Our COʻŌ Story
One of my fondest memories from 2020 is observing our ʻŌhiʻa lehua tree with my son, Ezra. The minute we knew homelife was going to become the new way of life, I felt the need to turn our yard into a #homelab. On Earth Day, we picked up our ʻŌhiʻa Love packet in Kailua and that’s when the idea came to me. The kit included this wonderful tool to observe the lehua flower stages. And so on May 27, 2020, Ezra and I started our kilo (ʻŌhiʻa lehua) practice right from our yard! In the first 78 days we observed three stages: ʻōpuʻu lehua, kukuna, hua. From the 79th day to the 158th day: We observed the ʻanoʻano and hua hakahaka stages. We also planted the seeds were collected and observed germination within 14 days.
Our First Time Collecting Seeds
On January 17, 2021, nearly 236 days later, we collected our last seeds from branches we could reach on our tree. We’ve discovered that kilo, the practice of observation over time, gives ideas within us the time to grow and expand and as a result we become more inquisitive and more thoughtful with our actions and intentions. In a world where it’s easy to get sucked into a digital interface, kilo can counteract and connect us to profound ideas that didn’t exist before. I’m sharing this because when I started Kilo Books Hawaiʻi, I didn’t foresee that it would lead me to my new passion for growing ʻŌhiʻa lehua from seeds.
