Soon after our move to Hawaii I heard about a meeting of native Hawaiian herbalists and decided to attend. It was the turning point. Everything we had thought we knew about staying healthy suddenly got tossed out the window. I soon realized that the Hawaiian people have a much deeper understanding of health, based on centuries of their own personal experience and expert knowledge of plants and minerals, of the human body, of the psyche, and most importantly, of the spiritual aspect of all living things. I learned from the Hawaiian elders, Kahuna and Kupuna, that each of us is connected by a powerful force that threads its way through all life.
Nothing is separate.
Nothing survives outside this force. The Hawaiians call this 'mana', the life force. Without it our bodies die. Every plant and every mineral, every rock, every mountain, every ray of sunshine and every pure stream contains this mana. The Hawaiians believe that each substance differs in the amount of mana it contains.