Wishing Bell - Burning Basket of New Beginnings

On the evening of January 1, 2008, in a brilliant display, the Wishing Bell - Burning Basket of New Beginning, met it's final conclusion through fire. The hanging bell was woven with locally gathered natural materials, and filled with the written intentions that were placed inside. All of the heartfelt messages, inside and out, were released through the sparks and flames that drifted up into the starry night sky.


This collaborative woven basket sculpture, at Kalani Oceanside Retreat, Big Island, Hawaii, was the 10th in a series of similar community interactive art projects facilitated my Mavis Muller, Homer Alaska, and due in part to funding from the Black Rock Arts Foundation, San Francisco, CA.

Art facilitator Mavis Muller added the finishing touches to the large woven basket sculpture before it is ignited. The origami paper whales were created by elementary students in Homer, Alaska, and sent to Hawaii as a gift to be placed on this burning basket sculpture with wishes for a safe journey for the humpback whales that migrate from Alaska to Hawaii.

Thanks to all who contributed unique efforts and talents toward the ambiance of the evening, including fire spinning artists Maxwell and Julia, traditional Hawaiian chanting by Kimo, drummers, and hand-painted luminaria by Shola.


May the warmth of the memories we shared keep us illuminated and connected.

Something has ended.
Something has begun.


Learn more about the Burning Basket Project at www.mavismullerart.com

Welcome to Kalani

by Reid Manchester


It changes you.

Build your walls as high as you want. Make them 6 feet thick. Use the hardest stone. Eventually your walls will be worn down.

Sure, you can fight it. Hold people at arms length, cling to your bad habits, defence mechanisms, wit, charm, sarcasm, humor, fear. Hide behind shyness, a quiet disposition, 9 thin layers or three thick ones. It doesn’t matter.

You’ll start to care about people. Eventually. Because they care about you.

You’ll stop seeing faults and start seeing strengths. You’ll stop criticizing and start encouraging. You’ll BE one of those strange people that walks around hugging people you just saw an hour ago. Give it enough time and you’ll hug strangers, regardless of their asinine concept of personal space.

Those notions you have about gender and sexual preference will fade. Soon it won’t matter. Soon you won’t care what they’re wearing, or if they’re wearing anything at all.

All that fear you’ve lived with your whole life? Fears about who you are, what you do, how you do it, what you look like, what others think, what your life means. Don’t worry, that blanket of fear will unravel. You’ll be free of it soon.

Welcome to Kalani.

The Angel of Kalani

Invocation for The Angel of Kalani
by Lorien McClenaghan

We are grateful
to the angel of Kalani
for overlooking the spirit
of this community
from its inception
until now.

We join
to formally invoke
the presence
of the angel of Kalani

May she continue to guide this community
to grow as an ever deepening place of love,
personal freedom,
fun,
inner peace
and spiritual understanding.

And so it is.

The Secret of Kalani

- Lorien McClenaghan
Volunteer, Oct. 2007 - Jan. 2008


There is a secret at Kalani,
and ... 'most everybody knows it!

When you come here, you change.
You release the past of stress and inhibition.

And release the YOU...
The you so deeply yearning to be free.

Free ... free to express in each moment,
whatever comes, whatever feels, whatever is
the essence of your true Self in that moment in time.

The old timers,
they just watch and wait ...
To see the newcomer bite on the Kalani bait.

And after the seed is planted,
the essential flower grows,
unfurls its delirious petals of many colors,
and sticks out its tongue in delight!