Happy Solstice! It's been a hot minute since you've received a newsletter from me. You may notice some changes, the old colors have been swapped out and the Phoenix is retired. feel.focus.flow. is still alive, I am still offering 1-1 somatic sessions and astrology readings but something big has shifted so the new look reflects where I am now since life has been pleasantly full of trees, ducks, mud and muck 🙂
Some Highlights From The Last Year
✨ 218 days spent cooking outside, living with the land and sleeping in a tent
✨ Over 60 new food plants & trees planted in the forest
✨ 5 banana trees flowered and fruited
✨ Hundreds of seeds planted
✨ Thriving through volcanic eruptions, torrential rains and gale force winds
✨ A foot of soil and compost added to existing tree beds
✨ Composting toilet, rain and solar powered bath house built
✨ Bele, banana & lime trees gifted to neighbors
✨ Neighborhood co-op to connect, share information, seeds, plants and sweat equity is forming
These are just a few of the things we’ve accomplished at Lawa Pono Forest Farm this last year and if you signed up for a feel.focus.flow. class, purchased a 1-1 session, astrology reading or donated to our GoFundMe, YOU helped make it happen! Thank you! We appreciate your support!
What you are helping us build here is special and deeply needed in our local community.
“In Hawai'i food sovereignty is resonant as we are working to craft a restorative, post colonial, post plantation agricultural system that honors our people's past, present and future.” ~ Hoʻōla ʻĀina Youth Food Sovereignty Congress
Before westerners arrived the native Hawaiians lived within a large traditional socioeconomic, geologic, and climatic subdivision of land called the Ahupuaʻa. This created a self-sufficient agricultural system distinguished by thriving fishponds and taro, banana, pig, chicken and sweet potato production. Each island is home to several ahupua’a, each ahupua’a usually extends from the mountains to the sea and includes one or more complete watersheds. Resources within the ahupua’a were shared and cared for by the residents who lived there. Each ahupuaʻa was considered to be a self-sufficient community but trade did exist between ahupua’a and between islands.
With the arrival of western influence, the ahupua’a was not respected and fertile land was mono-cropped. Biodiverse land was transformed into sprawling pineapple and sugar cane plantations that exploited cheap land and labor to produce food that was mostly shipped away from the islands. By the 1960s, only about half of Hawai'i’s fruit and vegetable supply was produced locally and eventually the soil became depleted of nutrients needed to support food production. When they couldn’t keep producing, the big agricultural companies left the infertile land behind with no plan to regenerate the soil. Most of the land was subdivided and sold to people off island who were looking to “own a piece of paradise” and if it wasn’t bulldozed and built upon it was overtaken by invasive plants and animals instead. Today, most of the land zoned for agricultural use grows vacation homes, resorts and airbnbs instead of growing food for the people who live here. According to the Hawai’i government, 85-90% of Hawaii's food is now imported and University studies have estimated there's only an 11-day supply of food in the state at any given time. This creates massive food supply vulnerability in the event of natural disaster or event that disrupts shipping.
Lawa Pono Forest Farm is located in one of the areas that was zoned agricultural but subdivided and named “Fern Forest Vacation Estates”. The lots within Fern Forest were advertised and sold as “three acres of paradise”. For many years the vast majority of people who owned lots lived off island; the community and necessary infrastructure to support it was neglected as a result. The majority of people who live here now are not farming the land they live on and many have been told that the land isn’t farmable. In the meantime invasive guava, Himalayan raspberry, kosters curse, Kahili ginger, Rapid Ohi’a Death and Airbnbs take over the landscape.
Located in what was once known as the Waikahekahe Ahupua’a, Fern Forest is one of the most socioeconomic disadvantaged areas in the state of Hawai'i. A majority of the homes built are not permitted, many people live in tents, don’t have access to adequate sanitation or clean running water. The closest farmers market is 10 miles away and the nearest grocery store is 16 miles away. Residents don't have access to running water unless they install expensive water catchment and filtration systems and the closest county water supply is a 17 mile drive away. Fern Forest is a food desert located within 12.5 square miles of agriculturally zoned land. Only a fraction of this land is being used to grow food. While traditional farming techniques will likely fail in the shallow soil and high rainfall conditions of this mid elevation cloud forest, syntropic agroforestry, traditional indigenous practices and permaculture design can allow for successful food growing that will feed local families plus give residents vital skills and education that will serve their community in the future.
Lawa Pono Forest Farm is my Yoga in Action. I'm using my skills, talents and gifts to be a reciprocal part of the community I live within.
Our goal is, with the help of other local growers, to be producing enough food in the next three years to be able to sustain the residents of the farm AND stock a gift based community market. Think a little free library but with fruits, vegetables, eggs and other yummy, nourishing things we all need for life. We will also continue to grow extra plants to gift to neighbors and offer consultation, education and physical help to those who are starting their own food forests on their land.
“Building capacity and well-being in a region undermined by decades of underinvestment requires a commitment of approaches and resources that would not be viable for a traditional for-profit company.”
-Ma'o Organic Farm
Lawa Pono Farm is committed to its values of balance, reciprocity, abundance, sharing, collaborating, community care, integrity and returning to the Ahupuaʻa. Lawa Pono Forest Farm is not a corporation or a business, we are not entrepreneurs. Lawa Pono Forest Farm is a movement, a home, an entity to itself. We are committed to operating in a different way which means no USDA loans, no subsidies and no traditional pathways to funding. This project has been built on our personal savings, collaborative sweat equity, gifting, sharing and crowdfunding. We give our services and abundance and rely upon our greater community to reciprocate in order to help make shift happen.
We do still live within a capitalist society and although we’re reawakening the ahupua’a as we go it is still necessary to operate with one foot in and one foot out so to speak. Property taxes cost money, fuel, wifi, phones, cars, toilet paper, doctors, dentists, fencing, gutters, tools and insurance costs money. The last few post pandemic years have revealed the need for an economy and a society that supports the people in it and we’re only going to get to that place if those of us who can, lead by example and speak out about how we’re doing things differently.
The shift we’re making here in the forest involves an exchange of time, labor, food and other necessities for life. Just as water flows downstream in the ahupua’a, we rely on resources to flow to us too.
Our time is best spent working on the land, completing projects at the farm and in our community. Crowdfunding helps us to do more of that. Crowdfunding means we’re spending more time building, planting, harvesting and helping our neighbors. The people who financially contribute to what we are building allow us to take a systemic view and to make critical investments that will benefit the greater community for generations to come.
“You can do what I cannot do. I can do what you cannot do. Together we can do great things.” ~Mother Theresa
Ways you can support our continued growth
✨Book a 1-1 session with me: all proceeds go directly into the forest and sustaining what is being built here. Simply reply to this email and we’ll schedule your session.
✨ Donate to our GoFundMe There are always unexpected expenses on the farm aside from our basic cost of living. Your crowdfunding support helps us so much!
✨ Amazon Wish List Yes, Amazon is problematic and not in alignment with our overall mission, unfortunately it is also one of the only ways we can get certain supplies on the island so if you are able to gift us something on our list we are humbly grateful. (one foot in, one foot out)
✨ Patreon is another way you can support the work we're doing in the forest and in exchange we'll keep you updated with videos, recipes, tutorials, guided feel.focus.flow. inspired practices for living reciprocally, connecting to your body and the land plus monthly live (online for now) get togethers for connection and asking questions.
✨ Share with your friends! Please share our adventure with people who are curious about creating regenerative culture.
✨ Future opportunities to camp & help us in person are coming but we need to get the infrastructure built to support it first. Your Patreon and GoFundMe contributions help us get there faster! Contributors get first dibs when space opens.
Thank you for being here, for the role you play in our greater web and your continued support in our future endeavors!
Love,
Lori ♥️
