Kauai Swamp Trail of Healing
We Do Not
Heal Alone
The same trail a grieving queen once walked. A story about presence, community, and the kind of healing that only happens together.
Some journeys are walked specifically to heal.
I am deep in the swampy wetlands of the Alakai Swamp Trail in Kauai, moving through fern covered jungle in one of the wettest places on earth. Ohia and koa trees line the moss covered path. It is easy to get lost here. Parts of the trail are buried under overgrown ti leaves and mud.
I am so grateful for our Kumu, Katrina DeJesus and Malia Nobrega-Olivera, for sharing this trek with me and our Hula Halau O Nalua ohana.
This trail holds a story. It is the one Queen Emma walked, one of the Hawaiian Islands' most influential rulers, as she grieved the loss of her son and her husband. She came here in her sorrow, and the journey brought her spiritual healing and peace.
Seven Miles That Feel Like a Hundred
It is only seven miles, but the constant changes in terrain make it feel like a hundred. We take our time on narrow, wobbly planks, most of them rotted or broken. I do not expect this hike to include parkour. We swing on branches, jump across rivers, and leap onto planks to keep from falling into the muddy bog. A few of us lose a shoe to the sticky mud, and it takes teamwork to pull it back out.
Even with so many of us on the trail, we do not overpower the peaceful stillness of the forest.
It is a time to be completely present. With nature. With each other. With something deeper in ourselves.
The View from Kilohana
When we reach the Kilohana lookout, the view takes my breath away. Hanalei Bay, seen from the opposite side of Kauai. All of that effort, all of that mud, and this is what waits at the top.
The hike is challenging and beautiful and healing all at once. I am grateful to have bonded even closer with my hula sisters.
What This Trail Understands
There is a reason Queen Emma walked here to grieve. Some journeys are walked specifically to heal. And there is something about moving through difficulty in the presence of others, holding each other up, pulling each other out of the mud, that heals in a way solitude cannot.
We do not walk this trail to escape anything. We walk it to feel everything, together.
The Story Becomes a Dance
This healing journey does not end at the trailhead. Our halau will carry it home, into the language we know best. Hula. The story of this trek, the mud and the mist and the holding of one another, will live on in movement, told the way our ancestors told their stories.
Queen Emma understood something we sometimes forget. That grief needs a path to walk. That healing is not a place you arrive at, but a journey you move through, ideally with others beside you. On this trail, in the mud and the mist, with my hula sisters pulling me forward and me pulling them, I understood it in my body. We do not heal alone. We heal in connection.
A grieving queen once walked this trail and found her peace. Generations later, we walk it and find each other.
Some journeys are walked specifically to heal. This is one of them.
Dr. Maria Grace Wolk · mariagracewolk.com