As has been said many times, especially by us Brits for for whom it is still somewhat of a novelty - even to those of us used to the small world of Quakerdom - Aotearoa New Zealand is a small country. I don't mean in the geographical sense but in terms of people. It is hardly surprising then that the traditional Maori way of greeting involves stating where you are from and who are are related to so that kinship ties and mutual friendships etc can be established. There is a distinct sense of everyone being related to everyone somehow within the Maori community (for better or worse...), the use of aunty, uncle and cousin is a tad different to the European conventions - it's much broader - altho' having not quite got my head around it I'll not try explaining it here!
The tradition of establishing where you connect to has become incorporated to a large extent into Pakeha (non-Maori) culture too - unlike parts of Britain where being asked where you are from, or even 'belong', is usually a sign of you being considered an outsider or comer-in any questioning along such lines here is usually followed by an abridged version of the questioners (British) heritage. Same with many Maori too due to the extent of cross-cultural marriages, a guy I met at the marae down the road is quite proud of his Hebridean ancestry. But as was pointed out on the news lately amidst Nationalists concerns over the number of immigrants - we're all immigrants here, some are just more established than others.
When I lived in Britain not really coming from one place tended to be a disadvantage when such things mattered - there was always too much of somewhere else in me either by parentage or place of birth regardless of where I lived and where I called 'home'. However here I'm starting to realise that it's a bonus. Folk here don't care what other places I may link to, they are more interested in what I have in common with them than what I don't. So my widely spread family have unknowingly aided and abetted me in establishing links to many more places in common with people here - the latest being Yeovil, ok so I can only actually remember having been there once to see Great Uncle Percy and G. Aunty Gwen and it was probably about 25 years ago but what the heck! It's kind of like having three extra bingo cards to play with.
When I joined the school group at the Marae I made sure I'd got my mihi (greeting) brushed up as I knew doing the rounds of those was part of the evenings programme. As it happens the teachers somehow got let off the hook and me with them, part of me was a bit miffed as I'm quite proud of being able to recite my mihi in Te Reo rather than English but I'm still not 100% happy with it so maybe not giving a work in progress wasn't such a bad thing.
Part of my problem goes back to being from 'everywhere and nowhere' - so just which is my mountain? my river? who are my tribe? which is my marae? For the last two I'd borrowed someone elses answer which was Te Haahi Tuuhauwiri (Quakers) and Quaker Acres - the Settlement at W(h)anganui. But having listened to Bruce at the marae and then being back at Te Papa recently I've decided to change that - Ngati Wikitoria, the tribe of Queen Victoria are in effect all those she ruled over (and their descendants) which as Bruce pointed out included them too once the Treaty was signed. Now given my longstanding decidedly republican politics (as in ditch the monarchy as head of state not the USA version!) it does feel a little odd to be aligning myself with Queen Vic but the Treaty was with the crown, not the government, nor the country - no monarch and technically the Treaty becomes invalid. Rats. Ho hum... so until a legal loophole has been discovered I'll shut up and make do with the status quo, sigh.... but Scotland gaining her independance wouldn't muck it up so all is not lost! Anyway, I digress...
So yes, I'm part of Ngati Wikitoria. When in Wellington a couple of weeks ago I took Wee John to see the modern marae at Te Papa, I love that place and took everyone who came to visit me in Welly there. I always rub away at the same point on the Pounamu kaitiaki, one day it'll be all shiny and green! When we were there a guided tour was getting the spiel and something the guide said sank in - the marae at Te Papa Tongawera is for all people, tangata whenua - the people of the land ie Maori, tangata tiriti - the people of the treaty, and all those who have come since... so, I have a marae!
My mountain and river still raise issues for me - at the moment I've plumped for Castle Hill as it rather ambiguously covers both the landmark I grew up with in the Holme Valley and that in Edinburgh on which sits the Quaker Meeting House (oh and the castle!). My river is more tricky - I still dither between the Holme and the Firth of Forth, I can't bring myself to call the cold, grey, uninviting North Sea my moana (sea/ocean) instead and I reckon I'd be pushing it still to say Ahipara Bay, but maybe one day...
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Monday, September 03, 2007
in the lap of the gods...
Well, the interview has been had and it seemed to go ok, not sure what else I could have said to make it go better anyroad...
...so now I wait... hopefully just until the predicticted 'sometime next week' however that relies on the International Office processing the decision a bit quicker than they have everything else so far!
It's been an odd week and a long one - I'm glad to be going home tomorrow, it feels like ages since I left. Wellington felt as though I'd never left in many ways but then the presence or absence of a person or building would throw me (what no Alex?). I'm gradually getting to know my way around Auckland by bus and have had several lightbulb moments where different parts of the city finally click into place as to how they join up. Superb aerial views leaving Welly meant I also got a chance to get my head around just how the land lay beyond the Orongaronga's too having never really explored the Wairarapa. Cool views right up into the Tararua range but best of all stunning views of Ruapehu poking above the clouds all covered in snow (Ruapehu that is, not the clouds) - if you get to see her face you can stay here (allegedly, although I don't think there's a ticky box for that on the Immigration forms) so some gods seem to be on my side at least.
...so now I wait... hopefully just until the predicticted 'sometime next week' however that relies on the International Office processing the decision a bit quicker than they have everything else so far!
It's been an odd week and a long one - I'm glad to be going home tomorrow, it feels like ages since I left. Wellington felt as though I'd never left in many ways but then the presence or absence of a person or building would throw me (what no Alex?). I'm gradually getting to know my way around Auckland by bus and have had several lightbulb moments where different parts of the city finally click into place as to how they join up. Superb aerial views leaving Welly meant I also got a chance to get my head around just how the land lay beyond the Orongaronga's too having never really explored the Wairarapa. Cool views right up into the Tararua range but best of all stunning views of Ruapehu poking above the clouds all covered in snow (Ruapehu that is, not the clouds) - if you get to see her face you can stay here (allegedly, although I don't think there's a ticky box for that on the Immigration forms) so some gods seem to be on my side at least.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
global village
Last week I had Wee John from NYFSG (a UK Quaker Camp for 11-16yr olds) staying with me, he'd been to Sydney to see Helen (also from NYFSG but her family emigrated to Aussie a few years ago) and had come across to see Aotearoa NZ whilst 'down under' (and whilst Helen had exams or something).
So during the week I took him (ahem, got us a lift...) to the farm where I'd 'taken' Ann & Colin a few months ago as they travelled around after their stint as Resident Friends in Auckland before they returned to Aberdeen.... which is John's 'home' Meeting.
John went from us to Simon (whose parents I live with) in Christchurch - I know they survived the Undy 500 to Dunedin cos I was with Sarah (sister of Simon) in Auckland when she got a text to say they were now in Queenstown presumably in search of snowboarding, and then he was off to Ben & Charlotte's in Wellington... Charlotte stayed with Si & Susie in 2005 just before WGYF, they stayed over here at her parents bach in 2006 and got engaged there (awwww...), Wee John was at their wedding in Edinburgh in September and at NYFSG with them a few weeks ago. As John was arriving at Ben & Charlotte's place last night Ben was on the phone to his mum in Auckland who I'm staying with on my way to Welly - the reason I'm still in Auckland 2 days later than originally planned is I'm meeting Marie tonight at Auckland airport, Marie was staff with me, Susie and Si at NYFSG in 2002, when Wee John was Wee and John R-M was Big!
Got all that??!
Now in October Sarah will be at YFGM in the UK with Alex who was over here for a 15 month long '6mth stay', as will Wee John be and so it goes on.... all interlinked and intertwined like Celtic knotwork. And believe me there's plenty more like that, I haven't even started on who was all at Summer Gathering here this year!
As I've said before and will no doubt say plenty of times again - 6 degrees of separation? Huh, who are you kidding? Throw a few Quakers into the mix and you're down to 2 at the most... By the way if you follow that link you discover that the answer to it all is, of course, 42. And there lies a whole heap of other synchronicities of the last few days which I won't detail here but link the Far North Christian Revival Centres current poster campaign to a six year old in Christchurch , YF dinners and a conversation with Ruth at the farm when I was there with Wee John...
I may be on the other side of the world from the land of my birth but there are times when it really doesn't feel like it as the strands of who knows who in my life seem to become more tightly woven rather than looser.
So during the week I took him (ahem, got us a lift...) to the farm where I'd 'taken' Ann & Colin a few months ago as they travelled around after their stint as Resident Friends in Auckland before they returned to Aberdeen.... which is John's 'home' Meeting.
John went from us to Simon (whose parents I live with) in Christchurch - I know they survived the Undy 500 to Dunedin cos I was with Sarah (sister of Simon) in Auckland when she got a text to say they were now in Queenstown presumably in search of snowboarding, and then he was off to Ben & Charlotte's in Wellington... Charlotte stayed with Si & Susie in 2005 just before WGYF, they stayed over here at her parents bach in 2006 and got engaged there (awwww...), Wee John was at their wedding in Edinburgh in September and at NYFSG with them a few weeks ago. As John was arriving at Ben & Charlotte's place last night Ben was on the phone to his mum in Auckland who I'm staying with on my way to Welly - the reason I'm still in Auckland 2 days later than originally planned is I'm meeting Marie tonight at Auckland airport, Marie was staff with me, Susie and Si at NYFSG in 2002, when Wee John was Wee and John R-M was Big!
Got all that??!
Now in October Sarah will be at YFGM in the UK with Alex who was over here for a 15 month long '6mth stay', as will Wee John be and so it goes on.... all interlinked and intertwined like Celtic knotwork. And believe me there's plenty more like that, I haven't even started on who was all at Summer Gathering here this year!
As I've said before and will no doubt say plenty of times again - 6 degrees of separation? Huh, who are you kidding? Throw a few Quakers into the mix and you're down to 2 at the most... By the way if you follow that link you discover that the answer to it all is, of course, 42. And there lies a whole heap of other synchronicities of the last few days which I won't detail here but link the Far North Christian Revival Centres current poster campaign to a six year old in Christchurch , YF dinners and a conversation with Ruth at the farm when I was there with Wee John...
I may be on the other side of the world from the land of my birth but there are times when it really doesn't feel like it as the strands of who knows who in my life seem to become more tightly woven rather than looser.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
back again
No I haven't abandoned my blog, thanks those who asked! My laptop has been poorly bad and is still seriously sulking despite a new battery (again...).
In addition to having unco-operative technology I've spent the last month filling in forms, well that's what it feel like. I've applied to do a Graduate Diploma in Teaching through the University of Auckland next year - and before anyone takes me to task about all those times I've said I'd never want to (a) teach or (b) live in Auckland I hasten to add it's for Early Childhood Education and studying extramurally (which would mean I'd get to live up in Kaitaia still).
So why? Well funnily enough that's what several of the said forms have been asking (both those applying for the course and grovelling for funding loans and grants). I don't think it would have ever occurred to me as a 'career' option in the UK but the more I've learned about Early Childhood Eduction here the more it appeals. The national curriculum 'Te Whariki' translates as the weaving, it is the weaving together of many strands of a childs life and development in the context of their own community surroundings. It is holistic, it has emphasis on the spiritual development of the child and my pidgin anthroposophy could finally come in handy again (about seven years later how appropriate!). When reading through the curriculum I realised it was covering so many of the issues addressed by the Quaker Youthworker course I worked through in fits and starts, what's more as with Quaker youthwork the children are all there through choice (albeit parental/carers) rather than law so there's often a higher level of commitment and enthusiasm supporting the childs presence.
There are a number of Quakers involved here in ECE, both delivering it at a grassroots level and in the training for it, I guess it's not that surprising really!
So I'm waiting to hear if I've got an interview with the university and if I've got my loan application approved. Probably just as well I'm spending this week running around the country catching up with old F/friends rather than sitting here fretting over it. I'll keep you posted!
In addition to having unco-operative technology I've spent the last month filling in forms, well that's what it feel like. I've applied to do a Graduate Diploma in Teaching through the University of Auckland next year - and before anyone takes me to task about all those times I've said I'd never want to (a) teach or (b) live in Auckland I hasten to add it's for Early Childhood Education and studying extramurally (which would mean I'd get to live up in Kaitaia still).
So why? Well funnily enough that's what several of the said forms have been asking (both those applying for the course and grovelling for funding loans and grants). I don't think it would have ever occurred to me as a 'career' option in the UK but the more I've learned about Early Childhood Eduction here the more it appeals. The national curriculum 'Te Whariki' translates as the weaving, it is the weaving together of many strands of a childs life and development in the context of their own community surroundings. It is holistic, it has emphasis on the spiritual development of the child and my pidgin anthroposophy could finally come in handy again (about seven years later how appropriate!). When reading through the curriculum I realised it was covering so many of the issues addressed by the Quaker Youthworker course I worked through in fits and starts, what's more as with Quaker youthwork the children are all there through choice (albeit parental/carers) rather than law so there's often a higher level of commitment and enthusiasm supporting the childs presence.
There are a number of Quakers involved here in ECE, both delivering it at a grassroots level and in the training for it, I guess it's not that surprising really!
So I'm waiting to hear if I've got an interview with the university and if I've got my loan application approved. Probably just as well I'm spending this week running around the country catching up with old F/friends rather than sitting here fretting over it. I'll keep you posted!
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Harry Potter and the Quaker Quote
No spoilers I promise (oh and Lucy I've finished it now!) not even oblique references like Kate put in her post...
As you open Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows you come across a couple of quotes - one of which has meant a lot to me for many years. Here is a longer extract of the text as found in Britain Yearly Meeting's book of Quaker Faith & Practice, thought some of you Potter fans who aren't so well acquainted with William Penn might appreciate it...
22.95
The truest end of life, is to know the life that never ends. He that makes this his care, will find it his crown at last. And he that lives to live ever, never fears dying: nor can the means be terrible to him that heartily believes the end.
For though death be a dark passage, it leads to immortality, and that's recompense enough for suffering of it. And yet faith lights us, even through the grave, being the evidence of things not seen.
And this is the comfort of the good, that the grave cannot hold them, and that they live as soon as they die. For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. Death, then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live, if we cannot bear to die.
They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle, the root and record of their friendship. If absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure.
This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.
William Penn, 1693
(the text in bold is that quoted in HPVII)
What I will say (and no this won't spoil it for anyone) is that Dumbledore's insistance in earlier books that love is stronger than anything else comes through even more strongly in this one which has prompted many thoughts. But right now they are whirling around as if in a penseive (and yes Mum I have spelt that right, you really are going to have to read them you know!) but they haven't quite got themselves in enough order to make sense for a blogpost. But needless to say this has decided to float around along with it all - WGYFers and ANZYFs will probably recognise it better than most =)
As you open Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows you come across a couple of quotes - one of which has meant a lot to me for many years. Here is a longer extract of the text as found in Britain Yearly Meeting's book of Quaker Faith & Practice, thought some of you Potter fans who aren't so well acquainted with William Penn might appreciate it...
22.95
The truest end of life, is to know the life that never ends. He that makes this his care, will find it his crown at last. And he that lives to live ever, never fears dying: nor can the means be terrible to him that heartily believes the end.
For though death be a dark passage, it leads to immortality, and that's recompense enough for suffering of it. And yet faith lights us, even through the grave, being the evidence of things not seen.
And this is the comfort of the good, that the grave cannot hold them, and that they live as soon as they die. For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. Death, then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live, if we cannot bear to die.
They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle, the root and record of their friendship. If absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure.
This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.
William Penn, 1693
(the text in bold is that quoted in HPVII)
What I will say (and no this won't spoil it for anyone) is that Dumbledore's insistance in earlier books that love is stronger than anything else comes through even more strongly in this one which has prompted many thoughts. But right now they are whirling around as if in a penseive (and yes Mum I have spelt that right, you really are going to have to read them you know!) but they haven't quite got themselves in enough order to make sense for a blogpost. But needless to say this has decided to float around along with it all - WGYFers and ANZYFs will probably recognise it better than most =)
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