13

"And how do you think you think?" asked the shaman-kapua.

Dressed in his typical duck-cloth shorts, short sleeve open shirt, and sandals, the old man was smiling as if he had just set the joke for a coming punch line.

We were sitting near the beach, in the shade of the trees nearby. The waves were keeping their irregular pattern on the shore, and birds cried above as they hunted for food. The world seemed at peace, his question almost an interruption to this quiet scene.

I answered, "I don't know, never thought that far out."

"Look it over, let me know." The old man was still smiling, and turned to look out to sea.

"Well, there's how it happens. Looking at things objectively."

"True. How else do you think?"

Pausing, I said, "And then there are people who think with their feelings - how it affects them, how they react to whatever happened."

"Again true. How else do you think?"

A longer pause. More looking out to sea. "There are things which stand for other things. Symbols. What things mean."

"Yes and right again. Is there another way you think?"

Now the pause stretched a long time. One could almost see the shadows move from the sun’s passage before I finally concluded, "There's how things work together, like wind, sea, sun, birds. The holistic view of things. Natural systems and interaction."

"Ah, that is so. Very good."

And with that, my friend the shaman-kapua rose and walked down the beach in the direction toward his hut.

I stayed and sat to digest what he had just made me figure out for myself.

The sea continued its irregular beat against and with the shore. Trees overhead whispered the songs of the breeze, while flying and dipping birds gave their own odd riffs and accent to this unwritten, but eternal melodic tune.