PRELUDE – HE TIMATANGA (II)
(Haare Williams (Papakura 9 June 2017)
‘Whakarongo ki te tangi a te tui
Tui, tui, tuitui-a tuia I runga tuia I raro
Ka rongo Te Po ka rongo Te Ao
Ka Awatea! ‘
I awoke into the bewitching hour when church yards
yawn … to the trilling and inclusive sounds of tui across the street in their
towering chapel in the old magnolia. Tomorrow belongs to a tui who feels the
light in the still of darkness. Her tones of tenderness, sweet notes of love
for a day of peace and security.
Tenderness, pulsating, evocations for a fresh start, with joy, and
the sweet cacophony of love singing melodies like two perfect notes on the same
sheet played
out in the keys of adoration and homage.
I listened to a melody sewing together all the
elements that sustain life beginning with this, a new dawn. And hope. Karanga, a
keening call to wake up to all that has life.
As well, it is at once a lament.
Every morning is an aspiration of Creation. A waiata distilled in darkness.
Yet …
I awoke into the bewitching hour when church yard
yawn … to hear a cacophony of gunfire, bomb blasts, people with babies fleeing
their home nations to continued stuff-ups, and to things I cannot change but
must praise the wisdom to change the things I can. Disappointment is to the soul as a storm is
to a sunny day. Light alone can remove darkness.
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be
achieved by understanding. “Hate cannot
drive out hate, Darkness cannot drive out the darkness, only light can do that”.
(Martin L King Jr).
“Only light can do that.”
As I read and understand someone’s pain, it makes
me pray for that someone’s broken dream who believed in the free spirit and a
vision for a peace.
Let’s celebrate goodness now, not as a post mortem.
Support those who fight on for decency. Make this new dawn a new
beginning. And support those who fight
for what is good in the now against violence to women, hatred of other races,
sexual difference and the damage of the free spirit that’s crawling into the
global blood stream. Let’s support good, decent people who fight on for a
safer, cleaner tomorrow. Now!
Demonstrate contempt for what is evil, for the
politics of stroking fear and hate, fake news, and for the squandered trust of world leaders
against extremism, against reckless leadership and the plundering of
natural resources such as water. Is this a temporary kind of aberration?
We always look absurd and feeble creatures when we stuff up. Let’s stand up for good and reject the
delusions of a pompous cretin, looking ridiculous in his new emperor’s clothes
when the rest of us are shocked or giggling at how naked he and the Free World
looks in the headlights. Someone please tell him and his covert ‘cousin’,
Vladimir to “covfefe off.” Tell him “If
you’re in a hole, stop digging. “
People, decent fair-minded people do not share
reckless delusions.
So despite the
technical genius of our modern technologies, we stand on the brink of the
gravest ecological catastrophe of our age that is global warming, increasing
violence, and the dislocation of immense numbers of people in biblical numbers
fleeing war, famine and poverty. Climate change is linked directly to consumerism
and the acquisition of great wealth that threaten the integrity of culture and
ecological balance. It’s called power, the crude face of greed.
We are not a post mortem heading for corporate and global Armageddon?
There are cultural
options.
This month the night sky will be lit up by
Matariki, Te Matahi o te Tau, the freshness of a new beginning
when we move to spread love that hold everything that is good.
Matariki offers us
another way of remembering that predominant western ideologies based on
capitalism is only one way of structuring our societies. Indigenous cultures
tell us that global destruction isn’t inevitable.
We’ve begun
listening to the stars, now we must also remember to return to our roosts and
once again listen to the birds. Listening is a sound that can make the world
sound good and safe. Let’s hold onto
that which is good in a world growing smaller
every day.
‘Listen to the lament of the tui
Sewing things above, below, within, without
Heard in the night Feeling the Light
In the still of darkness
Light Ah, tis light’
Hope is inside. No
one can take it away. No good thing ever
dies.