REFRAINS for HE'EIA
watersheds are refrains, not plans…..
Refrains are the heart of a song, prayer, and daily movement. Repetitions at regular intervals and spaces.
Watery refrains are repeating compositions of
elemental
animal
plant
interfacing relation.
Lines and paths made with gestures of abundant cooperation.
Woven in space time.
There are lines that separate water from land. Boundary lines drawn on paper.
These lines often indicate a course, a facilitation of settlement and development.
Course thought.
There are also lines that weave, bringing water molecules together forming temporary flows that facilitate the lines and paths
of fish schooling upstream,
kalo roots taking hold
and toes moving through soil.
A muliwai (estuary) is an open field of woven wet lines.
The line of a pond’s bank is only one line.
The horizon between land and sky is only one line.
There are many lines.
I prefer to think of futuring watersheds with woven lines. I prefer to think in terms of refrains, not plans.
What sort of refrains do watersheds need to carry into the 21st century?
He‘eia is a place to meditate on this question, an opportunity to
trace paths,
shapes,
overlays
and energies.
How does water’s refrain beckon the insects’ refrains which beckons the birds’ refrains which beckons the native reeds’ refrains which beckon necessary farming and fishing refrains… and so on.
From my position as a settler aloha ‘āina at Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, ma ka hana ka ‘ike (learning by doing) to bring the muliwai (estuary) back into abundance and support the sovereignty of Native Hawaiians, I have been lucky to kilo (observe and witness) the emergence of some of these refrains as the wetlands comes back to life.
Picture this refrain of the rotting mangrove mirroring the shape of the Ko‘olau mountains. This refrain is one of human labor, day by day, pulling out the mangroves, undoing short-sighted watershed management of the early twentieth century, when the area was used for sugarcane and pineapples. Pulling mangroves allows microbes and water to return the trees to soil. Mists coming off mountains flowing into the newly rebuilt au wai (canals) through the wet ground of the muliwai (estuary) and into the restored walls of the loko i‘a (fishpond).
Water’s refrain is a daily practice of wet weaves.