I had gone to bed with the intention to write in the morning and managed to get up in time to see the dawn, with its rivers of pink and blue, streaming above the sharp outline of the hills in the distance. For me writing has been a way of slowing time down, dwelling longer in experiences that all too easily slip away like the sky rivers of the dawn. Giving myself time I felt the imprints of those rivers. That morning, like many other mornings I received writing from my good friend and collaborator Jane Myat, who I recently stayed with in London. Jane has recently stepped out of being an inner-city GP and has experienced the generational trauma displacement can bring, both with her own Burmese refugee father and in the communities she has supported. Her writing of late is full of mythical conjurings that draw on the potentials that can come through rupture and change. She described the process of creating a third paradise, in which we can re-weave worlds together, as a shakery and then a re-makery.
My hands have been busy in the garden these last weeks. Sometimes on my own pulling back the oats, the plantain and the phacelia; giving space and light to the tiny-leaved native trees that I planted before heading away … yes they are still there. The Sunday after I returned I planted with new friends who are part of the community veg growing initiative that Rod and I are hosting for the second year running in a paddock behind our house.
I feel a big sense of gratitude to the different people who came together to make the beginning of this low input, low impact community growing venture aka Carb Club, meaningful and easy. Unusually for me, I had the sense of being carried to the start line. With hardly any words spoken, Ross with whom we share-farm, arranged for the paddock to be disc-plowed and harrowed by the tractor putting in crops on the rest of the farm. The result was a fine ready to receive tilth made of the chocolate brown soil. Sheldon from Vagabond Vege ordered different kinds of spuds and squash and planned how we would plant together. Like the pied piper Justin called everyone there.
In advance we talked through how we could open the morning in a way that would honour the people who had come to grow veg with us and most importantly the long story held within the whenua. Who of the mana whenua, the local Indigenous people with historic authority over land, might bless the journey we were about to begin? Over the last year on occasions like this, JD Smith our neighbour, who is whanaungatanga (we share a great great grandfather), has generously come and shared words and waiata. On this occasion JD was busy with the celebration of an elderly aunty’s birthday. It is sometimes said the right person will come at the right time and that is what happened.
Sunday arrived and I woke up feeling worried about the rain and the welcome. Just in time for the first people to arrive, Rod and I managed to clear the verandah of the last of our building materials and find enough chairs to make an undercover circle big enough for the group; 28 people in all. In our scramble I forgot to collect my elderly mother Yvonne from her house next door. Nonetheless she headed out on her own. Balanced on her red mobility scooter I saw her precariously moving at some speed along the gravel track that leads to our house. Fearlessly she rode the bumps, determined to sit and participate in a circle of people, most of whom she had never met. Justin opened the proceedings with all the practicalities. Then at full force, accompanied by ukuleles we all sang, the waiata Purea Nei. True to the meaning of the name, cleanse and renew, the waiata washed away my worries and opened the space for things that needed to be said that day.
As hosts on our farm, it was up to me and also Rod to share something of the story of where we were; the land that has been in the care of our family since 1907 and our activities here. I spoke of my sisters Liz and Lucy, the river and the few remnants of the original forest. Rod spoke of the tamariki, the children who have helped bring to life our efforts to restore a wetland. I described how it was Rod, who three years ago said to me; “Jane, we need to finish our life in London and come to live here”. Englishman and all, Rod had responded to the call of the whenua and the emerging vision my sisters Liz, Lucy and I were beginning to feel. As a fifth generation settler farming family we stand in the fault lines of history. At the time we saw a pathway towards more being directly involved in the farm, which had been leased for the last 30 years by another family member. We began to ask bigger and more challenging questions of ourselves. As we tentatively took steps forward, we had a sense that a pathway would open through developing deeper relationships with both land and people. We wondered how we as a whānau could hold the land in a more connected, more community oriented way? My sister Liz asked what it might mean for us as a family to be tangata tiriti? With my limited understanding I take this relatively new description to mean Pākehā who adhere to the spirit of the Māori version of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi which amongst other things ensured Māori would have authority over the taonga or treasures of the land, many of them spiritual and intangible. This would apply even if they had been alienated from that land. I spoke of my struggle to learn te reo and my sense that te ao Māori had a lot to teach us about connection and community. I also said how grateful our whānau is to the different mana whenua who have stepped forward to encourage and guide us.
Next up it was Murray Hemi’s turn to speak. Murray is part of this year’s Carb Club and he is mana whenua from Papawai, a marae about fifteen miles north from here. Justin had asked Murray if he would offer a karakia and some kōrero to support the journey we were about to begin. Murray’s words from the get go were deep and strong.
“I am going to speak about big picture things”, he said.
I looked at him and there was a light in his eyes. I had a sense that in a gentle and supportive way a gauntlet was about to be thrown down. He described how, Pākehā have land but little community and Māori have little land but plenty of community. How can we create safe spaces to speak about this and bring our resources together so we can find a better way forward?” As his words came, I could tangibly feel the safe space that was opening between us. Murray encouraged us to keep trying to use Māori words, however stumbling one might feel.
My own interest in learning te reo is directly related to the work we are doing at Ruamāhanga Farm. Like other oral languages and indeed old english, te reo is closely tied into the qualities of the natural world. In anticipation of the mornings’ planting, Murray spoke of our feet and how as we walked, dug and tamped down the soil with our feet we could imagine that we were massaging the whenua. The very act of doing this, is an age old way of getting to know each other and throughout the morning more conversations were had. We worked in two long lines across the paddock with two 50 metre tape measures, planting our potatoes and pumpkin seeds. Between making holes and finding the correct spacings I wondered about a karakia before lunch. Working my way along the line I reached Murray and asked if he would like to do the lunch blessing mentioning that alternatively had a poem I could share if that seemed right. Let’s go with your poem rather than me doing another blessing, he said and went on to say that people on a journey in the Māori space can think that everything should now be said in Māori. We discussed how it is all too easy to overlook our own cultural ways of bringing forth appreciation and a sense of the sacred.
Whilst I grew up here in the Wairarapa I lived for much of my adult life in London working with the charity Global Generation which I co-founded. Our work revolved around gardens and community, particularly children and young people. We took issues of equity and inclusion seriously and I learned a lot working in very culturally diverse settings. I was anonymous there; I could have had any number of histories. Arguably I needed to come home to do the real work. Now back living on our family farm, I stand visibly within a historical context that calls for resolve. After the first morning of this years Carb Club I felt a mixture of things. Thanks to Murray’s words and the contributions around the circle and in the paddock I stood just a little more easily in my own shoes and I hope everyone else did as well. I thought about our feet inside by now very muddy gumboots and I remembered what my friend Jane had written; “the soles of everyone’s feet are pink.” Most of all I felt grateful and hopeful about this ‘feet on the whenua’ way of coming together.
Words by Jane Riddiford – November 2024