Huliau - The Return Voyage

“What would you do with your freedom?”

This is the insistent (not often kindly spoken) challenge that ‘Iokepa Hanalei ‘Imaikalani is issued whenever he dares to speak of the future of the Native Hawaiian people–or of their nation. The implied criticism is:  These people would not know what to do with their sovereignty.  The implied solution: Deny them that choice.

‘Iokepa answers the question in a larger way.

He begins here:  Reminding me of a single moment last May.  We sat–just the two of us–snug inside our Toyota Camry at a bed and breakfast parking lot in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware.  We were six months into our second Return Voyage tour, with perhaps three more to go.

We had $100 in our pockets (our access closed, to a Bank of Hawai’i checking account that had been raided with our stolen debit card).  In that single moment we asked one another and the universe:  “Where to next?”

‘Iokepa focuses on that moment of possible anguish and uncertainty to make his point:  “In that parking lot in Delaware, we were free.  There were absolutely no demands made of us. We could go anywhere we wanted to go.”

In that parking lot moment, I chose to go to Maine.  We’d never before been to New England; we knew not a single soul; it simply felt right.  I could not have offered a rationale that would have satisfied anyone–except ‘Iokepa, who like me:  Asks out loud, and then listens. We honor the answer we hear in our heads, our hearts, our guts.

From my impromptu decision to drive onto the Interstate and head for the northernmost state on the Eastern seaboard, with just the barest possibility of gas money, and none for lodging–life delivered abundance.

Oh, the stories I could tell of Maine and beyond:  The out-of-the-blue  cell phone call from Hawai’i–”Maine, my biological family lives there–let me call them”; the dentist who repaired my broken tooth, gratis;  the clarity of purpose that unfolded from this freely-made choice; the satisfaction in fulfilling that transparent purpose.

‘Iokepa says:  “People don’t believe that kind of freedom is possible. They  can’t imagine it for themselves. They can’t fathom that anyone can live a life without external demands limiting their choices. They don’t believe it’s a reality.”

But it is real–for every one of us.  The only demand that matters is the one that comes from deep inside of us.  Every choice is our own–it’s our human default setting.

We are free unless, and until, we agree to hand it over.  We are enslaved only when we give up that freedom on someone else’s say so.   Nelson Mandela may well have been the free-est man who ever breathed–in prison for half  a lifetime.  Alternatively, most of us walk the streets unchained:  We answer phones, take vacations,  and never breathe a free moment in our lives.

The challenge remains:  For the Native Hawaiians, sure–but no less, for every one of us who walk this good earth:  “What will we do with our freedom?”