just start — but what about inspiration, permission or sense of responsibility?

I had no idea that something so simple and seemingly harmless at the time would play such a big part in my life, in all the ways. Even I’m still surprised at how much of who, where and what I am today can be attributed to starting the blog in the beginning of 2017.

It’s our last cycle and we’re reminiscing over the journey that’s lead to here so I thought we’d take the opportunity in this week’s post to share how important it is to just start — whatever the thing is you’re dreaming about, the idea is in your heart and burning in your puku, there’s no greater teacher than experience, than giving it a go. Mā te aha i te ngana?! What’s the harm in trying? Or in the words of Aunty B,

“What would be worth doing, even if you do fail?”

- Brene Brown

You try the thing and you don’t like it? Sweet, now you know. You try the thing and you do like it but need to change something up? Cool, make adjustments and go again. Ha simple enough, right? Well, what is simple isn’t always easy.

This isn’t the first blog I’ve had by the way. In the early 2010’s I started one on Blogger* that went for about a month and then I made a website called ‘Tangata Pai. Movement — be a good human’ where I’d share things that made me happy or that encouraged good behaviour. TPM lasted about six months I think? These weren’t really grounded in anything super deep but cool, harmless experiences nonetheless.

Three main things came to mind when I was thinking about the beginning of this particular blog; people I admired who inspired me to take action, wānanga (internally and with others) on permission to take action and responsibility.

I was fortunate enough to work at Te Papa Tākaro o Te Arawa where I was spoilt for mātauranga, experience and opportunities to be humbled haha Paora, Stevie, Te Miri and Ihi (Dr. Ihi Heke didn’t work at TPTOTA but we did a lot of mahi together) blew my mind when it came to interpreting tupuna mātauranga, let alone how to live it in our lives today.

I’d grown up on pūrākau, whakapapa and some ancestral kōrero my entire life, but never had I experienced or engaged with it like this before.

Like it was a living body of mātauranga, of energy, of science I could engage with, in every way.

I’m indebted to TPTOTA, my time there and my tungane who helped reframe how I understood myself and my connection to whakapapa.

Te Miri also had a blog, Whakapapa Fridays, where he’d post every Friday about Māori perspectives on physical activity, health and wellbeing. He was the only one at the time, that I knew of, who was sharing this information publicly and in a way that was relevant to our modern lifestyles today.

All of his kōrero and wānanga are amazingly thought provoking and when I started thinking about wanting to share tupuna mātauranga and my interpretations and application of it to my life in a blog — Whakapapa Fridays and Te Miri came to mind.

“Am I allowed to share this? He’s already writing about this stuff, I’m just copying him… find your own thing, Hana… would he mind?” were the kinda thoughts I was contending with. What a fun time. I think this is a common tussle we find ourselves in; “do I have or do I give myself to permission to do x ?”

I made sure my writing style was as ‘Hana’ as possible — very different to Te Miri’s lol 10000% — that what I wrote about used different examples, pūrākau, or whakatauki/āki and that when I did draw inspo from his wānanga, his name was all over it - I’d check with him to make sure he didn’t mind me mentioning his mahi or being associated to the blog lol I mitigated as many of my excuses as possible and continued on my path.

My own healing and mode of expression aside (a core function the blog served), this was all in the effort to be as responsible as possible.

To myself and to having integrity with what I was sharing and why — to be genuine and ‘Hana’, always. To the mātauranga and whakapapa I was sharing. To Te Miri and Whakapapa Fridays for the inspiration and leading the way in sharing this type of wānanga in this way — and to those who took the time to share their knowledge and wisdom with me all throughout my life.

All these elements are streams that fed into the awa of my life, what was I going to do with them?! I’ve been afforded incredible opportunities in this space so how was I going to preserve and add to what I’d been given? How am I fulfilling my responsibility to tupuna and mokopuna, to whakapapa? These were the new thoughts that took root once I dealt to or dismissed the others, mentioned earlier.

Which brings us back to the original whakaaro, just start.

It’s easy to say. There’s all the reasons why not when you look for them, oooh they’ll be there without fail. But here’s a passage by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes from her book, Women Who Run with the Wolves that might help with this;

“We all begin the process before we are ready,

before we are strong enough, before we know enough;

we begin a dialogue with thoughts and feelings

that both tickle and thunder within us.

We respond before we know how to speak the language

before we know all the answers,

and before we know exactly to whom we are speaking.

By the standards of ‘not being ready’ or ‘not knowing enough’ — te ira atua should have stayed between Rangi and Papa. Te Ao Mārama should never have come about and we, te ira tangata, shouldn’t be here.

But we are.

So it’s in our whakapapa to begin before we’re ready, before we’re strong enough, before we know enough. To separate heaven and earth of old/current realities and form a new world for ourselves in the light.

It’s in our whakapapa to just start.

Tēnā tātou,

Hana.

* I don’t know if it’s still up or not lol that’s not an invitation to go looking for it by the way and think it might’ve been a lifestyle one?