As human supremacy (in all its patriarchal and colonial glory) is hit with the consequences of its own making - climate-induced flooding - I sit (as a settler from Australia) in awe of the raging waterfalls that cascade down into the Waikato river in the North Island of New Zealand, which is bursting its banks.
Waireinga refers to the leaping water waiura (spirits). The tangata whenua (people of the land) believe that Patupaiarehe (Maori fairies) live as kaitiaki (guardians) of the Waireinga Falls area 🏞️. As I followed the mana of the water from the top, I held my breath feeling groundless, and limitless in the fall; to be swallowed up by the bursting crescendo of water meeting water. I was drawn to the edges of the mountain that started to pulsate, flutter and ripple in a dizzying sight - breathing, communicating - in relation.
Are we listening to nature’s warning? This is ultimately a warning to ourselves (because we are nature).
It is often the communities with ties to earth-centred relations/values who are positioned as scapegoats of a dysfunctional society in collapse.
"Why don't you get a job like the rest of us."
"Stop catastrophising, you're too sensitive”!
"It's not clear whether climate change has anything to do with the floods in the North Island of NZ."
Our experiences and concerns will be denied by the toxic societal culture seeking to hold onto power. For many, our experiences will be denied by families and loved ones.
We will be blamed for the things that happen to us in response to speaking the truth. We will be gaslit, locked up, and harmed to maintain the status quo. Some will be more demonised than others based on their skin colour or culture.
Why? Because there is a pluriverse of actions that threaten the extractive way of being and its dominant myth of progress - with the ability to call out the dysfunction.
That is why we are powerful. That is why we are dismissed and in some cases hated by the status quo.
However, we have the greatest of allies - the plants, and the oceans, the more-than-human-kin.
We have mother earth - she's with us, she is us - and the unravelling is a deeply relational story to tell.
Pepeha is the expression of who you are in all your people and earth-based relations, in Te Reo Māori. New Zealanders and visitors have been invited to create their own introduction based on the webs of relations important to them.
Check out the below music by SIX60 expressing Pepeha.
In relation and with love, Claire
#embodied #writing #revolutionaryhealing #transformative #postactivism #postjustice #weirdpolitics #loveintransformation #ecologicalrelationality
Thank you.