Lehua Kamalu

There are clouds in the sky.

There is a never-ending display of celestial bodies, of planets and stars and the sun and the moon and all these features that are continuously telling you what direction you're going in if you're paying attention.

And suddenly you see that island, if you imagine the island, not just as the land above the water, but also the animals and the birds that live on that island, they are part of that island as well.

So the island becomes much bigger.

And soon you start to say, well, also the waves around that island are affected much further out.

So in a way, those waves are also part of that island.

And suddenly the island is actually just this massive target.

And, uh,

If you start to see all the signs that say, I'm an island, it's not just land, right?

You don't just have to see a rock or a tree to know an island is there.

And I think that suddenly makes you realize how going after one island that might only be 10 miles around becomes going after an island that's 200 or 300 miles around.

And you're...

trying to expand your perspective to see the ways that you can see an island without actually just seeing the island itself.

I think it's really something I think about a lot today is just how much life in the ocean is no longer there.

When you think about how critical just that one bird is,

you start to connect all of the sensitivities of the system and it all has to work for it to work for you.

So you become quite attentive to what supports the system that allows the navigation and that is a healthy ecosystem.