kākou! [with sketches of a waʻa sailing into currents and bordered with lei lāʻī]
• My kuleana to the mountain. 
• Be in touch with your feelings
• E alu like kākou no Hawaiʻi
• Everything/everyone has a story/knowledge and it is a privilege to connect deeply through theirs (story) as well as our own. 
• Importance to recognize who your kaikuaʻana and kaikaina are and that roles can change.
• Moʻolelo to mālama
• Be open to the change the future inevitably brings but don’t forget your moʻokūʻauhau, community, or ʻohana that help make it possible
• Pilina is, was, and will be your power
• Know yourself, choose what empowers you 
• Learn your genealogy both people and place
• The complexity of our moʻokūʻauhau—empowerment!
• Be respectful of your ʻāina and the treasures it holds will come back to you in greater ways
• You can build pilina/find connections with almost anyone, it is up to you to mālama/nurture them. 
• As settlers we don’t have to feel guilty about the history of our own group’s relationship to Hawaiʻi and Kanaka Maoli, but we have kuleana to work in solidarity with Hawaiians to make this a better place for Kānaka and this ʻāina. 
• Truly love and respect our home
• Learn and give care to your moʻokūʻauhau whatever type it is because it is your foundation. 
• [Name,] continue to explore and immerse yourself in the ʻāina that you call home and nourishes/mālamas and is a part of you!
• Kuleana means stepping into the role of kaikuaʻana, where you are needed, not when you feel comfortable doing so. 
• Life is not a straight line but a twisty surprising journey. Be where you are now because it keeps changing
• Don’t be afraid to make connections
• Talk less
• Connections exist everywhere
• Kuleana to ʻāina <3
• Know your kuleana past, present, and future
• Kuleana
• Give attention
• Self-acceptance, make pilina
• This week reaffirmed… I learn from different schools of knowledge, not just formal ones. For example, from my son, students, nature, land. 
• Aloha ʻāina
• Building pilina takes time, trust, effort, and vulnerability, but itʻs worth it
• It is important to take time to build pilina with the ʻāina
• To be a good listener—listen for x minutes without comment. 
• No matter how much you feel you understand or don’t understand, it is important to show up and try. 
• In order to learn and grow, you have to be vulnerable and “trust the process”
• Imagine all the possibilities for collaborative work with Kānaka Maoli
• Commitment 
• I am kaikaina to the mountain and home in which I live.
• Go outside your comfort zone
• To aloha who you are, where you came from, and where you are meant to go
• Lesson of mālama for our university
• Never stop learning. Open your heart and mind to new ways of thinking and seeing.