we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them

This one from the matua, Einstein. Onto it fulla. Anyway, we’ve been talking about confinement for the last few weeks, inspired by the rāhui and other procedures put in place to combat covid-19, and how extraordinary change can come from these circumstances because it leads us down the path to reflect on how we’ve been living, what can be eliminated and what needs to improve in some way, shape or form. It exposes strengths and weaknesses, resilience, trust in the process, in something greater or lack thereof, the depths of our character and so on. On a personal level and as a collective.. ooh these are fun times… how’s it been going for you?

another train of thought is, confinement is as suffocating or as expansive as we choose it to be.

Go figure, it all comes down to mindset. of course… of course… that’s how life came into being! from Io (supreme being, god) came te kore (potential, dreams, thought, energy) then te pō and te ao mārama (the darkness and world of light) and here we are thousands of years later.. of course it’s mindset… that’s the natural order of things… anyway….

The potential for us to follow in our tupuna (ancestors) footsteps is preordained, it’s in our DNA. It’s available to us, always. The potential to break out from whatever forces might be confining us, literal or metaphorical, to navigate the unknown, reach beyond what is possible and discover new worlds.

As is the potential to remain in te pō. Some of te ira atua (the gods) opposed the separation of Rangi and Papa and those same atua live on within us today, so to continue living the habits we know, to remain as we always have with the life we’d always lived.. that’s in our whakapapa too.

Only when Tāne Mahuta (atua of the forest, light) approached his problem from a new perspective, literally by flipping himself upside down, his feet to the skies and his shoulders firm against the earth, was he able to elevate his thinking to come up with a solution to separate Rangi and Papa, to end the aeons of darkness and

create the conditions for a new world to be born, te ao mārama, the world of light…

So even though we may be physically confined to our bubbles of people and local neighbourhoods here in Aotearoa, how confined is your thinking? your imagination? your aspirations? Confinement is as suffocating or as expansive as we choose it to be and we can’t solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.. so, what’s it gonna be?

Tēnā tātou,

Hana.