I’m typing this blog while sitting in isolation. So, an international virus finally tracked me down. Regardless of whether you believe in the virus or not. The reality is I am experiencing my first bout of a flu like chest cold for decades. Right now, I am grateful that I wasn’t found before now and my scars from heart surgery six months ago have had a chance to heal. I’m one of the fence sitters. Unsure whether to believe those who were prepared to give up a career for their beliefs or those who excelled in their careers for theirs. Without getting into a debate that helps no one to heal and move forward. I often ask myself, what can I do?
Coincidentally, I had started painting my home at the time this global pandemic started. I was just going to slap on some paint until a good friend Sandy showed up with the tools, knowledge, experience and patience. I didn’t get to put the first coat on for 3 weeks. My original naïve calculations were to have completed a whole four-bedroom home by now. Not be putting the first coat on in the laundry. Lockdown was announced just as we reached the hallway and I was on my own. For the next two months I pulled up carpet, plastered and painted. In that space I started to grow my appreciation for the home that had stood strong against a high energy family. Children who were dealing with a decision I made to separate as best they could. It took me exactly four months to the day to complete the job that I had estimated would take me a week or three. From the house I started on the garden. It was just what I needed to heal the stories. Later a beautiful wise wahine/woman would invite me to continue the restoration of the indigenous vegetation at her place. I have learnt so much during my time in this patch of ngahere which I am sure was her intention. Most weeds are quite clever in their competition with native species. The best way to remove any of them is to get your hands into the soil and extract the plants from their source. It reminds me of a quote I once read during my studies. “Alcohol is not the problem, it’s a solution to a problem, what’s the problem?”. Alcohol can be substituted by anything to food, drugs, worries, etc. It’s about getting to the root cause. That’s where the whenua and the kaitiaki of the land come in. There’s something healing about finding a plant trying to survive under an attack of weeds. I applied this recently. I left a place very angry several years ago. I can’t change the story but I had an opportunity to return. I decided to heal the stories by weeding the garden. It brought me peace and helped me to forgive not only others but also myself. I also see the irony that I am weeding foreign plants when I am originally foreign too. That’s all part of healing the stories. Not only your own but those of the land and the kaitiaki, etc. If all things contain ‘mauri’ or ‘life energy’ then restoring the mauri of the whenua/land helps you to restore your own. Mauri ora.
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I discovered washed up pieces of glass along the sea edge and couldn’t resist collecting them. Many of the pieces had clearly come from alcohol bottles such as beer and wine. We have a culture of drinking in this country, so it felt like they had washed up ‘healed’ with the edges no longer sharp or harmful. Hence why I affectionally started calling them ‘healed glass’.
Glass as I discovered is both naturally and human made. Glass begins its’ journey as sand which represents all that came before our unique births such as earth herself in the form of floods, ice ages, continental shift and changing life forms. Human beings helped shape the world through the migration of people, famines, wars, treaties, slavery, politics, technology, etc. The list is endless but it all shapes the world we enter. Like us, glass is transformed into many different forms. For example, reading glasses, alcohol vessels, windows, mirrors, ornaments, etc. When I was born, my father was only allowed to look at me through a window in a nursery. I’m not that old 😊. So, glass separated me from human contact with family members at birth. At some point in life, glass breaks and becomes sharp. I liken this to my youth when I’m still in a shiny ego state and I still have sharp edges which represent my tongue, thoughts and actions. Sadly, today broken glass is often used to harm and remove pain by creating pain. Eventually though, the glass gets washed into the rivers and streams where it all ends up in the ocean tumbling about for years. I believe this represents the turbulence or life experiences that shape us into the adults we become. The glass eventually washes up smoothed and opaque. No longer shiny. The ego is now humbled by life and wisdom. Harder to find on the beach because it no longer reflects the sun. The edges are no longer sharp with the potential to harm. When I am upstream, I will throw any worries or hopes into the waterway to be carried downstream. I always add aroha/love in with those thoughts to protect everything downstream. When next at the beach I stand in the water and receive the healed energy of those thoughts. |
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