Imagine a time when women were blessed with bounty and prayers from their community, so that they could be empowered to venture out into the world to follow their soul’s longing. When marriages and the arrival of babies were not the only socially sanctioned reasons to shower someone with support and abundance. When all the big and small rites of passages in our lives were honored and held with care among the collective. When we had yet to swallow the toxic narrative of self-sufficiency from this dominating culture, and so had never dreamt that asking for help from our beloveds signified some sort of weakness. When we knew in our bones, that in fact, we cannot live well without one another. This is the time we are walking our way into now.

 

A good woman in the world is in need of this kind of cultural generosity. Kelly Walsh has harbored a love for Hawaii ever since she was twelve years old, after visiting Oahu and The Big Island with her family. Her parents reflected back to her how much she fit in there, and she felt a sense of homecoming even from this tender age. Kelly had an initiatory experience with the land and ocean, which left her feeling strengthened by her relationship with the spirits of that place. Now for more than a decade, she has been called back to study, practice, and deepen into this courtship, and has ached to call this land home but has not had the financial means to do so.

 

Kelly has faced some fairly intense health challenges for a number of years now, which have directly impacted her ability to work. As a healer, facilitator, craniosacral practitioner, and vision seeker, feeling well physically and spiritually is important for her ability to assist others. The climate and geographical location of Hawaii allows her body to relax, and enables her to show up in the world from a whole, healthy place. Kelly longs to work again; she also holds a strong desire to be interwoven within the Hawaiian community. She has already been connecting with local people and farms, as well as learning a chant to honor the language.

 

Kelly has not experienced the occasions where people are typically lavished with various kinds of life sustaining gifts. She has never experienced a shower, nor has she had a proper ceremony or celebratory gathering. It is a lot to develop one’s own sense of place and work in the world without this kind of witnessing and practical scaffolding.

 

So, we are reaching out in all sincerity to ask you good people to help this beautiful woman come into union with the land of her heart. We are seeking to raise funds for her moving and startup costs, housing, stability, and to keep Kelly out of survival mode so that she can achieve right livelihood and room to breathe while she settles in and finds her way.

 

It is a vulnerable thing to ask for help, especially in these times. If Kelly could have made this move on her own, she surely would have. But thankfully, her willingness to be vulnerable and human allows the rest of us to be human too––to stretch our hearts and know that we are needed in this world. To remember that rites of passages of all kinds are integral to our wholeness, both as individuals and as a collective. And that we were never meant to do them alone.

(written by April Tierney)