POLYNESIAN QUOTES

We are all islands in the greater sea of consciousness. A lovely quote from Tongan writer Epeli Hauofa talks of Oceania, the great southern sea, where the islands, including Polynesia lie:

'Oceania is vast, Oceania is expanding, Oceania is hospitable and generous, Oceania is humanity rising from the depths of the brine and regions of fire deeper still, Oceania is us. We are the sea, we are the ocean, we must wake up to this ancient truth and together use it to overturn all hegemonic views that aim ultimately to confine us again, physically and psychologically,. in the tiny spaces that we have resisted accepting as our sole appointed places...'

Here is a wonderful call for us to overturn the hegemony of knowledge and rise up! For ultimately we are all connected, and ultimately the residents of Oceania see each other as brothers and cousins, here's one of my favourite writers from the Pacific, Keri Hulme, in her volume of poetry Strands, which refers to her home on the beach of the South Island of New Zealand:

'My house lies
equidistant between Antarctica and Australia
I can’t hear a call from either
but a thousand miles a thousand years away
a wave rises in Hawaiki-nui Hawaiki-pamamao
and breaks here'.

Hawaiki can also refer to the distant islands of Hawaii. Ultimately, we need to remember that all of us, animals and humans, are here on this great adventure on planet earth together. And we need to respect each other and work together. As an ancient Hawaiian proverb said:

E lauhoe mai na wa'a; i ke ka, i ka hoe; i ka hoe, i ke ka; pae aku i ka 'aina
Everybody paddle the canoes together; bail and paddle, paddle and bail, and the shore is reached.

And we most certainly need to remember the ancient knowledge of which Huna is the best representation of all. And as we move, we dance. And as we dance, we travel. And as we travel, we go towards the bright lands. And always - always - there is help available. We only need to ask. Here's Keri Hulme again:

'Maybe there is the dance, as she says. creation and change, destruction and change.
New marae [temples] from the old marae, a beginning from the end.
His mind weaves it into a spiral fretted with stars.
He holds out his hand, and it is gently taken'.

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