I first set eyes on the Hawaiian Islands on a business trip in 1980.
During that visit, I had a profound feeling of being "home," and my life
was never the same. For the next three decades I would study with many
kumu
(teachers) in Hawai'i and on the mainland. For years, I made so many visits there, that
Hawai'i became my "mainland."
I received a Hawaiian name, Mahina, meaning moon or moonlight.
It was my privilege to lecture and teach Hawaiian spirituality at Huna Research
Seminars and the Conference on International Shamanism. In California, I
studied the Hawaiian language and experienced Hawaiian culture with
a group, Onipa'a. My husband and I owned a home in Waikoloa,
Hawai'i. On my visits there, I was close to my
kumu,
she who had been an apprentice of Daddy Bray. We had wonderful experiences together.
I wrote my book, Fundamentals of Hawaiian Mysticism, at the invitation of
a small California publisher, which eventually became part of Penguin
Random House. The book was first published in 2000 and reprinted. It's
available currently both in print and as an e-book. My one aim in writing
it was to give others the gift of knowledge that was given to me.
After residing 20 years in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a spiritual mecca of its
own, I live today on the lovely Central Coast of California. I've become a
painter in oils and enjoy the artist's life with my husband Carl, a stone
sculptor.
