MAP QUEST

I've landed on an island and been magically transported to never-never-never-land, but I need to know: where in the hell am i? -- geographically -- in space -- on this planet earth.
As I recall, at the time, Kutira was kind of proud of the fact that google didn't have them placed right on the map: I think the Maui Retreat was actually in the ocean when you looked at google maps in 2010. Even this week, searching a property near Hana, the google earth map was so black and dark I thought it must have been photographed at night.
And I thought: GOOD, if I go there, they'll never find me!
But my need-to-know personality led to the acquisition of 5 maps when I was in Maui, each revealing another hidden layer of the truth of the place.
The first one was the for-tourists map. You can pick it up at the check-out in Walmart in Kahului while you're buying your cheap souvenirs--or any place that wants to keep you on track with where they want you to go. They tell you how to get to a place quickly, buy stuff and get back to your hotel on the dry-side (west Maui), where all the haole-tourists go at night while we're up in the jungle under star-and-moonlight, ringed round a fire, playing drums. Good, they'll never find us: this is KAPU - STAY OUT! They would never drive off the Hana Highway at night, in the dark, down a dirt and gravel road, over a plank bridge. GOOD. STAY OUT of our paradise!
But I had to know more: I needed facts, spatial facts, lines that related to the roads I already knew. Not just names with so many vowels in them and the same consonants over and over: K, H, N, L, that you got dizzy trying to understand the Hawaiian language with your English toolbox. (The language was never written down until the haole-missionaries came and did so. After all, if you can pilot an over-sized canoe thousands of miles by celestial navigation bringing animals and plants with you, your need for a paper map or a written language pales in comparison to that achievement.)
I knew there were many more roads and places with actual names than appeared on the for-tourists map, so when we went on our whale-watching excursion, feeling flush with the fact that I could afford to pay for it, I sprung for a paid-for map, Franko's Maui Guide Map (http://www.frankosmaps.com/). It had a lot of "facts" on it. I was impressed that it even mentioned Huelo as a place and I remember it highlighting the historic church on Doors of Faith Road (a favorite-name place) although I can't be sure since my copy has a mouse-eaten Oahu-shaped cutout where that "fact" used to be. But it still, basically, showed only the main highways to lead the tourists to certain places and then quickly back to Lahaina for cocktails, dinner and whatever they do in their hotel rooms at night (probably pretty much what they do at home on the mainland: watch TV, argue and fuck).
The next map I picked up was what I call the "Oprah Map"--because it had a picture of Oprah on the back with a company who does a helicopter fly-over tour. I don't think it had much more information than the usual "off-the-beaten-path" places like the Lavendar Farm (http://www.aliikulalavender.com/) and Tedeschi Winery (http://www.mauiwine.com/). Of course, everyone on Maui knows Oprah has land there but exactly where....that's not on the Oprah Map! According to a recent conversation with my friend Jon on Maui Oprah had her own road put in between Kula and Kihei, but it's gated and private (like many such on Maui), so all the poor regular folk have to spend a lot of gas driving the long way round because of the ownership of large tracts of land by a few individuals or corporations. (I wonder if she bothers to have the driver pump bio-diesel (now available in Paia and Kahului thanks to Pacific Biodiesel.)  (www.biodiesel.com).
Finally, as I got in deeper and explored on my own further I found my last two maps: the wayfinding tools I was seeking to help me find the truth of the place: past, present and future. Maps, though of place, also tell us about time: history is always and everywhere under your feet along your path. These two maps tell you the story of two Mauis: one is for seekers like myself who want to know and share and the other is for acquirers who only care to buy and sell.
My MAUI VISITORS ATLAS (An educational reference guide to the Valley Island of Maui) (mailto:envd@hawaii.rr.com)  is a wonderful laminated treasure: on one side are four different maps: one for Climate (Maui has so many different weathers at the same time a short distance apart), one for Geology, one with the meaning of all the wonderful place names (Lahaina-"cruel sun", Hana-"rainy land") and the most wonderful to me, the Archeology Map, with sacred fishponds, holy heiaus, sites of former sugar mills, shipwrecks and petroglyphs--and most important of all, the ancient land divisions, the ahupua'a, an amazing early true human understanding of the need to live in a complete ecosystem.
The final map I acquired was a book with many pages, bought in Borders or Barnes and Noble, probably in the last 2 weeks I was there and probably also never used although I intended to. It's what I call The Realtor's Map. At last, I had in my hands the type of map I was used to owning in New Jersey to navigate my way around these dense overpopulated counties in which I must work. But in Maui--and on this map--there was still undeveloped space, yet this map-book was full of keys, clues, indicators. There were roads with gates that were private and not accessible (to tourists or locals), lots of dead ends and blind alleys as it were. And there were all kinds of places with names (and apparent intentions) that did not yet even exist: lots of developable real estate, ripe and ready for those with the funds, the will and this map to transform my magic mental Maui filled with sacred sites and natural land divisions into something that can be owned, gated, walled, sewaged and maybe barely lived in. Well, not lived in at all, even if occupied.
Maybe that is the message in my Maui map quest. You really know where you are if you just look up at the sky, stand firm on the earth, feel the wind and the sun and the rain on your skin. Do you really need a map to know where you are right now? The illusion of ownership of land is probably the first evil and upheaval that has ruined, ravaged and wrecked the planet. If we really understood the need for sharing, if we tried to live together in a mutually beneficial ecosystem like the ahupua'a, we could draw maps with sticks in the earth and look to the stars for direction. Instead we stay small thinking we are big and never really knowing where we are at all.