Tuataras and Wetas

A highlight of my recent visit to Wellington was visiting the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. There is always something new to see there and this time it was the two tuatara. This was my first encounter with them 'in the wild' (not inside) and I have subsequently decided that I have finally identified my totem animal. I am actually a tuatara. Like them I don't really move very fast and I like to be warm.

One of my companions on this visit was my nearly-five year old niece, Zita who was also a huge tuatara fan. She would happily have spent the whole time squatting down and watching them doing nothing at all except that most of the older and all of the younger members of the party had much shorter attention spans.

Zita is refreshingly unsqueamish about insects. She loved the weta hotels at the Sanctuary and told me that her favourite insect is a cicada (though butterflies are good too) and her least favourite is a bumble bee. Her mother said she can spend hours watching ants on the concrete path.

When I finally returned to Hukeranui, I found this weta watching paint dry under its feet. This photo is for you, Zita.

Do the dishes

One morning I rode my breath

into the presence of God

and (not wanting to waste the opportunity)

I asked, what should I do?

Some time later

the answer rose up warm through my soles

on the cold wooden floor:

Go do the dishes

So I did and then, and later,

I noticed it was always the right thing

to wash the dishes

as an expression of love and gratitude

a sensual pleasure

a social solution

the end of a string to lead me out of an impasse

After a lifetime of resisting and resenting

dishes as punishment and oppression,

this humble task became my calling

and my relief

my meditation

my prayer

my blessing

Thich Nhat Hanh says:

Washing the dishes

is like bathing a baby Buddha

Rabbi Abraham Hayyim said:

My most important job is to make sure

that no trace of food remains on the dishes

And Rabbi Shmelke confirmed:

Now you know everything you need to know

Rabbi Kushner says

Allowing oneself to be nothing means that

when we are done with our sophisticated-sounding sentences,

the dishes must be washed.

Beyond nothing-to-think is life-to-be-lived

To clean the dishes with kavanah, mindfully,

is to wash away ego

Hineini

Here I am,

feet on the floor, hands in the sink.

Here I am,

Pulling my attention back and back and back to this act.

Here I am,

restoring beauty and order,

washing away what hides the divine spark.

Tikkun olan

© January 2006

Tapu te Po

At a reader's request, here are the words to O Holy Night in Te Reo Maori, thanks to Pauline and Joby of Pehiaweri Marae in Whangarei.

NB The te reo is sung in parts, harmonising and overlappping where the /slash/ indicates. Also the last word of the 5th line is cut off of my photocopy so I'm not 100% sure I've remembered correctly. And, of course, it is not a straight translation of the English.

Tapu te Po

Tiramarama mai ra
Tenai te Po/ a te Kai whakaora
He Ao hara/ He Ao Aroha kore
Tu mai ra koe/ hei whaka-tau I au
Nga Tumanako O Te Ao Katoa
Puawai i-te/ ata ko te Ao hou
Wha-kanuia
Ina/ nga reo Ana-hera
Tapu/ te Po
Te po/ a Ihu
Te po/ Tapu rawa
He Ao
Ao marama

(and in English)

O Holy Night

O Holy night!
The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Til He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.
The thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees!
O, hear the angel voices!
O night divine,
O night when Christ was born;
O nigh divine!
O night
O night divine!

The sweetest thing

Here's a message put on Al's back yesterday by his grand-daughter, Jessica. He wrote "not knowing it was there I headed for Paraparaumu & wandered about with it there, wondering at the ghosts of smiles crossing peoples faces."

NB All the grandkids call him Fafa.

Fouling Persons Take Charge!

A new sign by the river stopped me on a walk last week. I had to read it several times, using various techniques such as cocked head and squinting alternate eyes, to try and make sense of it. The Whangarei District Council line at the top is pretty straightforward but it's all downhill from there.

Looks to me like the (possibly foreign) sign writer was unnecessarily stingy with punctuation. And the graphic seems an ill fit for the text: the picture suggests 'no dogs allowed' but words suggest- eventually, with persistance and imagination- that dogs are ok if under the control of a (fouling or otherwise) person.

Hikurangi Carnival

Last Saturday was Carnival day in Hikurangi, and also the annual Santa parade. I went along for the farmer's market and ended up having such a good time I stayed for the parade. Hikurangi is little country town usually so sleepy as to be almost comatose. However, for this occasion almost all the shops were open. All but two of them are second-hand/junk shops but there is also a superette and a wee bakery.


It was a great place for people watching:

• the four old women line dancing
• the voluptuous woman in a low cut top exposing most a large, colourful squid tattooed on her right breast
• the bikers with fancy motorbikes, some with handlebars at head height (don't their arms get tired?) and a couple of huge powerful tricycles
• the police on horses decorated with blue and silver tinsel

But my absolute highlight of the parade was the Hikurangi School percussion band where the instruments were mostly homemade. There were kettle drums out of barrels, and a variety of instruments made out of corrugated PVC pipes. The older kids played very well as they marched along, reminding me of Strike, an excellent percussion group I've seen in Wellington. The littlest kids walked behind carrying colourful fish on long bamboo sticks.

Sagittarian seeks stable home

It is commonplace to hear or read New Zealanders saying 'Housing prices are so high now, I feel sorry for anyone trying to buy their first house these days'. The sympathy is always offered by someone who already owns a house with equity that has increased by many tens of thousands in the past three years and that I assume they would try to sell for the highest possible price (who wouldn't?).

I appreciate your sympathy, really I do. I thought you might be interested to know what it feels like to be in the position of wanting to enter the property market from scratch right now.

My tight budget is entirely oriented towards this goal yet no matter how disciplined my saving, house prices rise faster than my bank balance. Every week I cycle through hope, disappointment and despair as I come up with a new scheme for purchasing a property on a shoestring, investigate the realities of said scheme and face yet again the apparent reality that even the most distant and divey of super-cheapies are out of my reach and to feel minimally safe, comfortable and able to get to work and back in less than a day is way, way beyond my means.

When I tell real estate agents how much I think I can afford (and I always exaggerate slightly), they laugh and then hang up the phone as fast as possible. This was without exception until Val from Kamo Real Estate cold-called me this week and said she liked a challenge and told me she'd been in the same position not that long ago. I am now in a hope phase thanks to her and Mal, the tutor of the home ownership course I am taking.

My current hope phase is perfectly in tune with this week's Sagittarius horoscope from Rob Brezny: "Be ready to imagine the unimaginable, see the unseeable, and think the unthinkable... with the most optimistic attitude possible... the almost unbelievable prospects coming into your sphere are interesting and invigorating."

The apparent reality of the housing market presents as a blank wall but I choose to, have to, decide to, believe that there is a chink somewhere for an optimistic Sagittarian willing to imagine the unimaginable, see the unseeable and think the unthinkable.

Bring it on home!

Waiata Joy

I've stopped saying I can't sing, because lately I've been doing a lot of singing so it would be ridiculous to continue protesting that I can't. What I meant, for all those years of saying I can't sing, is that I can't sing reliably well. My voice still isn't very reliable, but lots of practice, good company and good teachers are helping me to understand more about how to control my voice and how to recognise the range where my voice is strongest and most reliable.

I'm singing waiata (Maori songs) with two separate groups. In the Waiata Class at work, most of the singers are not much more familiar with the songs than me, and while there are a range of singing abilities, we've been progressing together at more or less the same pace. The repertoire is designed for us to use in appropriate work contexts and ranges from funny nursery songs to himine (hymns).

At Waiata Joy (at Pehia Weri Marae on Tuesday evenings) I am the new girl in a loose group that's been singing together all year (and some of them all their long lives). The strength of the singing around me simultaneously carries my voice to a stronger place and helps camouflage my weaknesses. The repertoire there is slightly more weighted to the traditional and himine with lots of patriotic Nga Puhi anthems and old party favourites.

Last night we learned a new song (the first song taught from scratch since I started six weeks ago), a beautiful Maori translation of a Christmas carol called Holy Night. When I first heard the demonstration I was moved to tears, and not only at the assumption that there was no way I could contribute to such an exquisite and complex piece of music. By the end of the evening I had discovered I am an alto, and was singing along... not even close to perfectly, but well enough to be enjoying for the first time in my life the sensation of singing in a four part harmony.

Rahui at Bream Bay

Following the whale strandings and deaths near Whangarei earlier this month, tangata whenu (local Maori) from Patu harakeke - Takahiwai have placed at Rahui (ban) at Bream Bay. A Rahui is a ban on collecting kai moana (sea food) from this area and will last 14 days. Local Maori history recognises the Whangarei Harbour as a resting place and migration route for whales.

There may be health issues as a consequance the many whales that had to be buried at the beach and their possible effect on the water quality. The ban is not legally enforcable, but is tikanga (customary practice).

Snow White

Everything is bursting into bloom with the thrill of warm spring rains. Swathes of green are broken with pink, red, white, yellow, orange blossoms. I'm enjoying the sights but unfortunately my body is responding with a one woman show about seven dwarves: Sneezy, Itchy, Scratchy, Reddy, Bumpy, Swelly and Teary.

Tame garden, wild journal

What have I been doing lately instead of composing frequent, witty, thoughtful blogular commentaries on the world around me?

Well, the vege garden is looking very fine at the moment with the first brocolli ready to eat tomorrow and some tiny dark green nubbins of tomatoes popping out. Because its inside a plastic-house I have to water it even when there's been a lot of rain, and because it's sheltered from most wind, watering is a slow and careful exercise of not getting tomato leaves wet (and thus inviting fungi and moulds). So slowly and carefully do I water in fact, that there is plenty of time to pull all the weeds out at the same time.

And I've been making more an effort to socialise (as in actual face to face contact with other human beings in the same room) than I have for oh, at least two or three years. I still enjoy solitude most of the time, but that 'most' is quite a shift away from the hermit-like existence that I was dedicated to when I first moved to Northland 18 months ago. Yesterday I enjoyed visiting my local bibliophile-buddy who likes to lend me books and who has lots of books worth borrowing.

One of the books I borrowed yesterday is called Artist's Journals and Sketchbooks: Exploring and Creating Personal Pages by Lynne Perrella. It's wonderfully inspiring, as I've been really trying for some time to make my journals more colourful, textured, and playful (initially inspired by The decorated page by Gwen Diehn, also good but not quite so juicy). Immediately on arriving home with this book I started playing with my journal, experimenting boldly to various degrees of satisfaction.

One of my favourite things I read is that if you aren't happy with how a page looks you can just paint it all out and start again with another layer. You can do that?! Oh wow, the freedom... I feel like my imagination is all getting all stretchy and succulent as I let go of being precious about what I write and draw and abandon old rules and prejudices about collage and rubber stamps and texture and colour. I'm literally pushing my own artist's book boundaries by letting my journal bulge, buckle, sprawl and splay in an unseemly and undignified manner.

Stoat on the Run

Walking up the right side of the road, minding my own business I noticed a very small animal trotting towards me on the left. I stopped and saw that it was a stoat. A few seconds later she* stopped too, peered at me around the enormous mouthful of dead starling fledgling she was carrying, obviously decided I was not worth bothering about, and resumed running.

She ran right past, close enough for me to admire her white chest and notice that her mostly red fur was dripping as though she had just climbed out of the nearby creek. As she passed I turned my head and began to formulate a thought to take a photo.

At that moment she stopped, dropped the bird and in three sinuous leaps she disappeared into the long grass on the side of the road. I walked over to inspect her catch, saw that it wasn't a precious native bird, commended her taste and carried on walking.

*I'm guessing it was a she, taking lunch home for her babies.

Spring Garden

I went round to visit Mt Tiger, where I house-sat this winter.

I got to have some nice cuddles with Bonnie, who I have been missing lots. She hurt her back leg a few weeks ago and isn't allowed to leap or jump until she is fully healed. She's pretty frustrated with being kept inside (and who wouldn't be with a garden like this- full of birds- waiting just outside the window).

Over the winter I thought it was a nice garden but now I see what a wonderland it can be in glorious spring technicolour.

Vermin beware

October Garden

Every now and then something shatters my mild-mannered, peace-loving, bodhichitta-aspiring, hippy-dippy default mode of being. Usually vermin of some kind. Long-time readers may remember a certain over-excited rat that inspired a murderous vengeful rage in me. Cockroaches have a similar effect. Snails and slugs feasting on my seedlings can bring on a slightly muted version: not so much a red haze as an orange one, enough to make me buy (organic) snail poison.

Above is a photo of the vege garden taken three weeks ago. Below is a photo of the same garden (different angle) taken today. See how well it is coming along? I am overwhelmed with lettuces and peas needing to be eaten now now now. I tend it lovingly, enjoying the satisfaction only possible in a Very Small Garden: a temporary sense of completion.

November Garden

But! There is a thief enjoying the fruits of my labours. Every morning I see that something has eaten more of the unripe strawberries, still-small, pale green, seedy nubbins that must be awfully sour. My pleasurable anticipation of the enjoying a lush crimson strawberry harvest is dashed on a daily basis. I suspected that the strawberry thief is the same villain who is nibbling my bean seedlings, clattering across the roof and laughing maniacally outside my window at night. Have you guessed yet?

When I was a kid we had a possum wander through our house one evening like a family cat. I remember the hysteria when we realised it wasn't actually cat, but I don't remember how that particular possum problem was solved. My current possum problem made me go looking for a trap. Turns out the humane Timms traps cost more than I want afford (about the price of 10 punnets of strawberries) but then Nola at NRC offered me a Free Once In A Life Time Offer of a 'small bag' of possum poison. Was I interested? Oh yes I was, imagining a small (strawberry punnet sized) bag of poison. When she slung a big old paper sack on the counter I thought she would be siphoning off a portion for me. But no, as I signed the register for my Free Once In A Life Time Offer she explained that 2kg is the small bag. It usually comes in 20kg sacks.

Using a couple of old plastic milk bottles donated by a work mate I have made bait stations and set them up around the garden. After an initial cautious nibble the first night, subsequent nights have seen the possums gorging on poison and even trying to carry some away for midday snacking (I'm guessing this from the trail of blue bait strewn on the ground). I'm glad the poison is being eaten but it is slow acting and unfortunately the possums are still enthusiastically eating every baby strawberry they can find. See below.

Evidence of murderous rage
Exhibit A: strawberry plants with gnawed empty hulls in the foreground
Exhibit B: Bait station with poison in background
Bonus Exhibit: Stump in right background is a nasty tree I tore apart with my bare hands* because it was shading the strawberries, sucking up all the water, threatening to grow through the plastic sheet ceiling and dropping horrible sticky seed pods on everything.
*Have I mentioned that all this gardening is done without any proper tools?

Birds' House

Remember the baby birds I wrote about a few weeks ago? Well they grew up and fledged surprisingly quickly. I would look out at the nest and see six nearly identical birds overflowing for a second before they flew away in response to my attention. I also encountered them in the garden where the young ones were strengthening their wings with flying games that included dive bombing me in quite a startling manner.

Then about a week ago I looked out the bathroom window and didn't see the nest. Peering down I saw a splatter of dried dirt and bird shit on the deck below. Uh oh, the weight of six growing birds was clearly too much for their mud, straw and bird-saliva construction. The teenagers are still hanging around the garden, but I noticed this morning that the parents have started reconstruction. A lip of mud was balancing on the tiny ledge where the last nest had been. By this afternoon it had doubled in size (about a quarter of the full size of the earlier version). Every now and then I glimpse a wee bird flying in with a beak full of mud or a strand of dried grass.

What great role models for persistent commitment to having the home that they want, where they want it, not matter what goes wrong!