‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ is the old saying that describes the power of an image. So many of the stories from ancient times are bound to an image. Few understand that particular aspects of the sacred knowledge of the Waitaha Nation, which I was called to bring into our world, were held in a particular place. The elders would only bring out that lore in that place. We had to be at a certain rock, lake, river, bay, mountain, tree, waterfall or valley to bring out the story that was anchored in the land. Nothing was disconnected; all was one.

So I have returned to the old ways to share stories evoked by an image that is of a place and time.


Sunday 19 February 2012

The Water People

                                                   Maaka Tipa

Journey as the waters go.


Learn to flow smoothly through the land.

Accept the joy of the rapids,

relax in the sparkling pools,

languish in the lakes,

laugh in the tumbling waterfalls

and bathe in their rainbows.

Honour the river that flows within each of us.


From Song of the Silence


In this little brush and ink painting I’ve returned to the Elders’ teachings that prepared me to walk Te Huarahi o Rongo-marae-roa, the Trail of the Peace Maker. This sacred trail of the pounamu — the stone of love and healing — had been closed for nearly one hundred and thirty years, because gold miners had spilt blood on it in anger. The tapu they placed there so many years ago had to be lifted before the ancient knowledge they wished to share could go out into the world.

Each day on that nine-day journey we took the pounamu we carried to the streams along the way.

All journeys have ebb and flow, fast and slow and rough and smooth. They call us to attune to the outer world and inner world of learning. Water is life, the wellspring of our returning to values set aside.

We are of water and water is of us.


                                 Barry Brailsford

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