The Beauty of Hula
By Paige Wickline
Those who visit Hawai’i Nei (Huh-vai-ee-nay) which means Beloved Hawai’i; have the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the Hawaiian dance form known as Hula. My first visit to Hawaii was on the island of Kauai several years ago and I remember the emotions I felt as I watched the Hula performed for the first time. It was a show put on each evening at the hotel where I was staying which included several young dancers, the lighting of tiki torches, and drumming, all performed poolside with a backdrop of waterfalls into the hotel’s tropical pools.
The dance told the story of the Polynesians who came in their outrigger canoes from other islands far away and settled on the islands of Hawai’i Nei. As I watched the dancers I found emotions welling up from deep within and tears begin to roll down my face. I didn’t fully understand this deep response I had to the movements of the dancers. It took me several years to fully understand the deep meaning of hula that expresses the love of life and of the islands in an exchange of blessings and love between the dancers and the audience.
The Hawaiian’s are related to the ancient Lemurian Race of humans and have great remembrance of how magnetic love energy can be expressed through dance and music. The movements of the Hula dancer express what we see, feel, hear, touch, smell and taste in a beautiful dance. The love energy that emanates from the Hula has the potential of allowing one to expand, to heal, to sit within ones heart and allow emotions to flow. If one is able to open the heart while watching the dancers, one can feel the exchange of blessings between oneself, the dancers along with nature.
Most Hulas tell a story; often about the beauty of the land, the sea, the flora and the fauna upon the islands. Stories of humans are often told in metaphor using aspects of nature to represent the characters and events in the story. Nature, the land and the sea are all considered family in Hawaiian culture. This is reflected in the legend or story of Kalo or the Taro plant as told in the Hawaiian creation chant or Kumulipo (coo-moo-lee-poe). Hawaiian’s recorded their history orally with many chants along with dances to accompany the chants. The Kumulipo tells of how the first born child of father sky and mother earth was stillborn and buried. The next day the Kalo or Taro plant grew from where the child was buried and was named Haloa which means everlasting breath. The second child of father sky and mother earth was a human and also named Haloa and is considered the first human and also the younger brother of the Kalo plant. For most Hawaiians the Kalo plant is not only food or everlasting breath but also an uncle or brother and honored as part of the ohana or family.
Soon after my first visit to Kauai I moved to the islands for here were the keys, ancestors and records I needed to bring my ascension forth. Each of us has many lineages and for me it was my ancient red polynesian ancestry that held the records of a magnetic rotational energy flow that was in harmony with Earth. On the land the Hawaiian’s refer to as Hawai’i Nei is where I needed to settle to begin the journey of finding my ancestry with the keys to opening my heart and learning how to love. As one opens the heart and allows love energy to flow through the kundalini channels then one can forgive the karma in the ancestry at cause of discordent energy flow in humans related to the intermixing of genetics with different energy flows that are non-resonate with each other.
Eventually I signed up to learn Hula with a Kumu Hula (hula teacher) for I wished to learn the beautiful hula movements myself. Many of my ancestors were dancers; many of them used dance or movement to seduce others and strip them of dream or to manipulate others in some way. Over time I came to understand this was because they had fallen into deep forgetfulness about the original purpose of dance which is to allow healing through creative expression and exchange of blessings and love through the sexual energy flow as the dancer moves. Hula dancers run much sexual energy flow as they dance yet generally there are no lust planes associated for the energy is also run through the heart and one is bathed in love and blessings as they watch the beautiful dance. The ancient Hawaiian Ancestors understood how sexual energy, love, and blessings, are all the same and all support life and health of the physical body.
Most other forms of dance today are connected to lust planes where the performer seduces the audience and those in the audience are stripped of dream and chi. My first hula lessons triggered much karma in my ancestry around seduction and dance. As a result my first attempt at learning Hula was difficult for I was working upon releasing layers and layers of programing from other dance instruction in this lifetime and researching and forgiving the karma in my ancestry related to misuse of energy movement and dance.
After many months I had learned a few hulas but stopped studying with this hula kumu for I didn’t feel much joy in the lessons. The instruction offered had a focus upon style and precison and over time I lost interest in the lessons.
A few years passed and I found myself yearning again to learn how to hula dance. At this time I was living on the Island of Kauai and found a free class that was being offered at the community center near where I lived. So I called to register and showed up for my first class. I walked into the room and was eye to eye with a lovely Hawaiian woman who had studied Hula all her life and was now guided to share her love and knowledge of hula with others in the community.
For many weeks I was the only student and week by week my Hula Kumu shared her knowledge of the art and the love behind the Hula. Each movement was practiced over and over and I was to learn the meaning behind the hawaiian words or language each movement expressed. For one was to learn to express with ones body the love, the feelings behind each word in the music that was danced. I was also expected to keep a Hula Journal and write or draw my own personal feelings for each of the words/movements learned. My inner children decided to draw a Hula Picture Book and I bought colored pencils and each week would draw pictures for what was learned.
The teaching was not about the style as much about the emotions and the love to be expressed behind each and every motion. I was happy to understand how I had forgiven and transcended much of my ancestral karma and patterns for misuse of energy flow through dance and could now learn hula based upon love.
The kumu shared with me freely what had been shared with her which was an understanding of the language and how the Hawaiin people felt about the land, the sea, and all the wonders of the beautiful islands they call home. We started with the basic steps for the feet which creates the rythum for the dance. Then one adds the hand movements which express or tell the story of the song.
The islands are covered with a large variety of tropical flowers and blooming trees and plants. Flowers or Pua in hawaiian are referred to in many hawaiian songs. I was taught how Flower or Pua in a song will often refer to a person or something regarded as a gem. To Hawaiians each individual flower is unique and beautiful just as each person in ones life is unique and special.
The Hawaiian language is poetic and often a lover or beloved will be referred to as a flower. The motion for flower is often a motion that reflects one picking flowers. The arms are in front of oneself at shoulder height and straight out with palms facing out. The hands then turn inward towards oneself and the fingers come together as though there is a flower held in each hand. In my Hula Journal I have a large drawing of a pink and yellow plumaria flower I drew when I learned the motion for Pua.
The Lei or flower wreath is also in many songs and hulas. Hula dancers often wear beautiful flower leis as part of their dance costume. For Hawaiians the Lei symbolizes love that never ends. I was taught how each day as you wake in the morning you can intend to wear your love that day around you like a beautiful and fragrant flower lei. The day we learned about the deep meaning behind the flower lei I was brought to tears for many times I had heard from Mila and Oa how we were to bless all around us with the love of the Tao or be a walking blessing of the Tao. The ancient Hawaiians understood this and the remembrance still exists today in the symbol of the flower lei.
In the lei motion the hands come together in front of oneself at shoulder height as though one is holding a delicate flower Lei. The dancer may inhale deeply to express how one would inhale the sweet fragrance of the flowers. The dancer then lifts the Lei above their head and places the flowers upon their shoulders in a soft caress that circles around the shoulders.
Ua (ooah) or rain is beloved to Hawaiians for they understand how it blesses the land and allows the plants and flowers to grow. Daily rain showers are commen and generally the Hawaiians do not run inside and hide from the rain but will go out and enjoy the blessing of the rain as it falls upon their skin for it is considered a gift from nature.
The Hawaiians had a unity based land mangement system that honored the importance of water and allowed each extended ohana or family the use of a wedge shaped parcel of land or Ahupua’a that extended from the mountians to the sea. As the Ua falls it creates Wailele
(y-lay-lay) or waterfalls in the mountians that flow in the back of the valley into streams in the upland forests and down through the Ahupua’a. As the water flows through the Ahupua’a it sustains the crops and provides drinking water. The Limahuli Garden on Kauai is a beautiful garden based upon the Ahupua’a system.
The motion for Ua and Wailele is the same. The hands reach up either to the right or left of the body and the fingers move or wiggle like falling water as the hands sweep down to waist level. Ua will stop at waist level for the waist represents the land at sea level and movements above the waist represent that which is above or upon the land and movements below the waist will represent that which is below the water or below the sea. The motion for Wailele will go down further below the waist just as the water of a waterfall rushes down below the level of the pool or stream it runs into.
Much song and Hula is about specific places of beauty upon the islands. When one learns a Hula it is expected you learn about the history of the song and the meaning behind the words or the story behind the song. One hula I learned was titled Nani Lawa’i or beautifl Lawa’i (a valley on the island of Kauai) This hula is about being in the beauty of Lawai’i, hearing the sweet sound of the ocean and watching the sun glisten upon the sand, the mist in the back of the valley, the morning rainbows, the sweet sound of birds singing at sunrise all at the inviting and welcoming place known as Lawai’i.
Lawai’i is still a beautiful area now part of a botanical garden on the island of Kauai. It was suggested we go to the gardens so we could stand upon the land and experience the beauty of the land firsthand. So after learning the Hula I went to the gardens and it was lovely to see and experience the place I would dance of firsthand.
Though I no longer live on the islands I still have a deep love for the land called Hawai’i Nei and for Hula. I have found much joy in being able to share my Hula with others at the SSOA conclave events.
Aloha and Blessings, Paige
Paige has been associated with SSOA for many years and offers one to one healing consultations with the Hawaiian Ancestors, Earth and Nature. For more information you can contact Paige at dance_of_unity@earthlink.net
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Copyright 2007 Paige Wickline
