Trumped! Now Biden- Our Time…

  The last four years have made the USA feel like a foreign country, to us – our wonderful ex-wwoofing friends have been stuck in an alien land run by a psychopath, egging on the sad and the bad to acts of intimidation and violence, and destroying many of the bonds of friendship and solidarity […]

Happy Solstice, we hope…

  We wish you  a Happy Solstice, with a colour-full covid-free summer if you are in Aotearoa or the Pacific… …and if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, or in a Covid-infected area, and dealing with  lockdowns and deaths,  please take care, and know that we are sending our love to you, with our hopes […]

Reflections on Westminster-style democracy..

Our government structures are based on those of England, unsurprisingly.  Early settlers from England, Scotland and Ireland assumed their right to install the systems of government they were used to.  After the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, they flooded the country with immigrants (historian James Belich describes the settlement process as a […]

2. Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori

The Maori Language Moment signalled the beginning of Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori , our annual Maori Language Week, which was celebrated in a variety of ways. The media… All media made special efforts to highlight te reo this week.  It was great to listen to fluent te reo on radio, to watch a […]

Elections 2020

The Prime Minister has chosen to delay the every-three-year Aotearoa election from 19 September to 17 October 2020 to provide a full month  for all the parties to launch and explain their policies. We both feel very lucky that we have a Prime Minister who is so highly competent and reassuring, and a Director-General of […]

Beyond Rahui…

Two huge challenges are spreading around the planet- the sickness caused by the Covid-19 Virus, and the liveliness aroused by the healthy Black Lives Matter movement.  Surely we humans can use these two dramatic experiences to shape real changes for our futures together on this tiny, fragile planet?  We’ve been moved by the shifts which […]

Covert Covid Creativity…

Tanya…. The first four weeks of our Rāhui (Lockdown) seem to have whizzed by.  I haven’t completed any of the practical chores on my “to-do” list, but have enjoyed the opportunities to create in unexpected ways. My computer crashed, and it took a week to get it to our Earthsong expert Grant, who fixed it […]

Whānau, Whāngai…

Charmaine’s journey…. I have been on a journey too, this month, but a very different one from Tanya’s.   I’ve just returned from a week  in Sydney and surrounds, spending time with my birth family. Many of you will know that I have two families.  I grew up knowing I was adopted, and believing that I […]