Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 29, Number 4, 1 April 2012 — HAWAIIAN HEALER RELIED ON SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAWAIIAN HEALER RELIED ON SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE

An undated YouTube video shows Levon Ohai discussing plants he comes across as he walks along a Kē'ē trail on Kaua'i's North Shore. He talks about the plants used in traditional Hawaiian healing, or lā'au lapa'au, as if they were old friends. "Great warriors," he calls the select few that he holds in highest regard. Ohai, a master practitioner in Hawaiian healing who believed training in the art was best when coupled with spiritual guidance, died March 3. He was 70. "If you are being guided by a higher divine source in your ehoiee of medicines as you go out and you look for these plants - and they were handed down to us through visions, dreams, foresight and again, intuition . . . then knowledge plus intuition would make you almost perfect in your choices," he said. A Kaua'i native, Ohai learned traditional healing from his grandparents. In his travels, he found that

most traditions about plants and medicine are "just about the same wherever you go in different parts of the world. The old people know about the same plants that you know about, just that it's called by a different name," he said. smilin2.

After earning a bachelor of science degree from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, in 1965, Ohai served in Vietnam before completed his military service with honors. In 1972, he earned his master's degree from the University of Arizona. His career includes workas a primary school counselor and teaching at the highschool and community-college levels. Ohai is credited with developing courses andreviving interest in lā'au lapa'au with a new generation of Hawaiian learners at the University of Hawai'i Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. It is said that his classes, popular with the students, filled up fast. Hardy Spoehr of Papa Ola Lōkahi said Ohai was a "kind and gentle person" who was instrumental in establishing the kupuna eouneil on Kaua'i and preserving traditional healing practices in Hawai'i. Ohai is a past recipient of Papa Ola Lōkahi's Ka'ōnohi Award for his commitment to the heahh of Native Hawaiians. — Lisa Asato ■