Far out this is so awesome to read, thank you for the effort Tiffany Jewel. It’s a beautifully articulated piece.

I know my settler lenses are still firmly on my nose so I don’t claim to have access to indigenous knowledge. But I have been hoping, wishing, imagining that my experiences in this new emerging culture might bear some family resemblance to the old indigenous cultures that have been doing it for a lot longer than me.

It’s gratifying to read your reflections and see you picking out the harmonies between us.

I was raised in an almost exclusively Pākehā context (I mean the Māori context was obscured from my view). Now as I grow up I’m starting to learn a little about Te Ao Māori and decolonisation.

For a while I’ve been wondering: for Pākehā to come into right relationship with Māori, it’s not enough for us to say, “I’m sorry, can we make amends?”, if we’re going to keep being the same people as we have been in the past. Nor does it seem right for me to put on Māori-ness as a kind of performance. I’ve been wondering if I can find a kind of ‘new indigeneity’, connected to deep time, truthfully open to the wisdom and the great harm done by my ancestry, rooted in this land, oriented in service of life.

Perhaps this is a conversation better had in person, where the physics and the metaphysics are not so distorted by these digital devices. I’m planning to stay away from Aotearoa a while longer, because everything tells me by best work is in Europe, this year at least.

I am so looking forward to the moment where it is right for me to switch back and commit to this place. I agree, something great could grow from this.

By the way: my whole body electrified from my skin to my bones when you mentioned the 3am wake-up, coz I’ve been hearing that call every day since I posted this piece. I’d rather be asleep but the descendants say it’s time to wake up.