A (Solstice) Postcard from Matariki Ahi Kā
Dear Magician,
“Meet injury
with the power of goodness.”1
I wrote a note that said I feel sad about the end of the world. People tried to explain to me that actually, it’s not the end of the world. But the point of the note was I feel sad.2
Matariki brazier firelight on Terry’s face.3 She says “Being gobsmacked can be a powerful response. Like when someone says something racist & you just go— Huh?”
Sparks flying through the air, brisk Southerly whisking them off the orange log’s-edge. (What are our clothes made of?) The sparks turn to ash which falls on us like grey snowflakes.
Dylan says his student interviewed young people about their response to the climate crisis. How does it feel to grow up hearing you’re inheriting a world that’s possibly ending? He says it took the student a while to work out that what they were making was a map of emotional states.
(It’s alright to be shocked & sad & scared in this dark moment, e hoa mā. The mamae, the grief is real. You don’t need to pretend— you can tell the truth.)
The names of the year’s dead are projected up onto the wall of Te Papa. A name & a message, like We will miss your beautiful smile. I stand watching the names & casting my mind back & the wind blows spray off the lagoon into my face.
Tāwhirimātea4 howling like a choir of ghouls in the yacht-masts of the rich. The wind rattling the book pages of the storyteller as she tells about how Māui5 stole fire from Mahuika,6 fingernail by fingernail. She puts on a gormless teenage boy voice: “Aww, Auntie, Auntie— I lost it— I dropped it in the creek— the wind blew it out— it rained— Auntie, would you believe an eel ate it!?”
I arrive in the square just as the tamariki of Ngāti Pōneke are about to perform, stagelights making their glitter-moko sparkle like stars. The tiniest ones are only three or four years old & tears stream down my cheeks & drop from my chin, frozen feelings melting as I watch them, so beautiful & fierce & proud. At first I’m ashamed to cry, but then I let it flow, because it’s good to feel.
The truth is, Te Ao Māori7 is a place of refuge for me. One feels the weave in which one is held— in which everyone is held— & this muscular magic is palpable hearty goodness. It feels like awakening from a bad dream; I remember we are interconnected bodies, firelit flesh, outside under the stars, singing together, tatou tatou, all of us.
(Pride as an antidote to shame. Togetherness as an antidote to loneliness. Expression as an antidote to grief.)
Whenever I stand in this square I remember the time I saw the kārearea / falcon here, sitting on a pole at dusk, gazing intently down into the kāraka grove where the sparrows & starlings roost for the night. (The way a rare wild thing leaves an enduring memory-trace in the landscape…) I pointed it out to Tāme Iti, who was standing beside me: he tohu.8
I’m still thinking about Jack’s huge portrait of Nathan that I saw last night.9 Nate’s unmarked skin laid down in Jack’s customary impasto slabs of oil paint, but Nate’s moko kanohi10 cut in deep, down to the canvas, the tattoo rendered flat in delicate translucent washes. As if the lines of the brush traced the lines of the chisel, the needle, following a map graven in skin.
Jack introduced me to Nathan, then went to press the flesh. I asked where Nate was from & we quickly worked out that not only is he from the same village as my Mother’s Mother, but we share a family name— “We’re probably cousins,” he said. Later on we worked out that my Mum (aged 9) attended the wedding of Nathan’s Great-Great-Grandfather (aged 90) in 1959: she remembers the bride & groom arriving by horse-drawn carriage.
Te Ahi Kā means the burning fires, which means habitation, occupation. It means that a fire in the landscape is a people-thing. It makes me think of how when you’re in bed with someone it stays warm even when one of you gets out, because one body guards the core of warmth for the return.
Midwinter magic is domestic. Fire, food, company, stories, songs: the things that keep us alive through the long dark Winter. Keep your skillet good & greasy all the time.
Sitting at my desk I hear the sound of horse-hoofs on concrete & look out the window to see a small shaggy white pony passing the foot of the driveway. The apple-cheeked brown bum of the leading horse is already disappearing behind the leafy hedge. The white pony tosses its head, pulling back against the halter; just that snapshot, then they’re gone.
Tip of the Wizard hat to Kieran Monaghan for the formal device of limited sentence count, which I have borrowed from his recently released book Soundbitten. (Kieran used four sentences per piece; I have used three per paragraph, which seemed more haikuesque.)11
P.S. I found this music video via
’s Matariki digest yesterday— it’s a lovely portrait of the people who share Richard’s allotment. I love Richard Dawson more than I can say. I think it’s because of the way he makes the mundane so very moving; his work is a glorification of everyday life in all its foolish beauty.Yesterday, overhearing this song, Kieran told me that Richard stayed here in our house for a week. “Which room did he stay in???” I asked, but Kieran couldn’t remember. He said at the end of the week Richard brought him a gift: the obscure album Street Sounds of Yogyakarta… which he already owned.
Consider Beginnings, from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
Eschatology is a good word though. I wondered for a moment if I should add it to my bio (Hedge Eschatologist!) As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, my Leo Sun is conjunct Jupiter in the Twelfth House, so it’s my Destiny— I am Compelled to Speak of Endings.
Matariki is the Māori New Year, marked by the rising of the constellation Matariki (the Pleiades)
Atua / God of weather: an angry God, expressing himself in storms & floods
Trickster demigod
Atua / Goddess of fire: she lives inside the mountain
The Māori world
An omen
Traditional facial tattoo
I used to write haiku a lot, back when texts cost 50c
Keep your skillet good and greasy, Rosie! That is a very fine benediction, and one I am immediately adopting. Thank you. Waes Hael!
Thank you for this beautiful peek into your Kiwi community!