GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Important Message From Kumu Manu

“What I share during our Koa Wāhine gatherings comes through the lens of my teachers, my decades of training and discipleship, my scholarship, my lived experience, and my own understanding. Where I am sharing historical information, I will distinguish the record from interpretation. Where I am sharing what has been transmitted to me, I will identify it as direct transmission. And where I am offering my own understanding, I will tell you that too.

If something I say feels right to you, investigate it further. If something feels off, investigate it further. Ask questions. Seek other sources. Speak with other practitioners and cultural knowledge holders. Think and feel critically.

For years, I have provided books and outside resources so participants could continue that inquiry beyond me. I will no longer provide a prescribed reading list. Not because I discourage research, but because I believe wāhine should learn how to conduct their own inquiry, encounter competing perspectives, and develop discernment rather than simply inherit mine.

I am responsible for teaching with integrity. I am a guide. I am not asking anyone to surrender their discernment, intellect, naʻau, or agency to me.

You are responsible for what you do with what you receive.

There is another responsibility that belongs to all of us: intellectual integrity.

It is difficult to accurately critique what happens during a Koa Wāhine gathering if you have never attended, a curriculum you have never studied, or a practice you have never experienced. Just as I ask participants not to accept my teachings without inquiry, I encourage others not to form conclusions about this work without first understanding what the work actually is.

Inquiry should precede judgment. Experience should inform opinion.

So, if you are curious about what happens inside a Koa Wāhine gathering, I offer a simple invitation:

Come experience it for yourself.

Come into the space. Listen. Ask questions. Participate. Experience what is being taught and how it is being taught. You are not required to agree with everything you encounter. But you will leave knowing what you are agreeing or disagreeing with.

Koa Wāhine is not about teaching wāhine what to think. It is about strengthening their capacity to know, question, discern, and choose for themselves. Come with curiosity.”

—Kumu Manu