Getting to the Beauty of it all...

An ipu (pronounced ee-poo) is an ancient Hawaiian instrument used to accompany the `olapa, or dancers. During the Hula pa ipu noho, or sitting hula with the ipu, the thin-necked gourd was used by each dancer as they rang out with chant and movement, keeping time and signing with the instrument. This is different from other forms of the kahiko, or classical hula, where the ho`opa`a, or chanter, kept time and rang out in voice: the ho`opa`a was, in essence, the storyteller utilizing voice and instrument, while the `olapa told stories through the incorporation of movement, usually done instrument-free with the exception of sounds coming from the kahea (call) of the voice, and the rhythmic thumping of hands and feet. (There are other exceptions as well, but they will not be discussed in this blog.) Even in the Hula pa ipu noho, the dancers are still considered `olapa, this is important, but there is not usually someone keeping time for everyone. In this instance, everyone keeps time.

I tell you this because, this passed week, I had to make my own ipu from a gourd my Kumu Hula, or teacher, gave to me. When she told me that I would be making the instrument, I became excited at the idea. However, after class, I walked out to the bag of gourds and was astonished at what I saw: I expected to see bright and golden gourds with perfectly formed heads, eloquent growth lines in red and rust color, shining in the morn. Instead, each gourd was gray and black, flaking off old skin and looking rather decrepit. They had excema. I sighed to myself, knowing that this would take more work than originally thought.

A few days later, I did what many have done before me: I sat at the Pacific and scrubbed my gourd in the serenity of sunlight and sand. My bucket full of saltwater, I kept the gourd, its rounded body (kino) resting against the nook in my knee, while the smaller head (po`o) was clutched under my hand. My left arm worked the scrubber back and forth across the surface, careful not to scratch the beauty laid beneath the ashes. For the next hour and a half, my mind was occupied with bringing to the surface the thing I knew to be long hidden beneath. The black and gray quickly fell to the ground with the initial scrapings, but some portions were hard to remove. It was as if the gourd itself hated to relinquish the old self it knew it to be. It had no idea of what was hidden beneath all of the dead weight, waiting to come up like the dawn.

Maybe God works on us the same way: He takes us, is careful with our heads, but inevitably scrubs on us until He sees the beauty originally intended.

I let the ipu dry in the sunlight and moonlight for 24 hours on my porch. The next day, I went back to it, inspecting its growth lines and taking a bit of pride in the work accomplished. But it was far from over. Next, I gripped the neck of the gourd to see how high my hand fit, used a large rubberband to create a circumference to cut around, outlined it with a sharpie and took out the jig-saw. Honestly, this was the most terrifying part, as I prayed that all of my hard work would not be in vain. I hoped beyond hope that I would not crack the gourd, crush it, cut it poorly, etc. In the end, however, the gourd proved itself to be stronger than I initially had thought possible, coming out of the whole thing in two nice parts. I had an open end and a cut top when the dust settled.

When I looked inside the gourd, I was suprised, again, at what I saw. Where I expected to see a hollow opening throughout the gourd (as I was able to hear some "stuff" shake around in its belly when it was closed) I found a silvery film that further protected the dead and dying insides of the instrument being formed.

Before I could go further, I had to create the tools to scrape out the insides. I used:
* a sponge.
* an old spoon.
* a metal hanger.
* duct tape.
* a segment of an aluminum broomstick handle, smashed at one end to a sharp, flat point, with
* a hammer.

I spent the next 2 hours scraping out the inside of the ipu, clearing the walls of grime and old growth. I also sanded the rim and thinned the walls of the gourd, so as to produce a cleaner, fuller sound. At the end of the night, my ipu was complete. Again, I was reminded of God's work in us, as He continuously gets into us and scrapes away the sin that clings, unwilling to leave, creating a thick growth on our hearts and minds. Our skins are thinned -- this makes us produce a more honest and full sound when we come to God, making us transparent and ready to interpret the heart of the Father.

The last and final thing to do is to seal it with kukui oil. This, of course, is to protect it. It creates boundaries, keeping the good stuff in and the bad stuff out. I'm sure you can figure that out for yourself.