It’s a small and humble offering, this package of salt. Yet, in each individual grain exists an ocean. To take it in the palm of your hand is to hold the promise of movement, of fluidity, of rippling time. While paʻakai reminds us to be paʻa, to be steadfast, solid, and secure, it could not exist without the kai, without the ocean and all of its swirls, shifts, and sways. It is a small and humble offering. Yet, to hold it is to embrace the power of the sea.
This blog was created to provide a space, like the ocean’s edge lined with rocks, where the waves can collect in stoned pockets, beginning to crystallize, taking new shapes and forms, new purpose. Like salt, the ideas shared here may appear to be fixed in writing: solid and unchanging. Yet, they are as fluid as the sea they come from. They are shifting. They are meant to garnish, to add season to your own ideas. If taken alone, salt can be too sour, too pungent for one’s tastes. Therefore, take these ideas as you would a bit of salt: sprinkle them atop your own thoughts and perspectives to give them added dimension, texture, flavor.
This is what I offer you: he wahī paʻakai, just a package of salt. Take it, hold it, taste it, feel it run through you, confirming what needs confirmation, changing what needs adjustment.
E pū paʻakai kākou. Let us partake of salt together.
Paʻakai at Kalaemanō, Kona, Hawaiʻi.
* “He wahī paʻakai” is an ʻōlelo noʻeau, or Hawaiian proverb.
He Wahī Paʻakai: A Package of Salt 