Turama Medeiros: Planting for The Future, Farming for The Soul, Healing fo Da ʻĀina.

With An Extensive Knowledge on Hawaiʻi’s most Prominent plants, How to Farm and Nurture them as a Mahiʻai, Turama Medeiros sets out only to give ʻĀina back what it’s rightfully given to Hawaiʻi - Life.

Who are you?

Aloha, my name is Joseph Turama Kahunahana Medeiros Jr. I go by Turama, that’s my middle name, I’m 18 and Iʻm from Kāneʻohe.

What is your profession we’re here to talk about today?

I wouldn’t call it a profession Iʻd call it more so like a lifestyle, thereʻs never being a professional in it unless you Kūpuna age you know? But, I’m a Mahiʻai. As much as I can be, I farm everything that grows that I CAN grow…

Mainly Kalo, Maiʻa, Uala you know the staples... I even have some Kō or sugar cane, everything that you can just pick and eat that you cook day to day.

How long have you been farming for? And what really got you into it?

I’ve been farming for a long time (at least for my age) *laughs* but, I’ve been doing this probably since fifth or fourth grade. I kind of piqued interest because I got a māmaki tree, and unfortunately, it didn't survive very long because I really liked māmaki tea after I found it *laughs*. And I picked the plant until it couldn’t grow *laughs*.

But yeah after that I got into plenty, you know local Hawaiian programs. I was with Holomua at Key Project. I was with the Innovation Academy at King Intermediate and then Hoʻoulu ʻŌpio Māla at Castle High School and you know just going through all of that it kind of gets you closer to the land and expands your horizon on EVERYTHING:

What you can eat, what you can grow, how to grow it, what's the different things you do to make plants grow better? How to naturally do everything as opposed to, like chemical pesticides and taking the easy way out even though it's you know, not good for you.

And what exactly were these programs in depth?

Yeah, I have worked with Key Project in their Holomua program, which was for youth, you know sixth grade to eighth grade and that was mainly exploring culture and you know: Basics of farming. We had our own little māla until the state came in and was like, “ah you haven't been here for long enough to claim squatters right... so let me take your land away” *laughs*. Like they always do!

After that I worked with the Aloha Ina Innovation Academy at King Intermediate and… that was mainly, you know, it was a school thing. So instead of having 8 different classes I had 7 classes in one room with everyone and then one elective that I could take. Basically, we would do all the English and math but not necessarily from a Western point of view, we would do it more so from an easier-to-understand point of view for people who can't sit in a chair and learn all day.

So we would go out to Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi and we would work in a Loʻi patch and we would learn you know: Haʻilima how to measure different things, how to do geometry in ʻaina. So, you know, most of us got a BETTER education out in the ʻaina because we had the actual examples right there. It wasn't on a paper it was you know: this is 20 feet, so measure out 20 feet best you can.

We went to plenty other community places. Papahana Kula we worked with them, they're really nice. Everyone loved that place because they get the really cold water close to the mountains but you know, it building a sense of community and ʻaina, relationship with the food you eat is very important.

After that was High school which was Ho'ulu ʻŌpio at Castle High School. Not many people know about them because it's kind of hidden on all 4 sides, but they have a 7 acre farm on campus and they grow kalo they grow uala. They grow māmaki tea plants, lemongrass they grow maiʻa… and mainly people know them because they do an imu every year for Thanksgiving but outside of that like they sell poi, they have a poi meal and they sell māmaki tea.

I was actually not the person to start it, but I took over from the people who started the māmaki tea business. So I worked with Māmaki tea and Kalo a lot and that's where I got a good amount of my varieties of kalo because of connections and friends I made and they were like: “Hey. Let's go on a road trip around the island and just buy kalo and work with people, get kalo”.

So I learned a lot about ʻĀina, a lot about how to COOK like a farmer because it's not just like “Okay, get whatever you can from the store and then pick chives or pick green onions from the garden”… It's “Okay. I have Ulu, I have Uala, I have Kalo, BUT how do I plan it so that itʻs not… this is only what I have for THIS month.”

So you have to plan it from: You stagger. Plant Kalo every week however much you're going to need that week… so that every week you harvesting. And as you harvest, you now have more huli so you plant that week or you plant next week! So, you always have a supply. With Uala, you don't really have to worry, Ulu kind of has a season so that that too. But it's more so like “How do I steer away from a heavy meat diet and learn about Complex carbohydrates and starches stuff that really keeps you going?”

People think protein is what's gonna keep you going. Protein helps… But if you have complex starches in your system, that is going to keep you running WAY longer than protein will at least in my experience. I don't know people are different but you know if you eat poi every day, you're going to have an amazing immune system. You're going to have energy all the time and if you can plan so that you eat poi every day, you won't have to worry about not eating poi. And you always have poi for your family poi on the table THATʻS the important thing.

Although, working with so much kalo you kind of get spoiled and i'm not a big fan of poi which is crazy. I know, Iʻm a farmer! But I prefer Paʻi ʻai because it's got more flavor. Some people call it “Poi Paʻa” too or just ʻAi, Paʻi ʻai is basically poi before you add the water. So it's a thick uh, similar to mochi but less sticky consistency and it's got all the flavor with none of the dilution.

I love it a lot more than poi. Yeah, I love it a lot more than poi because poi is for feeding the masses, but if you can afford to make Paʻi ʻai and you don't need to feed the masses, Paʻi ʻai is you know, it's a lot better, It's got a better taste. It's got a better texture, and it's got way more energy for a LOT less storage.

Did you have any mentors to teach you farming or were you always kind of self-taught in your regard?

When I was a lot younger, I started farming (well it was more so gardening). I kinda picked it up from my Grandma and my Mom kinda helped fuel it. You know I was a Fifth grader and I didnʻt have money, so anytime I was like “I wanna grow plants!” my Mom would buy me plants or we would go to plant sales…

I even used to make jewelry and sell it as an entrepreneur, I made earrings. Strictly earrings because that was easy to make for a fifth grader/ sixth grader. *Laughs* I still have a good amount of them because for christmas that was my gift to everyone just like “Alright, go to the back room of the house in the christmas party, pick out a pair you like and then anything past that you gotta buy” *laughs*. Everyone gets one pair for christmas. But um yeah, so that was my intro into the entrepreneurship side of things, was selling earrings at craft fairs and then people would be selling plants there and my mom would buy them for me.

Working with my Grandma in her tiny little garden, it wasn't really edible food stuff, it was ferns, it was decorative plants. I still learned how to put plants in pots, how to weed, when to take care of them, watering plants, nutrition.

From there I had plenty mentors llike I said, you know: Castle High School Key Project, King Intermediate. Even sixth grade at Ahuimanu Elementary we had a garden club and if you kept your grades good you could eat when we harvested everything the stuff. And itʻs important to have a Kumu because otherwise, you know, you're just kind of reaching blindly in the dark and that's kind of what our Kūpuna did when they first came here. So I was making my way through everything seeing when to plant stuff. And so for me, I didn't know the plants and I didn't know how to look up you know; “how do I take care of Kalo?” because most of Hawaiian learning is vocal, you know: Kumu to student.

I know that there's some sources online like Kūpuna Kalo, but for the most part farmers don't really write down stuff it's more so you know, ʻIke Kūpuna: I tell you what I know, you carry that with you and I tell them what I know, they carry that with them, and then they go their ways.

Itʻs the Halemua Halepeʻa style. Kumu to Luna, Luna to Alakaʻi, Alakaʻi to Haumana, Haumana to Keiki… If you repeat something enough, youʻll learn it. There's certain kalo varieties that if you work with it a lot, you'll know how it's different and what it looks like what it tastes like etc. But yeah having a Kumu with you or working with Kūpuna is the best way to learn in my opinion because there's just that CONNECTION to the previous generation where you know the past informs the future, the future carries the past.

So you're working with people who already know what you're doing… but they're not going to give it to you. That's the most important part. They're not going to tell you “Look at moi, this is what youʻre gonna do” theyʻre gonna tell you: “Look at the kalo variety, look at the fish that's NAMED Moi.”

“That's named Moi! Thatʻs named Moi!” Why? Look at them. You look at them then you say “OH it kind of looks like the fish!” and they're like, yeah, that's why. “Now look at the Manini”. “Oh, the Manini has stripes!”

Okay, look at the kalo, the manini kalo get stripes too?

So they they won't GIVE you the knowledge… but they'll give you the opportunity to learn and to teach yourself and that makes you a lot stronger as a person and as an Alakaʻi or a Luna and even as a Future Kumu or Mahiʻai.

So, you know if you're working with Kumu, it sometimes can be tough right. Because they WANT you to find the answer, they'll give you the basis, but they want YOU to find the answer. So you have to be patient you know, learning is not going to take place overnight and not even in one place. It's going to take place everywhere you go and everywhere you learn every day.

So you just got to be patient with The Kumu because youʻre lucky enough THEYʻRE being patient. 

So you just have to be patient with The Kumu?

Yes, you just have to be patient with The Kumu because the kumu you're lucky enough theyʻre being patient with you! *Laughs*.

If you think that The Kumu is hard to put up with… OH man, you should see their side of things *laughs*. I love working with Kumu. I love working with Kūpuna and I love having them around me and in the circles because you learn so much. There's so much ʻIke in their minds that you just want to pick their brain all day. 

The hard part is you can't be listening to them and writing it in your notes or writing it in a book because then they're just gonna be like “put that down! Stop doing it” and you're like, “okay”. So you forget a lot of things but the things you remember is what's important. And if you work with them long enough, you won't forget. You'll relearn and relearn and relearn and that's why it's important.

You have this extensive knowledge of almost every plant around you brah from what Iʻve seen. Meeting initially just to talk with you, you would point out every plant in public wherever we are and be like “thatʻs a so and so, thatʻs a so and so from so and so”.

You learned to distinguish what everything is in Hawaiʻi for plants and thatʻs such a rare gift to be able to have. What keeps that drive alive in WANTING to learn this ever-going compendium of knowing everything you see in The ʻĀina like this, and what made you start wanting to learn it?

Yeah, so the first Kalo I worked with was from Key project, I worked with it there and then I brought it home with me because they gifted me the huli. It was Piko Lehua Apei, itʻs got a pink corm itʻs a very sweet Kalo, and it puts off a lot of lau.

So it's kind of all-around good. It doesn't grow big corm, but it grows good. Growing it from Key project to now versus growing it from Castle High School to now… There's a big difference. It evolved definitely. So I if I didn't know what it was I would not even know the difference because it looks completely different. But the one I got from Key Project I grew it in Kāneʻohe clay, I didn't know how to tend to it how to loosen the soil/ what to add to it…

You know, I didn't know putting sand in the soil loosens it up. And I didn't know that Kalo grows up instead of down! When I first started out, I pretty much knew where to cut the Huli and how long to cook the corm for. And I knew how to kuʻi it, but I didn't have a board or stone. Because I didn't give it the right nutrition and I didn't loosen the soil correctly it kept growing, it stopped growing corm, it now just grows offshoots. So it'll grow, shoot another corm, grow another keiki. Food wise it's pretty much just limited to Lau, but the lau is small because it doesn't have enough nutrition.

So when I compare that one that's been there for I don't even know how many years right since sixth grade and now I Graduated High School, it evolved to now the point where it doesn't grow corm. It doesn't grow big lau and it just shoots an offshoot and grows a new keiki.  So now having the variety back again and I know how to CARE for it, it's crazy looking at Piko Lehua Apei that I just got and i'm growing it versus the one that I've had for years… and you know this one is completely green now!

There's no pink in it. The corm is white, and this one is Pink-green. It's got the sweet kalo corm, it shoots offshoots, but it doesn't shoot it far. Whereas this one shoots like the BIGGEST I've seen is like a five-foot away offshoot with like 3 keiki sprouting off of it.

What is the feeling you get from Farming exactly? From Mahiʻai, and Planting?

When Iʻm working in the ʻĀina, itʻs a very unique feeling… Itʻs kind of like youʻre in the zone? You know when you see an athlete doing what they're doing and you could YELL their name through a bullhorn but they're not going to look at you because they don't even hear you. That's kind of what it's like.

You're fully aware of your surroundings. So if someone did yell your name you would turn before they even got it done with. But you're so in the zone that you… at some point you start to feel the plants around you. Some people will be like, “ah, that's just all dakine, you lying! You're just looking too far into it! You're crazy”... but if you're working with plants and you recognize how plants feel, you know.

You know if it doesn't have enough nitrogen the leaf droops and turns yellow, if it has too much nitrogen it puts off a flower in the wrong time of the year or WAY too young in its life. When you're working with that you SEE the minor things that are different right? The stem is a little bit lower to the ground today than it was yesterday.

You feel what the plant is feeling.

What does a day of farming, of mahiʻai look like for you?

A day for me when Iʻm out here in the māla usually consists of what the work calls for, every day is different. If it's time to plant callow that rotted their pots, that's what I do (that's what we did today).

You know tending to the maiʻa, If I have brown stems that I need to cut off and lay around the base… before this was all maiʻa, it was a lot of hard work just weed whacking California grass by myself, occasionally neighbors would help but you know… a quarter acre of California grass for ONE man…

It's day by day. I would have to weed-whack a section, pick out the stumps, lay down the tarp, take some pohaku and weigh the tarp down. Now that all of this is planted it's tending to them, making sure they're watered, making sure the leaves are cut, making sure they don't have the banana. Larvae, because there's some moths that will cut your leaves and roll themselves into it so that kind of damages the plant.

What the process like planting Kalo?

So when I'm planting kalo, I try to be strategic with it. You know, I learn as I go, but the rows that I planned out are all different kalo. It's not different varieties, but it's all different varieties in every row. So I have one row that's just only for lau, because if you harvest the lau, the corm is going to be smaller.

And I have a variety in the next row over that IS different varieties, but they all have similar characteristics. It's all easy to tell by the different leaves. So, you know, one of them has an arrow or a heart shaped leaf. The other one has white spots all over it, the ʻelepaio, and then the next row after that is also for the kalo corm. That one is easy to tell by the hā, the stock is all different.

There's manini ones with stripes. There's ʻeleʻele ones that have a certain pattern that's easy to tell. And then tomorrow I'll be working outside and I'll be planting another row of kalo that's ready, and that one is going to be all just kalo of any kind. Doesn't really matter. And then the last row will be another lau row on the outside so that it's easy to get to when I need lau to harvest.

Ahh. Well I gotta ask you, what was the craziest thing thatʻs happened to you out in The Māla? Maybe problems youʻve encountered as a Mahiʻai that not everybody likes to talk about.

*Laughs*. Well since I rent, we have people contracted to weed whack the grass. Even though I tell em, you know, I can, I have a weed whacker, but they need a business license. So early on before I had like boundaries, I had a lot of pohaku to lay around where my plants were. I would often come outside and they would be down to the ground weed-whacked.

And that was a lot of emotions. You learn to control them. It's very frustrating. It's very... you feel vengeful. You want to get revenge. But in the end, you know, it's kind of a part of it.

You know, things are going to happen and you have to go with the flow. So I started, you know, putting barriers around stuff. I would go outside and talk with them and just be like, "Hey, if you mind, can you just dodge this area?" And they're totally fine with it. But, you know, if you don't talk to them, how are they going to know not to weed whack that? So it's a lot of finding yourself, grounding yourself and being like, "K, I gotta get my stuff together."

Another crazy thing was I had a nettle caterpillar. This used to have all Cali grass and Popolo berries. And there were some nettle caterpillars on the Popolo berries. They're orange and black, but they get spines on them all over. So, I'd be picking Popolo Berries, and then my arm would JOLT back real fast and start burning!

And, you know, it hurts a pretty good amount. You look underneath the leaf and you see them and you're like, "AH!" So then you get Aloe, Rub'em on there. Actually most of the time, I would kill them just because they're invasive and they hurt. And you don't really want that *laughs*.

A garden is supposed to be a safe space where sure, there's going to be dangers like centipedes, but Nettle Caterpillars are a lot harder to PREDICT than centipedes because if you don't bother a centipede, it's not going to bother you. Or even if you accidentally bother it, it's going to run away.

But caterpillars are slow, and Nettle Caterpillars are on the other side of the leaves… so kind of hard to dodge them if you're reaching for everything bare-handed, no gloves, and you just feel that rush on your hand and just, "Ah!".

Youʻre GONNA have stuff go wrong. Even if you just have one plant, you're gonna have stuff go wrong, because it's a day-to-day thing. And that's kind of what I like about agriculture, is it's not the same routine. It's the same routine, but with DIFFERENT stuff every day. So, I've had many, many plants die on this māla, and I've had many live and strive even.

I used to have 58 Kalo varieties, now I'm down to 36, I believe? And, you know, that's just a part of it. You want to have everything at first, until you realize, "Okay… NOW you gotta care for everything." 

Would you say you’ve had plenty of plants die on you before?

Oh yeah, I've had many not just varieties, but KALO varieties themselves die on me… I've had plenty things die on this māla. I've had plenty things strive on this māla. It's all dependent on each plant, you know. Some plants like dry, some plants like kind of half-half, some plants need plenty water. So, I've had plenty Kalo varieties, because each one has different needs.

And I was kind of rushing into it to get every kalo variety, so I've LOST plenty because I could not keep up with them and I couldn't take the responsibility of each one. I've had stuff, especially my ʻElepaio, Hā​​ʻuli and Hākea.

I was very happy to get those because they're not always the easiest to get. But, they slowly started to deteriorate after I planted them. It was a mixture of too much sunlight (because they were in direct sunlight) and they weren't māla-ready.

Have you ever quit on farming? Got fed up with it or yourself somehow, finding yourself walking away from it?

I would definitely say that I did stop at least doing as much as I was doing… I stopped like going outside and farming as much as I normally do… There was this period of time where I just stopped farming as frequently, especially compared to now. I got lazy. I kept coming home from work and I lay down in my bed, and once I lay down it's over. Like I'm laying down for the rest of the night or I'm making food but not going outside.

I got comfortable with being comfortable. And farming is kind of about making yourself UNcomfortable, and being comfortable with THAT because you know like dirty hands, not everyone wants dirty hands all the time but once you're in it and you're in the mindset like you're comfortable, once you have dirt on your hands it kind of feels weird to wash your hands, and once you have you know mud on your feet it's kind of weird to have dry feet for a while.

So there was a period of time where I stopped farming for a few months where I would only go out maybe once a week. My plants definitely suffered you know, I wasn't watering them as much or I was watering them too much on one day and then not at all for a week.

I had to snap myself out of it and eventually I did and I just sat… I did it by just sitting outside. I went into my garden and I sat there in the weeds, like everything was overgrown. I just sat in the weeds and I looked at all my plants and I went “Okay, I gotta get my stuff together” because this is not okay, you know this is not what I want, this is not what the plants want.

So I snapped out of it and you know since then I've been pretty consistent with I come outside, at least five times a week, even if it's only for an hour that's still enough time to water everything, check up on everything you know wipe off any pests or aphids, pick the weeds out, make sure the plants are doing good.

You know, an hour, a day out of 24 it's not that much to sacrifice for what you love. So sometimes, an hour even just the act of saying “Okay I'm gonna work for half an hour”, THAT half hour will turn to five hours before you know it and then you're like “Okay I'm gonna go inside and sleep now.”

What are your goals with farming? How far do you want to take this?

You know, initially I actually didn't even want to go into farming *laughs*. Gardening was my like side hobby and that was mainly because I wasn't all that great at it or at least that's what I thought and that's you know because I didn't put all the effort into it, I didn't focus really on it. Originally I wanted to be a chef and start a restaurant.

Because I really liked cooking ever since a young age, and it kind of merged. It blossomed into finding farming, I LOVED farming and I started farming instead, and then cooking with what I farm!

Honestly, if I went into culinary I don't think I would be as happy because it's a really aggressive thing to go through and I am not about having a stressful life like that, I would rather you know talk to plants *laughs*. Sounds crazy, everyone's looking at me like “what is this guy doing” and I'm like “I'm gonna harvest” you know but now that I'm IN farming. I definitely plan on continuing it… I would love to have an acre of land when I'm ready for it, that's the dream for most farmers. I can confidently say right now that I do not want an acre of land because I'm not ready for it and I already have a quarter acre in my backyard which is more than a lot of people have, so I'm gonna keep doing this until I'm more paʻa, and until I'm ready because my Kumu told me that too: a good way to get farmers going is you don't give them an acre, you give them a quarter acre. Then you expand from there. The ones who aren't made out for it, they WILL drop out, and all you lose is a quarter acre. You don't lose a full acre of space you know?

But when it comes to the long-distance future I kind of plan on two things:

I want to go into farming for sustainability and for myself because I don't like having to go to the grocery store and buy stuff that does not look right, like waxy food, and oddly bright food and bananas that don't taste right (they're just really ridiculously sweet), artificial sugars, bleached flowers… I don't want that.

I want HEALTHY food because that's what makes you feel good and here's actually a point to eating that, it gives you nutrition, nourishment. So that's one side of things is farming for myself and my community and my family. But also Iʻm going into being a Kahu because it's kind of like my birthright. I carry it with me. I was named by my Mom and my Sister's Kumu, Kumu Mailei.

She gave me the middle name "Turama”. Which in Tahitian (which is the language mine is in, means enlightenment, to be enlightening) and it shares that meaning in Maori as well: Enlightening, to be enlightening and enlightenment overall and it just so happens that when I grew hair, my main birthmark I have (itʻs a white streak of hair on the side of my head and from what I know), you know everyone has different knowledge.

But from what I know that's one of the signs of being a Kahu. And then I also carry my other middle name which, I'm a namesake to Kahunahana, which when you break it down is the work of the Kahu. You know it's just kind of destined for that. I never really felt FORCED, like I HAD to do that. I felt kind of maʻa to it like I have to do it because that's what I want to do and that's the path I'm meant to take, not from an outside source but from deep within my na'au.

What I truly know is I work with spiritual stuff in the ʻāina, in like people in groups I'm with but also just healing, like lāʻau lapaʻau work. I've had my fair share of sicknesses and my fair share of healings… I had COVID three times. First two times was two weeks for both of them and the last time was five days, and on that last time was because I had a daily schedule of lāʻau lapaʻau that was all natural I either grew it or I harvested, it nothing from the store. It was wild mamaki keʻo keʻo, olena that I grew in my backyard, and ginger that I grew in my backyard. Five days, no more COVID… tested negative. I've noticed that with all my sicknesses. I've noticed that with other people's sicknesses, when you have medicine that is LONG-TERM medicine, then you actually heal…

So to me long-term medicine is not you take it and you're cured, right? Because most of the things like NyQuill, DayQuill that's the medicine most people use that for sicknesses: You take it, you knock out, you wake up right or you take it, you stay up and then you take the other one. It's good for emergency cases because it works fast, but in the LONG run… it's gonna do way more damage than good because you're gonna build up an immunity.

You're gonna have those chemicals in your body, who knows what else is in it? I mean everything nowadays causes cancer because everything's got forever chemicals in it so long-term medicine to me is ʻāina. ʻĀina. The food you eat which gives nourishment, because there's an old ʻŌlelo Noʻeau for this:

“If you eat your food as medicine, you'll never have to eat your medicine as food.”

So, if youʻre eating good food and medicinal food in everything, in small doses, for your whole life… it's gonna build up an immunity. It's gonna build up your health, your immune system. Versus, take a pill, you're good!.. But then what at the end of your life now you've got you have to take FIVE pills because “this one it helps that but it CAUSES this, and then this one helps that cause- but then it causes this”! And so on and so forth…

From the western medicine I've used, I've always had side effects. I've had stuff that messes with my mind. I've had stuff that messes with my emotions, I've had stuff that messes with my like my metabolism. When it comes to ʻAina, that type of medicine, the only like side effects I've ever gotten was from māmaki because it's a diuretic and it makes you pee… that's about it. And from Nioi (Chili Pepper), it burns because it's chili pepper, and that's about it… because it's not MEANT to cause a side effect, it's not targeted at one thing. It's a GENERAL thing. So when you combine a bunch of general things and you cast a wide net, you catch EVERYTHING in that net. Mea Hawaiʻi, Meaʻai, Lāʻau Lapaʻau. If you are eating what you grow, and you grow what you eat, and you provide for your community (food), then you don't have the problem of pills. You don't have the problem of drugs, because how can you get addicted to any drug if you're happy, you're eating healthy, you don't need that dopamine fill you're not in your “house”, right?

Thereʻs a study done that PROVES the connection between vitamin D deficiency (which is when you stay inside, you don't get enough sunlight, you sleep all day) Vitamin D deficiency has a direct link to depression and suicidal ideation.

If you've got a farm, it snaps you out of it just like how I snapped out of it. You have something to take care of even if it doesn't feel like it's alive, it's ALL alive. It grows, it bleeds, it has sap! 

So if you're working with your food and you eat with what you work with, then you don't really have that issue as much. I have never had anxiety when I worked with plants. Iʻve only had anxiety when I've worked with people. And that's another thing.

If you can't get along well with people, you can always get along with plants. Plants listen and talk with whispers, just like the wind. They donʻt yell, they don't take over, you don't have to worry about plants…

Would you say the plants reciprocate it?

Oh definitely. How can you not care for a plant that FEEDS you? If this Maiʻa a tree right here and this Maiʻa tree right here, if I mālama these two but I don't mālama the rest, these two are not going to provide for me because they know what I'm doing.

They know that my mana is NOT in this area… it's in there and there. That's greed, thatʻs selectiveness. And there IS selectiveness in unique traits of plants, but you take care of all the plants because they're all connected. Down to The Mycelium; the mushroom roots that connect all of it, the big roots of the plant itself, all of it's connected.

So if you don't feed the plants all the way over there, they're going to communicate to this side “I'm malnourished” and this side is going to feed that side, and now it balances out right? These ones aren't going to provide food for me because I'm not providing for those ones. They are going to help each other before they help me, because that's what matters. And that's why I help all of them. 

Is that why you do what you do?

That's why i do what I do, yeah. Because if I don't care for all of them, what's the point in having all of them? There's no point, you're just hurting honestly. It's like if you have a kid too young you know? That kid is going to have trauma because kids raising kids, they're not mature yet. They're not ready.

There's going to be a lot of things you do wrong and that's kind of what it is: kids raising kids. If Iʻm caring for keiki but Iʻm still a keiki, I'm gonna do stuff wrong. But if I am learning and growing as I go, and I'm not staying the same, then the plants won't stay the same either and that's a good thing. Because then the keiki grows strong, I grow strong. And it's a VERY strong connection you grow.

Youʻre very self aware and driven when it comes to what you do in the Mālā. As a Mahiʻai, even as a Lāʻau Lapaʻau. And I think itʻs exactly what Hawaiʻi needs. So I gotta ask. What makes you Delusional in what you do?

What makes me Delusional is my care for my LACK of care. I very much nourish the idea that I don't care what other people think, and that's a hard thing to say because obviously everyone cares what everyone thinks. Maybe not everyone, but you're gonna have a little bit in no matter what! You're gonna still have the thought pop up of “there's people around”, “they're gonna see what I'm doing” and you're gonna change what you do because of that. But if I take the small things that make me me, and I KEEP those things as I grow up, then you stay yourself… You don't get lost in the public herd of ʻsheepʻ that are all just being lambs to the slaughter right?

So when you see me walking down the road in the pouring rain, with Kalo on one shoulder and a bag of Keawe wood in the other hand, I don't care if you are going to laugh at me.

Laugh, I'm having a great time.

Uwē ka lani, Ola ka honua. 

When the sky weeps, The Earth lives.

The Rain, it takes people out of their comfort zone because… it's something they can't control, no matter what. You can bring an umbrella, but your feet's gonna get wet. Your calves are gonna get wet. And yeah, you can't control the rain. People try to, because humans have always had this ʻwillʻ to control everything.

Because they're small, and they don't know how to connect to the bigger. But when you have this tiny thing dropping all over you, it gets irritating. But if you just don't care, if you connect to it, put your arms out, you look up to the sky, and you just rub the water into your skin, you don't feel it anymore.

And you feel happy. Love the cold. You love the water. You don't really care. And that's why the rain helped me with not caring about the tiny little droplets of people just saying, "That guy's weird." Or, "What are you doing?”

I don't care. I'm in the rain and I'm loving it. Throw the storm at me.

I Love your view on this, how you follow the drum of your OWN beat, and your beat only.

I wanted to ask, what do you do when youʻre not working as your hobbies?

Ah well, when I'm not farming, I'm fishing *laughs*. I like, I love fishing. More so the lu'u, free diving. I usually stay in the 20-foot range, anything above that. But one of my family's, not necessarily Aumakua, but our Akua is Kanaloa.

We are very much connected to Kanaloa. It skipped a few generations. My, I think, great, great Tutu, she would feed our Aumakua. She would go out into the bay and this shark would come in.

And she would feed the shark, and she would pet the shark, and she would swim with the shark. And after that, there wasn't plenty mana in the people, in what they were doing. The generations in between then, they didn't really have that sense of connection as much.

But you got to my generation, my brother, my sister, and I all have that connection.

And so being in the Kai, and being fully submerged in the water… it silences everything. And most people are uncomfortable with silence, but it's a silence that has small sounds…

Can you get that silence, that same sense from something else like hunting or anything else youʻve come across?

No. There's nothing I can compare to the feeling I get when I'm diving because it takes you out of your element. You know, on land, you have some control. You've got a good amount of control. In the water, you can't swim faster than anything, unless you're racing a sea cucumber or a van. *Laughs*. But all the predators that could hurt you, they don't necessarily want to, but they could. You're not going to swim faster than them. So you have to be aware that you are in a situation that your ancestors were in.

You know, you don't have control. You are within their control. And so it's a mindfulness.

It forces you to be mindful of everything, because you have to look around constantly and you have to worry about other people. Even still disconnected from people, you have to worry about boats, because people don't always know how to drive boats.

And if you hear a propeller coming!.. Even if you have your flag up, you have to dive down, and you have to make sure you can stay down. But it silences everything in the sense of what the wind does, right? You don't hear the cars. You don't hear the planes. You don't hear drones. You don't hear people.

You hear the crackling of the salt.

You hear the waves crashing, and the ticking of the fish, which most people don't even know fish do make a sound. It's just they make it more so when they've got a spear near them. But fish make sounds. And there's a connection, too.

You are TAKING the life of an animal, and you see it. You're not far away with a bow and arrow, right? A spear gun has a range. A three-prong has a way shorter range. So you're seeing the eye of the animal as you hit it. And as you collect it.

And then also for another hobby, I like going Holoholo. That's what Hawaiians say, and that's what we say nowadays. Instead, now (because) it means you're going somewhere, right?

“Holoholo Mauka!” “We're going to the Mountain!” That's what we say. As soon as someone says that F word, and that's a more bad word than the other F word, you got to cancel everything *laughs*. Soon as you say, oh, we're going F-- done, you're out.

Put all the poles back, put everything back. We're not going. *Laughs*.

LMAO. Sorry, for anybody who doesn't know, I'm going to ask you to say it.

I know. I have to say the “naughty” word on camera. I apologize. But a month from now, I'm going fishing.

That is your--

That is my F word, but that's my passion.

Because it's more than just, you know, gardening. You know how people have the hobby of gardening or houseplants?  It's food. Even still yet, YOU are providing food. And it's a connection to your food, because you're harvesting this animal. And even though it can't talk, it can't scream, it looks at you.

It watches you. It panics. It knows what you're doing.

And you have to understand that, the faster you can put this animal out of its pain, the faster you can mahalo it. As well as that, it's fun! The fight is fun for sure because you don't know what's going to happen! Fighting the fish, it could come off, it could snap your line or you could reel it in.

And if you're not like 100% knowledgeable about fishing (which I'm not), you don't know what's at the end of that line. Certain things fight differently. And when you know how it fights, you can tell what you have on the line when your line is still 50 feet out.

But not knowing what's at the end of that line is fun sometimes because you reel it in, and you could have anything from a pāpio to a shark. And I've had that before! Baby hammerheads versus pāpio. They fight similarly but differently. But the fun in the fight, the fun in prepping everything and the fun in you have in downtime. You get away from technology. The most I have is a headphone in, listening to music or listening to a podcast. But it's really fun to see how far you can cast. See how well you can fight this fish. It's seeing what you can do with what you have because it's chance too. You can't jump in the water and stab the thing.

You gotta pray, you gotta wait, you gotta do everything right. You have to just hope!

Who would you say you owe mahalos to in what you do?

I owe mahalo's to everything. I owe mahalo's to my ʻOhana because they support me, because they started me out with farming and with Holoholo. Buying me the stuff I couldn't buy before because I'm a kid, teaching me what they know about it. Even if they don't know much, it's STILL more. And you're always a student.

I owe mahalo's to my friends. My fellow Haumāna throughout the years because they all back me. They support me. My brother, “The Kalo Man” is what he was known by in High School *laughs*. He is one of the main ones that taught me to be me and not care what people thinks. And, you know, my girlfriend, she keeps me sane and she keeps me passionate about what I love and focus on, not giving up on it. All my Kumus. I've had so many. I can't remember them. So I have all their names written down *Laughs*. But they taught me so much over the years that it made me who I am. And unfortunately, one is just not here with us anymore.

But his Mana IS still around in the fact that I'm still here, and the other Haumana are still here…

And what else are you doing?

I work with LT: Liliʻuokalani Trust. I'm an advisory committee member. That's my job title. But basically, I handle anything to do with ʻĀina. I'm not a specialist, but I'm a youth voice, which is what is very important to them. And it's very important to me. And anytime there's, you know “we need to know how we can incorporate ʻāina into this”, then they asked me and I'm like “Okay, well, this is what we can do.”

You know, having Kuʻi Kalo events, having Meaʻai workshops, having Lāʻau Lapaʻau workshops you know (and the Flu season's coming up). And then I'm having one in a little bit about natural cough medicine, how to make your own cough syrup from natural stuff.

And next week I'm having a Meaʻai workshop that we're going to Kuʻi Kalo in and make Laulau!

What is that that you were building when I came over earlier?

Oh, yeah. So tonight I am prepping. I'm splitting a bunch of wood and stocking up on that because for Thanksgiving and stuff like that, I tried my hand at making an umu, which is the Samoan style of cooking. Hawaiian style is an imu, but umu is above ground.

And I tried it for Thanksgiving because the source that I normally go to wasnʻt doing it last year for one reason or another. And so I have everything I need to now that I have all the maiʻa. So I figured, why not try it? You know, always trying new things.

I thought of it again last week, maybe two weeks ago, and I was just like, okay, let's do it now. Let's get started now so that two weeks from now I can decide yes or no.

What is your final message you would like to leave with everybody?

Keep going through the hardships.

Be aware of mental health and physical health. Do what you love, but also do what makes you money so that you can DO what you love. Take care of the people around you. Take care of your ʻOhana. And most importantly, don't care what other people think, and…

Be Delusional.

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Turama Medeiros: Planting for The Future, Farming for The Soul, Healing fo da ʻĀina.

“You take care of all the plants because they're all connected. Down to The Mycelium; the mushroom roots that connect all of it, the big roots of the plant itself, ALL of it's connected…”

- Turama Medeiros