ROSEMARY – Comments

Light ☼  Colour and meaning

Sunlight imparting colour to Aitutaki. Its lagoon – all shades of blue and green from palest aquamarine to turquoise to darkest ultramarine. White sand and breakers on the reef encircling the lagoon, and dark blue sea beyond. Deep green bush, lighter green tropical forest, broken by brightly coloured flowers and creepers. Brilliant orange pawpaw flesh, contrasting with its round, dark seeds. Purple kumara, the local sweet potato. Thick daytime rainbows against the dark grey sky after the meditations, hazy rainbows around the clouded moon at night. Tiny triple circular rainbows seen from the plane over New Zealand. The quintuple rainbow in a dream before coming to Aitutaki. The greyness of New Zealand as it rained. The multitude of colours in the uniforms of Pacific Mini Games participants from 22 nations.

Sound ☼  Life

The sound of waves surging from the previously calm Aitutaki lagoon as we focussed during the main meditation on ‘restore the water’. Locals sitting outside their beach shack greeting us, ‘Kia Orana,’ meaning ‘may you live long’, during our walking meditation, sharing something of their lives with us after the meditation. Talking, listening and being, renewing old, deep friendships and making new friendships in the Shift group. Chanting, praying and breathing with the New Zealand Sufi group. ‘Breath’ means spirit, life. A Papua New Guinean participant in the Pacific Mini Games telling me that it had always been her dream to come to the Cook Islands. The singer welcoming and farewelling guests arriving and departing at midnight at the international airport. Chatting with the policewoman on security duty at the airport who works 3 pm to 3 am every day; understanding a little of what many Cook Islanders go through to ensure guests are made welcome in their country. A taxi driver giving me news of Cook Islands participants met at an overseas conference 21 years ago.

Smell ☼  Emotions

The warm, friendly, tropical aroma of the ei, the garland of flowers received on arrival at the international airport. The clean pungency of Tasmanian kunzea oil from a colder climate, clearing blocked noses and chests, allowing us to breathe more freely, relax and be more open to the Shift experience. The comforting and nourishing scent of Ziravie oil during Indian head massages.

Taste ☼  Earth

Food lovingly prepared by the boatman’s wife from local produce and fruit freshly picked for refreshment during our boat trips around the lagoon and its islands. Coconuts at breakfast each day. Remembering the elements, earth, air, water, light, that form our food.

Touch ☼  Our surroundings

The warm Sun, shining directly, unswervingly to the place where it is anchored to the Earth. Sand that we could mould to support our bodies as we sat in meditation. Water that gently caressed and cleansed us as we stood, sat or swam in the lagoon, especially before and after meditation. The different textures of the husk, meat and milk of coconuts. The feel of different leaves, soft, supple, water-filled, tough. Soft yet strong and flexible feather and fragile shell, detached unbroken from its grip to driftwood, both placed in the water during the main meditation, each a reminder of how their creatures move with and have their being in the elements of air, water or earth.

Connection

☼ Pulsing out from me as an individual in the group meditation to the group as a whole;  to those locally and internationally who supported and made this trip and meditation possible; to a chance-met family who kindly took me from Melbourne airport to my friend’s place, and to others met along the way who were not part of the physical Shift group, but by their presence at this time added a different dimension to my experience; to a friend’s school in India, and to others participating in the Shift meditation in other parts of the world; to those known and unknown all over the world; to known and unknown non-human elements of Creation; across time, past, present and future.

☼ Understanding that I must acknowledge all those who appear during meditation, recognising that they are parts of my Self. Remembering that those who cross my path, however briefly, become a part of my being.

☼ Realising that each of the two parts of my trip, the Cook Islands and New Zealand, would not have been complete without the other, together forming a personal Polynesian and Pacific pilgrimage greater than the sum of its parts.

☼ Receiving a piece of spirit quartz in NZ, signifying ‘group energy’, a tangible reminder of the Shift group meditation in Aitutaki. Being drawn, without knowing its meaning, to ‘Manaia’, the NZ Maori symbol for a guardian and protector, who symbolises ‘baskets of knowledge’, and who also keeps the balance between earth, air and water, so in tune with the climate correction meditation in Aitutaki.

Te-O-Marama

☼ The NZ Maori phrase for ‘world of light’, the paua shell pendant named and given to me by a Maori Sufi healer, to take light and healing to the world: a circle of iridescent pink, purple and gold paua shell, myriads of tiny rainbows in itself, with a shimmering cream shell back like a full moon. ‘Marama’ means ‘light’ and also ‘moon’. Melding this with the flow of the Sun’s energies and light received at Aitutaki through me to others, to bring fullness of Being. ☼