Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

Kalo, or Haloa translates as "everlasting breath" and is an ancestral plant to the Hawaiian people. Their creation story describes the union between Wakea, the sky father, and his daughter born of Papa, the earth mother. Their child is stillborn and from his grave grows the first Kalo plant, elder brother of humanity. The piko, where the stalk meets the leaf is the same word for a human belly button. Family or 'ohana is derived from 'oha, young kalo shoots. Near a lo'i on Kauai, I had been observing Kalo daily, especially new growth leaves pushing from the innermost stalk, unrolling as they emerge. Once only, I saw the morning sun shining through this new kalo leaf and creating colors seldom seen, for by afternoon it was an opaque purple. I was watching, and the ancestors had appeared as vibrant, interconnected veins in a fleeting stage of life's growth.