Aroha in action hui: Whakawātea – supporting healing

[Animated Graphic: Aroha in Action Family Start Hui 2023 graphic]

[Text on screen: Whakawātea - supporting healing, Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas, Crystal Pekepo & Ngarino Te Waati]

[Text on screen: Noel Woods]

Noel Woods:

Ko tō tātou kaikōrero tuatahi, ko Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas, he uri nō Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Ranginui. A kaimahi at Toi Tangata, and you’ll often find Ranginui in the moana diving for kaimoana and also in the ngahere doing some sort of mahinga kai. Ātaahua.

E whai mai nei tō tātou kaikōrero tuarua, Crystal Pekepo-Ratu. He uri nō Ngāti Kahungunu me Ngāti Whara. She is a part of the amazing Oi Collective, a group of wāhine toa changing the game and changing the narrative out there.

Also, our final kaikōrero, Ngarino Te Waati, nō Waikato Tainui, Te Waiohua, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāti Awa me Te Arawa. Mihi ana ki a koe. Ngarino is skilled in haka, Māori movement, weaponry, taonga pūoro, and in fact over the last three years, Ngarino has been dedicated to bringing the lifeforce back to whānau to thrive utilising wānanga mātauranga and tohu āio, and in fact, he was a mean as rugby player back in the rā, too.

[Slide on screen: Speaker photos with names]

Time to get some kōrero rolling. We’re going to introduce our first pātai and we’re going to start off with you, e te parata. Kōrero mai, can you explain the concept of ‘whakawātea’ and its significance in te ao Māori.

[Text on screen: Crystal Pekepo, Ngarino Te Waati]

Ngarino Te Waati:

Whakawātea, ki ahau, mōku ake, you can really look at it in two fundamental frameworks. You have the kupu ‘wātea’ in itself but if you were to whakawetewete you have ‘wā’ and we have ‘wātea’. And it’s about being present in the moment to capitalise on that specific time that you’re in so that you connect deeply to your hā, as the hā has the sustenance to be able to calm or stimulate your energy whilst you’re either moving into space or whether you’re exiting.

Then you have the kupu ‘wātea’ as well, so when you’re conducting any form of practice it’s important that you remove yourself from any situation and make sure that you’re not carrying anything that doesn’t belong to you. And it’s just about having a present moment with yourself to acknowledge the time and the space to kind of alleviate any form of stress or pressure that you may have conducted whilst moving into those spaces. Mōku ake; that’s what ‘wātea’ means to me.

Noel Woods:

Crystal, he aha ōu whakaaro?

Crystal Pekepo:

Yeah, what he said.

[Laughter]

I think it’s probably something that we don’t do enough of, in terms of, like there’s been a lot of kōrero around reflection, self-reflection, and whakawātea, I guess, is that process of self-reflection. Like the brother said, when we’re moving into different spaces, we can actually often find ourselves on a daily basis moving into many spaces. And so, I think it’s more around that self-reflection of what space we’re moving into at different times, and how we actually, just how we shift, I guess, how we shift and whakawātea from one moment to move into another. That’s a more A, B, C, way of putting it whānau, yeah.

Noel Woods:

Ngarino, this one, we’re going to get you to answer this one. How does ‘whakawātea’ contribute to the overall well-being and balance of individuals and communities?

Ngarino Te Waati:

Yeah, it pretty much is the dividing force between looking after your energy, or your lifeforce, your mauri, and making sure that there is clear division between them. And it brings me back to the whakatapu, whakanoa processes as we go into spaces where it can be quite intense. I like what the whaea was saying before about certain stress hormones would be activated. But aligning yourself to become neutral in a space and not really binding onto any heavy situations that may otherwise disturb your pathway.

As you’re moving into spaces you’ve got to be really clear on your intentions and you have to, what do I call it, I liken it to emotional intelligence, not allow yourself to get caught up in the rubble. And then, so allowing yourself to be able to be as neutral as you possibly can as you do step out of that space. Ko te whakawātea is understanding the processes of what tapu is and what noa is, and making sure that you have tikanga to work through both of those dimensions. And that will ideally keep you safe, keep your whānau safe, and anybody else that you have interaction with as well.

Noel Woods:

Ka pai. Well, we have our parata online, e Ranginui. We’ll come back to question one for you, e hoa, just explaining the concept of ‘whakawātea’ and how significant it is.

[Text on screen: Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas]

Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas:

Kia ora tātou. Ki ahau, it depends on the heights, the depths of and the magnitude of the kaupapa that you’ve engaged with. That determines how big a whakawātea needs to be. So, we need to understand whakawātea from what? That determines a lot on what the whakawātea looks like for me. Mehemea he kaupapa … so to say if it was, for example, kaupapa like Umu Kohukohu Whetū, like the one that we just conducted, there was a lot of pressure, there was a lot of expectation, there was a lot of repercussion to kaupapa like that. And the processes of rendering yourself neutral once again and returning to the frequency that everybody else is at.

For me, the process of that is a lot, that there’s a lot more to it as in to say, to come back to earth, to come back to the frequency that everybody else is in, and society is in, because to get to that taumata you’re at another frequency with yourself and your thoughts, ka eke. You elevate to another level and because you need to meet the expectation and you need to meet the height of the occasion, and to come back from that, that looks different for me, depending on what it is. If all the whakatō mauri, kaupapa whakatō mauri, and viewing a lifeforce into something, until I have that we can sort of do those things, come quite easily.

Whereas something that’s quite public, something where everybody’s got an expectation on you, coming out of that can be a little bit different. But you can’t stay in there. You can’t stay in that frame of mind, of te pō, where you’re talking to atua, where you’re talking to ancestors, where you’re talking to stars, not in this day and age anyway.

Noel Woods:

Kia ora. I want to come to you Crystal and it’s more around the traditional practices, or rituals, associated with whakawātea. Have you experienced some of those, no doubt?

Crystal Pekepo:

I guess from a Cook Island perspective being raised alongside, well, guided by my father. It wasn’t so much about a process as much as it was being one with. So, for him being a man who holds great responsibility I guess, in our community, part of his whakawātea was to go to the moana but it wasn’t to release anything as much as it was to be with. He’s always, kind of, been quite confident in whakapapa and knowing that that ancestral line is, we’re always connected to it. So, ahakoa te aha, we’re always going to be safe. Being descendants of an ancestor called Mokoiro who was an atua, his connection was always to go and be one with Mokoiro in the ocean. I guess that’s kind of an example of whakawātea to kind of release the burden but also understand that we also have a responsibility and an obligation. So, those responsibilities and our obligation to perpetuate whakapapa is always held at a higher realm, if that makes any sense. But yeah, koirā tētahi tauira.

Noel Woods:

Ngarino, seen many a kaupapa and in fact a couple of the bros have experienced them here in Tāmaki. Good to see you taking it around the country too, as well. But share some of your experience about whakawātea.

Ngarino Te Waati:

From a ritual or a ceremonial perspective, it’s about understanding, yeah, again, the whakapapa of it but knowing that we have stepped in a world of duality. You know, for a lot of our people I see,  there have been no ceremonial practices to help guide them, especially when our people are going through the death spiral, and knowing that there is a physical and a metaphysical state that is playing hand in hand together. And if one’s a little bit emptier than the other then you can see that the… especially our tāne, e tītahataha nei, and then the imbalance starts to play out in their characteristics or their habits or their behaviour patterns.

You know, for us, it’s about trying to create that synchronised state of harmonious energy so that one can be balanced, and both their taha wahine, te taha tāne, and we both have masculine and feminine forms and how they bind into each other through DNA molecules. You talk about cellular memory and the intelligence of what our people can really produce, but it takes a special type of understanding to step into those realms and ritually activate those memories, those cellular memories. But yeah, I think through our pure processes or the way that we like to clear, like the sister was saying, it’s about being part of the collective, as part of the wholeness, part of the one. And until we can meet the final lines of what that truly means for our people only then will we understand how precious rituals are.

Now you can do that on a big scale, like the cousin Ranginui was talking about, or you can go onto a smaller scale and just get some wai and just throw it over the top over of yourself or wash your face, if that’s what’s going to work for you. So, depending on the scale of how you utilise Māori methodology and all of our ritual practices, it’s about the connectedness.

Noel Woods:

Kia ora. Oh, we’ll go to Ranginui very shortly. But Crystal, just coming back to you as a māmā, some of those rituals and practices you’ve done it with your whānau.

Crystal Pekepo:

You know I think if there’s one thing in terms of, it’s not so much a ritual, but it’s a must, is forgiveness. And I think once we, we kind of live in a world where there is a lack of emotional intelligence. A lot of society is shaped by alter egos, and I think with our tamariki, and being responsible for our tamariki in terms of how they conduct themselves outside the gates of our own whare, it’s not so much about whakawātea as much as it is about being free. Because whakawātea is not something that you can just, is an action, but it can also just be something that is naturally done.

And forgiveness is probably a big thing because it enables you to be free, and that is your freedom, and so that’s something that we always speak about with our tamariki, because they fight amongst themselves. So, they are each other’s biggest teachers, I guess, when it comes to conflict. Yeah, I think you know there’s probably more at a common level. Forgiveness is actually huge in terms of freedom and how we move forward, and how we weave ourselves within the fabric of society too.

Noel Woods:

Kia ora. Well we’ll head over to Ranginui. And I suppose, just thinking of the whānau that are tuned in right now, you know, a day’s mahi, heavy mahi, working with mokopuna and their whānau, just some whakaaro around how they can incorporate the principles of whakawātea into their mahi, into their daily lives and interactions to keep them well.

Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas:

I think some of the concepts regarding whakawātea, we are quick to turn to karakia ka pai, pai tēnā. Mārama tērā te pure, te waiere, those means of clearing any obstructions and try to find clarity and any burdens that you may carry. Matariki, for me. So, an example of this for some people that were carrying taumaha around those who have passed, exactly what Crystal, what the sister was saying, that we have found that there’s a shortage of time.

In recent years we haven’t arranged time to grieve, other than in the days we are at the tangihanga. But there was no equivalent release process to remove those burdens and we found that during the Matariki Umu Kohukohu Whetū, a traditional ceremonial oven, there’s a time in there where we cast our thoughts to Pōhutukawa and we direct, sort of, we move across the top of the marea of the crowd and we allow people the opportunity to say that person’s name and cast anybody’s who’s passed in the last year to Matariki, because traditionally that’s where we would cast our mate. Where the saying comes from, ‘Kua whetūrangihia rātou.’

When you hear in whaikōrero, ‘rātou kua whetūrangihia, haere, haere, haere atu rā,’ those who have been cast to the stars. And we found that people found closure in that, which is another form of whakawātea, is closure. And so, for some people, post the ceremony, they would say, ‘You know, we haven’t been given this time, allowed the time to grieve. When do we have time to make peace with that?’ What more of an appropriate area to do that than casting that person to the stars? You know, you find closure in doing mihi. I’m not severing these ties but I’m lifting this burden and I know that these people are cast into the heavens as a star. And what a beautiful thought, what a beautiful idea to help our whānau find closure around those who have passed in the last year.

And so, you know, Matariki has opened a lot of our channels and pathways to be able to do that for us in a traditional way, and a way that we feel safe to do that, you know. In a society, where it’s a little bit hard to cry, beyond the wall to show any vulnerability. You have to be the provider, you have to show up every day and have everything sorted together. Matariki provided that space for a lot of people that were carrying trauma, and added optimism when we start looking at Hiwa, Hiwa-i-te-rangi, our wishing star, and so it sort of gave us something to look forward to at the same time, it gave hope. Nō reirā, if I was to just can find something to, just Matariki, as a tauira for us, āe, koirā. Koirā ētahi, but it’s not just ceremonial. For me going to the environment because hunting and diving is my thing as well. So, after a kaupapa like that I have to go hunting, I like to go diving. It gives me time to think, to process, but come back ki tēnei taumata, yeah, to this level.

Noel Woods:

Kia ora. Our next pātai, Ngarino, to you. Can you share an example of a situation where a whakawātea was used to resolve conflict or restore harmony.

[Text on screen: Crystal Pekepo, Ngarino Te Waati]

Ngarino Te Waati:

I get many calls to suicide and those that have failed those attempts, there’s a process to undertake. Obviously, their cellular recall has mate inside, something inside of them is dead. So, for those particular purposes, I like to just hold the space so that that person can kind of process their own emotions and their own thought patterns and just kind of guide the tikanga of that energy back into the realm of light. You know, we have both positive and negative effects of night and light, and so it’s making sure that people feel safe enough in your space so that they can work that out themselves, because you know, we don’t have all the answers for everybody, but you’ve got the answers for yourself. So, it’s about guiding the person, or guiding the collective, or whatever the conflict is to make sure that the narrative can be true and pono. Because if it’s not then it’s still going to get casted under some form of shadow, which again is another ball and shackle to carry around. So, we like to kind of, sort of, just hold it but make sure that people are pono with themselves.

Noel Woods:

Crystal, kei a koe tētahi kōrero?

Crystal Pekepo:

Yeah, I think just following on from the brothers’ kōrero I think if we were to put that in the, like contextualise that through kaimahi that are Zooming in today. It’s the same as what you do with whānau. You are kind of like that tangible form of that whakawātea. So, when we become active listeners what you’re actually doing is you’re allowing that person to release. So, it’s kind of like a reciprocal way, I guess, in terms of how we look at whakawātea from a different context, and especially with kaimahi.

But then, it’s how do you articulate that information that you’ve received and reciprocate it in a way that helps them find the answers, like what the brother was saying. So I think, that’s kind of like a short form of, and example of, that I think, we also have to… like, whakawātea can be contextualised in many different forms. Yeah.

Noel Woods:

Ranginui, kei a koe tētahi kōrero?

Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas:

Tēnā, tō waitia te pātai? What was our pātai again?

Noel Woods:

Just to share an example of a situation where whakawātea was used to resolve conflict or restore harmony.

[Text on screen: Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas]

Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas:

Oh, koirā. I think I touched on a little bit of that in regards to te Matariki, how we provide harmony, how we provide closure in that sense. Engari, it depends. Even if it’s, if it’s for you personally, I think that looks a little bit different to how you do it as a collective. As a collective there are tikanga, there are collective, which is where we look at ceremonial whakawātea processes. But when it’s for yourself, individually, that looks something different as well. And for us, so if you don’t how, if you don’t know how to conduct the ceremony then what do we do? Then what are the options for our whānau who don’t know how to pure? What are the options for them who don’t know how to speak, who can’t speak Māori so they can’t use a wairea? And even if they do know wairea, they’ve learnt it and then they don’t know what they’re saying, so it doesn’t quite hit the mark. Nē?

Nō reira, it’s about us. I think, personally, it’s about assuring to people, that takutaku are just as important. Takutaku are a type of karakia but takutaku are probably the strongest, oh sorry, that have been taught to me. And it’s been explained to me as the strongest form of karakia. Because it comes straight from here, you’re talking, from here, from here, you haven’t said anybody else’s words. You’re not saying anything that anybody else has taught you or anything that’s rote, learnt it on a script, that’s anywhere else. You’re say, okay, what do I want here? What do I want here, what do I want here? What am I trying to achieve here? Ka kōrero koe, to whoever. To powers that are beyond the tangible. So say, ‘Look, kei te pai mō ahau. I need some sort of guidance that is beyond anybody. Tēnā, whakarongo mai. Ka huri mai ki ahau.’

Nō reira, how do we provide those tools for our whānau? Nē? Nō reira, so I think there’s a lot of, a bit of mahi to do there because, I don’t think the capacity and the resources are there to go to every whānau, because you’re going to get calls every other hour. ‘Bro, can you come and do this whakawātea i konei, konei, konei, konei?’ And you’re gonna go, ‘Man, there’s only one of me, there’s only a few of us.’ We’re all still trying to work at the same time. Nō reirā, we need to start thinking about, I think, how do we enable our whānau to be able to do that as opposed to waiting for somebody else to come and find you some sort of closure, whakawātea. How do we say to people, here’s some form of whakawātea that we can do? Here’s a collective one that we can all come to, but if there’s taonga, it’s just you, and you need it right now, here’s an option that you can do, here’s something that you can do mōu mō tō whānau.

Noel Woods:

Ka pai. Mihi ana ki a koe e Ranginui. Well, we’re going to go and check out some of the pātai that are coming through, e hoa. Some up on the screen, and thanks everyone for sharing some of your whakaaro and pātai. Here we are.

[Slide on screen: Pātai for Whakawātea panel]

Nā reirā, he pātai. It sounds like understanding grief, loss and vulnerability can help guide our whānau to become emotionally intelligent or aware to develop forgiveness and the freedom to heal. He pātai tērā?

Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas:

More of a statement there, eh.

Noel Woods:

Kia ora. But I think, just a whakaaro for the panel. I think I just want to get through one more and just whakawātea being applied in modern contexts such as workplaces. Thinking of our Family Start kaimahi at the moment. They might not have Māori in their workplace, so you’ve got to go and dial uncle to come all the time. Just opening it up to the panel here, what’s some ideas to share with our whānau there?

Crystal Pekepo:

You go first and then I’ll copy off you in a different way.

[Laughter]

Ngarino Te Waati:

Yeah, it really depends on how taumaha the situation is, because we can find ourselves in some pretty conflicting situations and that can create a traumatic experience, and then you have traumatic response to it, and it’s just making sure that you can kind of, sort of, align yourself to what is tika and pono to the way that you conduct that process. So, you have to know yourself internally very well, and I think that’s where everybody should start. Know yourself well, know the wānanga of self, first, otherwise it just means that it’s broken people trying to help broken people. But when you can do the work on yourselves and you can embody that healing you’ve got some lived experience to contribute to the situation. And by aligning your own tools and mechanisms of what you deem to be hitting rock bottom. I’ve hit rock bottom a couple of times in my life and they were my biggest, biggest wānanga. I learnt so much of myself from it, and then I could go and express that and share that with other people. Yeah. And I think those are the accolades that I can offer in regards to that.

Crystal Pekepo:

I think, there is, because the way in how we roll is very fast and, we always have these outcomes to achieve whether it’s cooking dinner at 5 o’clock, or getting your kids to bed at this certain time, going to work, then you’ve got contractual obligations. I think when we… I’m getting there, hold on. When we think about this sort of, like a modern context, sometimes we actually have to sit in it. And just like the conversation around grief. And when I think about grief I think about having all, like a whole range of, a shelf with heaps of different glass jars that attain different memories and feelings and emotions, and grief is like that shelf of glass sits on a ship, and then that ship crashes and then all of those glasses, they fall on the ground and they just shatter, and you’re trying to sort it all out again. That is my experience of the deepest grief.

When we think about grief, we can talk about karakia, we can talk about takutaku, but sometimes all we need is just silence and being able to actually sit in that space and wānanga with it. And I think sometimes we want this ao Māori aspect of being, but we just fail to live in our reality and what’s now. When we take some of the beautiful learnings of grief, only then can we follow forward on what we’ve learnt and how we can further progress to the journey ahead. Koirā tāku.

Noel Woods:

Kia ora. But we’ve got another pātai, you know. As we know, we’ve got to get to work by 9 o’clock in the morning, eh. Trying to rush the kids to wake up, get up, no doubt that triggers bad experiences for them. So, kei a koe tēnei whakautu Ranginui. How do we whakawātea as parents when we’ve had a dumb morning with the kids?

Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas:

I think that’s one thing that’s kind of hard to do as well, you know, and we start looking at… When we start looking at the upbringing that we had in our schooling system that we’ve got to be at kura, 8.30 bell rings, this is the time. Don’t matter what happens you need to be there. This is the time we finish and you’re expected to behave this way, at this time to this time. When you look at that schooling system it’s then perpetuated, it’s then… You see that in the system as well, as you were saying, that 9 to 5, you have to be at your desk, you have to be here at that same time. So, sorry, CEOs and those of you who are employing people, engari, kia kaha tātou ki te whai haere… Sorry, we need to encourage each other to work with our tamariki, to work with our lifestyles so that, I’d rather have somebody turn up a hundred percent to the office than somebody that’s not going to be very productive at 9am. If it means at 10 o’clock, the tamariki are okay, that they’ve got good kai, that they are in a better state to be as productive as possible and we’ve given them another half an hour or another hour or so to do that, ka pai. I’d rather have somebody like that turn up to the office and be able to be as productive as possible.

So, here’s one thing. So before getting to the whakawātea, hēoi anō, ka pai ana ki te whakawātea. So even so, you might still have days that are harder than others. For me, as we’re looking at contemporary means of whakawātea, for me it’s the environments, getting out to the environment or going to ki te korikori, going to do some sort of exerting some energy somewhere. And I do that through hunting, or diving or through the gym. Firstly, it touches on a couple of things that sis has talked about, sitting in that silence.

There’s not much noise going on in those areas, and you’re cut off from the rest. You get time to internalise a lot of those thoughts and a lot of that taumaha that you’re carrying, but at the same time you’ve still got to get through those things. So, when you turn all the noise off, sometimes there’s a lot of outside noise that can affect you, engari, when you are in those environments it doesn’t really matter. And then you realise, oh, geez, there actually isn’t that much going on at all, it’s actually here. Nō reirā, āe, koirā ētahi mōku. Whakapakari tinana, and then Western world, the science comes through and says, ‘Oh, yeah,’ and then it promotes the endorphins in your brain, the ngā mahi, the endorphins that creates a positive aspect on things and happiness, ērā mea katoa. It’s ka pai.

You already knew that. Engari, just to marry that mātauranga with the things that we already do, just to reinforce some of our mātauranga Māori that we already engage with at the moment. Nō reirā, these are some of our things, some of my whakaaro.

[Slide on screen: Pātai for Whakawātea panel]

Noel Woods:

Kia ora. To the panel here, is there a ritual that anyone has a preference when they whakawātea at the end of the day? Which reminds us, we’re nearly there.

Ngarino Te Waati:

I kind of like that you already put an answer to it. Yours is to take your mahi clothes off, that’s a ritual in itself, eh. You’re starting to strip away something and putting more of yourself on because, sometimes we have to put on a million masks everyday just to people please and to fulfil our obligations to what we’re confined to do. And so, that’s obviously a good one to make sure that at the end of the day that you’re going through those processes of stripping down and breathing some new life into yourself before you move into your māmā or pāpā life.

Noel Woods:

Crystal.

Crystal Pekepo:

I’d like to give an example but, to be honest, I don’t think I do it enough. Like, I’m a māmā, a recently new kuia, but I work from home and in multiple different kaupapa and I don’t think, for myself, that I do that often because you kind of just shapeshift into, oh the dishes need to be done. Oh, hold on, I’ll just send this email and that kind of chaos also probably sends shit signals to your children too, that whole thing where sometimes they’ll stand back and see you on your phone, ‘Oh, do you gotta send an email mum?’ 

So, I think those are kind of things that, for me personally, could probably do better at and find, better ways in terms of how to whakawātea.

Noel Woods:

Kia ora. We’ll head online. E Ranginui, I’ve got a new pātai here. How do we provide a safe space if sexual harm has occurred?

Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas:

Again, are we… from us as the practitioner trying to provide that for somebody else? Or are we talking from that person trying to deal with that personally? Those are some of the things as I was alluding to earlier. It looks a little bit different based on the context. So, as a person that provides that space, that looks different. Engari, on the flip side I can talk to some experiences. So, at the time I’ve engaged with some people that had that same whakaaro, that same, some of that trauma. And one of the things that they said that helped was accepting what had happened because they couldn’t carry the riri forever. They couldn’t carry that because it transcended into all these other spaces.

Engari, trying to find, a couple of these people said, you know, ‘This is what’s happened, okay, what am I going to do about it?’ Me kōkiri whakamua, me anga whakamua. And so, it was identifying what things gave them hope, what things that they were optimistic about, which, so sort of said, ‘Okay, there’s nothing I can do about these things here I’ve got to kua whakaaro i erā pā. I’ve dealt with that trauma.’ There’s something in accepting it that’s going to sit with me, yep. It will sit with me but it’s not going to get me down every day. I’ve got this to look forward to this day, I’ve got this to look forward to, I’ve got this to look forward to, nē?

Because as I was saying before, you might call somebody in, ka pai. They say all these words that you don’t understand, that’s not very helpful for a situation like that, nē? We can go through a process and explain the whole kōrero. In those instances, what you’re doing is you’re actually not talking to that person, you’re talking to Rongo, the god of peace. You’re talking to taha, that you’re talking to Tangaroa, you’re invoking, inviting what they can do, any spiritual medium, into the space to clear away that. Engari, for closure for that person itself it’s going to look a little bit different. And there have been conversations, these kōrua ko Crystal, we have alluded to some of those things as well.

They spoke to how the individual deals with those sorts of kaupapa. Nō reirā, he ahu and that’s going to look different for everybody. You know I can’t think, get in the truck let’s go hunting. Engari, what if you hate hunting? It may not be very productive for anybody. Nō reirā, as I was saying before, Ngarino was talking about, kei te kōrero koe mō ō ake wānanga and that self wānanga, and figuring out what that is, what that peace is, what that closure is for yourself. Nō reirā, go and try different things, that might find that closure.

Noel Woods:

Kia ora. I think we’re down to our final pātai here. It’s on the screen here.

[Slide on screen: Pātai for Whakawātea panel]

And for the panel here, would you consider whakawātea as a bit of a de-role?

Ngarino Te Waati:

Yeah, it kind of seems like we’re a character in our own movie, eh, and we’re having to be consciously aware of de-roling. One minute we’re kind of wearing a hat or a pōtae and we have to play this role and then we have to de-role. I like to try and be as authentic as I possibly can, because it’s integral to who you are as a human being. You’re not just being a human, and you’re not just wearing pōtae just to serve the multitudes of things that you have to do. Crystal’s a māmā, she’s a wonder woman, she’s a marae lady, she’s got all these pōtae but they’re all the same. They’re all in one, there’s no separating, there’s no different. If you can find yourself in those positions, I think you’re on track to trying to be what the kuia was saying before (can I call her kuia?) She was trying to say be authentic as you possibly can because that will carry a lot of the light that you have, especially when you’re going into taumaha situations.

Noel Woods:

Anything to add, Crystal? All the role and a former league player too.

[Text on screen: Crystal Pekepo, Ngarino Te Waati]

Crystal Pekepo-Ratu:

I think if we start putting, contextualising whakawātea as a form of de-role, then we’re actually de-roling our own DNA, eh. I think the roles that we play are roles that we were meant to always be. And if you feel, maybe, that you have to de-role from your job, maybe it’s just aspects of your mahi because that role that you play, whether it’s a CEO, whether it’s ‘I’m just here to make the cup of teas whānau’ and that’s my role and that’ll always be my role, I won’t de-role. But I think we have to really think about our roles and obligations that are always going to stay. I don’t think de-roling is something that we want to introduce in terms of the form of whakawātea, eh, bro.

Ngarino Te Waati:

Well we might derail.

Crystal Pekepo-Ratu:

Derail, derail, yeah.

Ngarino Te Waati:

But there’s no de-roling.

Crystal Pekepo-Ratu:

And it’s okay to derail whānau, we can always fix that. Personally, I think we will always play a role in making sure that we leave our whakapapa in a better state than what it’s in today.

Noel Woods:

Awesome. Well, maybe Ranginui you might have something to add there, e hoa? I mean, you’ve got a cool job though, Toi Tangata, doing the kaupapa, so it sounds like outside of mahi you’re doing the same mahi inside.

[Text on screen: Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas]

Ranginui Rikirangi-Thomas:

That’s right, yeah. E tika ana tērā. I’m very, very fortunate that I get to, my mahi is really enabling mātauranga Māori and whatever that looks like, and we understand hauora to be in the bricks of what is. We haven’t separated or we haven’t compartmentalised just taha tinana and taha kai from the physical things, but we also understand the nature of and the importance of everything in hauora. So mātauranga Māori and putting pieces to the puzzle back into society is a big piece of that, and so reintroducing tikanga, revitalising tikanga and cultural practices that we have is part of that. Nō reirā, just to echo the kōrero that’s already been said, it’s not so much a de-roling, it’s just part of what we do. Ngarino did speak earlier around the dual universes that we believe that we live in, and philosophies that we live by, te tapu, te noa, te pō, te ao, and there are times where things get hard and then there are times when things get easy, and we have our own processes and our own tikanga to move in-between those two spaces to reach the heights of tapu, and to render yourself noa once again. And there’s no way around those two things. Āe, nō reirā, koirā.

Noel Woods:

E aku whatukura, e aku māreikura, tēnā koutou. Thank you very much for your kōrero today. Speaking of whakawātea, I’ve got a Masters rugby league game tomorrow, so ao hākinakina in the mix, and no doubt waiata is another way to do that. So, I just want to thank all our kaikōrero on the panel today. 

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