HISTORY

The original inhabitants of pre-Polynesian Hawaii lived in villages in which families had a specific tradition and area of expertise. If you had a broken bone, you would seek healing from the family who had knowledge of how to heal broken bones. Other families specialized in the medicinal uses of plants and herbs, in building and farming, and in other specialized crafts and skills.

In Ancient times, the healing work of lomi lomi was deeply integrated into the community. Everyone did healing work as part of day-to-day life, in alignment with the energy of the Earth, of nature, and of Life. The Kahuna leaders and shamans of each village practiced Kahuna Lomi Lomi and were specialists in everything from chiropractic lomi lomi to lomi lomi for pregnancy. 

The tradition of Ke Ala Hoku is known as "The Pathway to the Stars." It is special work for the few, not for the many. Ke Ala Hoku was only performed in the Temple Space as a Sacred Rite-of-Passage Ceremony for leaders of the community, those going through a major transition, those who were coming into a place where they would need powerful connectivity back to their consciousness and bodies, and those chosen with demonstrated readiness to deepen their spiritual growth and connection to the Great Mystery of Life. 

Before beginning a Sacred Ceremony, the Kahuna would draw a line in the sand and state, "If you are prepared to die, step across this line." Are you ready to die from the old into the new?

A traditional Ke Ala Hoku Sacred Ceremony involved being worked on for anywhere from ten hours in one day to twenty-four hours per day, up to fifteen days in a row, with one to five Kahuna working on you with drumming and chanting pounding in the background of the small, hot Temple space illuminated with torches. After fifteen days, all of you would be completely rearranged, restored, rejuvenated, and renewed.

This practice is designed to stimulate and awaken your cellular consciousness. Ancients believed each iota of every electron, cell, nucleus, hair follicle, and skin cell of your body has a life and a unique Being-ness and wisdom of its own. Just like you are a unique being amongst eight billion other beings, that's how they saw each part of us. All trees, plants, stars, ocean waves, and creatures large and small are Life. And so each tiny aspect of us is alive, with its own wisdom and independent and interdependent Being-ness. This deep wisdom within each cell of our bodies is not accessible through our conceptual mind. This Life Force operates on its own and is the Great Mystery of our body.

Every minute of every day, we lose approximately 30,000 to 40,000 dead skin cells. Humans shed their entire outer layer of skin every two to three weeks. Since yesterday, we have shed over one million skin cells and pumped 12,000 miles of blood through our bodies. Our hair is constantly growing, eyes lubricating, food digesting, skin regenerating, and Life moving and flowing through us, all without our trying to think about it with our minds. This is the Great Mystery inside of us.

Ke Ala Hoku is based on a sacred dance with each part of the body moving in the shape of Infinity. A "flying" movement ensues, moving in flow with the nature and the Life inside of ourselves, harmonizing and integrating in a dance of Infinity. All of the Practitioner's Life, Ancestry, Spirit, and Being-ness meeting all of your Life, Ancestry, Spirit, and Being-ness.

Once you return to the Life inside of you and regained access to that infinite resonance within, it may easier to feel into it and from all of Life - people, plants, animals, water, air, and land.

In mainstream Western culture, we are mostly identified in our minds. The body is seen as a vehicle to get us where and what we want. We use the body to go to work, get around, give us pleasure, and have fun. We direct where the body goes and what happens to it with our mind. Even health-conscious people will move the body and think it into beneficial breathing, poses, and eating. In doing this, we continue to use the body with the mind. We treat the body as we would a car. If it feed it, fuel it, and move it right, it may last longer, but ultimately our minds are still in charge and directing the show.

Through Sacred Ceremonies, we may be able to connect with these entities that exist as the harmonious life force steadily moving and flowing through us. As we listen with a sense of discovery, we may ask: What is it that this Great Mystery inside of me wants from me? What does the Life Force inside of me that knows how to operate life, lubricating my eyes, growing my hair and nails, moistening my mouth, and ensuring my heart beats steadily, need to tell me?

As we begin to listen, we may recognize that our mind and all the things we've been taught by family, society, school, and media pale in comparison to the wisdom of the Intelligence of Life.

It has been said by those with presence in the opening of this work that there is more intelligence in your big toe than there is in your entire brain. Your big toe embodies the Great Mystery and Intelligence of Life. It knows how to grow, how to heal, and how to be exactly as it needs to be in its functioning. It does not require any specific thought, argument, rationalization, or aspiration to be. It just is. 

Ke Ala Hoku may access leading from the mind to being in the body and allowing the Great Mystery and Intelligence of Life to lead. In this process, we may find things that we have pushed down, that we may not want or been able to deal with. We get to meet these things as the body presents them to us in order to be free. We can never be free if we are weighed down by carrying heavy loads of contracted and caged emotions, limiting beliefs and ways of being, and expectations and judgments that our minds have accrued but are not our Truth.

Those who have and continue to transmit and teach this sacred work encourage you to "feel what you feel and keep moving."

The Ancients recognized the Body as an embodiment of Spirit. Life and Spirit exists in the cells of the body. The reason why we can walk, talk, and connect is because of this Life Force is moving through us. No matter how much we know, who we are, what we learn, or how spiritual we are, if we fail to take the next breath, we no longer exist in human form.

The Life Force, the ability to breathe and move and what keeps us alive, is much more important than anything we could think of with our minds.

Nothing in this work is good or bad, right or wrong, light or dark. The Ancients recognized that everything is Ohana (family). Everything is Life.

This work presents the possibility of people more deeply accessing their cellular, mental, emotional, ancestral, genetic, and spiritual wisdom. It may or may not act as a bridge to access pathways to physically, mentally or spiritually unexplored areas within the Self. The result of these explorations are multi-tiered and can range from subtle to uncomfortable to fundamentally life-changing for potentially both the giver and the receiver of the work.

Ke Ala Hoku Sacred Ceremonies are not a type of of massage. This practice is a dynamic re-patterning process that works with the body, mind and spirit that allows the recipient an opportunity for realignment, to shift old and non-contributing patterns within the bodies, and possible therapeutic effects in addition to the recipient's deeper sensitivity to and connecting with their own body.

Once relaxation is achieved, specific deeper work can be commenced. It is important that a relaxed and pain-free (albeit not sensation-free) state is maintained throughout the entire session. 

"Ke Ala Hoku is probably the rarest surviving form of Lomi Lomi today.  While it maintains the essence of it’s ancient roots, sessions are typically 2.5 to 3 hours instead of 10.  Therapeutic Lomi Lomi techniques might be included, however these are applied with no intention to heal or fix.  Ke Ala Hoku creates a container allowing the Life Spirit Force in the cells of both giver and receiver, to be the healer.  This form is appropriate for those in emotional, mental, or physical transition — from jobs, relationships & deaths, among others -— and works with the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, ancestral, and energetic bodies in motions which inhabit the resonance of Life Itself.   The session is conducted to ancient chant as well as music from the recipient’s ancestral lineage.  Working with music, breath, movement and attention, this work becomes a vehicle for deep transformation on all levels of being.

"Passed down through generations by the original inhabitants of pre-Polynesian Hawai'i, this practice of Ke Ala Hoku, a.k.a. The Pathway to the Stars, involves a flow that facilitates a peeling away of conceptual reality, allowing a deep inner awareness to arise.

We are reconnected to our Sacredness and awakened to the Sacredness of all that surrounds us.

How this unfolds is unique to each person, and different each time it is experienced."

​-Jody Mountain