Postcards from Te Ao Māori

A one way ticket to an uncolonised mind

I’m in a tizz.

There’s a workman on the roof hammering nails, each one derailing my train of thought more and more, to the point that I can’t complete a task.

My son is home sick with a suspicious-but-not-spicy-covid cough.

There is a washing pile full of odd socks I haven’t matched for weeks.

The noise from TV, iPad, bluetooth speaker, kids and that friggin’ hammering are all fighting for dominance.

There is so much noise, everything is distorted. Up is down, and big is small.

And all the while my takiwātanga (autistic) girl is smiling at me, her big brown eyes watch me intently as I fizz around the house like a bath bomb in water. She is giggling, but not at me. She sees past the noise and fuss, she is connected to a greater source of self.

Sophia’s smile is a postcard that reads “Greetings from Te Ao Māori, wish you were here.”

She’s magic, my girl.

Sophia, reaching skywards

Sophia sees, feels and experiences things the rest of us would stare at for hours, or blink and miss. She sees wonder in weeds reaching skyward. She sees value in the journey of the ant walking in a procession through our pantry. She sees as much beauty in the panicked brown moth as the fluttering monarch butterfly.

She understands the interconnectedness of everything, from the Maunga to the Awa, flowing out to the Moana. She knows that the Whenua lives and breathes just as much as te Tangata Whenua who stand upon it. She echoes the ebb and flow of the tide with her own breath, and stretches her arms out as if they are branches, her fingers sprout leaves, and her toes dig deep in the soil connecting her to Papatūānuku. Her moods and sleep patterns are in sync with Maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar. She is nature, and nature is she.

The wind blows and I know she sees each current of air soaring and diving like a sheet of classical music. She conducts the breeze like a beautiful overture.

In Te Ao Pakeha, they call it ‘stimming,’ in Te Ao Māori it feels and looks like wiri. Her hands mimic the elements of nature around her shimmering, fluttering and rustling. It is vibrational, and when I see her hands flapping and waving in this way, I know that Sophia needs to leave for a moment to connect to Te Ao Māori to ground herself again, and then she returns.

When she hears waiata, she hums along. They call her ‘non verbal,’ but Sophia speaks with a loud, clear voice in Te Ao Maori.

There is no need for Speech Language, Physiology, Occupational or any other kind of ‘specialist’ there. Everyone is free to be who they were born to be, free of labels and limitations. We all have gifts, strengths that are worthy of acknowledgment and inclusion. There is no need for strategies, behaviour plans, needs assessments, acronyms or hospital reports. Cures for ‘different’ simply do not exist. We all have value, we all have worth.

Sophia is as happy to smile and chat to a Rākau as she is to a person. Sophia has no care for class or title, we are all just souls co-existing in the same realm

She cares little for titles or class. She treats people all the same, with an open heart and mind.

She has a pureness. An uncolonised mind and spirit.  There’s no room for prejudice, privilege in her whare tapa wha.

When people look at her and say with a bemused look “oh she’s in her own world,” I think – yes its called ‘Te Ao Māori,’ and wouldn’t we all be lucky to be more like Sophia.