Ka Wai Ola    

By Virginia Beck

The Weeping Wall at the base of Kaua‘i’s Blue Hole. Photo by Léo Azambuja

Kaua‘i is known as the Garden Isle for many reasons, and one has always been our lush vegetation. Mount Wai‘ale‘ale, meaning rippling or overflowing water, is known as one of the wettest spots on Earth, with about 486 inches of rainfall each year. At more than 5,000-foot tall, it catches the rains, which feed abundant waterfalls, streams and rivers flowing down from a swampy bog. It wears a lei of clouds most of the year.

We who live here have anxiously waited for the winter wet season to come. Rain is the source of all life, especially on Kaua‘i. Our rains come in the winter, yet many visitors come from December through May, and it hasn’t stopped us from finding sunny beaches and abundant hiking trails.

We are part of the water crisis on Kaua‘i. Climate changes warm our oceans, and are driving our tradewinds away more often. Western states have fires due to droughts.

Nature is fickle, and our island community exists because of the generous rain.

“Wai” is water in Hawaiian language. Many place names often start with the word “wai.” They are all sources of water, or at near water sources.

Wealth in Hawaiian is best translated as Waiwai. A wealthy person is a person with much access to water.

Unlike many places, our water rights are far different. One may take from the water, but it is forbidden, both by Hawaiian tradition and law, to reduce the flow to others. Early westerners took water rights for their own usage, and evicted small farmers from their lands. The native Hawaiians were treated poorly in their homelands.

Native culture shares water equally to kuleana, homesteads, and lo‘i, the taro fields. Eventually it all returns via rivers and streams to the ocean, where it starts the rain cycle again.

Working with water was a sacred responsibility to the ‘aina, the land, and to our community, our ‘ohana.

Most indigenous cultures all over the world, which I have seen from the northern Himalaya to the deserts of Baluchistan, treasure water above all things.

Most religions consider fountains and springs as sacred, and a place where miracles occur. A 13-mile-long aqueduct in Judea, modern Palestine, carried water to King Solomons pools, and then to Bethlehem. This was built around 140 BC.

The fountains at Lourdes, have been the site of more than 2,500 “miracle” cures. Medically certified. A lot to think about.

Buddhist meditation encourages settling the mind until it is clear as pure water.

Virginia Beck

Water is our most precious source of life. Our blood is 90 percent water. And our lungs are about 83 percent water. Sixty percent of the adult human body is water. Your brain floats on a hydraulic cushion of water rich cerebrospinal fluid. Dehydrate yourself, or drink alcohol, with a similar result, and you will get an unbearable headache. So, drink a lot of water and share it.

Desalination systems around the island would provide abundant, pure, distilled water. The United States Navy has perfected portable desalination systems.

“Water, water, every where, nor a drop to drink” wrote the British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, published in 1798. But the waters of life can be available and shared abundantly with all if we use the Aloha Spirit and do not waste it.

Water is the source of all life.

• Virginia Beck, NP and Certified Trager® Practitioner, offers Wellness Consultation, Trager Psychophysical Integration and teaches Malama Birth Training classes. She can be reached at 635-5618.