Kahoʻolawe: Rebirth of a Sacred Island

Imagine an island from which you can see all the other main Hawaiian islands (except Kauaʻi and Niʻihau) and the channels that run between them! Now, imagine how navigators were trained at its summit to hold in their memory the rising and setting of constellations in relation to the seasonal movement of the sun and where the north star sat over the horizon at night in relation to the Southern Cross. This training enabled navigators to intentionally find their way across the Pacific Ocean to other islands and return home to Hawaiʻi without any modern navigation instruments.

Imagine an island where universal time was observed and shrines and temples were built as structural calendars marking the daily and seasonal back and forth movement of the sun, from the Equinox north to the Tropic of Cancer, and south to the tropic of Capricorn. On this island, the community organized their lifeways in alignment with the cycles of nature.