Heart Work

Why else would one take on such a project?

I mean this as an endearment.

In my earlier years I was conscious that whatever I was working on either, voluntarily or paid work that an aspect of heart work made up my formula. What I have come to understand in those patterns of operating is that my motivations were not about personal gain or wealth creation.  That formula still holds and by remaining in the workforce part-time enables me to continue down this path of creating projects, which contribute to one’s enlightenment, health and well-being. 

I included the following quote in my first self-published book, by Professor Muhammad Yunus, 1998, Founder of the Grameen Bank.

             “Unless we create an environment that enables us to discover the limits

                     of our potential, we will never know what we have inside of us.”

Preparing this manuscript has been a journey like no other. Heart work in this context has arisen on many fronts, both historically and reading my Father’s and Aunty Rita's letters. Most of the content is about the coming and goings of the people that frequented their lives.  

Aunty Rita and Father taken in 2001- Kaikohe

Most notable in reading their letters is the ‘rhythms’ that made up their daily lives. More importantly what mattered to them in their retirement years aligns with my memories of what mattered to them in their working lives. There is a noticeable consistency in those reflections.   

What I am alluding to here, is do we underestimate the importance of the rhythms of daily life as a compass for future generations? Both my parents contributed to community or family in varying ways with no exchange of money. Aunty Rita’s was a lifetime of teaching. Such influences I do believe underpins why my heart work makes up the rhythm of my daily life. 

However, with this manuscript I have learnt another aspect about heart work not experienced before. That being the responsibility of ensuring, as best one can, to work with recordings, letters material entrusted from family members. 

  

I was conscious at the beginning of this manuscript that unknowns would surface. In this instance it has arisen while working with the above material. At times I have had to step away to replenish because some of the material shared by my father is sad.  Therefore, heart work in this instance requires me to work intuitively due to the trust shown.

Take care in the interim.

Viti

Joining the "Dots"

Imagine dots as Individual cocoons of information. When you join these cocoons, it creates the potential to create an environment to enhance one’s knowledge or inform. I have learnt that making something visual or using analogies beneficial.

Actioning the above process has been part of my world for as long as I can remember. Whether it be with my studies, projects or crystallising ideas, this formula works for me. It is fun yet challenging because you then need to create a connector between the cocoons so material within can emerge in a fuller expression. Yes, just like a butterfly!

I took this photo when I was at a retreat in Nepal.

Yesterday I worked with father and aunty Rita’s letters and joined the "dots" with his voice recordings undertaken in 2001. Therefore, my endeavours currently are taking all this material and applying the above process.  Part way through I thought, my goodness me I have set myself a task. The back-end work invariably unseen but where the magic can happen.

In the last few weeks a couple of my perceptions have been contradicted. Those perceptions have arisen from a lack of information about father’s parents over time. Secondly, better understanding the history of cross cultural marriages within New Zealand.   

Therefore, writing this manuscript has been an awakening for me on many levels and no doubt will continue to do so. The scholarship of Angela Wanhalla’s ‘Matters of the Heart, A history of Interracial Marriage in New Zealand’ is insightful and beneficial.

Today I added more of fathers recorded voice into my manuscript and chuckled while doing so. We had been discussing his father. Something I could not recall him doing so in any detail. The one and only time I met grandfather Tere, he was an elderly man in the Rawene Hospital in 1961.  I was eleven (11) years old at the time.  

I mentioned to father while recording, that I remember being surprised that his father did not have any tattoos on his arms, like you do. Secondly, I remember thinking he wasn’t very dark, which also surprised me. Next thing father chuckles and says, heck no, but he had a moustache followed up by, no daughter he was quite fair. Once again, [father] chuckled and said, oh daughter, laughed and shook his head at my memories - so off the mark!

So where did this perception come from? I did discuss this with Paul over tea and came to the conclusion I had made the assumption that and his siblings I got to meet, were dark, in my eyes. Bit like the tattoo and the assumptions around that. I am still smiling as I complete this posting :) 

Go well!

Missed Opportunity - Version Two (2)

I uploaded the above post in mid-January 2018 then made the decision to take the post down in February. Yes, we can change our minds and I am about to reinstate the core of that post, in italics, followed up with new material.

This was the Lord Pembroke Version which followed on from the first.

In Version One’s (1) I ‘…stated that my great-great-grandfather’s (GGGF) Frederick Maning’s arrival in the Hokianga and taking of a Maori woman as his wife. [Upon reading his book]  I have struggled to find is a personal description of my great-great-grandmother (GGGM) Moengaroa Maning.  I awoke this morning thinking, GGGF what a missed opportunity.

From a great-great-granddaughter’s perspective, it was a missed opportunity! When ‘Old New Zealand’ was published it had an international audience. This was an opportunity to raise the profile of Maori women of his time, not just the tasks they undertook or the support during internal wars.

Before he married my GGGM Moengaroa the literature indicates that as the sister of a Maori Chief she held status as a woman amongst her Hapu. Barbara Brookes, author of, The History of New Zealand Women highlights the benefits of male settlers, traders, whalers entering relationships with Maori women on arrival.

In the last 24 hours, my research did bear fruit . James Cowan (Journalist-Historian, 1870-1943) wrote a series of articles about Famous New Zealanders for The New Zealand Railway Magazine I got my first insight to GGGM Moengaroa. “… a handsome lass with a tattooed chin…” (Cowan, J, 1933, pg.26). What a find!

A friend, in New Zealand, sent me her book called Cannibal Jack, The Life & Times of Jacky Marmon, a Pakeha Maori by Trevor Bentley. Marmon, also Irish arrived in the Hokianga before GGGF. Depending on the material you read there are many interpretations of their relationship which lasted over 40 years.

However, what caught my eye amongst Bentley’s insightful historical piece was the following,

Marmon freely admitted to polygamous and monogamous marriages and Maning’s antipathy towards him may also have been motivated by guilt about his own marriage to Moengaroa, the sister of the Ngapuhi chief Hauraki, which he suppressed in Old New Zealand. (Bentley, T., 2010, Pg.18)

This validated to me that Moengaroa who I was searching for in GGGF pages of Old New Zealand did not Bear Fruit. Bentley uses the word suppressed?

Therefore, the catalyst for me to Be Brave, once again, was to have my thoughts validated.

Trusting one’s intuition was the lesson.

May the week bring you peace and harmony!

Viti