Morrnah Simeona, Kahuna Lapa'au
A Tribute to One of my Primary Mentors
After the Milestone post, there were many special requests for additional information on my own spiritual path, food, music, and my kahuna mentor, Morrnah Simeona. In actuality, the second Substack post was devoted to the first of Morrnah’s teachings. To heal, one must first remove the obstacle(s) to cure. In that post, I mentioned some underlying causes to conditions that might have different diagnoses. For instance, a neurological problem might have toxic metals as a root cause. Very thorough case histories and sometimes data related to specific environmental hazards may be necessary before a cause can be determined. What I did not mention in that post was the role of sociological and psychological issues. It is perfectly obvious in today’s world that skipping over the influences of family, peer pressure, and institutional factors such as school curriculum and religious views is irresponsible. The Hawaiians had a method for handling such matters. It is called ho’oponopono and means roughly something like problem solving.
The ho’oponopono ceremony is overseen by a senior person, sometimes a family member, but often a kahuna with a special talent for psychological issues. All persons who might be even very tangentially related to the patient are present and no one can leave the room until the session is complete. There are no exceptions so the pressure does mount after a point. Using the language Morrnah herself sometimes used, the goal is to spill one’s guts in as safe a way as possible. People sometimes blame others for their issues so the accuser and defendant are each supported in the effort to explain the mountains of complaints from the past. Solutions are sought, and because the ceremony is spiritual, not legal, blame is lifted, and harmony is restored. Once completing the ceremony, further accusations over ancient grievances are forbidden, but the expectation is that atonement will include self-correction so that there are no recurrences of the issues.
Over the years, I have very occasionally tried to function as the elder in a family situation but without the backing of the Hawaiian culture, this has not gone particularly well. For instance, there were often family members who refused to participate as well as those who would not allow the talking stick to change hands. I don’t have enough earth to hold the boundaries when there is so much resistance, but the concept has merit and works in the right circumstances.
The second major teaching is that what does not feel good to the subconscious will be resisted. In short, if the treatment or therapy is theoretically beneficial but emotionally or physically painful, the unihipili will not go along with the protocol. This is a very important teaching that is easily dismissed by those who put mind over matter. The unihipili is an authority in its own right. It is sometimes translated as the inner child, but Morrnah saw the structure of the human psyche as sort of pyramidal. The base is enormous and powers the conscious and superconscious components of the incarnate being. Language is important here. The unihipili does not supply the content of the ego and its opinions nor the inspiration of the soul. It bases its assessments on incarnate experience and feelings and instinctually rejects what does not feel good.
This issue first arose in the context of a question someone asked about Rolfing. Morrnah was an expert in Hawaiian massage, called lomi-lomi. I will tell a little story. A few of us were in Honolulu and Morrnah asked me to lie face down on the floor. It was a hardwood floor. She weighed 165 pounds (according to what she told me in another context on a different occasion). I was probably about 125 pounds at that time. She stood, with her full weight on the bottoms of my feet, so try to visualize her feet and weight on my feet and no cushion under me. She proceeded to walk up my ankles and legs, rocking occasionally to address something she sensed. Though the weather was hot and humid, her feet smelled like flower petals. I felt that I was in paradise, especially as she got to my back and shoulders, but she walked on my head also. I remember this as pure bliss, but when people imitated her, there was no bliss at all, just reckless copy cat attempts that were humiliating and sometimes harmful.
Rolfing, as many people know, is not usually comfortable at all so while Morrnah said nothing against it, the comparison to lomi-lomi made the answer clear to everyone. When the unihipili assesses the other components of our psyches, it tends to view the uhane, the conscious self as ignorant and arrogant. It rarely accepts anything on the basis of theories or erudition. It is entirely experiential and draws its conclusions based on feelings and outcome.
We could take food as an example. If one hates the taste of something, but someone argues that it is good for health, the unihipili is very unlikely to change its opinion based on what mom or the nutritionist say. “Yucky” is yucky and that is straight fact to the unihipili.
Likewise, the unihipili can disagree with the aumakua or higher self. It has noble justifications for making sacrifices, but the unihipili thinks something along the lines of “Last time your idealism got in the way of my realism, we died. You are reckless, and I am sensible.”
These are simple examples, but there are some situations that are very clinically challenging because trauma can displace the coordination between the three selves so the voices cannot be reconciled into a singular course of action. For instance, I have seen patients who are catatonic as well as ones that keep repeating the same thing for days and weeks and sometimes months on end because they got stuck with a feeling and cannot wrestle their way out of that nightmare.
We don’t always know where the buttons are so we don’t know what issues will trigger which responses.
Well, perhaps it’s best to listen to Morrnah in her own words!
Copyright by Dr. Ingrid Naiman || All Rights Reserved
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