“EMANCIPATE YOURSELVES FROM MENTAL SLAVERY.”
COME HOME TO THE VILLAGE,
CAST DOWN THE ARMOUR AGAINST EMOTION,
FIND FREEDOM IN FEELING.
Mission - What We Do:
Liberation Through Feeling
Mōhalu: loose, slack; at ease, unrestrained, at liberty; comfortable. to open, unfold, as flowers.
Mōhalu is a non-profit organization in Hawaii that stands for freedom and the end of suffering: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.” Mōhalu helps those behind bars, those being eaten away by depression, addiction, and violence, to feel without suppression and be free.
A Glance At Mōhalu’s Work
What need do you address? Who do you work with? Where is the work being done?
We help those behind bars — iron or internal — those imprisoned by depression, addiction, and violence, but have not gotten to the root: resistance against emotion. Our Village program is found in Women’s Community Correctional Center, Waiawa Correctional Facility, and the KAʻI Program at ‘Iolani School.
What do you do?
We help people to feel without suppression.
Learn more at our Philosophy page.
What does the work look like?
Mōhalu gathers people to sit in circles, tell the truth, and find freedom in feeling — we call these circles The Village.
Learn more at our Village page.
How did this work come to be?
Mōhalu began its work in Hawaii’s prisons in 2025. Mōhalu follows in the lineage of Inside Circle, an organization whose work began with a group of men in Folsom Prison who were tired of killing each other. Out of their courage, they created a powerful style of work that healed wounds thought unhealable and made violent men into medicine men. Inside Circle’s work continues to show us what real freedom looks like in this world. Mōhalu continues the legacy of these living elders.
Vision - Why We Do It:
Feeding The Naʻau of The People
“We feed the people with music! We feed the people with music!” -Bob Marley
The Village is the place where we feed the naʻau of the people.
For those lost in concrete jungles, wasting away in charnel grounds, forgotten in prisons, The Village calls out to you, “Come home, my child.” If you answer the call, you arrive at The Village and are greeted by an elder who is so happy you’ve come. They wave you over. You take your place around the fire, under the stars, and they feed your soul with songs of truth, love, and beauty long into the night.
Here in Mōhaluʻs Village, you gather with other disillusioned, freedom-hungry, truth-seeking souls to be seen, to be loved, to take off the armour, and to feel without fear.
First, the internal prisons begin falling away – depression, addiction, and violence.
Bit by bit, you learn how to be at peace with yourself, to be present & listen, to apologize, to set boundaries, to speak your truth, to find bliss in feeling, to live in harmony and wonder, and to give thanks.
Then, the prison beds go empty and the concrete prisons fall.
And you live the rest of your days with a song in your heart and a dance in your step.
Mōhaluʻs Values:
How We Move in the World
Always Cut to The Root
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” -Bob Marley
“Not all prisons have walls.” -Inside Circle
True slavery is in the mental. The root prison is in the head. We will never dismantle systemic oppression without getting to the root: the mind and heart. How do we get to the root? Inner work. Mōhalu never takes its eye off the root.
Do Your Work
“If only we could give ourselves
to the blows of the carver’s hands,
the lines in our faces
would be the trace lines of rivers.” -David Whyte
You can only walk with people as far as you’ve gone yourself. You can only meet people in their suffering and freedom if you’ve walked the terrain yourself. Those who take this inner walk become elders. There are no shortcuts. Do your work – not someone else’s, not the world’s – if you want to make an offering of your gifts to this world.
Saving is Violence – We Don’t Save, We Meet People Where They’re At
"If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life." -Thoreau
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” –Lilla Watson
Behind the “benevolent” mask-of-saving is the violent message, “You are not free. Your liberation depends on me. I shall save you.” Saving reinforces oppression.
We believe all wisdom and freedom exists within the heart of each person. People do not need saving. We are called to meet people where they’re at and give them the space to discover the freedom they already have.
Interconnected, Cascading Jewels of Freedom
“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out indefinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each “eye” of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflection process occurring.” -Cook
In this interconnected existence, the freedom of one is the freedom of all. When one being discovers the jewel of freedom within, their presence sends ripples out into the whole of the universe. This work is an offering of our being to the more-than-human world.
Real Revolution is Slow, Unexciting, and Disappointing to the Ego
“I want to be a revolutionary. I apologize that my revolution is so geologically slow, unexciting, based on learning, language, music, natural magic, food, farming by hand, respect, galactic in scope, and has so little to do with what people want, or people at all.” -Martín Prechtel
“Everybody wants a revolution. Nobody wants to do the dishes.” -Dorothy Day
We fantasize of a revolution where we topple the statues of tyrants and instant utopias rise from the ashes. But real revolution is something much more ordinary, day-to-day, and made of the stuff that the immature mind is not attracted to:
How you greet your neighbor
How you apologize when you make a mistake
How you cry instead of let sorrow harden into violence
How you gather people to eat at your table
How you listen for understanding instead of ammunition
How you tell the truth when a lie would be more comfortable
How you choose connection in spite of hardship
How you seek peace, not division, in conflict
How you love and let people know it