Jay Rerekura: Could a connection with taiao counter the cost of living?

We need to learn to go further than the veranda of our house, writes Jay Rerekura.

OPINION

I have been on a mission learning to respect our environment and talk to our environment lately and it has been an awesome journey, not only of learning but remembering.

It sounds like a strange thing if you’ve never been around spaces like that before. Some of it I am familiar with, some of it I have not had the language to articulate and some of it is just completely new to me … but not to my DNA.

I’ve talked about the concept of raukotahi before. But for those newly initiated to having to endure my writing, in a nutshell, raukotahi is a concept that acknowledges that we are not individuals, but a culmination of all those who have gone before us, those who stand in our present and those who will come after us.

The DNA of our ancestors is inside of us and carries all the way through to our tamariki and mokopuna. That DNA carries memory.

Anywho, I can remember going to a place called Great Turtle Island.

Some of you may know it as the North American continent, but to those indigenous to the place, it is known as Turtle Island. One thing that would intrigue me about the people from Turtle Island, whom we Māori acknowledge as our cousins, is the way they would speak in ceremony.

It sounded strange to me how they would speak to the winds and the earth and the great father above and all of the animals between him and the earth mother.

It took me a while to click that they were acknowledging the same things we do as Māori, we just do it in te reo Māori. Hearing it in English was just different on the ears. We have always had a relationship with the taiao (the environment).

Our ancestors simply didn’t have a choice. If we didn’t have an intimate and ongoing relationship with our environment, we didn’t live to tell the story. We had what Western society might call scientists.

People with expert knowledge of a particular area of the environment would consult with other experts to understand how to forecast weather and other important happenings based on what they observed in the sky.

Stars, moon, sun. What they would observe on the land. Animals, things that grow on the land, water. What they would observe of humanity.

Thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviours. All of this data collation was in an effort to ensure we didn’t starve, to ensure we were aware of what to expect weather-wise and –probably most importantly – to give back to our taiao by acknowledging the writings in the sky, the observations on the land and the way we are reacting or responding to all of that as humans.

It has taken me a couple of years to wrap my head around these learnings enough that I can even comprehend the questions that I might have around it.

But ya know, our ancestors made these observations and experimented, for want of another term, around how they could work with the taiao and not against it.

So I forgive myself for being a little slow on the uptake of such traditional knowledge. The other thing I am wary of is that our old people did it to survive.

I on the other hand can easily go to Ocean Fisheries for my kaimoana (seafood), Dublin Street Butchery for my meat and Laugesens for my veges.

Although the rising costs of living are a factor, does it now mean we need to follow the observations of economists? The traditional knowledge of bankers and traders?

Or is this a gentle nudge to be more connected to the taiao, more observant of the natural world around us, more localised in our knowledge gathering and more cognisant of our place amongst it all?

I don’t offer any answers as I continue to ask these questions of myself, but I have taken heed of at least one of the teachings handed down. “E puta i te paepae waho o to whare.”

Allow yourself to go outside of your comfort zone. Go further than the veranda of your house. That is where learning turns to action. That is where the real lessons begin