Hierarchy of perfection on Great Barrier Island Longest gap yet between posts! Four projects converged at once in the last two months. Sometimes I couldn’t remember them all, and when I sat down at the computer I had to run my mind through them and decide which one to work on. All good fun, and now they’re all winding down, if not fully unwound. Now I’ve begun editing a book of the life stories of 20 Barrier women, and a thesis from Japan may be around the corner. * Our fourth annual GBI calendar, that we give as gifts and sell at markets and Pigeon Post. * The "volcano book” and publicity * The visit of medical herbalist Mary Allan. * Wholefoods Handbook 2020 – this was a surprise, even to me! Carrie, Marsha and I made a sudden decision that now is the time for a new edition. In fact, the time was right! We discovered that 50 new whole foods have come ashore since the 2012 edition. Marsha and I got to work writing, and when we were ready, Carrie began reworking her magic on the design. It’s all explained in the letter, but Carrie's new cover is still in progress, so I don’t have the new photo or prices just yet. Mate Lucia grew up in Argentina, where mate is the national drink. Coffee doesn’t even come close. If anyone in New Zealand knows about mate, it’s Lucia. She drinks an entire flask of it every day! She brought it over one morning when she came to visit. It was my chance to verify our Wholefoods Handbook mate entry with someone who was raised on mate. It’s true! Children start early on weak, slightly sweetened mate, and it’s a rite of passage when you first make your own! We got it right! The container holding the mate leaves is actually a gourd, with leather around it, the straw is actually silver, and the bottom of it is the “sieve” we refer to. The mate leaves are in the jar in front of the bunny tails. You can keep adding boiled water to the leaves in the gourd to make more through the day. Lucia had hers mixed with tulsi. When people are together, everyone shares one gourd and straw! You have to do it that way, or you don’t have any! Aotea Te Kotahitanga A fledgling Kapa Haka group practised for months to prepare for their first public performance. Waiata (songs) – traditional and modern, hīmene (hymns), pātere (chants), poi and of course whakatangitangi (music), combined with warmth and high spirits from both the performers and the audience, made for an uplifting and fun evening. Swinging the double long poi is Margaret-Rose Ngawaka, whose life on a small island off the coast of the Barrier I wrote about last time. The tītī tōrea brought special memories to me and Ro. Way, way back, soon after we met in our early 20s, we discovered to our surprise that since adolescence we each had a strong attraction to New Zealand. At that time people bought things by mail order from catalogues! We had a wee catalogue for musical instruments from around the world and related cultural gear. We got a set of “Maori sticks” – tītī tōrea – that came with a 45 rpm record and an instruction sheet. You sit on the floor, knock the sticks on the ground and toss them back and forth to one another in certain patterns in time to the song. folksong.org.nz/epapa/ New Zealand’s almost irresistible appeal to us was nearly inexplicable, because in those pre-internet, pre-information explosion times, we didn’t have much to go by except what we’d learned in school! A book we got at the library around 1980 reinforced our longing to visit these faraway, sparsely populated islands. Back then they were further away and more sparsely populated! We were drawn to the idyllic sheep-dotted hillsides, sparkling braided rivers and alpine peaks, and even a volcano or two. NgAngA painted an archetypal South Island scene for us when we lived in Golden Bay. We called it “Aotearoa” – note the long white cloud. One photo in the book showed the most relaxed guy in the world leaning back into a hayrick, with the caption “New Zealanders take life with a smile”. We said, “We’re on our way!” Nine years later we explored here for seven months, and ten years after that we boarded a containership and shifted for good. Aotea Live tenth anniversary The annual Aotea FM fundraiser at the Tryphena Social Club brings out a treasure of local musical talent for three songs each! Phil Judd His daughter Hannah, beautiful vocals with guitar and pedal loop station Joe and Roger performed songs written by Roger 12-year-old Stevie Phil Santiago Barry performs professionally in Auckland. His singing is incredible! With his guitar accompanist he had everyone singing along with great feeling and fervour to the best cover of Brown Eyed Girl we ever heard! And more! The last group, Beatz Workin’, also celebrating ten years, stayed on long past the chairs had been moved aside for dancing and we were tucked up in bed! Woodstock feedback Lots of interest in that post, which also evoked music-related memories. Bill wrote that he provided his 5’7” Yamaha grand piano and tuned it for Sha-na-na back in the day. Thoughts of festivals brought forth some treasures from Purple, who’s been part of the organising and “performancing” crews at countless festivals around the country. Purple sent some video feedback he’s been experimenting with, which he set up as an installation for this year's Light Festival in Takaka. Video feedback is filming the screen the camera’s image is displayed on. He used an old digital video camera, plugged the output into a projector and then filmed the screen the projector was projecting onto. Other gear was a lava lamp, a candle, a pixelwhip, and an adapted light. “When you get it all working well,” he says, “it's fractal and the patterns and colours are very psychedelic “Hours of cheap entertainment for the whole family :-) Colourfully yours 🎶♒🔮☺🎸🎵” Fun with waterblasting More visual treats from Purple – here’s what can happen when creative people get to work waterblasting walkways and patios! The light bits have been blasted and the dark bits are where moss, mould and dirt still have a foothold. In between is a half-waterblasted grey, creating interesting shading effects, like you can draw with a pencil on paper. The waterblasting art is by Purple’s friend at her backpackers in Picton, the Jugglers Rest. She’s looking to sell and move to Takaka’s well-known creative environment. Maybe a new life for you? www.jugglersrest.com The world’s next epidemic – will it be averted? Our friend Russell has a place here. When he’s not spearfishing, kayaking or cycling the island end to end, he’s a doctor in South Auckland. He was my guest on Aotea FM one Sunday because he knows that we can’t live without music or without our own health and a healthy environment. Russell wanted to talk about two issues he’s passionate about: the vision for a smoke-free Great Barrier Island, and the next epidemic to hit the world, which is a 100-percent preventable one that everyone can easily help to avert. Can you guess what it is? Currently New Zealand is 85 percent smoke free, with a strategy in place to make that 95 percent: the best possible support for quitting, protecting children from exposure to tobacco marketing and reducing supply. One of the island nurses is the Barrier’s smoke-free coordinator, and the launch was last month, with a smoke-free specialist and an opportunity to try "vaping to quit” as a transition out of smoking, Vaping is in the news and controversial, but Russell is convinced that the advantages far outweigh the problems, which are caused not by basic vaping as it was intended, but by toxins and additives in the liquid. Here’s the shocker. The next epidemic to hit the world is … myopia, and that’s both meanings of short-sightedness. The cause is screens. Myopia in adults isn’t a problem, but if you develop it as a young child, it continues to worsen and leads to untreatable eye problems including the biggest of all – blindness.. The ultimate prevention is to go outside and play! Some countries are outlawing screens for young children and fining parents. In between talking we played Russell’s music picks – lesser-known pop and indie songs from different parts of the world, including New Zealand, and his favourite, Iceland, especially Sigur Rós. Small world Golden Bay friends will remember Jay Robinson, who was librarian in Takaka for a number of years. He shifted to North Island long before we did, and we lost touch with him. Readers of my blog may remember my Iowan friend Judy, who wrote a book I edited a few years ago. What a surprise to learn from Judy that she met Jay, whose tūrangawaewae is Iowa, we now know, because both he and Judy are Quakers, and they met at the Iowa Yearly Meeting! Trekkin’ on the Barrier with Lucia, Santi and Marina A month-long visit from Lucia’s partner Santi’s mum, Marina, was an opportunity for all of them to explore the island and get fit by training on increasingly more challenging walks to prepare to tackle the island’s highest peak, Hirakimata, 621 m. What an intrepid mother he has! It may have been too cold for swimming for Lucia and Santi, but Marina went with us a few times and stayed in longer than we did! Here’s a small sample of the beauty surrounding them near and far on their almost daily walks. Awana overlook The road to Whangapoua Beach, 11 km from Okiwi Passion Path to Whangapoua Beach View of Whangapoua from the Harataonga Track Bays near Port Fitzroy on the west side of the island Loop track to Kauri Falls Sunset from Orama Christian Community, Karaka Bay Te Ahumata Track View from Te Ahumata Track Finally, the day of the big challenge! It was a perfect day and they were ready! Distant view of the island’s central mountains The goal (not Lucia's photo) The walk begins at Windy Canyon Sights along the way Near the top Summiting! The panorama to the west Thank you for the airdrop, Lucia, and nice walking with you!
So yes, perfection. We often listen to fascinating talks at lunchtime. We call It lunch ‘n’ learn. We’ve heard about the electric universe, the holographic universe, the simulation theory, the afterlife and all sorts of other enriching and thought-provoking subjects. Recently it’s been talks by Aldous Huxley from the early 1960s. Little did I know that Brave New World is just the tip of the Huxley iceberg! The depth and breadth of his knowledge, understanding, insight and analysis about the human situation is immense and I find listening to his ideas literally exciting! One of numerous ideas in a talk on art was a "hierarchy in perfections” in scale, from a perfect small object or brief poem to a painting or play by Shakespeare that harmonises many aspects of experience. Sometimes I feel with great gratitude that our life on the Barrier is a hierarchy of perfection – a peaceful, beautiful environment, lovely people all around us and everything we need including good organic food, our sweet wee off-the-grid house, and of course, swimming and each other! May you find perfections in your lives as well.
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