Makia

Energy flows where attention goes.
--Serge Kahili King, student of Huna, in Urban Shaman (1990)

Today is the 179th birthday of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last member of the Kamehameha dynasty of Hawai`i. Pauahi left her considerable estate, estimated at 9% of the total land area of the Islands, to the support of a system of schools for native Hawai`ian children, which remains the largest independent pre-kindergarten through grade 12 school system in the United States. Her life story gives an interesting demonstration of the virtue of Makia (mah-KEE-ah), one of the Seven Huna Principles.

Huna comprises the metaphysical teachings of 20th century philosopher Max Freedom Long, who, while not Hawai`ian, had a fascination with the archipelago’s language and culture. Many scholars consider Huna an aspect of the New Thought spiritualist movement of the late 19th century. Huna concepts, particularly the notion of a tripartite human soul, had an enormous influence on Victor Anderson, co-founder of the Feri tradition. Feri, in turn, lent a metaphysical framework to the eco-spiritualists of Reclaiming.

Makia is the third Huna principle, sometimes translated as “Focus.” We have visited another virtue that touches on this idea of focus, when we discussed Severitas, a root virtue of the Roman personal virtue of Disciplina. While Severitas has connotations of training and control over behavior, Makia, in my mind, has more to do with harnessing one’s state of consciousness.

Huna teachers say our energy moves in the direction of our focus, and so by harnessing our power of concentration, we can actually influence the flow of our energy to attain our desires. As author Xavier Even explains in an article on Makia,

Do you know what is the secret of those who have achieved their dreams and have fascinated people throughout history? It is not their ability to avoid the pitfalls and obstacles of life. For all the great men and women of history have failed. Their secret lies in their ability to stay focused on their dreams no matter what.

Princess Pauahi indubitably qualifies as one of these fascinating people. Born in Honolulu, Pauahi Paki was the great-granddaughter of Kamehameha I, the warrior chief who united Hawai`i under his rule in 1810. Known by her English name Bernice, she had an upbringing typical of any Victorian lady of the time, educated by Protestant teachers at the Chiefs’ Children’s School.

Pauahi certainly demonstrated the personal Willpower that Huna teachers claim as a prerequisite for Makia. Though destined for an arranged marriage within the Hawai`ian artistocracy, she instead chose to marry a European businessman, Charles Reed Bishop, against her parents’ wishes.

When her previous betrothed, King Kamehameha V, lay on his premature deathbed, he offered the crown to Pauahi, who refused. Historians to this day remain mystified by Pauahi’s Renunciation of the throne. Perhaps, though, she simply was exercising Makia, and her interest lay in pursuits outside the Hawai`ian court.

At the end of her life, Pauahi focused her Willpower on one last challenge. As explained by the schools that bear her dynasty’s name:

When Pauahi Bishop was born in 1831, the native population numbered about 124,000. When she wrote her will in 1883, only 44,000 Hawaiians remained. From childhood, Pauahi witnessed the steady physical and spiritual demise of Native Hawaiians... Deeply troubled by the decline, Pauahi Bishop felt a lack of education helped precipitate that decrease.  

Feeling responsible to the Hawaiian people as heir to the lands and power of the great chiefs, Pauahi directed in her will that money from management of her lands would fund the Kamehameha Schools. She hoped that through education, the native people would reverse the decline in their numbers seen during her lifetime. The schools continue on the Islands to this day, where an estimated 265,000 people now claim Native Hawaiian descent.

How interesting that by choosing to place her focus on the empowerment of her people, instead of simply her individual self, Pauahi gave up enthronement in Aliʻiōlani, Palace of the Heavenly King, only to secure her enthronement instead in the Halls of History.

How in your own life has an act of Makia, of Focus and Willpower, allowed your potential to manifest in the world? Think about how, at any given moment, we can choose to put our attention on what serves, or what does not serve. We can think ourselves into jail, or into liberation. At times, our most important choice may be upon what we choose not to put our Focus.  

May we see the gates of Makia, and perhaps make a home there.

Satire

I listen to him year after year. He was hilarious, brilliant, brave and right about everything.
--Henry Rollins, about Bill Hicks

Humor is one of the most Divine forms of magic. It can rescue us from despair, arm us against our enemies, wake us from stupor. One of the greatest practitioners of this latter form of badinage is the American stand-up comic Bill Hicks. He would have turned 49 today. We celebrate his story, therefore, with notes on the virtue of Satire.

The word Satire probably comes from the Latin "satura" meaning "mixed" (literally a "dish of mixed fruits"). According to Wiktionary, Satire is not (necessarily) a form of comedy, but rather a literary technique of writing or drama “which principally ridicules its subject, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change.” Interestingly, it adds that “humor is often used to aid this.” In other words, while we may be accustomed of thinking of Satire as a form of Humor, it is the essential nature of Satire not to provoke Laughter, but rather Thought. This means the proper root virtue of Satire is not Transcendence, but rather Wisdom.

And that makes Hicks a perfect avatar for Satire. Born in Valdosta, Georgia, Hicks spent his childhood practicing his stand-up comedy in the least likely of places: Sunday School at his Baptist church. Later, as a teenager, he had to sneak out of the house in order to attend his weekly stand-up gigs at Houston’s Comedy Workshop.

A great fan of Jimi Hendrix, Hicks wanted to push boundaries as his idol did. In his early 20s, after having lived a completely sober life, he decided to try alcohol and drugs as a way to “cross the line.” It worked--but it also put him over the top and made it difficult for club managers to work with him. So in his late twenties Hicks quit everything--except cigarettes, which he chained smoked until his death (and may have contributed to it).

His style was intimate. Watching his routine, you’d feel you were hanging out with Bill on his couch in front of the TV. He vented his ire, derision, and indifference casually, as he would with a group of friends. He loved to challenge “conventional wisdom” at every turn, whether that wisdom had to do with religion, politics, or--a favorite topic--mainstream consumerism. Once during one of his acts a heckler complained, "We don't come to comedy to think!" Hicks replied: "Gee! Where do you go to think? I'll meet you there!"

One of Hicks’ most famous routines has to do with the nature of life:

Bill’s ride ended too early. In April 1993, he started complaining of pains in his side, and two months later he was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer. He chose to disclose his diagnosis only to few close friends and family. Hicks started receiving weekly chemotherapy while touring and recording his album, Arizona Bay. True to his comedic nature, he would often joke during that time that “any given performance could be my last!”

His actual last show was on January 6, 1994, at Caroline’s in New York, after which he moved to his parents’ home in Little Rock, Arkansas. He spent his last few days re-reading Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring and playing for his parents the music he loved. He stopped speaking on February 14, and died on February 26, 1994. He was 32 years old. A final message to his loved ones finished with the words:

I left in love, in laughter, and in truth and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit.

In a 2005 poll to find the “Comedian's Comedian,” fellow comedians voted Hicks #13 on their list of "The Top 20 Greatest Comedy Acts Ever". In a BBC Channel 4 viewer poll of the top 100 comedians, released April 2010, Hicks ranked #4. 

Bill Hicks, we honor you for tilting at windmills and waking us from our stupor. We honor you in Love, Laughter, and in Truth.

May we see the gates of Satire, and perhaps make a home there.

Superman-liness

You’ll believe a man can fly!
--tagline for the Richard Donner film Superman (1978)

Thirty-two years ago tomorrow, the film Superman premiered in the U.S.A., to the thrill and delight of 9-year-olds everywhere (including yours truly). On this fantastic occasion, I thought I’d take a moment to celebrate the virtue represented by the Son of Krypton: Superman-liness.

As an invented virtue, Superman-liness echoes the Roman personal virtue of Virtus (Manliness), from which our word “virtue” actually derives. Virtus is an aggregate virtue that includes notions such as Valor, Excellence, Integrity, and Nobility (itself a difficult concept to define, although later on we will discuss Aristotle’s virtue Megalopsychia, or Greatness, which today we’d probably question as a virtue, since I think it’s best translated as “Being Stuck Up.”)

Gotta admit, the feminist in me cringes when considering that our word for best human (or even non-human) qualities comes from a term for “the best qualities of a male.” Worse, the “peak female quality” in the Roman virtue schema was Pudicitia, translated as “Modesty” or “Chastity.” (Wonder Woman, where art thou?) I’m happy to report not all Romans considered “virtue” a purely male quality. Cicero (remembered in our recent essay on Soithnges) used Virtus in a gender-neutral way to mean Bravery, and he applied it to women he admired, including his own wife and daughter. 

What virtues does Superman stand for? Almost everyone can recall the mantra: “Truth, Justice, and the American Way!” Back when I was a kid, my sainted mother, Big Tree, would take all us down to the Straw Hat Pizzeria, and in-between the Pac-Man and pepperoni, we’d watch episodes of the black-and-white 1950s Adventures of Superman TV show staring George Reeves. That show’s opening credits drilled into my head the expression as we know it today--inherited in turn from the popular Superman radio show that aired in the 1940s.

But “The American Way” bit only got added during WWII--for the obvious reasons. As author Blair Kramer reminds us, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two gangly Jewish teens, invented Superman in 1933 as an answer to the anti-Semitic Nazis’ garbled interpretation of Friedrich Nietzshe’s idea of the fully realized man, the Ubermensch. (I’m not an expert on Nietzsche--my twin Kael is--but, reading translations of his work, I’d say what he meant by the Ubermensch recalls qualities mentioned in the TTV essay on Sampajañña.) As Kramer explains, in the original conception, Superman

obeys the Talmudic injunction to do good for its own sake and heal the world where he can. Siegel and Shuster had created a mythic character who reflected their own Jewish values.

Given the dark backdrop of genocide and the Holocaust behind his creation, I find it all the more fitting that, before he stood for “Truth, Justice, and the American Way,” what Superman originally stood for was Truth, Justice, and... Tolerance.

I can’t help but notice that the ideals embodied in Virtus--Courage, Nobility, etc.--suggest a sort of Adonis, a statuesque but static figure. The virtues of Superman-liness, on the other hand, require constant Action by the hero to bring them into being. Superman does not symbolize Truth, Justice, and Tolerance. He realizes them, to “heal the world where he can.”

May we see the gates of Superman-liness, and perhaps make a home there.

Masá'il

For blind imitation of the past will stunt the mind. But once every soul inquireth into truth, society will be freed from the darkness of continually repeating the past.
--The Selected Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 285

Last night began the Feast of Masá'il (Questions) in the Bahá’í Faith. Keepers of this tradition mark 19 months of 19 days each in the Badí Calendar; each month takes it name from a Divine attribute. In keeping with the notion of Questioning, we recall a great Bahá’í activist who questioned modern agricultural practices, fighting his whole life on behalf of the world’s forests: Dr. Richard St. Barbe Baker.
“Saint Barbe,” as people called him, came, fittingly enough, from a family of farmers and evangelists. Born in 1889 in Hampshire, England, he spent a boyhood of muddy boots and grubby hands, roaming the local forests and working in his family’s garden. His father wanted him to pursue the ministry, but Richard preferred botany and forestry. Traveling to the frontier of Western Canada in 1910, he witnessed the degradation of Saskatchewan soil resulting from the clearing of native scrub trees. Thus, after fighting in World War I--wounded  three times--Richard returned to forestry studies at Cambridge.
Richard then traveled to North Africa, where he documented soil damage tracing all the way back to activities of the ancient Romans and early Arab settlers. He became convinced that deforestation was leading to the enlargement of the Sahara Desert. In Kenya, he worked with the local Kikuyu people to found the first chapter of Watu wa Miti (“Men of the Trees”), creating nurseries to plant native trees. Today we know Watu wa Miti as the International Tree Foundation.
Saint Barbe did become an evangelist, of a sort: In his 40s, he travelled the world to persuade governments of the urgency of protecting tree cover. In his book Land of Tane he laid out his Questions of the ways of modern industrial agriculture blindly imitated soil-destroying methods of the past:

Man has lost his way in the jungle of chemistry and engineering and will have to retrace his steps, however painful this may be. He will have to discover where he went wrong and make his peace with nature. In so doing, perhaps he may be able to recapture the rhythm of life and the love of the simple things of life, which will be an ever-unfolding joy to him.

Saint Barbe’s campaign led to the establishment of the first redwood reserves in the Western US. He wrote over thirty books spreading a message a generation ahead of its time. (As a voice crying out from the desert--in this case, the Sahara--Saint Barbe reminds me of another religious figure who brought a message of Prescience: St. John the Baptist.) Even before he began his lifelong quest to save the world’s forests, Saint Barbe embraced the Bahá’í Faith. Still, many of his friends, including protégé Edward Goldsmith, belief that Barbe’s ardent reverence for the spirits of the trees make him an Animist as well.  
If you can, on the beginning of this Feast of Masá'il, remember those whose Questions allow us to wake from our slumber--the visionaries ahead of their time, bringing a message challenging convention. The paths of Justice and Wisdom, on which such evangelists carry us all, begin with the same stepping stone: a stone whose name is Masá'il.
May we see the gates of Masá'il, and perhaps make a home there.

Mannaz

'Thus counselled my mother,/ For me should they purchase/ A galley and good oars/ To go forth a-roving.’
--Egill Skalla-Grímsson, Egils saga
[December 9 marks a Day of Remembrance in the Ásatrú tradition honoring 10th century Icelandic hero Egill Skalla-Grímsson, whose exploits are told in the Eddas (sagas). One scholar has described Egill as

[f]ierce, self-willed, and violent... also a fine poet and a man with a sense of ethics. A wanderer, Egill epitomizes the Viking urge to travel out into the unknown world seeking adventure and fortune. With a combination of Courage, Brawn, and Intelligence, this first-generation Icelander survives war and treachery as he journeys through Scandinavia, the Baltic lands, England, Saxony, and Friesland. [caps mine]

Storytellers often note Egill’s unusual appearance: dark, with thickened facial features and a misshapen skull “like a helm’s rock.” Modern medical experts, examining his bones, concluded he suffered from Paget’s Disease, which can cause the face to take on a “lion-like appearance” (a condition called Leontiasis ossea), accompanied by headaches, deafness, and blindness. Though some cite the condition as a cause for Egill’s famous beserker rages, the stories show even as a child--when the disease was probably asymptomatic--he had a violent temper. Despite this illness, Egill survived his violent times and died of natural causes in his 90s. He seemed the perfect personage to ask about the Ásatrú runic virtue of Mannaz (Daring).] 
*    *    *
Ten Thousand Virtues: Hail, Egill Skalla-Grímsson! We bid you welcome and greet you with mead. [Produces a drinking horn.]
Egill Skalla-Grímsson [a bit warily]: Hail, stranger. I receive your gift of mjaðar gladly, but... Have you any bjórr?
TTV  [flummoxed]: Ehr... Hold on. [Though the magic of Imagination, produces a larger horn full of bjórr.] How’s that?

ESK [receiving the horn]: Ah, yes. Makes my heart glad. We have no need for mjaðar, you see, for I, as skald [poet] bring the Suttungmjaðar, Suttungr’s Draft. But the Mead of Poetry cannot flow until we ride the Dwarf’s Ship [“ride the Dwarf’s  Ship”=kenning or poetic expression for “intoxication”-ed.].
TTV [a bit surprised]: Oh! Um, okay. [Gestures to conveniently materializing hearthfire behind him.] Have a seat. I understand you enjoyed resting by the fire in your later years.  
ESK [gratified]: Ahhhh, yes.... I sang a stave on it once, when the rude young maidens who tended the hearth fires complained that I, a mighty hero, who deserved their honor, was getting in the way of their ash-sweeping! [Closes eyes and recites:]

'Blind near the blaze I wander,

Beg of the fire-maid pardon,

Crave for a seat. Such sorrow

From sightless eyes I bear.

Yet England's mighty monarch

Me whilom greatly honoured:

And princes once with pleasure

The poet's accents heard.'

TTV: Yes, your exploits are still remembered in our day, more than a thousand years after you passed, including your battles as a knight of King Athelstan of England... Egill, you are known as a master of the Runes, and Runic magic. I wonder if you can tell us about the Runic virtue of Mannaz?
ESK [considering]: Ah, Mannaz. Well, remember, young stranger, that those Nine Noble Virtues your modern Folk honor was not a notion familiar to men of the olden times. The ways of them be ours, however. I deem it fitting to use Rune names for them.

TTV [prompting]: Some say Mannaz means Vigor, or Daring, or Energy.  
ESK: Yes, those all have a piece of the sense of it. Mannaz is the way of a leader, a warrior. To be ahead of the pack, not one of the pack--that is Mannaz. Boldness.
TTV: Would you say your life is an example of Mannaz? I understand you showed Daring even at a young age. Your surprising Strength in childhood fights, which included slaying a boy who cheated at a game; your feud with the family of Queen Gunnhildr and King Eirik Bloodaxe; your adventures across foreign lands... What would you say was the moment of your greatest Mannaz?
ESK: Well, there be many of those. But as skald, perhaps my greatest was not in a battle of blood, but a battle of wits. One time during my travels, I shipwrecked in Northumbria, where my mortal enemies Eirik Bloodaxe and Gunnhildr ruled in exile from what you now call Norway. You see, I had cast a Runic curse called a níð against Eirik, using a horse’s head raised on a pole. It’s why he had to flee Norway. Once he got me in his clutches, he planned to chop off my head.
TTV [horrified] What did you do?
ESK: Over the night, while under house arrest at the home of my friend Arinbjorn, I composed a drápa I called Höfuðlausn ["Head's Ransom"]. The next morning, I recited it before Eirik.
TTV: How did he react?
ESK: He didn’t really want to, but he had to let me go. It would have dishonored him to kill a skald who immortalized him in song, you see.
TTV: Ah... So that suggests that Mannaz is not just about brute Will, but Wit as well?
ESK: That’s the truth of it.
TTV: Thank you very much, Egill. I wonder, would you honor us, in closing, by reciting the last part of your Höfuðlausn?

ESK: A righteous way to close, young stranger. [Stands, with difficulty, and raises his large, heavy head, to recite with Ferocity:]

'Silence I have broken,

A sovereign's glory spoken:

Words I knew well-fitting

Warrior-council sitting.

Praise from heart I bring,

Praise to honoured king:

Plain I sang and clear

Song that all could hear.'

*    *    *
May we see the gates of Mannaz, and perhaps make a home there.