Kauai

Kauai is the first major destination in Malta Kano’s sister’s self-directed search for a place and way of life suited to her unusual powers. She lives there for two years in an interior commune, drawn by reports of remarkable springs; the island’s water, she believes, helps bring her spiritual capacities into greater harmony with her physical being. Her departure marks not the end of that search but its expansion into a long journey through North America and Europe.

Arrival and Purpose

After graduating from high school, Malta Kano’s sister rejected her parents’ expectation that she attend college. She worked to raise money and left Japan, going first to Hawaii. Kauai’s north shore was said to have springs that produced exceptionally good water, and her longstanding interest in water shaped her choice of destination. She believed that the elements of water had a substantial influence on human existence, making the island a place to investigate that conviction rather than simply a refuge abroad.

Life in the Commune

She lived for two years as a member of a hippie commune in the island’s interior. In her account to her younger sister, the water there had a marked effect on her spiritual powers: taking it into her body allowed her to attain what she described as a greater harmony between those powers and her physical being. She wrote home about the experience, and her letters made Malta Kano happy. Kauai thus represents a period when her search seemed to offer not only a promising landscape and water source, but also a practical means of living with capacities that had caused her distress in Japan.

Departure and the Continuing Search

The commune’s environment eventually ceased to satisfy her. Although she found the land beautiful and peaceful, and its residents sought spiritual peace apart from material desires, she considered them too dependent on sex and drugs; she felt she did not need either. After two years, she left Kauai for Canada, traveled through the northern United States, and continued on to Europe. She sampled water in the places she visited and found several remarkable sources, but none was the perfect water she sought. The island is therefore both a formative episode and a point of departure: it gives her a first experience of water as a means of bodily and spiritual alignment, while confirming that her search will continue elsewhere.