Aloha kākou, welcome everyone to Ka PŌ, a dive into darkness. Night presents a realm often less seen though more deeply sensed than ka lā the light. In 2017 when I wrote Ka LĀ, I envisioned writing Ka PŌ as a companion volume. While Ka LĀ is a colorful lani ānuenue rainbow of poems, pics and paintings; Ka PŌ explores genesis within obscure nocturnal shades. Fierce and fanciful creative sparks emerge, like lava fountains from the dark enshrouds and deep currents of earth's primordial core; like power condensed in the vortexes of the macro universe's black holes; like energy inter-playing within micro cellular and atomic elements. Consider that night, perhaps more than daylight, affirms that we are connected, we exist, we're alive. In birth we emerged from darkness; hence night is our origin, home, and initial comfort zone. Our dreams are stimulated by the physical, mental and spiritual bombardment of the sun's life-giving, yet deadly-scorching rays. Our reveries have the power to reflect on and make healthful sense of each day's experiences, the daze of connects and disconnects. For me the final REMS, the last dreams, generally message "you are connected." I settle into a balance of soul and goal. Opening my eyes, I become ready to face the day's interplay of often stark "realities." A two-to-twenty-minute meditative journey helps prepare me. Whether at home, in a plane, driving a car, or on the edge of anger, conscious breath is my key to a balanced sanity. Gratitude for my very first inhalation, followed by a creative replication of my first exhalation, whether whimper or primal scream, empowers me to advance, breathing through patterns of yoga, exercise, and meditation that not only enhance the few minutes I have, but also dance within me through the remaining minutes of the day. Per the musical "Rent," I'm also prepared to plan ahead to fully live a year's 525,600 minutes. This is my Zen-artist-writer-lover's way. In Ka PŌ are creations by fellow artists, including a portrait of me by beloved mentor Arthur Johnsen. Beside me are swim fins, extensions that transform me back into being a merman diving into the ocean's depths. To fully be a creature of the sea I've goggles that help me recognize kin in the shadows and blue-toned colors in the dark underworld. In these depths life originated, per the Hawaiian creation chant, the Kumulipo, corroborated by modern science. Science affirms evolution's passages from sea larvae to today's creatures, still primarily comprised of water as we traverse land, sea and sky. Similarly, the Kumulipo notes continuing similarities between ocean life and life beyond. For example, the pua'a pig is thought to have its ocean counterpart in the humuhumunukunukuapua'a, the fish with pig's nose. We are all migrants; we've made and continue to make life changing transitions. Around 60,000 years ago our ancestor homo sapiens began migrating beyond East Africa, everyone's root home. These journeying legs are our legacy. Easy for me to say, since a career in dance helped me build and appreciate a spectrum of relations with people and places. In a balletic balance of ka pō and ka lā, light and night, twenty-two of these career years were in loving partnership with African American dancer and choreographer Earnest Morgan. Together, in one of the most verdant, fiery and vibrant areas of Earnest's Hawai'i birth land, we cofounded an educational retreat focused on nature, culture, wellness and sustainable living. That Kalani Honua, literally harmony of heaven and earth, is a balance of ethereal and physical, of ka pō and ka lā, that has thrived, transforming lives, for over forty years. Life eternally entertains. When standing in the sun, or any spot light, note how your shadow is a darken, flipped or mirrored image of yourself, yet stretched or shortened, distorted and taking on the contours of the environment. Read Ka PŌ; dance with your shadow.