And Just Like That…
With a wisp of the wind, it seems as though my path on Maui has come to an excruciating halt. One that I was sure I would never come to, and yet my closest friends might tell me otherwise. You have been contemplating leaving for a year and a half, now you are listening.
Change is always so scary. Why would I leave paradise? Why am I going out into the world that I needed so much healing from?
I remember one of my last breath work and meditation circles I attended in Haiku, ended with an Osho Tarot card pull. The card I got was a card with thee number 4. It had 4 primary colors, and the word ‘Participation’ on it. When I pulled that card, it’s then that I knew.
God is choosing to place me in spaces that are not just for me. It’s beyond me now. The healing I was guided to the islands to do, the work that was calling me forward towards there, is the same work I am being called to embody back on the land I was raised on: New York City.
Boy did I think I would dread my return. To trade palm trees for below freeze, I think the fuck not.
But actually, when I landed (after a series of unfortunate events) I could feel this levelheadedness and excitement about returning home to my family and my city.
The other day, I had walked by an ad posted up on the 14th street walkway from the 1 - 2 -3 train to the L, and I saw a phrase “HOMETOWN PLAYGROUND”. I felt insight on a few things from that:
I am lucky to be from a city that has A LOT OF OPTIONS. It’s not slim pickings over here, if something doesn’t work for you, there is most definitely another option
I am grateful that God is asking me to bring light to the places that were once so dark for me. I couldn’t bear the weight back then. Now with the healing I have, I know exactly how to navigate lovingly but with discernment and integrity
I am grateful I get to give my inner child a better experience in expressing herself and establishing what she was meant to create in this world.
Maui is never gone, but rather in my heart. The aloha that gets carried from the island is exactly what I came there to seek. Home is in the breath. Love is in the breath. It’s a way of life. It’s in the trees, the water, the earth, the animals. It’s in the breeze, and the rain. Aloha is love, it’s unity. I am grateful to be connected to land that I was never born on and yet called me so furiously to learn from it. I am so excited for the day that I get to return, to see my friends and soul family, and to enjoy and appreciate the land and its beauty through the kanaka and the folks who have found roots in her hearth.
Hawai’i came to me through my deceased grandmother. I’ve only met her in spirit. In the year 2020, I did a journey that would place me in contact with my grandmother for the very first time in my life.
She whispered to me that Maui was an important place for me to go.
Now that I’ve reconciled with most, if not all of my fragments, Maui has taught me and shared with me that I already have a home. My homeland lies in Ivory Coast. The birth and resting place of my matriarchal lineage. Maui has shared with me the value of the Divine Mother. To know your ancestors is to know yourself, to know your roots. I notice that a lot of folks come to the Hawaiian islands, adopt the way, and throw away where they’ve come from. I think in some cases it can be necessary, and how lucky are we that Hawai’i has been and continues to be so giving. How divine it is that you can feel more connected to a place than the place in which you grew up. In some cases, your original home may no longer exist or not be a safe place to return to. In others, I wonder if this is bypassing in a sense too. Because in my 4 years, I have witnessed an imbalance and an anger that I think is righteous, an anger of many natives moving off their mother lands to seek security in places foreign to them, and many transplants taking up spaces that could be utilized for native housing. But in the end, I don’t know anything about much besides my own personal path and perspective.
Change is scary. But change by force? You can definitely add anger to the list.
Hawai’i came as a sister lineage and has sparked in me the reconciliation with my own mother land. A little yet extremely rich country in Western Africa. One that is linked together to Hawai’i by way of the Palm Tree, and the sea.
Funnily enough, in the two weeks after arriving to NYC, my mother says, “With the way America is unfolding, get ready because we may have to move to Ivory Coast!” And God, I think she’s right.
Thanks for reading if you got this far!
Love, Etiange <3
