One of the really great things about the course I am on is that in order to experience being connected to everything, then we’ve been spending time in nature, experiencing some of the environments and learning how to feel that connection – what Robert Heinlein would call ‘grokking’ – the ability to take on the nature of the animal or plant (or whatever) being looked at.
At one level this might be ‘shapeshifting’ and the ability to take on a different form (if you can let your imagination stretch that far!) and at another level, that might be considering the attributes of a particular animal to see if there is anything to be learned from that animal (I did a bit of research into my favourite animal, the panther, to see what I can learn from the behaviour of the panther)
Yesterday we were looking at plants and at humans, and today at rock and fire. We’ve also been learning massage techniques based on the different spirits of the elements we are looking at.
So, we took a walk down the petroglyph field where there are 23000 carvings in the rock like this one
(it’s a turtle)
– across a wild, windswept and desolate area. The theory is that the Hawai’ian people used to create these to provide a focus for manifesting or attracting the subject of the picture (although why someone wants a turtle escapes me).
So.. looking at huna, the first principle is ‘ike’
IKE – the world is what you say it is
basically, our experience of the world is the only one that truly matters (to us). We can only experience ours, we can only influence ours. If we say that everything is working out perfectly – then it is. If we say that it’s a disaster – then it is. We can choose to experience things the way we want to.
Explore The Adventure. . . . . 
I call this phenomonology , we each experience our own reality based on our experience, values etc. Sounds wicked . empathising with a panther, wow,and now Im wondering where phenomonology developed as an idea. 🙂
There are similar rocks across Arizona, drawn by the native americans. THey’re called ‘newspaper rocks’ as it is thought that a picture of a buffalo, for example, would be left on the rock to inform other hunters that this is a good place for food.
That’s interesting… the odd thing about the Hawai’ian petroglyphs is that they all appear in one place – so they’re not to draw attention to that spot, but for some other purpose. They’re not art, either, because they are drawn one on another…. hence the speculation that they were drawn to help create an outcome – as a representation of the desire.