Introducing, Puna Ola

Story and Photos by Ben Geo

On Saturday, September 27th, 2025, devoted hearts and minds gathered for a luau to return to an ancient tradition in a new way, celebrating and grounding a growing vision for the community called Puna Ola. Puna means “spring,” and Ola means “life.”

The vision of a community resource center was first brought forward by Robert Golden, who co-created Puna Rising with Steven Kai Manner. The luau became a living expression of that vision, a celebration where people came together to embody the essence of what Puna Ola stands for.

Puna Ola’s vision is to serve as a living wellspring for Puna, guided by the wisdom of the community, the land, and supported by the indigenous people of these islands. This Core Team is building a trusted hub where people, organizations, and resources come together to nurture resilience, creativity, and connection. Here, individuals and groups are empowered to share their gifts, collaborate across differences, and co-create solutions rooted in culture, community, and the spirit of Aloha.

The Core Team has been gathering for over three months to cultivate an intention of what can best be described as synarchy, rather than hierarchy or anarchy. This invites a circle of resonance where connection is honored as part of a living web. Each relationship is sovereign, yet interwoven into a greater constellation of family and purpose. Harmony replaces rivalry, and the vitality of each shared bond enriches the whole. 

Imagine a thriving Puna where people gather to nourish stomachs, hearts, and families by creating shared opportunities for expression, skill-building, entrepreneurship, and resilience. Together we are shaping a community resource that includes shared workspaces, workshops, performance spaces, markets, and kitchens. Here, gifts awaken, creativity flows, and we weave our lives together for the good of all and the future of our children. But what makes this possible?

Each week, the Core Team comes together to focus on creating a non-hierarchical structure for giving back to the community. This includes the creation of different meeting spaces that serve as “spokes,” modeling spokes around a wheel of collaboration. Here, the team explores how to make room for everyone’s gifts to flourish in a collaborative and co-creative environment; to cultivate radical honesty and tender love within ourselves and for each other. So we can explore what it looks like to foster true value as a people and create a backbone of reciprocity in how we approach resources, ourselves, each other, and the Earth. 

To best convey the heart and scope of this team, I offer these words:

We begin where the threads are already woven.

Gardens breathing in the morning light.

Rivers carrying the memory of rain.

The sea keeping the rhythm older than our names.

We share what we have gathered,

telling the stories of work already done.

Trust blooming from the proof of our hands

Collaboration, not competition.

An ecosystem, not an egosystem.

We guard what sustains life.

Truth running like marrow through our bones.

The unbroken lineage of our children.

The land. The water.

The pulse that whispers: “remember”

To make the luau

it takes many hands

casting the net to the horizon.

Tending the fire at the heart.

Passing food across the circle

until no one is left outside.

In this meal we are one body.

In this feast the fire feeds more than hunger.

We meet to celebrate, to restore, to preserve.

To align and solidify what matters.

To awaken the networks already humming beneath the surface

ready to rise into view.

Every alliance a thread in the same rope.

Every voice a note in the same song.

Come. There is a place for you.

Bring what you carry.

Here clarity dissolves doubt.

Here purpose walks without fear.

When we stand in truth,

The network sings through.

Keep an eye out for upcoming Puna Ola events from Puna Rising, and discover how you can participate at: https://punarising.com/puna-ola/