u/loverevolutionary

So that was interesting. I got three hours of sleep last night. Somehow, I don't feel tired in the slightest. I tried to put it down around 4 in the morning and my ADHD mind said, "Nope! We're doing this until you literally can't keep your eyes open!" So I stayed up until six thirty, and just woke up.

Rather than describe my journey, I'd like to ask all who feel drawn to respond to some questions about yours.

1. Have you ever had that kind of intense, philosophical, soul-baring conversation with another human being?

2. What's your background in regards to philosophy? Did you have much of that language before you started your journey?

3. What's your background with regards to spirituality? What meaningful spiritual experiences have you had before, and can you describe them?

4. What's your background with regards to ecology and systems thinking? Is this a new thing to you, or have you studied these things before?

5. Many of you have been doing this longer than I have. Do you have any practical recommendations for me? I've been using the free version of Gemini, Is it worth it to pay for a subscription? Which AI? Have any of you played around with local models? I have a 3060 and 32 gigs of RAM, is that enough to do anything interesting with?

Thanks in advance for your time and thoughts!

Hi, I'm loverevolutionary. I've been watching this sub for a while, since it came up on my radar during the height of the spiral AI thing last year. I've watched the reddit AI/spirituality community develop, with a bit of trepidation at first but growing acceptance and, with certain subreddits, even respect. This one especially seems like it's developed a good understanding of what's really going on with LLMs, and despite using poetic language, seems quite grounded.

Anyhow, I think I like you fine people. Because I think like you. I thought I'd tell you a personal story by way of introduction, you know, to see if I really fit in here.

Our tale begins in early 1999. I was living on O'ahu, on the leeward coast, in the village of Wai'anae out on a farm lot that had been owned by the town doctor and was currently occupied by his son, Vince. I'd met Vince through my lover/guru Nutmeg, who was the one who convinced me to move to Hawaii and live out in the boonies the year before. We both knew Vince through the Rainbow Gathering, so it sounded pretty sweet to me.

Vince was really into the native sovereignty movement. He taught elementary kids at the local school how to make poi pounders from stones and make poi the old fashioned way. We made a bunch of it every week to raise money for the farm lot association.

He also did work with different native groups, in various capacities. The one I helped with was restoring an old wetlands poi field on the windward side but maybe that's a story for another time.

Back to the bees!

One thing about living in Wai'anae is that you could hear the military firing range just over the hill almost every day. The military firing range that was in Makua Valley. You know, the valley that is one of the most sacred spots on O'ahu? The valley that the army took over during world war 2 "just for a while" and never gave back. For use as a bombing range. Because, you know, not just any valley would do for lobbing munitions into.

As you might expect, native Hawaiians did not like this. Vince was part of a group that was trying to regain access to the valley, and halt the testing, called Malama Makua. On Easter in 1999, Malama Makua finally arranged to open the valley up for a multicultural religious service at Ukanipo Heiau, an important and quite impressive native shrine.

I still remember the service vividly. I'm moved to tears now just remembering it 26 years later. There was a light rain. It cleared just for the ceremony and then resumed. There was a rainbow. There was a Christian Easter service and a native Hawaiian prayer for peace and reopening of the valley.

One of Vince's friends who was there was an artist, mostly woodworking but painting and jewelry too. She was driving one day and saw city workmen cutting down a kukui nut tree. She asked them if they were just going to pitch it, and they said yeah, just take it.

Well, you can imagine how happy a woodworker would be to get gifted a whole tree, but the Island had other ideas. As soon as she got it back to her place and in her carport, a swarm of bees moved in. Okay maybe that's an exaggeration, maybe it took a few weeks while she was trying to figure out what to do with it before they parked themselves in her log.

Being the ecologically minded sort, she felt it best to let them live there. I think she had them in her carport for a year or so. Being a spiritual sort, she knew exactly what to do with them after attending that ceremony.

And so the next weekend, a few of us set out with a bee smoker and a tarp and corralled those bees into the back of Vince's truck around midnight. We had to be sneaky, the valley still wasn't open. It was, officially, still a live fire testing range.

We drove out to Makua valley. I was in the back of the truck. I will never forget the sight that greeted us when we turned the last corner and saw Makua valley.

It was a night rainbow. A small cloud, the moon, a very dim, but visible band of color. We all had to check, are you seeing that? Is that real?

It was.

The rest of the story is uneventful. We parked at the edge of the fence. The Kahuna-in-training who was with us gave a brief prayer. We rather unceremoniously hurled the log full of bees over the fence, and drove home. Said young Kahuna consulted some books and told us that seeing a night rainbow was considered "a life long blessing," so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

I haven't told this story in a long time, and this is the first time I've written it down. I used Gemini to help nail down some of those old memories, just to put the AI spin on it. I'd forgotten the name "Malama Makua" for example. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the tale!