The Goddess
ULI NANA PONO Adapted from Julius Rodman, 1970
Uli (or Uliuli) is the name of the goddess who was the wife of the creator, Eli Eli, who was thus our Heavenly Mother.
Some of the priests and priestesses of old Hawaii referred to the goddess Uli as “Uli `a na` na,” “The peaceful Flame of Serenity,” or as “A Na `I Malu,” “The Infinite Serene Flame of Love and Protection.” Uli was known to all as the “Kahuna ao Na` Wahine,” “The Serene Woman,” “The Lady of Peace,” “Goddess of Serenity,” “Goddess of Peace.” Many called Uli “Na Wahine o Na Lani,” “The Peaceful Lady,” “The Queen of Peace,” “The Serene Woman of the Tranquil Heavens.”
To the High Priests (Puhio kaoka) Uli was known as “Na Wahine o ke ao,” “The Resplendent Lady of the Sky,” “The Lady of Light,” “The Lady of Wisdom,” “The Lady of Enlightenment,” “The Goddess of the World.” And the High Priestesses gave Uli the title of “Kea Kea Lani Wahine,” “The Heavenly Goddess of the Cross of White Light.” Temple Priests addressed Uli by her consecrated name, “Na na I A E,” which only they were permitted to utter with utmost humbleness. Only those few Kahuna who reached the most rarefied and exalted plane of spiritual illumination addressed Uli as “Ka Wahine Ke La.” Some translators have said that Ke la means “The Lady That,” or “The Goddess That,” whereas the word Wahine when applied to Divinity means “goddess.” Esoterically, kela means “That.” But concealed within the Huna, or profound depths of the word Ke La (Te Ra to the ancients) is a very important esoteric meaning: the Sun, identical to the Egyptian reference to the Spiritual Being that is the generative force behind the Sun or the Light and Life of the Sun.
Uli was the female generative force of the Sun, the goddess of the Sun, “Ka Wahine Ke La!” In many Eastern religions, God is referred to as “That.” In the Book of Genesis the Hebrew prophet Moses stated that God said unto him: “I am That I am.”
Ancient Egyptians worshiped Ra (pronounced La in modern Hawaiian) as the Supreme Spiritual Being behind the Sun. The Christian “amen” appears to have stemmed from the ancient Egyptian “Amen-Ra.” In tracing the origin of the early Egyptian religious beliefs, one might go back into primordial times to the sacred teachings of the Holy Mu of Ka Lua, the Lost Continent in the South Pacific region. The Mu was the world’s original worshipers of the Spirit of Fire, the Supreme Being that is the Light and Life of the Sun and the generative power of radiant energy behind the Sun of our Universe. And it was from Ka Lua that the Hawaiians derived the teaching of the Holy Mu. When European voyagers discovered Hawaii, the High Priests of the Temples of Divine Worship were still teaching to initiates the sacred and inspired spiritual philosophy of the Mu of Ka Lua.
Uli was the most important female deity in the ancient Hawaiian pantheon of gods, for she was the mother of gods and goddesses. It was Uli who released the Living Water that flowed in the Breath of Life from Keawe unto the females of earth’s peoples, just as the male gods released the Living Water that flowed from Keawe unto the males of earth’s peoples. Uli was referred to by the ancients as “the goddess with the discerning eye who perceived everything that transpired on Earth.” Sometimes the kahuna spoke of her as “Uli nana Hewa.” “Uli sees all injustice and unrighteousness.” And at other times the goddess was spoken of as “Uli Nana Pono,” “Uli beholds all justice and righteousness. Nothing escapes her all-seeing eye.”
Uli was one of the exalted deities to whom the kahuna prayed when they wanted to know the identity of a culprit. The prayers of the kahuna were never left unanswered. If Uli were unavailable, one of the many hostesses of her Royal Court in Lanikeha, the Kingdom of Angels, listened to prayers and conveyed them to her. Always the kahuna received directions from above and thus was known always to nab their man. As both good and bad persons of every religious persuasion pray to the same God or gods, so both the good and the bad Hawaiians prayed to Uli.
The evil sorcerers (kahuna ana`ana) and their apprentices petitioned Uli to aid them in performing their acts of black magic, while the good kahuna petitioned her to aid them in performing their kindly deeds. Needless to say, the fact that evil ones prayed to Uli did not make her an evil goddess, an absurdity concocted by early Christian missionaries in their efforts to discredit her. The more thoughtful among the Hawaiians knew that the faults of men are not the faults of deities, they are the faults of those who failed to learn the teachings of Divinity. They knew the gods never indulged in the practices of evil and ignorant men. Men’s evil deeds are the products of their own vile minds, the consequences of ignorant and unrighteous thinking.
Uli still resides majestically in the Celestial Realm of Lani Uli, her home long before earth flowered into its existence apart from the sun. Seers of old Hawaii, who penetrated the thin veils that sheath life in the Celestial Realm from the perception of most human creatures, envisioned Uli as a resplendent figure bathed in a bluish-white aura that outshone the bluest star. And at times those kahuna makaula (priestly seers), who were pure enough in mind and in spirit, saw the goddess Uli project an aura of golden light as she drifted serenely on her way across the sky, while from her halo, rainbow-hued rays extended in all directions.
To the few devotees of Uli who reached the highest plane of esoteric perception, which permitted them to see with their third eye, the “Spiritual Eye” that lies just behind the forehead, above the bridge of the nose, just above the inner corners of the eyebrows, Uli would reveal herself and shower upon them her love and mercy.
When the traditional religion of the Hawaiians was abolished in 1819, in the year before the first Boston missionaries arrived with the Christian Gospel, and the temples with their wooden images were burnt, Uli was not destroyed. Only the wooden symbols of Uli were demolished, for no mere mortal has the power to destroy divinities who were created by the Supreme Father in Heaven.
A belief is growing among modern-day Hawaiians that the Heavenly Mother, Uli, eagerly awaits the day when her children will once more raise their faces, their eyes, and their hands and pay her homage as did their forefathers for many thousands of years, so that she may once again bestow her blessings on them.
