trust the process: the light comes eventually. you don’t need your eyes to see it.

Sometimes the darkness feels never-ending. Like it’ll never be light again, we’ll never feel warmth or joy in our hearts again, like you’re stuck on the last few phases of Te Pō and haven’t collected enough tokens to get Tāne (atua of the forest) to flip onto his back and into position to separate Rangi and Papa (heaven and earth). There’s no cheat codes either.

Paradoxically, it’s in this darkness that creation takes place and takes effect.

Where things come apart and come together, where the little pieces add up, where the strands unravel and the formless starts to take shape. It’s a paradox because creation and destruction are on in the same, they’re a package deal.

The world ends in some way, every second. Whether it’s the blink of an eye, the end of a new day, closing the chapter of a book or the end of the latest chapter in your life’s story.. ka tō te rā i te uru, the sun sets in the west.. kia ngangana mai anō i te rāwhiti, to eventually rise and shine again in the east. where the world is born anew, eyes open wide, the dawn of a new day, where the start of the next chapter and adventure awaits.

the light comes eventually.. you don’t need your eyes to see it..

Te Kore, Te Pō, Te Ao Mārama. Our creation whakapapa states that darkness, destruction and chaos precede light. And for light/enlightenment/physical manifestation to be obtained, we must first endure darkness, confusion, disorder and dysfunction.

It’s a duality, just like Urutengangna (eldest of te ira atua, atua of light). Informing us that no matter how dark, confusing or hopeless things might get, light. always. comes. And it’s not even a matter of seeing it with our eyes, seeing things in our life change, or seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. By whakapapa, that’s the last thing to show an effect… it’s also the last of the senses to be developed in our māmā’s kōpū (womb) and it’s affected by the unseen, formless, chaos that you can’t see with your eyes anyway…. Imagine that,

to have sight but no vision..

Vision requires imagination, trust and understanding of the process, innovation, dreaming and courage. Sight? Something biological. If you rely on sight and measure how you’re doing by what you can see, when everything’s going your way it’s awesome. You’re on top of the world. You’re in a good place, a place for thriving. But when you ultimately, inevitably end that cycle and transition into darkness of some kind

— it’s part of whakapapa, there are different phases for different phases, it’s natural — will your sight be a reliable source to relay accurate information?

Or perhaps, you recognise the function your eyesight serves but know it’s inferior compared to the vision you see in your mind, with your heart and soul. This isn’t even something we do, but something we are. Naturally and innately that radiates out into everything we do.

It’s the process to help us remember the light will always come and that we can see it in our minds long before it’s physical form lighting up the end of the tunnel, or rising again in the east.

Tēnā tātou,

Hana.