As I stand at one of the many bends in slow moving Ōpāwaho Awa in bare feet on slightly damp grass, as it is likely to be on a sunny yet slightly chilled Spring morning, I bear witness to the sacred energy and simplicity of this ageless beauty. The longer I stand the deeper my heart sinks into my chest and beats as one with the breath of Papatuanuku, our brave and strong mother of life. I feel the grass grow around my feet, standing taller as our energies become one. I breathe deeply and close my eyes…the gentle breeze caresses my skin, a nearby kokako serenades the landscape…in those brief moments I am in a deeply peaceful relationship with the world, which is in such stark contrast to the busy and bustling experience of the world that surrounds me. These peaceful moments transcend the boundaries of time, connecting me with past, present and future all at once. There is a deep certitude that I am not the first, last or only soul to be witnessing this peace in this place…I am not the only one witnessing it in this current moment. I can feel the wairua of many beings with me — bearing witness to the same beauty, the same peace and the same deep rooted connection with the essence of all that was, is and will be.

As I open my eyes, the bright morning sun is a shock to my eyes, briefly blinding me to the view laid out before me…as my eyes reawaken I look around to see an ancient wetland forest surrounding me. A cacophony of birdsong and singing frogs fills my head…a deep, rich, damp earthy smell fills my nostrils…I can feel the humidity on my skin as beads of sweat form on my arms….I can taste a saltiness on my lips…as soon as I realise that my heart has still not transitioned back to the present moment it all fades away. A moment of standing in the past, in the present, has awakened my spirit to a path that is slowly emerging and stretching out before me. Not a path that is measured in distance, but measured in wholeness.

My mind slowly awakens, unconsciously connecting to the ancient mythical tales of wisdom of the generations that walked these lands before us. Gods that towered above us, that lived amongst us….elemental forces that pushed and pulled us…nourished or deprived us…celebrated or admonished us. These same Gods still walk this journey with us today. We do not use the same names that our ancestors did. In fact many of us do not see them or name them at all. As we have slowly drifted away from being in deep relationship with our world, we have lost the knowingness of how to witness them, we have lost the voice to call out to them. They are still there, they bear witness to the brokenness that we have created that we do not see or feel as we should…or maybe we do, and yet we are so far from the path not measured in distance that we live in a perpetual state of disempowerment. Living with ungrounded truths.

I feel a call…an invitation to sit and be still. An invitation to step into a role of stewardship. To find a solid, grounded truth. An eternal truth, that waxes and wanes with the moon, not with whimsy. A truth that grows from patterns so ancient so as to have been borne before time began. A truth that just is. This truth is the invitation. Holding that truth so close that our practice of being in the world is all that it should be. It nourishes and celebrates the ebbs and flows, witnesses the embodiment and dispersal of energy, is purposeful and without resolve, embraces the light and dark…a truth that lives in balance. A truth that is defined by what it is, not by what it isn’t.

I used to believe that the notions of Stewardship and Guardianship were interchangeable…they are different in subtle yet very important ways. It is the difference between taking care of vs protecting, guiding vs defending, flourishing vs surviving, being of the world vs living in the world. My re-imagining of Stewardship is not so much the creation of a new way of acting but reconnecting to an ancient way of being. Sitting still with your heart and mind open, witnessing rhythms and patterns, celebrating beauty, and feeling the breath of the world inside you is a great place to start.