For Kekuhi Keali‘ikanaka‘oleohaililani the place where aloha ‘?ina has profound longevity is the place where all separation is dissolved and we realize that we are not just protectors of the natural world, we are the natural world. In our molecules, says Kekuhi, are all of the substances that make up the ‘?ina and when we are truly moving with what our molecules are designed to do, we cannot not have aloha ‘?ina. Where does she believe that connection with the natural world is coming from?
“You know, it’s so sensuous that I don’t know that it has a beginning or an ending point. I could say it comes from the gut, it comes from the heart, it comes from the spirit. I think it comes from recognition of the spirit of all of the elements and your own wailoa, or spirit. To me it comes from the permeability of one or more entities, one to the other. It’s so multi-sensory. Does it come from the na‘au? I think it comes deeper. It comes from ancestral memory. And another thing is that we know that all the elemental forms around us also have memory. So maybe the moment of rapture comes when all of the elements, including myself, remember all at one. Or maybe it comes in a brand new memory. But all I know is that it’s a symphony that happens all at once.”