Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 29, Number 5, 1 May 2012 — Following her star [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Following her star

By Lisa Asato After spending most of her life in and out of prison, Sonja "Sonny" Lane sees hope on the horizon. Lane, who said she doesn't know mueh about the voyaging eanoe Hōkūle'a, has felt eompelled over the years to make more than 50 models of the ieonie double-hulled eanoe. In April, after graduating from the work-furlough program Ka Hale Ho'āla Hou No Nā Wāhine, she presented her latest, 2-foot-long Hōkūle'a model to the work-furlough program, whose name translates to "The home of reawakening for women." "It's just my way of saying thank you," Lane said at an April 9 ceremony at T.J. Mahoney in Honolulu, whieh runs the 30-bed program to help women transition from prison back into the eommunity. "And may it represent, as the eanoe says, 'Imua,' to move forward with your own lives." T.J. Mahoney executive director Lorraine Robinson used the gift as a lesson for the group of about 1 8 attendees, mostly women in the

program, who sat in chairs in a circle under a canopy. Imagine the power of having a vision, she said, relating a tale: Hawai'i wasn't always populated. It took people with vision who believed what their kūpuna said to them - that the islands indeed existed even though they could not be seen. Those visionaries followed their elders' instructions on how to find the island ehain, and by eanoe they found their way to Hawai'i. "Do you see the metaphor?" Robinson asked. "The symbolism of this Hōkūle'a is for us as individuals, for you to set your sight on your star, for you to have your vision" and "to follow the advice of the wise people who are giving you counsel, and then you ean reach your destination. "But if you're just aimlessly paddling, where are you going to end up? ... You guys already know what it's like to not end up where you want to go. And that's not just the meaning for every person, it's the meaning for our program, because our program has life too." OHA has provided funding support for T.J. Mahoney over the

years. About half of the program participants are Native Hawaiian, Robinson said. During the ceremony, everyone was asked to share the vision they had for themselves, whieh they wrote on a star bordered with glitter. Visions ranged from wanting to start a family, to being paroled or being the best mother they could be. "Mine says I'mshooting for the moon, but landing among the stars is just as beautiful," Lane said. Lane, who's worked as a chef at Gordon Biersch, among other places, has been volunteering at the Life Foundation, where she's applied for a job doing data entry but has been asked to reapply for a job in outreach. Doing outreach would give her a ehanee to go out into the community and on to the street, "where I'm very familiar," helping with a needle-exchange program for drug users, she said. She's also contemplating studying to become a minister and doing prison ministry. Thinking back on her life, the 55-year-old said she has had to eome to terms with and forgive her father for being verbally, emohonally and physically abusive to her and her brothers. Lane was given,

at 3 years old, as a hānai child to a great-grandmother. Her greatgrandmother gave her a life full of "love and happiness and peaee and security," but she died when Lane was 14. "When she died my whole world died and I wanted to die," said Lane. "I guess that's why I drowned myself in getting high so mueh and I'm just grateful as I

look back, God still had his hand on me. I should have been dead many times over. Not only by my own hand but by other people, because living a life of crime is very dangerous and I hurt a lot of people's lives. "I told Lorraine one time that I dishonored almost 35 to 40 years of my life. And now I want to honor my life that's left." ■

The symbolism of this Hōkūle a is . . . for you to set your sight on your star, for you to have your vision and to follow the advice of the wise people who are giving you counsel, and then you ean reach your destination. —Lorraine Robinson, executive director T. J. Mahoney and Associates

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Sonja "Sonny" Lane, right, and T.J. Mahoney and Associates executive director Lorraine Robinson with the model Lane made of the Hōkūle'a voyaging eanoe. - Photo: UsaAsato