A retreat is not a vacation. On a vacation, all you want is sunshine. On a retreat, you welcome the rain. A call to go inward. On a recent retreat in Maui, the weather delivered both.

In the sunshine and wind and rain, I gathered with a circle of women to practice yoga (mostly outside), share meals, and trade inner gifts of wisdom and reflection. Many of us had relationships with this island having lived here, studied here, celebrated life events and transitions here. Twenty years ago, I lived in a cottage in Pukalani, just down the mountain from where we were staying, to write the Let’s Go: Hawaii travel guide. I returned now as a beginner, seeking relationship with my self, this place, and the community we were forming. There were several mother-daughter pairs, and pairs of old friends. I came knowing no one except the teacher Nicole. Between downward dogs and improvisational dance parties, Nicole offered us an invitation inspired by Luke Kohen: Step off the battlefield of everyday life and allow ourselves to grieve.

Walking the perimeter of the land that was hosting us, I reflected on what needed to die in the world and in myself. It’s an odd phrasing, I know – death is something we’re used to resisting, as if life could continue and grow unbounded. But actually, there are a lot of things that need to die. Colonialism, for one. I felt that strongly as I walked along the back ridge of the property, where a fence divided one large house from the other structures, some dating from 1910. Bearing the name Baldwin, a missionary whose descendants became sugar magnates, landowners, and industrialists, the structures had many uses over the years including a rest home for cannery workers, military barracks, women’s college dormitories, and now a retreat center. Even with all of the peaceful energy of the visitors who now stayed here, I felt something unresolved. When an entire kingdom is annexed, its laws and customs overthrown, foreign structures built on sacred land, is resolution ever possible?

I felt my kuleana, responsibility and obligations to this place, more than just where I chose to spend money while I was here but where I put my energy. In Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai’i, editors Hōkūlani K. Aikau and Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez write about restoring ea, translated as “breath” or “life” or “sovereignty” of the land, through ongoing, embodied actions. While ea was once the way of life here pre-colonization, “Today, ea must be cultivated by Kanaka [Hawaiians] and non-Kanaka alike if it is going to persist into the future.” I hadn’t read this book yet – it arrived on my doorstep while I was away – but I felt the truth of it.

I walked and collected seeds, fruits, leaves, what the earth was shedding. I considered what was alive in me that needed to die: participation in the acceleration of commercialism, driving at productivity, doing, accomplishment. Ignoring my body’s signals or treating them with shame. Blindness to other species – I am just now learning their names after 42 years on this planet. A compulsion to “must do now” rather than listen for the right time. A set of limiting beliefs (“if I don’t get a good night’s sleep…”) that were excuses for not acting as my highest self. Discomfort in my role in relationships of unequal power. Seeing success as an outcome rather than presence in a process. And finally, a refusal to recognize my own inner wisdom, a feeling of separation from my ancestors and even my role as mother to my child. I didn’t land here and start a sugar business but I am part of related patterns, thousands of miles and centuries away and now right here in the same place and time.

I took what I had gathered and placed them in a pattern behind an Australian pine tree. An old custom, creating earth art, the rhythm of a mandala, and yet this specific arrangement of these specific life forms were a new pattern I created. I prayed for healing, restoring wholeness, peace, creative energy, new life. I invited participation from the group, and through the week, other women added flowers, leaves, their own intentions. An offering to the land that was offering us so much.

While I was in the process of reflecting and offering, I received an invitation. Another woman on the retreat, who had studied traditional Hawaiian practices, and I were looking for dried Lauhala fruit that had dropped from the trees and could be used as paintbrushes. A woman appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and asked us, “Would you like to see the garden?” Hidden from the typical patterns of guest traffic grew rows of hearty greens and lettuces, edible flowers, cucumbers, peppers, herbs, papaya, sugarcane, taro, towering guava trees. Native and non-native plants supplying more than enough food for the center. “You can pick whatever you like,” she said. I picked mint for opening, sage for clarity, marigold for honoring what’s passed. I submerged them in hot water and honey to make a tisane, or herbal infusion.

This became my daily ritual, extending past the close of the retreat. The garden had different energy in different weather and times of day. Sometimes playful – another new friend and I dashed around avoiding sprinklers laughing like children as we picked our leaves and flowers – sometimes serious, dark clouds overhead. Eventually I was alone, integrating all I had just experienced, breathing in the fragrance of the tisane, refilling my cup with hot water when it was empty to absorb the last flavors from the herbs, giving thanks for the opportunity to offer and receive.