Wānaka Mānutewhau

October 8th 2025

Yesterday I spent half an hour upon waking, sitting, feeling and releasing my spine.

Today I spent half an hour feeling torn between getting up and staying in bed, and twenty minutes lying down and feeling my spine.

When the kids left I read some of The Woven Universe, Selected Writings by Māori Marsden, edited by his nephew Te Ahukaramu Charles Royal. Specifically, I read chapter one.

Feeling into ihi, mana, tapu, mauri...

Pure rites

Wānanga and Tōhunga

The revival of Whare wānanga for a new age, for an urgent purpose of preservation and continuation.

I am wondering where my collective wānanga is that enables both an intellectual and practical discovery of these aspects of being and experiencing the world. I have found it in small snatches, in casual experiences of being a member of Huirapa whānau – hui, wānanga, hīkoi, in Aoraki Bound, with Whare Tāpere mahi, with Atamira, in Rites of Passage, with Kōmako. I have found it through reading and listening to podcasts. Now, I guess it's in a PhD experience.

Where is the collective wānanga for our hapū? What about a collective wānanga for those who are (practicing) in relationship to an organisation that has a home in a specific place? Could we develop a wānanga practice that is developing leaders of relational and place-guided communities? Could we do this in ways that are expanding, breathing into Tauiwi and Pākehā institutions? What is the role of Māori whānau, hapū, organisations in relation to a larger community of diverse backgrounds?

What can we feel into as the potential of our places, can we listen together, can we revise our roles based on what is being asked of us from our places? Can we honour our essences, and evolve into new bodies of thought and practice?

I chose a rākau to bring with me to Mānutewhau. They helped to remind my fingers and wrists and shoulders of their potential. I remember some friends speaking about how they found contact easier when they were talking. Rhythms facilitating challenge? This thought is present with me as I navigate my legs and the terrain and my breathing, with the rākau keeping me company in its invitation to be twirled.

I thought about how I feel like I need help to release my shoulders and back, and, at the same time, I want to have stronger legs and calves, but this is a struggle. I feel into the potential of releasing my shoulders by strengthening my legs... Can I do this through Taiao relations of joy and service?

This is a practice of change. These are practices that invite change, not only of form, but also consciousness and practice. How do I need to turn up in order to be of greater service to my nested, living system? What do I need to change in my own body, my own habits, my house, my thinking, my relationships, my communication?

There was a recently fallen tree that had exposed the clay beneath. I found it by leaving the gravel path and winding my body through the bush, following another's feet through and under and over the foliage. I listen to the earth through my hands and offer thanks for a gift of her body. This is a place of rupture, of potential, of change and growth. This is a beginning of a relationship through service and apprenticeship. Nearby I find a hut made of branches and plastic. I wonder if it was made by a man or a child? Was this a temporary home? It is still a home for the spiders and the ferns.

Before coming to Tāmaki, I went on a hīkoi with Aoraki Bound. This was the catalyst to my shift up North, and my feeling about that experience had always been that I would like it to be available for our whānau at a hapū level. Running/walking/slipping/navigating through my local ngāhere, I am taken back to those weeks of self development, and have a feeling again of the potential of these experiences living in local communities, hosted by both Mana Whenua and Ecological, Social development services. This could be an avenue of applying the skills of my body/practice within a place-sourced project. Could this evolve into a service that dance artists are brought in, trained in, to support the evolution of consciousness of our communities, and the development of place-guided leadership?

When I arrive at a section of the pathway that runs beside a small waterfall, I am reminded of the pure practice, and I mihi to Mānutewhau, I bless myself, and wash the clay ball I carry in the waters. My question becomes, 'how can we become response-able in relation to our living, nested systems?'. This is a capacity and capability question. What actions, nodes of intentional activity, do we need to engage with, so that all levels of a system, from an individual, to a catchment, are adding value to the system as a whole?

[I am startled by a dog barking, and my body freezes for a bit. I remember that I have tools to engage with dogs, and I practice breathing and staying still. I thank Matiu for their guidance that day we went walking.]

On my way back home, across the blue sky bridge, and up the steep path to our road, I think about the different directions of our whakapapa and our journeys. Graham Tipene spoke about the journey of the Horotiu starting from the top, following the whakapapa of rain and fresh water. Myra Tipa talks about the journey of Te Hakapupu starting from the sea, following the migration of Tuna, Inaka, and our Tūpuna ki Araiteuru. I feel into the knowledge that the universe is continually moving in both directions, and maybe so too is this research. I am starting from maybe the middle, and travelling upstream to find the sources of my practice, a deeper understanding of where I am in relation to. I am travelling downstream into the potentials of these practices living in a bigger body of water, community, field. I am breathing back into the middle through the writing and the reflections, and doing it all again. I am remembering that regenerative processes are also moving from both directions of a nested system at once, from internal to external, from greater to proximate. This is quantum breathing. Yes and.

Returning home, I leave all of this at the doorstep. I karakia to finish - looking out to Waiopareira - and head off to be a part of my children's lives.