Why Whiro is the older brother, and why that's important.
Last week, we introduced Whiro; the personification of bad in every sense of the word. He's one of the eldest of his brothers, including Tāne (forest, knowledge), Tangaroa (sea), Tāwhirimatea (wind) and the other seventy or so.
Understanding where Whiro sits, in terms of whakapapa (genealogy, processes) is pretty important, and while I'm not exactly sure on who the oldest is, I know that Whiro is older than Tāne because,
darkness precedes light.
From Io (creator, supreme being) came Te Kore (potential, space, thought), which evolved into Te Pō (darkness) and from there, Ranginui (sky father) and Papatuanuku (earth mother) were separated to bring forth Te Ao Mārama (world of light), the world as we know it today.
But what does that have to do with Whiro and Tāne or who's older? I'm glad you asked... It was Tāne who separated his parents, to allow light into the world, so in that respect, we can identify him as light. Another angle could be attributed to how Tāne retrieved the baskets of knowledge; with new information and understandings as forms of light.
If we learn to understand and appreciate the phases of darkness in our lives; the struggle, the challenges, the growth and the failures, and accept that darkness will always come before light, that failures will always occur before successes,
that Tāne will always overcome Whiro.....
How better set up would we be to believe in ourselves, to try new things, to go out on a limb to pursue what we desire most, to trust in the process?
Had I known that my first attempts at writing a blog or recording vlogs wouldn't be as awesome as I expected, or that people would comment about them and my abilities regardless.... had I known that going after something I desired would be difficult, wouldn't go according to plan and be uncomfortable a lot of the time, yet the reward would be there on the other side despite it all.... I'd have started years ago! Instead of putting it off and hey, may have been Youtube or Insta-famous by now.. maybe..
Enough about hypotheticals though. Life is happening right now, not in the past world of 'shoulda, woulda, coulda' done this and that. If we get right now on lock, we'll be sitting pretty in the future. Therefore, we must understand that it's predetermined, according to whakapapa, that periods of darkness precede the light. Not only that, but Whiro's presence is necessary to actualising our potential and bringing forth our true selves into the light.
You got this, kia māia - be brave.
Hana.