We as managers of our own lives often reduce the world to what can be measured and optimized. We speak of "investing" in friendships, "maximizing" our time, "networking" for advantage. We measure success in dollars earned, productivity metrics, and efficiency gains. This mechanistic worldview, where relationships become transactions and life becomes a series of inputs and outputs, is reinforced by a narrow interpretation of science that elevates only what we can see and quantify above the spiritual and unknown. This is what I was taught in my graduate studies: that only what we can prove through rigorous hypothesis is true. And while I believe fact-making and empirical truth are indeed essential to living justly, they cannot be our only guides. There is another way of knowing, one that honors both the measurable and the mysterious.
To begin to live holistically is to begin to live beyond ourselves. It means understanding that we exist within an intricate web of relationships connecting all living things, a reality that transcends purely mechanical understanding. The ancient philosopher Hierocles described this beautifully through his theory of concentric circles describing how, "we stand at the center, surrounded by expanding rings of connection". These outer rings being immediate family, extended family, community, nation, humanity, and ultimately all living things. When we recognize and honor what exists beyond our individual selves—other people, the natural world, the earth, the universe—we step into a sacred reality. There is something beautifully mad about this awakening: to realize that a stranger's joy is your joy, that the forest's breath is your breath, that your great-great-grandchildren's world is being shaped by your hands today. We become part of this reality not as observers but as active participants in an ancient system that extends across time itself, forward to our children's children and backward to all the ancestors who came before us.
Thomas Berry, in "The Great Work," describes "a new revelatory experience [...] wherein human consciousness awakens to the grandeur and sacred quality of Earth processes." To awaken to the consciousness of our interconnection, he suggests, is the first step to truly understanding ourselves, who we are, and our purpose in this world.
This understanding of interconnectedness was ingrained in me through my Hawaiian culture. But as I grew up, I became much more focused inward, shelling up inside myself and my own career goals, however noble they were and grounded in environmentalism and sustainability. I had contracted into the innermost circle, forgetting the beautiful madness of trying to pull those outer circles inward—of caring for strangers as kin, of treating the land as family, of honoring the yet-unborn as intimately as we honor ourselves.
This transformation predated my moving back home and was actually catalyzed by my daughter's birth. Becoming a parent broke open something fundamental in me—it was, in many ways, my own rebirth. When you have someone completely dependent on you, someone whose future stretches far beyond your own lifetime, you cannot help but see the world differently. Caring for her taught me to care beyond myself, to think in terms of generations rather than individual achievement. She became my bridge to understanding that I am not separate from the web of life, but intimately woven into it.
Graduating and moving back home deepened this reconnection, bringing me not just to my community but to the spirit of my ancestors and the sacred land of my people. I have become more than myself. I have become everything around me. My work through ceremony has taught me to teach others the importance of seeing beyond oneself and making intentional steps in their lives. My other work has allowed me to integrate these concepts in different capacities—lecturing at the community college, creating pilina with community organizations, and helping small businesses find their contribution to their community as a whole. This is the work of holistic living: not abandoning reason or science, but expanding our understanding to embrace the sacred interconnection that has always held us. When we live this way, we honor both what we can measure and what we can only feel—and in doing so, we become fully alive.
