While the legal process has determined that TMT may proceed, there are spiritual and cultural issues that have not been addressed. This is about something much greater than the TMT project — it has to do with longstanding history on Mauna Kea, broken promises, desecration of sacred land and disrespect for native culture.
To many Native Hawaiians, kama‘aina, and malihini alike, Mauna Kea is so much more than a mountain. It’s a revered and sacred sanctuary connecting keiki and kupuna to the past, present and future, and where Native Hawaiians practice their customs and traditions.
The materialistic way that developers and corporations are viewing Mauna Kea — ignoring the spiritual significance and relationship many Native Hawaiians have with the Mauna — is at the heart of the problem.
It is hypocritical that many TMT proponents speak of their own spiritual quest for knowledge and wisdom, while simultaneously closing their eyes to the spiritual inspiration and significance that Mauna Kea offers — not only to Native Hawaiians but to humanity at large. Spiritual nourishment and inspiration is of much greater and lasting value than anything money can buy.
It is this spiritual blindness often born out of arrogance or greed that is at the root of the desecration of our precious environment throughout the country and around the world.
Mauna Kea has been a source of spiritual inspiration for so many generations, and will continue to offer that inspiration in the future, if it is not desecrated by those whose hearts are too hard to appreciate the value of the unseen transcendental/spiritual reality that is not visible to our physical eyes.
While no one can change the past, now is the time for leaders to build a new, just path for the future. I urge Governor Ige to withdraw the emergency declaration, delay any new construction, and bring leaders together from both sides in the spirit of aloha to ho‘oponopono and determine the best path forward. The people of a given ‘aina must have a role to play in what happens in their ‘aina.
Trust must be earned — it is wrong that state leaders have approved the development of a new telescope on a new site on Mauna Kea, without first ensuring the timely removal of decommissioned facilities along with full restoration of those sites. This failure and a history of broken promises has resulted in the standoff that we are seeing today, and the lack of trust that government promises to respect the ‘aina and sacred places will be kept.
Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness. This shouldn’t be just a slogan. It must be our way of life.
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Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is serving her fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Hawaii’s Second District (rural Oahu and the Neighbor Islands), and serves on the House Armed Services and Financial Services committees.
Yes arrogant, greed, lust for more power and racist policies have been practiced against Native Hawaiians since the sugar plantation days and continues today in the form of descendants of the imported Japanese laborers now in control of all State agencies including governor Ige who has hinted of using the Army’s heat radiation cannon against peaceful protesters.
What an ironic endeavor of this Japanese descendant who and a host of others like himself would not be alive had King Kaulakau been ruthless without compassion (as Ige seems to be) and deported every single one of these immigrants after their 3 year labor contract expired back to Hiroshima to be incinerated by the Americans in WWII and back to Okinawa to again be slaughtered by the US Marines, this is the heartless barbarian treatment Ige and those like himself has against Native Hawaiians.
Do you see any form of “appreciation” of this and other illegal immigrants who now outnumber Native Hawaiians? Its all the same, me come first even after the Hawaiians welcomed them with aloha, they all had the same agenda no better than human parasites.
There is plenty of Mauna to go around. The part of the mountain that is sacred is on the other side. There are 2 sacred spots close to the building to TMT. How many other sacred spot around our state have been built right next to? HUNDREDS! Do you see people lining up trying to stop those everyday? No! This is just a gigantic ploy to try to rile up the Hawaiians. This is an extremely difficult situation, and both sides need to
give a little.
Both sides can live in peace together on this. Odd how everyone is so up in arms now about this. Where were they when they built all the other ones up there? Looking to the skies is what the alii wanted from that mountain. That is one of the reasons they went up there.
Well said!!!!!! You hit the crux!
Looking to the skies is what the alii wanted from that mountain. That is one of the reasons they went up there. BINGO!
See my reply down the page.
Aloha Kakou, Aloha Tulsi,
May we add to this needed recognition of the Spiritual and Cultural importance of the summit of Mauna Kea.
1. Clouds of Discovery: the repeated Voyages of Discovery from the South Pacific islands of Marquesas and later, Tahiti, across approximately 2,750 miles of island empty ocean, and about the distance from San Francisco to Kaua’i, the journey north by brilliant celestial navigation, utilizing the stars, took the exploring Polynesian Seafarers north to a designated point on the earth marked by the stars above. And then…
At this northerly Point on the Pacific Ocean the Polynesians discovered they could see at some point the high clouds that grabbed onto a very high mountain on a high island(s) in the sea. They knew this meant land ahead. What land remained to be seen but it had to be big to the Polynesians because of the volume and altitude and visibility of the Clouds.
The Clouds of Mauna Kea, a veritable Road Sign to land, whose Cúmulonimbus shape reach perhaps as high as 25,000’ above sea level, meant that steerage towards them would lead to a new land, safe harbor, fresh water, and land to grow the Canoe Plants that they brought with them to sustain life and populate new islands in the history of the world.
The Clouds of Mauna Kea meant success in finding by chance exploration the expansion of Polynesia and respite from whatever they had to happily and sadly leave behind.
The Clouds of Mauna Kea meant a perpetual navigational road map for others to follow and populate this new islands’ realm of Hawaii.
From the very first voyage of the Marquesans, and eventually over a thousand years later another seafarer found himself and crew following in the path of the Star Navigators that went before him…Capt. Cook…and Europe, and their colonizers also found Hawaii. No comment. Except cooks type of sailing vessel could not hold a course as tight to the wind as the Polynesian sailing canoes, and so Cook missed WAILUA, and was able to make landfall around the corner at Waimea, Kauai…luckily he never missed and sailed off into the barren western sea.
Some historians say due to the constantly blowing Northeast Tradewinds the navigational course of the Polynesians the Tradewinds took their tiny craft past the Big Island of Hawaii, Maui, Molokai, and Oahu and brought them to the soft landing on the sandy beach at WAILUA on Kauai, with its largest river in the Hawaiian chain of islands, the WAILUA River, with enough endless fresh water for a new settlement and farming.
Wailua, another Sacred Ground of the Hawaiians.
Hawaii’s High Islands, waiting 20 million years for discovery found its Discoverers, who eventually backtracked across the archipelago and settled all the high islands with fresh water.
The Clouds that embraced Mauna Kea were brought by the Tradewinds which we know also diverted the early seafarers to Kaua’i, the last sustainable landfall without passing into another virtually empty vast open space of Oceania which may have spelled doom for the early Polynesian Explorers to be lost at sea running out of food and fresh water they brought with them.
In the vast Pacific Ocean over a 1,000 years ago, the Clouds of Mauna Kea pinpointed the islands below, until then they were lost in the sea, undiscovered and separated as the farthest place on earth from other land.
The Clouds of Mauna Kea mark an incredible reverence of human success aided by the presence of a mixture of Ke Akua’s design. High Islands, perpetual Tradewinds forming mountain top clouds that brought rain to the aina of Hawaii Nei. Sea and Air creatures preceded man on these islands, and the Clouds of Mauna Kea probably acted as a Road Sign for their aerial flight paths over millions of years.
To today the Clouds of Mauna Kea mark the arrival end of the journey from all Points on the compass.
It don’t get more Sacred than that, and it don’t need no 18 story Phalic Symbol to Point the way to Mauna Kea and these islands…the stars themselves pointed the way towards Mauna Kea and the Summit of Mauna Kea led to and allowed for the expansion of life for Polynesia in this part of the Great Polynesian Triangle.
2. On another note, some say it is important for telescopic research and viewing of the far skies and galaxies and universe(s). However it is certainly clear that Ke Akua is not having problems with the rest of our solar system much less our Milky Way Galaxy or the universe(s) out there. So why is it so important to waste tax dollars that the humans need worldwide…is it just arrogance or doing things because you can do them without concern for need. What we need is to explore the already known Causes of Disease and remove them and and Prevent their impacting the human race.
So many diseases are caused by chemicals in and on the food and in the environment, so we Don’t need more chemicals (drugs) to treat them…that is a Moron riding an Ox…but it is failing Medical Care and pseudo science profiting by its use and abuse…WE DESERVE BETTER…!
So why are we spending, wasting really, precious tax money from hard working people on a 18 story telescopic Phalic symbol, whose possible discoveries have no value in compare to hungry and homeless and diseased human beings world wide, not to mention thousands of more important things for human Health and Happiness that tax money could be intelligently spent on.
Is it more important to know about the birth of a star, than to uncover and remove the CAUSE of CHILDHOOD CANCERS…? Actually we know some of the causes, we just need tor remove them.
Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to know how to have perfect teeth for over a hundred years of living without cavities, fillings, root canals, crowns, dentures, and implants…? Some people go to the grave with all their God Given teeth in healthy conditions. Healthy teeth are found in fossilized early humans…how’s that…?
Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to be able to grow our food without using Agricultural poisons, or needing to Gentically Modify food that Ke Akua has given us?
Do we really need the vast variety of chemicals and carcinogenic foods when the people that discovered and settled these islands relied on for over a thousand years, and thousands of more years in older Polynesia, and some still, the Canoe Plants that provided Healthy non obese and non disease causing foods…?
Wouldn’t it be better to stop the lies of the petrochemical drug industry, the medical professions, and the insurance companies that perpetuate the diseases that shorten life and make suffering for the $4 Trillion dollars a year they profit, by instead looking to the Causes of not only Diseases but also the Causes of Health, instead of foolishly looking to find how a star in the universe is born, when there is another kind of silly star born every day in Hollywood?
Corporations need to get their priorities straight, or be financially punished, and politicians need to sanely direct tax dollars to and for all the humans in need.
Why do we need an earth telescope when the Hubble Space Telescope sends back incredible pictures of the universe, and why do we even need more even space telescopes when children are suffering on earth.
We need someone to “step up to the plate”, can we recommend Tulsi…?
Mahalo
So 1500 hundred people are going to dictate whether the TMT is built or not. Just like 60 people shot down the Super Ferry…. so 1% of the population of Kauai ruined it for everyone else. Well, isn’t that special! Hmm, remember the famous quote:
“Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Or the one.
.01% actually
Nice of Ms. Gabbard to offer an example of her priorities before the Presidential election.
Tsk Tsk Tulsi.
TMT investors and backers have already pledged $2 MILLION dollars a year back to the community!!! Not to mention the construction jobs over the next decade as well as over 100 full-time jobs as long as TMT is in operation.
You can easily read about how much TMT is giving back to the community online. Dozens of educational and community programs and initiatives, environmental stewardship initiatives, jobs, many aimed at Hawaiian and local residents. Not to mention the recognition and prestige and everything that comes with it for Hawaii as the leader in historical and groundbreaking discoveries for all of mankind!!
How much more can they promise to give back? How much more trust do they need to earn…? How STUPID do people have to be to turn all of that away?!!