Hoʻolauleʻa

(lilikoi / passionfruit flower in my yard)

Well, the summer is over. A few weeks ago, I had the dubious privilege of leading the service at church for the second time. I learned two things from the experience. The first is that I am spectacularly awful at leading a group in singing. I'm actually a little proud of how terrible I am. It's hard to participate in something so awkward and discordant without laughing.

The second thing I became aware of is the significance of this time of year. It was Rosh Hashanah, Id al-Fitr, and the Fall Equinox (for the northern hemisphere). It's harvest time, something we easily forget with the modern conveniences of global shipping, greenhouses, and supermarkets. Closer to the equator, the rainy season is starting. Daylight is dwindling; summer is over.

So it's time to party! Harvest-time festivals are a great tradition. The U.S. Thanksgiving was originally celebrated in September or early October, before Lincoln moved it to November. But here on the Big Island of Hawai'i, the beginning of the rainy season is marked by the annual KWXX Hoʻolauleʻa in Hilo. I just stopped by for an hour or so, long enough to grab some tamales, a cup of iced coffee, and some poi balls. It always rains at Hoʻolauleʻa, but it hadn't started by the time I left.

For language nerds, Hoʻolauleʻa can be roughly translated as "festival". Literally, it comes from hoʻo, lau, and leʻa. Hoʻo is a prefix that changes the meaning of a word with the idea of "making-it-happen". (Hoʻoilo means the rainy season; ilo means sprouting or early growth.) The most common meaning of lau is leaves (as in lau kī or lāʻī, ti leaves), but in this case it means "much, many, numerous". And the primary meaning of leʻa is "joy, pleasure, happiness, merriment". So altogether, we get "making-much-merriment-happen".
(Sources: wehewehe.org and one of the pukui/elbert dictionaries)

The next day I went with some friends down to the Ahalanui hot pond down in Kalapana. I hadn't been there in a long time. The water was pretty warm actually.


I like ʻohia trees. Some friends who live in Puna have nice tall ones in their yard.

Well, that's all for now. Have a good fall!