Hope and Resilience

About two years ago, I did my Global Earth Exchange with a Hawaiian medicinal plant called noni. Noni is considered one of about 25 Hawaiian canoe plants, meaning it was one of the plants the indigenous peoples who first inhabited the Hawaiian Islands brought with them when they arrived in the islands via sailing canoes. There was a noni plant growing in my yard that I had only recently discovered,  and I had spent a little  time engaging with this plant and was hoping to harvest the fruit once it ripened. One day after my landlord’s monthly yard service came, I was devastated to discover that someone had appeared to have maliciously attacked the plant and broken the main stem so there was the main trunk of the plant remaining.  I was devastated, but I was also delighted to notice one day some tiny green buds emerging from the stem. 

Over time, the plant began to flourish and thrive again, and I had been keeping my eye on some recent fruits. For my Global Earth Exchange this year, I had intended to participate at a different location with a small group of others, but through circumstances beyond my control, I was not able to travel to a site.  It was around that time that I discovered that once again, someone had attempted to kill the noni plant. This time, the noni had been clearly chopped with a tool, but once again, just the main stem remained. I knew this was the right place to  hold the exchange, but it hurt me so much to witness the damage. I felt a lot of resistance to go there and it took me a while before I could even go back to the area. I spent several days tending to and holding vigil with this plant just being with it, sometimes placing my hands on the stem and sending healing energy. Sometimes I would talk to the plant and tell it how sorry I was that I did not do enough to protect it. .I prayed it would once again begin to show some shoots coming out of the stem, but I had very little hope. On what I intended to be the last day of Earth Exchange at this place, I considered weaving some pele’s hair (Spanish moss) around the stem to decorate it and place flowers throughout, but I decided I did not want to take a chance that it might interfere with the potential for  any new growth. So instead, I poured some water at its roots and decorated it with flowers only in the scarred areas where it had been hacked. I tried to create the outline of a bird using the flowers and some tree bark. Through the act of paying attention, that week I began to notice more than I usually do the number of other victims around my neighborhood including several tree stumps and a dead bird in the road. I acknowledge how hard it is hard to be with something when there is nothing that can be done, but I can only hope that through my presence, there has been some kind of exchange that has in part helped to heal my own grief around the careless and sometimes violent and deliberate acts humans have towards other beings.  I could only hope that someday soon, I would walk by and see the tiny buds emerging once again. It gives me hope just knowing this Global Earth Exchange exists because there are so many others who care like I do, and it always amazes me how simple, yet powerful this act of going to a wounded place, being with it, and creating beauty is powerful beyond words.

Although I had intended to share my experience sooner, I am delighted to report that during the time in between my Global Earth Exchange and the words written above, tiny buds are once again emerging from the noni once again. It is no wonder this incredibly resilient plant was important enough to the early peoples of Hawaii to bring it on their canoes, and it reminds me that there is hope regardless of how dire the circumstances may seem.