E kaikoha mā,
Kua huri te āhua o te tau. The first signs of kōanga spring are beginning to appear. Days that feel optimistic and warm on our skin. In walking the edges of the Ngahere we can see new growth appearing. These small shoots can look tiny compared to the vast rākau that surround them. However their future is already being shaped by what surrounds them. By time, wai, light, by shelter.
Te piko o te māhuri, tērā te tupu o te rākau.
The way a young sapling is nurtured influences how the tree will grow.
There is much of this that feels close to the raising of a person. Much of what shapes us is not delivered as instructions. But rather appears in how things are done, how people show up, what they make time for, when they notice that someone needs help.
Umberto Eco wrote that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us ‘at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us.’ These are perhaps the small, almost imperceptible grains of wisdom that aggregate like sedimentary layers on our identities.
Not to tell a child who to become, or what their values are, but to create the environment in which they can discover this themselves.
Our Tūpuna understood the mana of our tamariki and the importance of tending, protecting and responding to their needs. Raising a Tamaiti was the responsibility of the Whānau, Hapū, Iwi and Hapori. It was about relationships, presence and the careful cultivation of the next generation.
This care and nurturing is some of the greatest gifts our Pāpā and Koro give to us. Mākoha thinks broadly about taonga and how taonga connect people, generations and whakapapa.
A considerate gift can be another small expression of reciprocity of a relationship that profoundly shapes who we are.
Nō reira, He nui ngā mihi aroha ki te hunga Pāpā, hunga Koro hoki. Ko koutou Ngā Tāhuhu o ō tātou nei whānau. Ngā mihi ki a koutou i tōu taonga tuku iho.
We send love to our Pāpā and Koro today and acknowledge the strength and stability they bring to our whānau and the many important taonga they have passed down to us.
Rite ki tōu Pāpa, kia kaha,
Nā tātou o Mākoha