Write On Maui
by
Barry Sultanoff

 

 

Crossing the Great Water: A Reflection
by Barry Sultanoff

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. - Anne Lamott

I. Waddling Into Place

Our passage to Kaua’i began in the dark, just after sunset. That momentous crossing over wild seas was going to break me open; it would change my life. And yet, if I had known what I was in for, I may never have gone.

Four years earlier, I had just landed in Hawai’i—also in the dark, a leap of faith—and was driving a rented convertible through the salty-air stillness on Maui’s North Shore. That night, a million stars twinkling overhead, I was on a mission to locate the Upcountry home that I had bought--sight unseen, on a wing and a prayer—while still living on the Mainland.

Prior to living here on these blessed islands, I had been in a canoe only once or twice--at summer camp, as a pre-teen. Outrigger canoe paddling had never been on my radar. But a Maui friend, confident that I would love paddling as much as he did, urged me to check out the recreational program at one of the Island’s best-known canoe clubs.

Ray’s prediction was right on the money: I tumbled bow-over-stern into a love affair with canoe paddling, Hawaiian-style. My ambitions were modest. I did not aspire to compete as a racer and win medals so that--sporting a wide, self-satisfied smile--I could proudly dangle them around my neck. Nor was my primary aim to pump myself up into a buff appearance that would qualify me for some prissy avocation of strutting along Maui’s pristine beaches--flaunting my impressive, baroquely-delineated muscles.

I wanted to paddle for pleasure, that’s all—just for the love of it. But then a powerful man with a bright, compelling aura appeared on the scene and my paddling experience began to change dramatically.

Kimokeo Kapahulehua, Hawaiian by birth and part of a proud (peaceful) warrior lineage, was at the time already the leader of a canoe voyaging society whose scope was bold and far-reaching. That group had already made a series of journeys to the Northwest Hawaiian Island Chain; their quintessential ocean foray will be a forty-five-day paddle from Maui to Tahiti, in 2009.

For reasons that are unquestionably noble but to me unfathomable, the intrepid canoe voyager, Kimokeo, has chosen the unique and seemingly odd task of initiating a group of us haole (Hawaiian for “white folks living in Hawaii”) into the ways of Hawaiian culture.

Colorful Kimokeo is our King Mallard Duck. We are the little ducklings that he gently nudges out upon unknown waters, way outside our safety zones--with our little butts wagging and more or less prepared for what awaits us. He has willingly embraced us in our “raw” state, drawing upon our best intentions, pure hearts, and eagerness to follow him anywhere--engaging us in an ongoing exploration of cultural realms far beyond the ken (or even the imaginings) of any of us.

At the time of the Oahu to Kaua’i crossing, our core group of novices had already paddled to and around Maui’s neighbor islands of Lana’i and Moloka’i. Most recently, we had voyaged from Lahaina, on Maui’s west side, to Waikiki, a two-day trip that included an overnight camp-out at Hale O Lono, the launch site for the world’s most famous long-distance canoe race.

Though I’ve recently entered my seventh decade, my strength, endurance, and aerobic capacity are at a lifetime best. I have a reservoir of fierce determination, too, that has served me well through these challenging inter-island voyages—and in completing two Olympic-length triathlons in the past three years.

I can swim, in churning water if necessary, and I can hoist myself from water level to canoe, with gritty aplomb. However, this time there would be no resting on past laurels. As I was soon to discover, the challenge ahead would be a “quantum leap”--into the darkness of the unknown.

Kimokeo and crew

photo credit: Stephen Luksic

II. The Launch

Under the almost-full moon on that Friday evening in early December, I stood in solemn ceremony with thirteen other paddlers. We were accompanied by our ‘ohana (extended family) of supporters and well-wishers, all of us joining hands in a wide arc around the ’Iolana, a Bradley Lightning OC-6 (six-person canoe) that was to carry us across Hawaii’s widest--and wildest--channel, to the island of Kaua’i, about ninety miles to the northwest.

At Kimokeo’s request, I had gathered about a dozen ti leaves for the blessing ceremony and had placed a scoop of ocean water within easy reach. As we stood encircling the canoe, Kimokeo dipped the leaves into the salt water, slapping the green bundle against the sides and the interior of the wa’a (canoe), carefully anointing every seat, manu, iako, and ama--then showering each of us with a spritz of this sanctified salt water.

My mind was still, my emotions steady; I felt calm and profoundly empty as I surrendered the last vestige of control that I might have believed I still had. I had a disquieting sense of giving up all hope: hope for our safe passage would have to be re-established little by little, through action--with each rip of our paddles through the swirling brine—as, stroke by stroke, we propelled our wa’a forward across unknown waters.

The comic Woody Allen says that “ninety percent of life is just showing up.” This may be true. But for us the time for philosophizing had ended. Now we would leave all solid ground behind—and ready ourselves to “show up” boldly, out upon the roiling sea.

Levitating the four-hundred-pound canoe in a moment of pure intention, we reverently carried her to the shoreline, floating her gently down upon its sandy apron. With minimal fanfare, the first crew launched, setting out into the murky silence, their way lit only by two battery-powered utility lights attached to the iako (wooden struts).

The moon, just three days shy of full, was bright; our escort boat, the Kihei Boy, seaworthy; and her skipper, Jim, equipped with the best navigational instruments and decades of experience traversing Hawaiian waters.

Our crew of fourteen paddlers was balanced and diverse: Half a dozen, including Kimokeo, were seasoned paddlers, some of them world-class athletes ranging in age from twenty-eight to fifty-eight. Three of the women had experience in both racing and voyaging. Of the other five crew members--two women and three men, including myself--each of us had made several inter-island crossings.

Colleen, Barry, Anita, Kimokeo

photo credit: Tammy Osurman

III. The Depths of the Unknown

I was relaxed and enthusiastic as I rode the escort boat, awaiting our team’s freshman round in the canoe. The first hour of paddling felt fine. The canoe responded well to our efforts, and we averaged almost five knots under persistent dark clouds that shrouded the moon.

Back on the escort boat, I felt a little queasy and surprisingly cold, but otherwise I was all right. I knew that I was tough: not to worry! I paddled the second round, accomplishing a difficult water change through unfriendly water and hoisting myself up into the canoe with ease. Piece of cake! I drank water with high-quality electrolytes in it. I ate an apple.

The hour that ensued, between ten and eleven o’clock, would prove memorable for the suddenness with which my physiological moorings crumbled. Before long even the thought of an apple, a piece of cake, or the sweet citrus taste of my electrolyte mix would induce waves of intense nausea. I began to feel even colder. As a doctor familiar with the signs of hypothermia, I wondered how close I might be to its treacherous edge.

I lost my capacity to engage in conversation and I withdrew from the group. All I could do was stare blankly ahead. My thought processes became increasingly muddled, and I began to slide into a kind of mythical netherworld where occult demons danced menacingly in my brain, playing all-night cacophonies on sinister instruments.

I had imploded: I had become, in a matter of minutes, completely useless to the others on the team. Groping for words and with poignant regret, I informed Kimokeo that I would not be returning to the canoe for my third round. I sagged down and planted my butt on a ledge, hoping to figure out what I might do to regain my health and stability.

Buddhism teaches that “Life is suffering,” the caveat being that all suffering is self-created. Had I created this? Had sixty years of life on earth as homo sapiens culminated now, in this moment of multi-system meltdown and discombobulation?

Had my life-journey reached some kind of endgame? I knew that I had always taken good care of myself and had been lucky, too--never hospitalized, never missing a day of work for illness--but now I sat exhausted, sleep deprived, nauseated, and numb. I felt icy cold as the merciless wind bit my skin.

I faced another dozen hours at least on the back deck--or in the murky bowels, choose your poison!--of Kihei Boy, bobbing, swaying, and lurching on this cork of a boat in which I was now incarcerated. It felt like purgatory. The physical purge hit dramatically as rounds of intense vomiting, punctuated by brief interludes of blessed relief from the nausea.

At an hour approaching midnight, long past my usual bedtime, I sat immersed in this crisis/opportunity. Clearly, this was crunch time, the place where the “rudder meets the waves.” I was powerless over the elements and over my body’s out-of-control responses to them. There was nowhere to go, only to “be here now”—on this tug-shaped fishing boat, belching diesel fumes unceremoniously and rocking wildly from side to side--lacking toilet facilities or even a way to heat water. These were my digs—for my one-night stand in this heaving Hotel from Hell!

Using my imagination, I conjured the warmth of the sunrise-to-be, feeling it, carrying that image deep into my organs and bones. I used the tip of my thumb to stimulate an acupressure point near my wrist that’s used as first aid for nausea by the barefoot doctors of China. I began to feel a little better, and a modest renaissance of hope began to bubble up within me.

Having nowhere else to go, I continued traveling inward, tapping my storehouse of learnings as a health practitioner and lifetime spiritual seeker. I knew that any pain, be it emotional or physical, is like a long-lost friend, deeply wounded by lack of attention and now “talking back”--calling out loudly and insistently. I must now give my full attention to that pain, include it, find some way to welcome it back into my ailing body-home--so that the dysfunctional relationship between “me” and my “pained friend” could healed.

I sat with my suffering--as if this were my life, my entire life, all that was and all that would ever be. I imagined putting my arm around the pain as if it were a hurt child, offering “it” consolation.

I could hope for sunrise, but for now I would have to embrace this life of darkness, fully and completely. The minutes and hours went by. One crew paddled, the other rested. I watched it all as if it were a dream and I was the dreamer: theirs was a life of health, vitality, and action, a life of which I—now a “disabled” person cut off from the functioning world—was no longer a part.

 

Cody, Kaleo, Colleen, Bary, Anita, Kimokeo

photo credit: Stephen Luksic

 

IV. Dawn’s Early Light

A little before seven, the darkness lifted; diffuse light began to break through the mist. But the warm, healing sunlight that I had lusted for all night never came, only a prolonged misty dawn in its stead.

Something, though, was shifting. I could feel my power returning, the bad dream of the preceding night receding and giving way to the clarity--the blessed mana (energy)--of this new day. I stretched my limbs, took a few good breaths. My companions on the escort boat were breaking out the bread and peanut butter, drinking orange juice and Gatorade.

Perhaps I hadn’t been so useless to the crew after all. I had given it my best effort, turning my focus inward to self-preservation only when I absolutely had to. I had explored the depths of self-acceptance and surrender. And I had endured it all by continuing to “show up”—in each moment, in each breath.

The jagged coast of Kaua’i was now visible on the horizon, its volcanic peaks jutting through the mist, heralding our arrival. Nawiliwili, our landing point, was less than four miles away. There was one more round to go and my team was “up.”

Somehow finding a way to wade through a monsoon of ambivalence, I decided to go for it. The prospect of jumping into the chilly water and swimming to the canoe wasn’t particularly appealing, but I jumped. I swam. I hoisted myself up into seat four and paddled those last miles with a sense of triumphant awe.

The others in the canoe were all experienced paddlers, every one of them younger than I. But—miraculously, unbelievably--I was still among them. We paddled into the waiting arms of the harbor, between high stone walls that appeared to extend a half mile or more into the sea. The sun was bright now, the light breeze our ally. Our landing was a blessed anticlimax, that final stretch no more difficult than a family boat ride at a Disney theme park.

V. All One Family

The Hawaiian word lokahi describes the way that a diverse group of individual “selves” can pull together as one coordinated being. It connotes a spirit of oneness. We all knew that six paddlers at a time could cross the great water only by becoming as one, by timing their strokes, breathing in unison, and allowing the canoe (considered by Hawaiians to be a living being) to respond. As we all embraced that possibility of oneness—and, crossing the great water, learned how to become that “one integrated self”--we tasted “at-oneness” with all of creation.

It’s going to take me a while to assimilate what happened on that epic journey. The foundations of my life were shaken, my ego bruised. But somehow I made it—rather, we all made it!--relaxed and smiling at the finish.

VI. The Heart of Humility

If, as Einstein contends, the universe expresses itself as a benevolent healing presence, then I must have needed a good lesson in humility, a “whack on the side of the head” to jar me awake and help me move past whatever inner obstacles were impeding me. It was high time to purge and purify, to dump what was no longer serving me.

Na aumakua (helper-angels) gave me a healthy dollop–really, more of a wallop!–of something essential that night. I am grateful. Whatever my “dis-ease” may have been, perhaps I have gotten the cure.

This, by Henry Miller, sums it up the best:

I know what the great cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world.

 

Margo Cruse, Bud Nykaza, Norma Clothier, the Author, Tammy Osurman

photo credit: Tammy Osurman