Tēnā koutou katoa, Kia tāwharu, Kia mahana,
As Hinetakurua settles across the whenua, the mornings start to arrive crisp and clear. The Hā, the breath of Hotoke winter, hangs resolute in the air. The quality of light is different, oblique and cold. For many of us the arrival of the colder months changes our rhythms.
We gather more closely, we huddle. We linger around tables and doorways longer than we initially intended. Steam rises from cups of tea and soup. Windows fog. Tamarki fall asleep beneath blankets and quilts while conversations idle along softly in nearby rooms. The cold and inhospitality of the cold reminds us that warmth is rarely created alone. E ai rā ki te kōrero - As said in the whakataukī:
Kua huihui ngā iwi i te pūmahana o te kotahitanga me te aroha
The people gather in the warmth of love and togetherness
Warmth is not just physical, it is relational, emotional, spiritual. Warmth is created through the giving of presence, through manaaki, through people choosing to remain, to endure, to be there for one another during difficult seasons. Winter calls people inward.
When Ngātoroirangi, the great Tohunga and Tupuna of Tuwharetoa, climbed Tongariro he was assailed by freezing southern winds. As the cold closed around him, he called across the ocean to his sisters in Hawaiki:
Kuīwai e! Haungaroa e! Ka riro au i te Tonga. Tukuna mai te ahi!
Kuīwai! Haungaroa! I am overcome by the southern winds. Send me fire!
His sisters, his Whānau, heard his call and sent fire to reach him. That warmth travelled to him, across the whenua of Te Ika a Māui, creating the geothermal features of our land. That fire, that heat, that warmth arrived to save him. In a time of cold and fear, Ngātoroirangi did not survive alone, but that when he called out for support that the warmth of his whānau came to his aid.
Often our lives now can feel stretched and hurried. Many people are carrying weariness quietly. Looking after children. Supporting whānau. Navigating uncertainty. Missing people who are no longer here.
Winter as a time sharpens our memory. We remember grandparents standing over steaming pots. Old homes warmed by fires and conversation. Aunties insisting we stay longer. The feeling of arriving out of the cold and being welcomed inside.
Sometimes the greatest gift we can offer each other is not advice or solutions, but presence itself. A meal. A visit. Sitting and waiting for the rain to stop outside to run to the car.
Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass writes that ‘All flourishing is mutual.' Perhaps winter reminds us of this more clearly than any other season. That we belong to one another. That care moves between people. That we keep each other warm.
At Mākoha, we often reflect on gifting in this way. Not simply as objects exchanged, but as gestures of connection, remembrance and aroha. The act of hosting, feeding, gathering or arriving with intention can itself be a form of gifting.
As the colder months continue, we hope you are finding moments of warmth with those you love. Around tables. In conversation. In quiet acts of care that remind us we are not alone.
Kia mahana,
Nā tātou o Mākoha