Alicia Tapia

“This part of the mo'olelo is often overlooked, but it reminds us that aloha is an active verb; it is tactile. Aloha plants seeds, grows, and transforms the 'āina around us. Aloha is distinct because it cannot be commodified and therefore cannot be bought or sold. Aloha creates-- in fact, aloha is always creating. Pele uses lava. Her aloha is both rage and rapture, destruction and creation. For Hi'iaka, aloha can be reforestation. I have learned from this mo'olelo that if it does not transform us, it is not aloha. Further, if it is not marked on the 'āina, it is not aloha, or at least, it is not the aloha our kupuna were raised with, cultivated, and carefully passed down in our mo'olelo to us.”
― Jamaica Osorio

“When bound and accountable to another, we are therefore also bound and accountable to each other's intimacies and accountabilities. Such relationships teach us that reciprocity and accountability matter and that intimacy is many bodied and overflowing. This is the ea of pilina.”
― Jamaica Osorio

“I think about how Nāwahī, the editor of Ke Aloha Aina, defined aloha 'āina as a constant magnetic pull toward's one place that cannot be weakened or dettered. I think about Puna, being pulled, pulled, pulled home, always and every day.”
― Jamaica Osorio

“When we say aloha 'āina is a significant part of a Kanaka Maoli worldview, we are therefore saying that our aloha for ''āina is so intimate that we aspire to be 'āina”
― Jamaica Osorio