Ho’opaipai - Calling the Wave
This is only a short summary of the many things to be said about Calling the Wave. Please listen to the full episode below for more context and explanation on how this image can become a practical tool to expand your impact as a lomi lomi giver or body worker.
Let’s start with the traditional chant of the legendary surfers: Ho’opaipai O Ke Nalu—call the wave. It is both a surrender to the mighty ocean and a command flying gloriously over it, calling in the perfect wave for surfing. Ho’opaipai O Ke Nalu—show up perfect wave, please. So I can meet you. So I can receive you.
Garnette Arledge & Harry Uhane Jim: Wise Secrets of Aloha, San Francisco 2007.
This traditional chant of the Hawaiian surfers is a declaration of your presence to the natural force of Moana, the Ocean. It is calling in the presence of the waves, too, creating an opening between the surfer and nature itself. We become receivers instead of observers, and once we’ve called the wave to come, we feed it our gratitude.
This is a potent image, because the flow is endless. We call the wave, receive it, feed it, receive again. And feed again. The waves of the ocean continue to come as we continue to surf. As we dive into this expression of one of the most central teachings in Hawaiian healing, calling and feeding, let yourself sink into the rhythm of the current. It is the root of Ho’opaipai (calling the wave) to invite the idea that as you call, you will receive, and as you receive and experience gratitude, the cycle will begin anew.
In surfing, Harry describes the gratitude we express once the perfect wave reaches us as a counter currency. “That’s why the wave comes to the surfer”, Harry adds. Because it is fed with gratitude. “In the same way we call our animals to feed them, we call upon grace to feed it, asking it to participate in our process and reversing that with—gratitude.”
Calling and feeding can therefore cause a significant shift in the context of a therapeutic session. Applied to touch, no matter what technical skills you already implore, it enhances your actual engagement with the receiver.
When we call upon our receiver’s energy, we feed the receiver attention or, in Hawaiian terms, gratitude. Utilizing this in human touch can help change a session with your receiver, because bodies respond so well to human attention. It also might help to let go of the pressure to“work hard” or “deliver” in order for a session to be successful.
As you touch your receiver’s hand, for instance, you can - for yourself - call upon the receiver’s presence in that hand, asking it to participate, if only energetically, in the current process of working through the fingers or giving the palms a gentle massage. If you work with meridians or acupuncture points, you can call those specific points to presence. In turn, you will feed each finger your attention. Notice how the receiver’s body will respond with gratitude in the form of a breath or a sigh perhaps, or just letting go.
If “nothing happens”, that’s fine, too. It’s not the point to place focus on instant results. The point of Calling the Wave, as with many of the tools in Hawaiian teaching, is to expand your ability to focus and witness healing occurring. “That’s lomi”, Harry says.
Glyph referred to in the episode, the ancient Hawaiian school signature of healing, defined by the energies of grace receiving gratitude.