Tangihanga and healing

A friend had some rough news last week; I went on to their marae to pay our respects with the collective from the university. I was deeply appreciative of being able to attend alongside and to be able to make the journey (it was some distance from where we live). If you’ve attended tangihanga, you know all that this entails and the healing that comes from being able to take time together to openly grieve.

I’ve been reflecting since about the ways in which the collective expression of grief is healing; that there is a need to take time out from our everyday lives to do this work. And about the ways in which the healthy and open expression of emotion facilitates wellbeing; and of the words of a matua who said to me, while I was in the thick of my PhD, “Māori worked out by trial and error, over hundreds of years, what was good for our people. We know what works for the wellbeing of our people; that is why we did things the way we did.”

We are all poorer when we embrace individualism and greed, when we allow extractive and exploitative practices, and when we collectively turn away from supporting the wellbeing of all.

I don’t really have anything more than that right now.

Thank you to Nā Scotty Te Manahau Morrison, for these beautiful words. For more like this, please visit https://www.reomaorimai.co.nz/

Taitaiā mai te waka, e Rangi e

Ko te waka o te hinga noa, e Rangi e

Ko te waka o te mate noa, e Rangi e

Ko te waka e hoea nei e te kura karioi o te wā

Ki Hawaiki nui, Hawaiki roa, Hawaiki pā mamao

Tūturu o whiti, whakamaua kia tina, tīna

Haumi ē, hui ē, tāiki ē

Prepare the waka, Rangi

The waka of loss without cause, Rangi

The waka of death without cause, Rangi

Te waka for our lost treasure of this time

To travel to their ancestral homeland

We affirm

We unite

Ka Aroha is a simple waiata and yet it still soothes my soul at times like this:

Take care,

R