Iolani Puu Kolenc
I now have an "integrated name: that is legal: Iolani Puu Kolenc
I now have an "integrated name: that is legal: Iolani Puu Kolenc
“A daughter of rivers and cave-light, I walk the stone path of remembrance — not as a medicine being, but as one who lived, nearly died, and came back speaking in color, rhythm, and truth. My work is the tending of that fire, the threading of soul through art, advocacy, and ancestral callings.”
Born Annette Marie Puʻu — Walking These Days as ʻAnakē, for a bit, until the return to the ancestral names came about in 2026.
At UCSB I went by my birth name: Annette Marie Puu
At Cal Arts I went through a name change for my healing Journey and my partnership (entrapment) name became Misa Miele Mandigo Kelly. I also exhibited visual arts as Dylan & Friends as I worked through the infinity loop of recovering from deep trauma with a multifaceted wonder order. I was not self-aware at the time that the relationship was what would become a 33 year relationship of what is called coercive control, with someone whose dark traits were the opposite of how I think and acted. I used to think "opposite attracts", but a more accurate assessment would be predators are conditioneed/born with the ability recognize their prey - their targets.
Each name a thread in the weaving.
Each name an offering.
But now, I am fully Iolani Puu Kolenc.
So, that means, shedding the past, the sacred direction of the south in some traditions, I have shed those names, shed perhaps even those vocations, and stand in a big question mark knowing what I am, some of my ancient roots, and the relevance of these stories.
I was an artist, award winning, internationally recognized and I was other things in a polymathic way to pay the bills.
Now I am a warrior, in this moment, having the courage to face what arises, and in this moment, pause and lean into the fresh fall air, the sound of the crows, the light growing brighter.
me ke aloha,
Iolani
America of the mixed-race Hawaiian creole from my father's lineage: many places and lands, and the beautiful alpine and farming roots of the Slovenes, this beautiful diaspora.
November 11, 2026
I have hosted various places as a way of journaling, in that, well, most people go to social media these days to discover, and this is a part of my personal becoming process, and archiving the art of becoming, shedding, healing: warrior work I am understanding. I can clearly see now, that the layers of healing.
plug into life work (the arts) - use this as the fuel for transformation partnering with your natural way of being.
do the work, find your own modalities that work, but also, work with what the West offers as well.
manifest the life dream, in alignment with one's perception of how the cosmos organizers, the creative mystics choices, not mental illness, creativity, healing, transformation, full body/mind transformation.
from within a cage of entrapment, at least, one's body is safe from the elements, and the predator sort of separates you oddly enough, from other predators, and the body gets it, it knows, on a deep level, but one does what one needs to do to stay off the streets because one witnessed what it did to two siblings, don't let oneself get entrapped by society in that way, is my understanding.
when all the layers are tended with a myriad of techniques and processes, unique to one's personal soul's journey, the architecture of one's DNA, then, and only then can you step away, and experience the financial abandonment. One has "retired early" and find that the very PTSD caused in part by the domestic violence, at 62 I believe, the disability income started coming in. I had to put my name back on the public housing list, the inner economist knowing, that with the financial abandonment, to spite paying towards household expenses that helped the controller buy his house, his cars even, I realized, it was the allure of only taking 35% of my income, and in today's rental rates, as I open my eyes, I realize, wow, I have indeed been priced out of America, at the age of 67 in this moment, with the now SSA, well, even if my whole check was taken, it would not be enough for a studio apartment, and finding a room as an elder? Well, it is complicated.
The reason why I was able to get away is because I re-built my support circles. Prior to 2019, I was deeply entrenched in the local, national, and international arts community. In 2019 this infrastructure was dismantled and I was separated from my "art family" which is what coercive controllers do, they want to isolate you, and I was already largely isolated from my biological family.
I began to connect with the Hawaiian roots, after the 8 years of connection with Slovenia through creative projects, leaning into those roots, and began to tend this lineage. I found community in Hawaiian language learning groups. I also grounded into my spiritual core, and began to lean into spiritual technologies that would support healing the Hawaiian genocide wounds which led to reconnection with some of my Hawaiian cousins.
Once you step away comes the education, growing awake and aware by reading, listening to experts, attending groups with other survivors, and then realizing, wow, this happens to others as well. The trauma bond detox is truly harrowing, they say, it is more difficult than hard drugs because of the relationship component, and I chose to do this through the creative couch surfing intentions, realizing, that other women in history, they have adventured after a big break with someone with male genetalia and I processed in England, I processed in Slovenia, I began to have flashbacks while travelling, and found someone affordable to work with via zoom, and I processed in Albania. I processed in Paris, France with a two night layover, I processed when I got back to my home city to couch surf at a friend's. I processed travelling to O'ahu for two
MAY 13, 2025
I am in a completely and totally different space these days.
Much of what you find here, might no longer be relevant, or perhaps it will be.
My Hawaiian journey gets deeper and deeper and deeper.
I am so grateful!
The shadow work is done, I feel like I have accomplished all I was supposed to, and more.
Note to self: Nov. 11 2026. Yes, the shadow work in relation to the ACE score and the Hawaiian genocide wounds were complete, once this groundwork was laid, then, and only then did the body signal, okay, wake up, you need to leave, another discard cycle is coming up, and I did.
June 5, 2023
Shifting focus, refining focus, embracing clarity, reframing. Focusing on Medicine, in the earth sense, not Western sense.
March 18, 2023
I havenʻt put much effort into this, and, since I launched it, have written alot. It seems like I enjoy just writing to write, and have not been that interested in publishing to this little corner of the internet. But, I feel a tug, to start, using this space.
November 2021
Poetry takes many shapes and forms: writing, songs, dances, sculptures, drawings, paintings, installations, stories, dreams. It can be alchemical, it can be ordinary, it can be nothing more than a wiggle or a scrawl or scribble. It is what it is, and we are who we are and what we are. Best to just embrace it and keep up the good work. Keep growing and evolving. The creative expressions are a part of the wounded healer journey that brought me to a state of relative wholeness. In the present moment, it is a part of cultivating a sacred life, questing harmony, balance, and a greater understanding of the human condition and the container in which we live. It is a form of advocacy for the land, the air, the water. I live for our descendants, with care for what type of world we wish to leave them.
me ke aloha
No Name - big self
ʻIoloani OʻKelly Puʻu - indiviual self
November 2020
I was born Annette Marie Pu'u on July 8,1959 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to a mixed-race Hawaiian father and a mother born to Yugoslavian immigrants from the regions of Gorenje and Logarska Dolina.
When I left my hometown to pursue my passion for dance, and an MFA, to support my quest at that time to heal from the impact of deep trauma, and to take space, I changed my name to Misa Miele Mandigo Kelly. I changed my name to step away for a period from biological family to make space to heal, and to discover who I was separate from my family's religious and political paradigms moving forward with the positive things from childhood, and the gifts of resiliency, moving forward into adulthood.
I was, at this time, on a truth quest, a direction from the still small voice inside when I asked specific question.
With the truth quest resulted in stepping into the healing river with the study of dance triggering the surfacing of what I had repressed.
I was also, at that time, terrified of my family and overwhelmed by flashbacks. I was also terrified of my own birth name in that those who had harmed me, in a Catholic educational setting, taught me to fear my name.
My own views, from this truth quest, have evolved into something radically different than the political, social, economic, and spiritual views of my parents as well as the state of being of the communities they interfaced with who became an extended family of wounders so to speak.
In the present moment, I feel whole, and have developed a busy albeit quiet lifestyle full of adventure, being, as well as doing what brings me happiness, joy: lots of time in nature, kayaking with my beloved, returning to school with fresh educational goals, studying shamanism, painting, drawing, singing/songwriting, writing, and studying languages, Hawaiian at the top of the heap right now.
I am grateful for this beautiful odyssey called life.
Me ke aloha!
Aunty