The greatest pleasure in human interaction is to look another in the eye.

For it is in the eyes of men where all that is hidden, all that is present, all that is feared and hated, all that is cherished and loved, can be unveiled.

Next is the handshake. The grip of a man can determine that which he has to offer, that which he intends to take, it can measure both strength and weakness and in that brief and casual exchange there is a conversation of souls revealing truths and deeper truths, that, if we allow, can express more than just words. We can feel all this, and more, through something so simple, so subtle, so intimate, as touch.

Today I met the madness of men.

I met the vulnerable angel on the coast. Contemplating the oil tankers and the erosion of the hopes and dreams of fisherman.

I met a mermaid. Again. Her hair red and flowing, flying through the the endless paved highway, streams of mane singing whispers of better times.

Which dream will I hold on to? Which wish? To which will I give my breath?

My fear, dear friends, and my conclusion, is that no matter where I give my attention, the flows of oil and the excess poisoned liquids of men will creep into a desolate sea, with or without my benevolent tidings.

I must believe in prayer.

But that is not my story.

Today.

Today we cry for Fukushima.

Sitting there on the coast we questioned all the truths that cruel science has laid bare.

We asked ourselves, “What will happen to this island when the radiation hits?”

I remember you cried so gently as I held you on the shore. Truth, stranger than fiction, and selfish beyond belief, has made pulp of our lovers hearts. For we fear, this great Island that we hold so dear, in time, may be stripped of its sacred cycle and become subject to the wicked wasting away of nuclear holocaust.

But these are still joyful times. The New Moon has come and a new lunar phase is upon us. We indeed make our offerings with each breath, but the duality of such times seems to work against us. For styrofoam’ed are my meals. Nuclear is the water I use to wash my hands. The water I use to quench my thirst is fluoridated and calcified. The ocean where I go to bathe is brown with run-off both chemical and heinous.There are cesspools in the Hanalei watershed and I am overcome with grief. Sea turtles with unsightly growths, dying coral, and inexplicable, bacterial white foam, combine with a witches brew of run-off: resulting in the death of 60 miles of 100 year old reef in less than eight weeks.

Let me say it again: There are cesspools brewing in the Hanalei watershed, and I am overcome with grief.

Coral, sweet coral, my heart cries for you. For it is by the multitude of your mystery these islands are given life, not as some would think, by the almighty dollar of the investor and the tourist.

Golfers, scientists, businessmen-corrupt, middle-class middleman, children of greed poisoned children. I cry for you all alike. Native and tourist. Cannibal and savage, clergyman and priestess, boatsman and net-casters, civilized mass murderers with their guns and laws and steel and lies…

I weep for you all, and for each of you I weep alike. For the burden approaching is for us all of us to bear.

The problem is one of proximity: All are entitled to happiness, this we must accept. So here, the happiness of one tribe is supported by a taro patch, by bare feet, by clean water and long hair, and in this paradigm life has a certain trajectory of longevity. The words Aloha, Pono, and Ohana become as real as you or I and are given life through the sons and daughters of the earth. The strength of a nation flourishing still though slavery, deception, subjugation, and genocide, is reborn in each intake and exhale of this sacred breath, the HA, and new life can still have room to thrive and the cycle goes.

Yet the happiness of others, those who come by boat and plane, takes an altogether different spin and the great cycle changes. This happiness, both pseudo and commercial, has built a jagged wall against the natural pillars of human law. Those sleeping yet claiming to be awake, whose multitude contingency rests in the deathly comforts of spray-on lotions, chemical riddled cosmetics, aluminums and sulfides- applied liberally on bright pink bodies upon waking, then again at mid-day, and yet again before sleep. This regiment is cruel and profane for the singular body, but the torture stops not at an army of one. For with each crass ceremony, mixed with sweat and sewage, these chemicals are flushed down toilets and drains, washed off at oceanside showers and answering the call of some sick piper, rush seaward, joining in with the chemicals used to maintain both golf courses, and gardens, lawns pedicured and pedigree’d with toxins approved with federal regulations and supported with advertisements both baffling, degrading, and attractive.

Imagine them sleeking. Slouching towards Bethlehem in droves, gathering in militant molecules EVERY SINGLE HOUR in a destructive legion creeping through rivers and lakes and streams…westward towards the ocean, where children go to swim, where ecosystems once flourished, where the potential and irrevocable balance of life swings on the edge of a knife, sleeking and shifting and mutating the vast and complex reefs where the smallest creatures, who feed the biggest catch, are met with a holocaust of their own.

There are cesspools in the Hanalei watershed. And though I pray for peace and alchemy. In my aching heart I am mad as hell.

So come. Come businessmen and lobbyist who tempt snake-tongued politicians behind close doors. Come you speakers of house who lie in broad daylight. Come you hired hands who buy off any conclusive evidence that may jeopordize your endless incomes and put a chip in your mountains of greed.

COME.

Look me in the eye.

Come and bleed.

Then let us, as brothers, embrace hands. That you might see me, and I might feel you, and together, united by touch, we might stand against this coming siege.

There is not a moment to waste, us stand now, and witness the true consequence, the suffering blow of the modern age, for we have given up our lives to be your resource. Some offer willingly in exchange for your beads, your screens, and your currency. But now, let us embrace the uniting poverty of the future of all mankind: the jeopordy towards which we have walked willingly, to the potential end of the green earth and the dawning of the new mars.

I have read the leaves of tea. I have seen the signs and stars aligning.

The next world war will be a war for water and the next holocaust, if we act idle, will be that of this vast and precious ecosystem.

We live, we dance, we die, and heavens doors are opened. But the water? What of the water?

And where? Where I ask?

Where can the good hearted go to be free?

Gimiwan. Let the rain dance begin. For we will need a god both ancient and powerful to save us from this endless, endless, proliferation of poisons.

GIMIWAN.

Let your rain dance begin my strong and mighty brother. Let us become the rain. Let us be raptured in waters anew. And let every man, woman, and child, hear that trumpeting song.

And dance until the rain comes.

dance until the rain comes.

dance until the rain comes.