"one must not assume"
We make assumptions on the daily. Generally, we assume we’re gonna get up and go about our business for the day, that the people we love are safe and well, that how we plan our day will be how it unfolds and so on. Our assumptions become more robust or weak over time according to how often they’re reinforced eg. I’ve woken up each day for the last 27 years and four months so it’s fair to assume I’ll wake up again with Tamanui tomorrow.
And if we link these assumptions together, a story begins to form… and we already know stories are the most powerful way to transfer knowledge and information and even last week, Oscar Winning Māori Director (lol just taking the piss) — the bro Taika reaffirmed this,
“we are the original story tellers”
Stories inform our world view, how we make decisions, how we see ourselves. Just think of the news, mainstream media and social media platforms and how what you think and what you believe can be traced back to what you consume from those spaces…
Our pūrākau, moteatea, karakia, whakairo, tā moko, our art forms provide us with a blueprint in a world of assumptions about who we are, who and what we’re accountable to and how we might go about fulfilling that responsibility.
Assumptions all of a sudden become more of a guarantee, because it’s preordained in whakapapa that is as old as time. For instance, Te Ao Mārama (the world of light, physical manifestation, enlightenment) comes after Te Pō (darkness, confusion) so we know in the deepest parts of our soul like we just know… that we must endure darkness and confusion of some kind as we work towards manifesting our wildest dreams, or even those of our tupuna (ancestors).
Whiro (atua of illness, misfortune) attacked Tāne (atua of forest) as he retrieved the baskets of knowledge i.e. realized his potential, and as descendants of Tāne we should know to expect distractions, barriers and limitations — expressions of Whiro — to disrupt our pursuit of potential as well… but then,
as descendants of Whiro too, we also have the capacity to get in our own way with self-sabotage, self-doubt and all of that fun stuff…
My mum always used to tell me, ‘one must never assume’ because oftentimes something happens and you’re wrong. But not with whakapapa. It’s not an assumption. It’s a knowing, a remembering and reinterpretation of our genius and our brilliance embedded into our DNA.
That is our power. It’s already within us and it’s our responsibility to bring it out, to develop it, to harness it for ourselves and for our people. No assumptions, just whakapapa in action.
Tēnā tātou,
Hana.