Although weblogs are often denigrated as a medium for navel-gazing, this site is named “piko” in a playful celebration of those details which are easily dismissed, overlooked, or unnoticed. Piko - the Hawaiian word for bellybutton - has a rich multiplicity of meanings, including the summit, the center, the border of a land, the umbilical cord, and the place where the stem of a plant (such as a taro plant) is attached to the leaf. The piko, in Hawaiian culture, is the source of life and connection to one’s lineage.

Piko is about encouraging a greater awareness of self and of others; valuing littleness and bigness; noticing a play of meanings, images, sounds, and sensations.

In Spanish, “pico,” means “I poke,” which oddly reminds me of the way I used to poke my grandmother’s piko to make her laugh like the Pillsbury doughboy.

Piko is my spot for prodding, for provoking thought and poking fun.

For me, the word piko ideally captures the interconnectivity of one’s physical and virtual existences. In pausing over the bellybutton, we contemplate that seemingly insignificant, useless little hollow in the middle of the abdomen that marks the place of former attachment to the umbilical cord, the lifeline to the mother. The piko reminds us of the invisible lines that join beings together far beyond the point in space and time when the physical cord has been severed. Piko simultaneously signifies the center and the periphery, attachment and detachment, single points and contiguous lines, peaks and valleys, the flirtation between public and private, bonding and freedom, similarity and singularity, and the mundane and miraculous.

Piko is a junction for creation, relation, and development. But it’s also the reservoir for bellybutton wax, or “lint” as Alan likes to say.

All of these associations lead to an important consideration: Are you an innie or an outie?

Piko is play and perspective.

Thanks to Dori's "dtakata"