Heavenly Cranes
In Memory of Robert Naoyuki Tanoue and Margaret Mitsuko Tanoue
“Lu’ulu’u Hanalei i ka ua nui; kaumaha i ka noe o Alaka’i.
Heavily weighted is Hanalei in the pouring rain; laden down by the mist of Alaka’i.
An expression used in dirges and chants of woe to express the burden of sadness,
the heaviness of grief, and tears pouring freely like rain.
”
New Phoenicians: Josey Sanders, June Tanoue, Jeremy Naylor, Terry Clarbour
September has been quite a month! I’ve been working with and learning about grief in an amazing twelve-week program called the Phoenix Project developed by Dr. Jack Miller. It ended this past Saturday night for four of us and I’ve been integrating a lot since then.
My final presentation honored my father, a strong light of love in my life. My earliest memory is when I was maybe 3 years old. I made up a dance at one of his gatherings of friends. When I was done I ran and jumped into his arms with joy as he hugged me with delight laughing with happy encouragement.
Dad loved Hawaiian music and he had a radio tuned to it all the time - in his garage where he fixed cars for a living and at the beach where we went to relax and enjoy nature. He’s been gone 13 years now.
“Heavenly Cranes” is the wall hanging I created in honor of Dad and Ma. I used red brocade that my maternal great aunt from Hiroshima had sent me to sew into my Buddhist okesa (robe) along with white satin and Japanese cotton. Hula students joined me to dance to his favorite song, Poliahu, sung by Frank Hewett, which I danced at his funeral.
Zen teacher Domyo Burk defines grief as love in the face of loss. Hawaiians have big generous hearts that love. So when someone dies, it’s only natural to grieve with tears flowing freely like rain. They also have dirges and chants of woe to express the burden of sadness, and the heaviness of grief.
Yet when my father died, I didn’t have many tears which surprised me. Though we had been expecting his death as he grew weaker with the cancer, it was still a shock when I received the call that he had died. And I was also confused.
I understood the nature of impermanence. After all the Buddha’s last words were, “All conditioned reality is of the nature to decay — strive on diligently.” Did this mean that I didn’t thoroughly understand impermanence if I lost it with uncontrollable weeping?
Boy I can surely go through a lot of machinations in my mind. In the meantime, it was easy for me to bypass my grief, even though I felt numb a lot of the time. I didn’t know how to deal with it so I just redirected my attention and distracted myself…so many distractions to choose from: movies, busyness of the funeral, social media, alcohol, marijuana. I was emotionally stuck.
The past 12 weeks have been a time when I’ve been cultivating the capacity to open to grief. To feel, breathe and bear witness to grief or sadness as it arises. Zen priest and teacher Joan Halifax says, “To deny grief is to rob ourselves of the heavy stones that will eventually be the ballast for the two great accumulations of wisdom and compassion.”
My practices of meditation and hula continue to open my heart. I’ve found grief there, but I’m also finding compassion, resilience and courage.
Malama pono (take good care of body and mind),
June Kaililani Ryushin Tanoue, Kumu Hula, Sensei
P.S. Here are 2 talks I gave on Grief during our Fall Sesshin (silent meditation retreats): Part 1 and Part 2.
P.P.S. The students of Halau i Ka Pono dance Poliahu https://youtu.be/RpZv9U2OVKk lyrics by Frank Kawaikapuokalani Hewett and sung by Teresa Bright. Poliahu is the Hawaiian Goddess of the Snow also known as the goddess of compassion. She lives at the top of Mauna Kea.