Talking to Trees and the Indigenization of Acknowledgement with Māori Healer, Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey

Let's not get this confused. This episode is not about the colonizer becoming less colonizing. The dominator becoming less dominating. The "knower of everything" becoming more powerful. This is about humanity becoming human, together, but through the gift of those already human and already living. About some taking large steps, others small but important ones. In this episode, Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey, Māori Healer and my dear and joyous friend, shines a deep light into her ancient and kindred relationship with our vegetative relations, attending to acknowledgement and intention and inviting us into this balance, this moment, together.

Ever wondered how sickness can transform into profound conversations with your body? Join us as we sit down with Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey, a gifted Māori healing arts practitioner, whose joy and ancestral wisdom infuse flow unbarred. Chelita reveals how illness can be a gateway to deeper self-awareness and gratitude, emphasizing the importance of respecting the body's natural healing process. We also explore the cultural significance of the Māori New Year and delve into the tensions between traditional practices and modern schedules.

In a world rushing and rustling towards an uncertain future, we pause to consider the resurgence of indigenous knowledge and the critical role it plays in our collective survival. Chelita shares her insights on the process of decolonization, the responsibilities borne by indigenous peoples, and the significance of lineage and acknowledgment. Our conversation underscores the importance of recognizing and working with our collective past to navigate the future with respect and understanding, contrasting the fast-paced, fear-driven narrative of modern society with the patient, love-filled approach of indigenous wisdom.

Finally, we reflect on the broader implications of natural phenomena, such as the early blooming of the kōwhai tree, urging a slowdown in our modern industrial pace to honor natural law. Through intimate stories and personal experiences, we emphasize the limitless possibilities of reconnecting with our heritage and understanding the true essence of living in actual harmony and relation with Mother and each other.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey - Through the reclamation of her whakapapa and ancestral gifts, Chelita is an established practitioner of the Māori Healing Arts including Mirimiri, Rongoā Māori, Hau Tapu Breathwork, Matakite, and Taonga Pūoro. She works as a conduit and channel for Ngā Mareikura o Waitaha – the Grandmothers of the Waitaha Nation. Chelita has been a practitioner, Teacher, Guide, and Mentor for over a decade. Chelita is a Certified Trauma Informed Breathwork Facilitator trained by Owaken Breathwork and is now traveling the world sharing her medicine.

 Learn more about Chelita HERE. Visit Chelita's Instagram HERE.

Join our Online Community and discuss this episode directly with Daniel HERE.

Transcript

D. Firth Griffith: 0:00

There is no way to introduce my dear friend, shaleta Zaini, the guest in this conversation, really the holder of this conversation. There's no other way to see it. There's no other way to introduce her than to say that her joy is palatable. Her laugh is contagious, her kindness and her love is real. Her kindness and her love is real, you know, through the reclamation of her own Vakapapa and ancestral gifts.

D. Firth Griffith: 0:30

Shaleta is an established practitioner of the Maori healing arts. She works as a conduit and channel with and for the grandmothers of the Waitaha Nation. She has been a practitioner, a teacher, a guide, a medicine soul and gatherer for her community and mentor for over a decade. She is my dear friend, as you will see in this conversation. She laughs continuously. I laugh behind her. It is contagious, her wisdom is deep and it's just an unbelievable gift and blessing to share this space with her, in her visions for the world, in the way that she talks about the indigenous reawakening and decolonizing that is happening and that needs to continue happening all around her, all around us, all around the all of us. And so with that, let's jump into today's episode with Shaleta Zaini.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:47

I'm good. Yeah, I'm still in morning darkness that's it today.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:58

Today has been such a hard day here for us physically um farming in this hundred, and I should look it up yeah, I was wondering how it's 104, okay, 104 degrees today and uh, just it's, it's, it's absolutely ridiculous. And uh, I, I would love to re-wake up with you. How's that? Let's just pretend like it's never happened and we'll both be waking up right now.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 2:22

Okay, sounds good, wow, oh how are you doing?

D. Firth Griffith: 2:31

Getting over the sicknesses?

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 2:33

Yeah, we're getting there. We're so very, really unwell, especially my son, and so, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, you know, um, there's so much about how we choose to engage with the sickness. Uh, for a long time now, I've just perceived any unwellness or injury or those types of things as just opportunities to have conversations with the body. It's an invitation. It's like, oh okay, what are we upgrading? What are you showing to me? It's fine showing to me.

D. Firth Griffith: 3:23

It's fine.

D. Firth Griffith: 3:25

As you and I have discussed in conversations past, my senior year in high school, I was diagnosed with some pretty serious health concerns and I spent the next maybe seven to ten years trying to just stay alive.

D. Firth Griffith: 3:38

I always tell people it was the greatest gift that could have been given to me, for so many reasons. But in regard to this conversation, whenever I start to get sick like, I welcome it, and I don't see a lot of people doing that Like, when they start to get sick, they get all worried, they get anxious, they get stressed, they have so much to do they can't slow their life down, whereas, like, my life for the last 15 years has been forcibly slowed down, you know, four out of the seven, five out of the seven days of the week, you know, because of this illness, and so to some degree I feel like I've been trained to go back in time but to like be human again, where it's just like no, no, the emails can wait, the phone calls can wait, the to-do lists can wait. You know I have some deeper purpose here to be sick for, you know, a period of time.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 4:26

So that's, that's and that's, that's really. It's exactly what we did, first of all, most especially when my son got sick, I just canceled all my work and was just by his side and um had interesting, feverish conversations with him, which is yeah, yeah, it was a, it was a beautiful thing in its own way, but it's also, um, it does bring you into that deep gratitude when they become back to their usual selves, and you know with your little people how that is too that um, yeah, as soon as he got back to being his cheeky, sassy self, I was, yeah, I was very happy it's, it's almost, it's almost.

D. Firth Griffith: 5:19

Like that's the second aspect, like this gratitude of being well again. Yeah, I think when you start to emerge out of the sickness, you're re-reminded what it really means to be well, because you've seen the other side. Yes, that's a wonderful point.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 5:31

Yeah, I've been having problems with my knees lately, um, and for a few months and, um, I dealt with one side and got into a deep conversation around that and did the work that as it presented itself to heal. You know, these things that were coming to the surface and I kept feeling like this conversation was coming from the bones and it was like reminding me of things I had experienced as a child that had kind of like been in the bones and so it took quite a while for it to kind of shift its way through to the surface. And that's the thing when you're engaging in these conversations, right, you're not on your timeline and I feel like with conventional medicine and things, we're always forcing a timeline as well. You know, it's like we've got to fix it now, we've got to do the fastest thing and I'm sure, as you will have experienced through your journey, it has its own trajectory, it has its own timeline and best to get on that one.

D. Firth Griffith: 6:42

Speaking about forcing a timeline, so we have passed into the new year for for you all. Is that true?

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 6:49

yes, true, yes and uh my friend.

D. Firth Griffith: 6:54

Happy new year to you happy, happy new year to you. It, uh, the last time we weated, you were talking to me about the New Zealand government had determined that they were going to start celebrating the Maori New Year at the end of July or, I'm sorry, at the end of June or early July. And you were saying that they forced it into a timeline and you were saying it literally is the opposite.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 7:20

Yeah.

D. Firth Griffith: 7:22

That image comes back to me as we talk about this, this the stillness and sickness so I mean, as it turns out, they are shifting it ever so slightly each year.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 7:31

So, in our understanding, so our traditional calendar is a maramataka, which is a moon calendar. Um, and yeah, that has quite a different cyclic rotation. Obviously, and in terms of how that new year is presented and started, we navigate that by using the constellation Matariki, which is otherwise referred to around the world, often as Pallades. It's seen as either it's a range of different stars, anywhere from seven we celebrate nine, but other places will have more or less, and so how the new year is governed is Matariki. The constellation will dip down below the horizon line and there's a story in a korero that goes with that, that goes along the lines of that, when one of the stars, puhutukawa, who is aligned and linked to those that we acknowledge that have passed in the last year. So she travels down to the underworld and takes those wairua, or souls, to the underworld, and then the constellation begins its journey into ascent, back up into the sky, and once we can visibly see it with the eye, that's the signal, that's the tohu, that the new year has started. So it usually aligns itself with a particular moon phase and what they've kind of gone about and done is said. Well, to try and keep it in the range of when we think the constellation might appear, which is the little problematic bit I feel I was writing about this earlier in the week little reflections after this new year. Is that?

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 9:30

What's problematic, yes, is the timeline. You can't force a naturally evolving, occurring timeline. Have you got a hotline to Matariki and you're going to say to her can you please come up at this day, because this is when we have the holiday? I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no. So at this point we're just having a little chuckle and everyone's getting their holiday, which is, you know, it's beautiful, and it's beautiful to have that formal kind of acknowledgement for an indigenous practice and knowledge system and that it's being so widely embraced because it's not something that we have had. So I think we're only in the third year of having that formal holiday and acknowledgement. So but yes, you can't force mother nature and her children into timelines right?

D. Firth Griffith: 10:34

no, no, I, I don't know. I think that the idea of a timeline today just feels so personal, because so much that we are surrounded by is that we are on a timeline not necessarily one of our own making, although maybe it is but this timeline that we're on, you know, we have 60 harvests left. I was reading a piece on solar energy today and how the Britain countryside is starting to question how to become net zero in their energy creation and use, that is to say, that they can create as much energy as they do use. And the cities in Britain are looking to the countryside in Britain trying to figure out where to place solar farms. We see this narrative all over the place. Like we are on a timeline. We have something to solve.

D. Firth Griffith: 11:16

Read another article recently talking about extinctions and how commonplace they are over geological time and how humanity is right now fighting our own extinction. And what do we need to do? Are we going to let it be what it is, or are we going to fight our own extinction, or are we only becoming extinct because we're driving ourselves into extinction? All these questions and I guess what I want to build this question to and maybe see where the conversation goes, because that's about all the notes I have. I really just I so appreciate you and I kind of just want to open a, a playing ground for you to play in, and then I'll just follow you for the rest of this conversation, I hope. But I want to start here. The awakening of indigenous knowledge into the populace's brain is really coming into the fore, okay, and I want to make sure I say that correctly, because indigenous knowledge is not reawakening, but it's becoming reawakened in the consciousness of the lay person, the person who has obviously squashed that for many hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

D. Firth Griffith: 12:24

But we're so fast to turn, um, no, what do I really want to say? There's a, there's a right way to do it in a wrong way to do it, and when I speak to you, I hear this idea of patience, I hear this idea, as we've talked about, which I want you to get into a little bit of this. You know, vaka, papa, this, this, this essence, right, there's time, there's timelines, there's force, there's the opposite. We've talked about sitting with trees and having these conversations and allowing that to really awaken around us. What I'm getting into is there's two narratives. You have the one which is fast paced, and you have the other one full of fear, and they have the other one full of fear and they have the other one which is seemingly very patient and full of love, kindness and hope, but it's also decently guarded. Can you speak to that a little bit? Does that make sense? I want to set that up for you and just step back yeah, thank you.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 13:20

The word that and the concept that comes to mind, and I feel like even this has a long way to go. It's almost like we need to do the thing, do the thing to get to the thing, and the word that comes to mind is decolonization. It's very much a big phrase here. You know, living in these lands is tangata whenua, it's people of the land, and, as we are in a deep process of reclamation, decolonization, and oftentimes I feel like that concept is very heavily aligned towards the indigenous carriers, holders, and so it's another responsibility on top of all the responsibilities that we already are carrying, which are huge. You know, reclamation in and of itself is, yeah, not to be understated. For many of us who come from three, four generations of you know deep effects from colonization, urbanization, having had our lands and our languages stripped away from us, our resources, all of the things. So we're carrying those loads and then you know, to be able to step into a journey of healing, which is really about a journey of acknowledgement, which is where we get into, you know, the whakapapa, into the lineage I was talking about, and I was just speaking with a group last week about this that everything has a whakapapa, and I think you and I have conversed about this. Everything has a lineage, everything comes from somewhere. That beautiful constellation we're looking for in the sky didn't just appear from nowhere. It comes from somewhere. It has a story. Nowhere comes from somewhere, it has a story, you know, and that's one of the beautiful things about our culture, indigenous culture, and I feel like many Indigenous cultures around the world is that we understand the concept that everything is interconnected, that nothing is random, that nothing is just sitting in isolation in and of its own timeline, that all the timelines interweave and interconnect. And we understand that, you know. And in that it then brings us to the second sort of primary function, which is to mihi. To Mihi means to acknowledge. So we acknowledge all, whether it's the very smallest insect or the very largest planet in the universe, whatever it is, everything is in and of. You know that mihi and that acknowledgement.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 16:50

So before we can even look to moving forwards and this is a little notch, if you like, like a notch in a grain of wood, to know, you'd be very familiar with, you know, when you get that knot in the piece of the wood and it's like oh, what do you do with it? Do you pretend it's not there and try and plane over it? I can't imagine that works very well. Do you go around it? Do you cut it out? Probably the best thing that you could do is actually acknowledge that it's there. And I'm looking at the fine pieces of timber in your studio in the background and I see a few notches and I'm like, yeah, what do you? Do you include them? You acknowledge that they're there and then you work with them the best way that you can and that you know how, with the skill that you have.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 17:47

And this is why it's important you know that we acknowledge where it is that we have come from, as all of the peoples, not just as the indigenous peoples that perhaps have had to weary um a lot of the traumas, but we all, each and every one of our whakapapa, has had a part to play in where we currently are and where we are currently sitting, and what I often feel is not being given the right amount of time and space is one opportunity for everybody to step into that conversation and to hold and acknowledge with the, we would say, mana, which means mana is a very tricky concept to try and explain, but kind of the presence that you carry with you, that comes from your people and your tūpuna and your ancestors and is reflected in the works and the unfoldings that you carry. But if we can all stand in the circle with the mana that we have and be able to truly look at one another in the eye and acknowledge what all of our people have done or not done, then that at least creates an atia or a space for us to be able to engage in conversations from a place of not conflict, because I feel that the energy of conflict has been deeply embedded as well and that's not necessarily the energy that we need to take into conversations for our future and that's for all of us as a people too. I know that, um, a lot of our people are carrying a lot of anger and and um resentment and, and that's understandable and those emotions are valid and they have places, for sure, but they oftentimes can impede the direction and the way forwards in which we need to navigate. And I guess my invitation and invocation, whenever we are looking to open in such a beautiful and public and all inviting way, when we're inviting the entire populace of our country to mihi to and acknowledge this amazing phenomenon that happens every single year. There is such a huge moment for us as Indigenous people to be able to reclaim for ourselves, and then almost too much, too fast, too soon, before so many of us had even had an opportunity to reclaim it for ourselves. It's now being claimed by everybody. It's now being claimed by everybody, and the conversations and the circles, I feel, that were invoked in order to make that happen. Perhaps that timeline was forced a little too much and we landed ourselves now in a place where, yes, it's beautiful, we love the holiday, we love that this is being shared and welcomed into places and spaces, but I really feel that we may end up going backwards before we come forwards, because, yes, the energy and the conversations that have been had in order for these things to take place may have been forced and happened a little too fast, and there are some things that I feel myself and others too, perhaps concerned about in terms of what does that do to? Yeah, the time, the timelines, the timeline, the timeline's really super interesting. So here we are.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 22:26

We've had this holiday put in place. It's in and around the season of when we perhaps might see beautiful Matariki appear in our skies. It is forcing and kind of institutionalizing and fixing a naturally occurring phenomenon to be acknowledged. So the mihi is going out to Matariki. She may not even be in the sky, but people are celebrating it, and so we need to pause for a minute and ask ourselves is this a problem? And I guess the academics may look at it and say it's fine, like we're in the season and we're like I don't know, that we've really thought about the true ramifications of this. So I'll give you an example, Something that we have been and you know because you're so deeply connected to putai ao, which is what we refer to as the natural world.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 23:40

This season I was going out each morning, end of June, start on one of my morning walks, and I see this explosion of bright yellow flowers catches my eye, and I stopped and I turned and looked and I was just bug-eyed because the reason being that this particularly beautiful flower that had caught my attention is a flower we refer to, a tree we refer to as kowhai. Now, the kowhai goes into flower in spring, in September, and in our understanding we say that when the kowhai flowers, this is the signal that you go to plant your kūmara, which is our traditional sweet potato. It's one of our most sacred foods. So here we are in June, three months early, and the kōwhai's flowering, and I thought, well, maybe it's just an anomaly Like I haven't lived in this area before, so maybe it's just something unusual, maybe it's a one-off no, no, no, no. So over the last few weeks I've been observing, and then I've been getting others on board. People are sending me photos of this particular thing flowering, and and then I've just been down in Te Wai, pounamu in the South Island of New Zealand and same thing happening down there. The blossoms are blossoming, kōwhai is flowering in the South Island, which is significantly colder right than the North, and so it's got me wondering. I can't make any conclusive kind of prove anything.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 25:48

But when you start messing with timelines and the natural unfoldings of mother nature, I don't know, it's this crazy notion that as humans we forget that everything is connected, that everything has a whakapapa. So when we start messing with timelines and saying we'll just put this thing here because it suits our timeline, but does it? Does it suit? What does it do? What is the impact and the roll-on effect? Because when we're sending out those acknowledgements to signal, oh hey, the new year is starting, those acknowledgements are received.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 26:36

We know this, we know this as indigenous people. There's a reason why there is a system in place that is a system of the natural law, that is an indigenous wisdom keeping system that has been in existence for eons, and then we come along and mess with that and we think that it's not going to have an effect. But I've been quietly observing just in the last few weeks, in a number of different ways, how I've seen timelines and time. In and of itself, it's like time has sped up, time has slowed down, and I'm in deep observation at the moment and deep listening. And then, yeah, what? What do we do about it?

D. Firth Griffith: 27:38

right, right, yeah, this, this, this modern industrial you were mentioned, you were mentioning earlier, about like institutionalizing or industrializing this source. You know this life like it's not working, but that that worldview that comes with it is screaming. We have to act, we have things to do, even if that's to decolonize. We have to do this now. We have to go, we have to move fast. Maybe with good intention, maybe not, but when I'm sitting here listening to you, I get the opposite of that, this more of this indigenous worldview that you speak of. It's like stop, be, sit. You know, and I'm reminded, you and I were chatting a couple of weeks ago, I think, and you had this wonderful idea which, by the way, I've pitched to maybe three or four or five, a handful of people, since we're totally doing it, your idea is happening, we're totally doing it, you said you wanted to throw, yes, the tree festival.

D. Firth Griffith: 28:38

You wanted to throw a festival or a conference, where and I don't know if I've improved it or made it worse, but this is what I tell people I say, listen, a good friend, she gave me this, she handed it to me.

D. Firth Griffith: 28:49

It's it's it's it's, it's her gift, but let me share it with you. Anyways, you're going to come out to the wildland you know our home here in central Virginia and we're going to plop you on a tree a tree of your own choosing, you can choose and then we're going to build this little mobile cart that has food, water and a portable toilet on it, and then you're just going to sit there for, like you know, five days, seven days, whatever it is, and seven days, whatever it is, and we'll, you know, every hour, we'll, come by with food and drink Maybe it's like local mead or local, you know, wines, like really good, like you're going to have a great time, but you're not allowed to leave until you've had a true and full conversation with the tree in which you sit underneath and, as you said, and if you come out of that forest with nothing, go back in. Because you weren't listening, because she is talking. Yeah, you know.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 29:37

Yeah, I love that. That's the decolonization, right there, right? It's like Right, if you're not hearing anything, you got work to do. Go back to your three. Yo, let me know when this is, because I'm going to come over for it. I'll be special guest tree hugger.

D. Firth Griffith: 30:02

Shalita, I don't know if you know this, but I will throw this festival just to have you come over here. Okay, great, I'm there. Watch what you promise, because I'll make sure of it. Yeah, one of my life goals is to meet you in person and give you a big hug, which probably means little to you in this moment.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 30:22

Oh, no, it means a lot it means the world to me.

D. Firth Griffith: 30:24

Your friendship does.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 30:26

I've been thinking, especially when I'm in the South, so what I did get to experience, I don't want it to sound all bad. You know, beautiful Matariki, I had a beautiful new year and I, after the previous year where I had run around and I had forced the timelines and I had forced my, I'd maximized my energy. You know time and energy which I've been talking about. It sounds terrible, but I've been talking about how I feel like we all got scammed by this holiday. Matariki traditionally is, of course it's our winter time, so traditionally it comes. You, we've done the harvest, so we've put all our kumara and all our beautiful kai that we've been growing into the storehouses and we go into the whare, wananga, like into our houses of learning, and we immerse ourselves in those spaces for the cold months, as you would right traditionally. But here we are in modern times and we're all out running around creating these events to celebrate Matariki, and then we get to the end of the season and we're all burnt out and we've done the complete opposite of what we were supposed to be doing, which is resting, receiving and connecting. So this year I thought I'm going to try my best not to do that. I don't know how successful I've been this year, but I had a beautiful weekend.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 32:07

For the holiday weekend we were nestled into the foothills of South Canterbury nestled into the foothills of South Canterbury and we ran. I was a part of a collective event, but we were all in the one space in the one time for the duration of the weekend and it was really beautiful just to be in a community and just have fun. We did some breath work and some healing and some sound healing and we got up bright and early in the morning and put the fire on and made our offerings to the fire to honour those that have passed and played our beautiful traditional instruments as the sun rose, and you know. So it was beautiful, it was really beautiful. We swam in the icy, cold river and had saunas and laughed and danced in the evening and I felt like, yep, this is kind of as it should be. Let's do more of this with less of all the other stuff. So I was here for that timeline. It was a good timeline to be in, yeah.

D. Firth Griffith: 33:24

You know, going back to this acknowledgement because that's the word that I feel like you're giving, even with that story is just acknowledging. You said acknowledging. All that's where it begins and giving the time and space it needs. Why do you think acknowledging? Because that to me sounds very easy. Why do you think that's so hard for so many people?

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 33:50

So, in the context of not just this conversation, but in all the work that I do, whether it's traveling to different whenua, different lands, putting my feet on that whenua, putting my hands into different waters, putting my hands into different waters, leaning my back against different trees, listening to the songs of whatever manu or birds are singing, whether I'm placing my hands onto the body of someone that I'm working with, whether I'm holding them in an embrace as they release the years and years of sadness or grief or pain that they've been carrying it always comes back to the one thing, which is Keita, mihi, keita, mihi, keita mihi. Acknowledge, acknowledge, acknowledge. To me, acknowledgement is like putting a key in a lock and turning it so that it can open a lock, and turning it so that it can open so that, whatever the distortion, the imprint, the pain, the grief, the mummai, the sadness, the illness, whatever it is that's being brought into your awareness. That is the point that needs to be acknowledged. Once you acknowledge what's being presented to you, yeah, it's like turning that key in the lock it frees it and it releases it. Then you can go about clearing it, healing it, transforming it, but until the acknowledgement is made, you can't bypass to the next steps, you will inevitably loop back around again, and no matter what plane of existence or dimension or etheric state we're being made aware of, it's always the same.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 36:35

We were at this amazing campground where we were being hosted for our Matariki event. It was an old scalp camp and we were staying in these bunk rooms old school style. It was fun. So there's me and my son and my bro was in one of the bunks, and then another whānau, a family that we're very close to. So it was the mum and dad and the two girls, and so we're all bunking in this room together. It was epic.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 37:04

Anyway, one afternoon the kids come running screaming out of the room and I'm like you guys are right, what's going on? And the kids are like there's a ghost in the room, and you know I deal a lot with the unseen realm, that's a, it's a gift of mine, and so I was like oh, yeah, okay. I said oh, okay, and what's this ghost up to? So the kids proceed to tell me the story about how the sock had been thrown through the wall. And nobody had thrown it, it just appeared in the room. And I was like, ah, I said okay. Then okay. I said well, you know, I guess the standard type of answer a parent might give would be oh, don't be silly, there's nothing like that in there. But not, no, no, not, not me.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 37:59

I saw this as an opportunity to. These are all homeschooling kids as well. So I was like, okay, we're gonna, let's do a little lesson here. And what do we do if we feel like we've encountered a ghost or a spirit? So I said about teaching them. You know what I would do in my practice, and spirits, or wairua as we like to refer to them, they're the same usually. I said, usually all they really want is acknowledgement. They're not here to harm you. You know, sometimes, oftentimes, they're here because maybe they've been here a really long time and no one's ever acknowledged that they're here, so maybe we should just do that.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 38:48

So the kids loved this idea. So they set about having chats with the ghost and then they were all good, um, but just a funny, a funny little story that comes to mind, because that's the thing you know, like it doesn't matter whether we we're talking about something tangible and physical and that we can see, or whether we are speaking to a kaitiaki, a guardian of the forest, that maybe we can see and perceive and feel, because we have a innate gifting. Or you know, when we're sitting about talking with those connecting with those trees at our upcoming festival, what are you going to do? What's the first thing you're going to do when you sit with that tree? What are you going to do? Do you even understand what the tikanga, what the protocol potentially could be when you sit with that tree? I bet, if you acknowledge it, you're going to have better conversations with it.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 40:02

So for me, acknowledgement, because acknowledgement is you know, it's, it's interwoven, it's inextricably linked to whakapapa. That's what whakapapa is about. It's aboutwoven, it's inextricably linked to whakapapa. That's what whakapapa is about. It's about acknowledging the lineage. Where did, where does that thing come from? Whether it's a person, whether it's a tree, you know that tree was a seed once before. It was a seed. Where was it? Somewhere?

D. Firth Griffith: 40:36

it's interesting this, this idea of akapapa in lineage and acknowledgement to all, being one for people who have lost that.

D. Firth Griffith: 40:48

I could see why acknowledgement, you know, they've lost their lineage.

D. Firth Griffith: 40:51

Like I'm thinking about myself, I'm studying the old Irish language in an attempt to connect to some of my ancestors, and it's a meager, almost laughable attempt for so many reasons.

D. Firth Griffith: 41:05

But I'm trying, you know, and it's just so painful to me, even as someone who I am, to look back at the history that you know I have been given and to look at some of it and and just to be like.

D. Firth Griffith: 41:19

You know my great grandfather. He lived in Ireland, I have no idea where, I have no idea what he looked like, I have no idea about anybody who's alive that has any idea, like even that so close of that relationship to me that lives in me, that you know all of this dreams and ancestors that maybe we can get into here, maybe if the conversation goes that way you know it's so close yet so far and so to me there's this intrinsic relationship, you know, between a people like myself with a lost lineage and this idea of acknowledgement and and. And I think one thing that maybe I want to ask you is. It seems like, to acknowledge the tree cause. We're at this festival together and you and I are sitting there at the tree. It seems like, in order to acknowledge the tree, I also have to acknowledge my place at the tree, and so, like I have to meet myself at the tree, and so, like I have to meet myself yeah, you know, and that seems to be a very difficult thing to ask a modern, industrial, western minded thinker yeah, meet yourself well, and that, my friend, is where the workers right.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 42:28

We're talking about decolonizing and that's why I was say that the practice and notion of decolonization is everybody's work. There's this narrative that's been allowed to kind of settle, which I was speaking to earlier, that, like, decolonization is an indigenous person's work and it's like, well, it is part of our work. But everybody has a place. Decolonization has impacted and affected absolutely everybody, no matter which part of the scenario that you're sitting in or your people have sat in Right, and so you know, like here you are, you have to acknowledge and make it to the fact that, perhaps due to colonization, or you know the drift, the journey that your ancestors have taken, that you have lost the whakapapa. Now, first and foremost, I would like to decolonize that notion because I don't believe that anything is ever lost. And the reason why I say that is because and this is where we have to start stretching ourselves a little because we've become so attached to a linear, physical proof of everything. But there are more than one ways to discover lineage and whakapapa, and I know this to be true, I know it as facts because I've done it myself. I've had my tupuna and wairua and spirit lead me on a journey and take me back to my ancestral lands so that I could physically, tangibly, put my feet on those lands. That was not done through a book, it wasn't done through pages. It was done because I stopped and I asked the questions and I listened to what they, in spirit, wanted to show me the path that they opened for me. And I believe that this is possible for anybody. And that would be my invitation to you is don't, ever, ever, let's start by saying my whakapapa is not lost. That's the colonized version. My whakapapa stopped? No, it doesn't. Whakapapa is always there. It's being held somewhere. We just got to find it, that's all. And sometimes we have to do extraordinary things like go and sit with our butt on the earth and our back against the tree. Go and sit with our butt on the earth and our back against the tree. We acknowledge the tree and say, hey, do you think as a connecting life force between heaven and earth, do you think that you could ask and help me find my lineage? I need to find it and then wait for the timeline to unfold. Have the patience. All of a sudden, strange things will start happening. You will receive a piece of information. It's like following the breadcrumbs and it will take you.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 46:15

If you have the openness and the openness in your heart and the openness in your spirit, like I don't know who we think we are when we start boxing in spirit and start boxing in those that have gone before us. You know, have you had a conversation with your ancestors? Have you invoked them and said can you please come and show me where we are from? I'm trying to find out and wait and watch what happens. Sometimes you can engage people with particular gifts that might be able to help you. Um, and oftentimes, yeah, I work across this concept a lot with other people because, you know, so many of us are in this business of reclamation and all I know and I can speak to is you know, first and foremost, from my own experience, that nothing is outside the realms of possibility, nothing. Everything is stored in the great knowledge systems of the universe of our ancestors. We just got to engage with them and have an openness and they can take us on a journey. Yeah, because I understand. The thing with the other realms, you know, with spirit, is that it has no concept of time and space. This is why they laugh at us. It's why a tree would laugh at us. It's because I mean, you know, daniela, part of my work is rongo a Maori, which is the beautiful practice of native plant medicine from these lands. So I have many, many, many conversations with trees and that is not unusual for me. That is my life. I'm blessed that I have those conversations and that I have that open dialogue, and I always remember this beautiful conversation, or korero, that opened up years ago.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 48:38

I decided I'd move back down to the South Island and I was looking for a place for me and my son to live and I'd seen this little tiny two-bedroom cottage in the, in the rural area. So I got in our little car and we're driving out to see this place and I was coming around the bend of this lake and it was an area that I used to go to with my parents as a child, and that was all good. Anyway, the trees started saying things to me which, as I say, is not unusual. What was unusual was what they were saying, and what they were saying to me was oh my gosh, it's you. Oh, we haven't seen you in a long time. I was like what do you mean? They're like we haven't seen you for so long I was like, okay, I just kind of stored that in the back of my memory file.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 49:36

Anyway, as it proceeded, we ended up moving out to that little cottage and I started my first business there, creating Rongo Maori products. So I went to the Ngahiri, went into the forest and connected with all the different lako and trees in the area and opened those conversations and said you know, look, I really want to create some beautiful products for healing people. And you know, and of course they're keen because plants just love to help us any chance they can get, as long as we're acknowledging them in the right ways, right, so they were all good. Anyway, I kept having this conversation come up from them, which is, wow, we haven't seen you for ages. Like where have you been? And I'm like I'm right here and I kept thinking are they talking about? Like when I was a kid or something I don't remember coming out here.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 50:31

Anyway, the following year, things, different things evolved and spun out and I was moving and creating in and around the area a lot and I kept having different visions of myself living and walking and breathing in those lands. And now we're really going to get into some different timeline energy. Now we're really going to get into some different timeline energy. What I pieced together over the space of that following year was that I had most certainly lived and walked and breathed on that whenua.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 51:08

Before that I had worked with those plants as a medicine woman before, but it was in a completely different timeline. So it was in a past life where I had walked on those lands, I had worked with those plants, the plants that had been saying to me and had recognized and acknowledged straight away hey, we know you, we used to work with you before, but we just haven't seen you for a long time. And that's the thing. What that made me realize was that a tree doesn't see this. It sees your mauri, your life force, and it sees your wairua, your spirit, which is always the same. So it recognized my spirit. To the tree, who doesn't have any concept of time or space, it was just like, oh, we haven't seen you for a long time, we're talking a few hundred years, but it knew me before I even realized who they were so right, it opens.

D. Firth Griffith: 52:29

It opens up just this whole new field for us to play in, not just in this conversation, of course, but to truly play it and laugh. And yeah, so much of this modern narrative and and maybe I speak about this, this narrative too much, it's just everyone I'm surrounded by is consumed by the narrative, and so it's hard for me, even if I don't want to be consumed, to not be consumed. It just seems like it's the omnipresent story of our age and to some degree it's, it's very materialistic. We have energy needs, we need to create energy. We have medicine needs, we need to create medicine. And again, that might be a fine thing, like the medicine you were creating from the plants in the forest. The end result, the outcome, might be a very fine and wonderful and loving and kind thing. But what you're getting at, or at least what I'm understanding from your words, is, if the tree is only seeing this life force, this spirit, then maybe the first act of decolonization, using your words here, maybe that first act, this acknowledgement, is really to let the materialistic world not go. Because you're clothed, I'm clothed, you have headphones on, I have headphones. These are materials, not to let it go as to shun these things, but rather to turn inward and understand what the true life force and what our true spirit is, not necessarily only in the now, as you've spoken so well to, but also in the past. How did our ancestors, you know, interpret that? How does our ancestors, and help us understand that, for today, this, this non-linear, non-historical, non, you know, calendar based understanding of life, life force, spirit, time and place and how they come together? So it's a, it's a deep turning inward that is needed because to me and I don't want to make it sound like I haven't fallen into this mistake because I guarantee you I have but so much of the work around decolonization, especially here in first world type countries, western countries and I say both of these things with air quotes, of course so much of the work of decolonization is, you know, I see so many people who own land, acknowledging the indigenous peoples who were there on that land previous to them, and I'm not bashing that in any way.

D. Firth Griffith: 54:51

We, you know, our local indigenous people, indigenous nations of the Saponi, the Okaneechi, the Saponi, I'm sorry, the Siyuan, the Saponi, the Okaneechi, the Saponi, I'm sorry, the Siyuan, the Saponi, the Okaneechi and the Monacan, you know they have asked us to do these things and I think you know people ask us all the time why we do land acknowledgements publicly and I said, well, they asked us to. It seems like a fine way to love, to just, you know, to honor that ask. I mean first and foremost to me that's unbelievably plain and simple. But so much of a stop there. Decolonization is something for us to do. What I'm listening to you is decolonization begins with being sitting, acknowledging, reconnecting with your own life force and spirit yeah and for it to be yeah.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 55:38

Yeah, I mean, this is another conversation and it's definitely something that's been sitting in my field for a little bit, which is because we have similarly. We probably I can't speak to because I don't know extensively enough, but I would say we have a fairly solid grounded practice in terms of mainstream, yeah, in terms of allowing and weaving indigenous practice into. You know lots of different fields, you know lots of different fields, but what I've been sitting with lately is what is the true inherent value that is being placed, especially when it comes to indigenous wisdom? When it comes to indigenous wisdom, I I a energy that I felt as an indigenous woman, as an indigenous practitioner, as an indigenous wisdom holder, is I sometimes and oftentimes feel that people, would people love to come and sit with the tree, but how much do you really truly value the wisdom that comes from that tree? Because for me, because for me, it feels like the reciprocity and the balance and the nature of that exchange is still out. It's like we like to invite the indigenous wisdom keeper in to share the wisdom, but what are you doing to whakamana or to uplift the mana of that wisdom keeper? Are you going to gift them the lands or are you going to keep sitting on the land and doing what it is that you want to do? Do those people even have land that you want to do? Do those people even have land?

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 58:04

And you know, as someone who sits here, that has had the land from both sides of her family taken in different ways. So now my inheritance and my legacy has been that I sit here with no land. So my son's inheritance at this point is that he has no land. And then I've got to set about not only doing all the work to heal you know, all the intergenerational trauma, to endure the acknowledgements. To endure the acknowledgements to generate and create and instill a sense of value within myself, which is a massive journey just in and of itself but on top of all of that, I'm then invited to come and share in spaces and my wisdom and my medicine and all of the things which I love. You know it's what I live for. But then, on top of all of that, I'm still expected to create value enough in order for me to purchase land. Like it's a lot, Right, it's a heavy workload and sometimes, when we're sitting and we're being invited into these spaces, I question are we just being called in and asked to be here to tick a box because it looks good, because it looks like you're making the acknowledgement and you are, and it's beautiful.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 59:48

But is that enough? Can you do more? And if so, what can you do? If so, what can you do? You know, what greater value can you offer to those indigenous people? And I feel like that. That's a big piece of work right there, because, again, it's forcing us into that, or it's inviting us into those acknowledgements, right, us into those acknowledgements, right. It's inviting us into conversations like yeah, hey, you do realize that you have that home and you have that land, because, potentially, your ancestors leveraged off what happened to my ancestors, and that is a deeply uncomfortable conversation to have. But we can have it If we have the openness and the heart to be able to just sit with one another and say it's okay, it's not your fault, it's not my fault. You just have to acknowledge that it's happened. Let's go sit next to the tree together.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:01:04

I think there's a lot what you're saying is true in the sense that acknowledge, but also let's have this conversation. I got chills when you were speaking. I don't know. It's what's needed, I think. But at the same time, to force the indigenous peoples to need something to me seems to be back to the very early conversation you and I are having about sickness, about the New Year holiday. You know, in your land there's a difference there, and I think so many people that I've been around and if I've ever done this, I think it's so easy to do. This is my point. But we want to force our help to the Indigenous peoples locally. I don't know. Could you speak about that a little bit?

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:01:54

Yeah, well, it's problematic, right, because it's as if to say one, there is a problem, two, it's okay, we've got the solution. And it's like do you though? Because in my past experience, the solutions you have offered us have not been good, so there's a deep mistrust there. And when we are busy trying to reclaim and re-indigenize ourselves, do you think that we're going to be looking perhaps to those externals in order for you to provide us with a solution? No, because it would go directly against what we're actually endeavoring to do. So you know, a few years back, with all the craziness that unfolded, we were being offered solutions she says in parentheses, solutions and, of course, me and my practice.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:03:11

I was just like I don't care what the thing is, I will study it, I will find the rongoā Māori solution for that. So I did. I studied it in all the ways that I knew how. I studied it as it was appearing in the bodies of people, I studied it with sound, I studied it with our native plant medicine and I designed a range of Rongo Maori products that treated it. That's what I did. How did I do that? I used ancestral indigenous wisdom, whakapapa, acknowledgement all the tools that I carry in my kete in my medicine bag. Those things have gone on to fix a lot of people whenever they've engaged with those particular unwellnesses. But I had conversations. I had a conversation with the thing. I was like what are you? You're interesting, let me understand your whakapapa. It was not good, let me tell you that much.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:04:25

I was about to say. I don't know if I wanted to see that.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:04:27

No, no, but I did want to see it because, you know, I wanted to understand it so that I could wrap a solution or, you know, a rongo around it, a medicine around it that would naturally help and support our people, whoever the people are. But yeah, the idea that I don't know, I just I had to give an opening speech at a family, a whānau well-being day last week and my opening speech, my speech, was about whakapapa and it kind of birthed itself out of my son being unwell and we were staying with friends and I had three different bottles as a tangible physical representation. Each bottle had a different whakapapa, had a different lineage. One of the bottles was a Rongoa Māori tonic syrup that I had created for children, which was birthed out of that last few years. The second bottle was a bottle of pharmacy-like cough medicine syrup with some kind of pain reliever in it. And the third bottle was another natural remedy, but it had not native, indigenous plants to this country but things like wild thyme and elderberry, so a bit more of what I would refer to as like a pākehā or tauiwi whakapapa. So, um, but I held each one of them up and spoke to each one in this different whakapapa and told my story about in that very tangible way, just to demonstrate the strength and the mana of each whakapapa, and it was. I shared that with no judgment towards, because what I was pointing to is that we all get to make choices. We all get to choose oftentimes what externally we place internally within ourselves.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:06:36

So as my son became unwell I thought, okay, I'll give him the pharmacy medicine, because that was for fevers, which is kind of like a bit weird because it actually went against my better judgment. But anyway, I said I'll try him on something. So he had a dose of that. It didn't do anything, he just kept continuing to fever and going into the evening. So I gave him two doses of the Rongo Maori syrup that I had created and by the morning his fever had broken and he was sort of coming back into himself. So I gave him a third dose in the morning and then he sort of started to come right later in the day. So that was the whakapapa, that was the bottle, the elixir, the syrup. That was the medicine that worked for him.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:07:35

Now there's a few different reasons why I believe that is. One is that he's been, he's grown up with that whakapapa. He was consuming rongo, a Māori, when he was in my belly. I was drinking tonics and teas, and so he's literally had it since before he was even born.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:07:57

In terms of its whakapapa the trees, I mean, this is a medicine that literally comes from the earth, the earth that he is born from, the earth that his placenta lives in, the earth that he will one day return to. It comes from his great mother, will one day return to. It comes from his great mother. Do I think that that beautiful rākau, that tree, those trees that have grown, that have been harvested and karakia'd and prayed over by his mother and created and birthed into this beautiful syrup, with all the beautiful honey from the natural environment, from the elderberries and the lemons and all of the things that are in this beautiful syrup that's lovingly given to him by his brother? Do you think that that whakapapa just might resonate better for him than the whakapapa of something that comes from a chemist's lab?

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:09:04

I don't even know what that would be right but the beautiful thing, you know, here's what's inherently really important when it comes to whakapapa is that it's about connection and intention. When we create rongo Māori, we take ourselves to the ngahiri, to the forest. We stand with our feet on the whenua, on the ground, and we acknowledge we mihi to that space and that environment, and then we ask permission, because we don't just go in and pick and harvest and do whatever it is that we want to do, kāo. No, we must get permission. We have the conversations. Is it okay if I'm here today? Is it okay if I come and harvest some plants today? Nine times out of ten you always get a yes Because, like I say, plants are always wanting to help us and support us. But we do those acknowledgements and we ask those permissions and then we do our karakia, we do our prayer, we do our blessing, which is about opening that connection to source and that connection to that beautiful atia, that space, connection to ourselves, and we set an intention.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:10:41

I wanted to collect these plies today so that I can take them and turn them into things that are going to help heal myself, heal my family, heal people. I will only take as much as I need, because I'm a kaitiaki, I'm a guardian. I understand that if I look after you, you will look after me and my family and my children and my children's children and you will be here always to help us, in this lifetime, in the next lifetime. So in a few hundred years from now, when I come back and you start telling me all again how you know me, you'll still be here because I understand, I understood back. Then I look after you, you look after me you look after me yeah, that's what it is to be a kaitiaki.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:11:38

It's what it is to be a guardian right? It's this reciprocity, this understanding that anything and everything is in and of the circle. There is no break in the circle. We are in and of the circle. My son is in and of the circle. The tree is in and of the circle. My son is in and of the circle, the tree is in and of the circle. Matariki is in and of the circle. We're not separated. We're all in this together. So if you're standing in my circle and you're in pain or you're lost or you feel like you don't have the right things to acknowledge or you can't acknowledge those things yet, I will see you, I will be a witness to you and acknowledge you, and then we can move forward. We need to Right.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:12:46

Right, but we put the time there. There's a previous conversation you and I shared, and I still think about this. You had many words for it which I did not have. I'll get you started and then I want you to continue the story for me, or this idea, but in the past you've talked to me about there's this idea. Everything you need is where you can throw your net. I believe I've done enough to get you, to get you going, but that's, I feel like, where we are in the conversation.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:13:18

Yes, yeah, in rongo Maori. So we would say that wherever you stand, so let's say the house, the home that you live in, and this is you know. Obviously you could do this in a physical, tangible way, but more in a metaphysical kind of way, because maybe your net is very large and you could throw it a very far distance. But we would say that the kupinga, or the fishing net, the net and we're thinking of those big fishing nets that they would cast out, thinking of those big fishing nets that they would cast out. But if you held your kupinga and stood, you know, in your home, on your back doorstep, and you cast the net out in a circumference around your home or around the area that you lived in, perhaps, if you wanted to extend it a bit further, um, and I feel like there's definitely, like you know, that micro and macro sense of this as well um, but we would say, wherever that net could be cast out, within the circumference of that net, the rongoā, or the medicine that you require and that your family would require, will be and will grow itself in the area that that net can be cast, be cast. So this is where we start to get into the, the super intelligence of plants, which I've seen and witnessed too much of to not be to not be able to deny its existence. Like Like plants. Still, they just buzz me out. Like they're so smart, their intelligence is just so clever, and I'm sure you've witnessed this as well Just what they can actually do.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:15:34

Here comes my little fella Hello, how you doing. I'm not good. I work on coffee. You what? I work on coffee? Aww, you're up early.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:15:52

I'm not up.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:15:54

Oh, okay, yeah, I did that.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:16:02

Hold on a minute, my friend, take your time. Okay, well, that's very early for him to be up no problem. We're speaking to plants.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:16:23

Yeah, intelligence, yeah, the super intelligence, super intelligence of plants. They're so clevering, um, I keep keep having this, uh reminder come to me about the seed, you know, and I still just fascinates me so much. We're talking about fuck papa, but you think inside the tiniest seed lies the fucker popper and the super intelligence for it to do all that it does. And the tiniest of seeds. I mean not that we're too much different either, but it just fascinates me how it holds all of that intelligence in such a micro way. And I'm sure you have this concept too. But I was instructed by a kuia, by this grandmother, many years ago when I was creating a garden. She said she gave me some seeds for, um, what we refer to as hui, which is um, a gourd. So we grow gourds traditionally for a range of different uses as food carriers, vessels, um, but we often use them as instruments as well. So we cut the top off the gourd and then use them as a wind instrument and things. Anyway, this kuia says I wanted to grow some gourds. This kuia said to me make sure you put the seeds in your mouth before you plant them. What she goes, put the seeds in your mouth and then it will know you. And as you're working and growing the plant, she says do the same with your kai. You know with your kai your food for your seeds, for kai, especially the hard ones, obviously. So things like squash and those sorts of things. Put the seeds in your mouth and soften them a little and then put them in the ground and say what we do that for it's because then it knows your whakapapa and it will grow itself. It will read with its intelligence, you know, like what it is that you need. It will read and understand perhaps what minerals you're lacking, what things that you need more of. It will grow itself accordingly.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:18:48

I just thought, wow, and I'm sure you know, I'm sure this is partly the reason why, when we grow our own kai, it's just so much better because we've nurtured it and we're so connected to it. You know with our own whakapapa. But to go back to this notion of the casting of the neck, it's similarly, you know, if we place out part of our DNA, our hair, our nails, place them into the whenua, the whenua can read what that is and then what happens in that brilliant network that plants have. I love how science is just connected and gone.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:19:34

All plants are connected to one another. They communicate with one another through their root systems. Really, wow, like, wow, good one. I'm glad that you're catching up on that, because I feel like we understood this a long time ago. But that, of course, I connected. You know, we think we're talking about having conversations with trees, but trees be having a lot of conversations with one another. They are terrible gossips. Let me tell you something. This is why it's super important that you're nice to trees, because if you do something wrong to one of them, it will tell all of its friends.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:20:20

Yeah, there's so much here. Scale is a word that keeps coming back to me. There's a particular. As we release this idea of a forced timeline, we become limited by scale. You can only put so many seeds in your mouth. You can only talk to so seeds in your mouth, right, you can only talk to so many trees. What I mean by that is you can't devise a program to save the forests across the globe. Maybe you can create a community of forests where you live, right, you know, there's a particular limitation of scale, and I use both the word scale and the word limitation very, very positively, positively.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:21:04

I don't mean these, any of these things, as negative, not even the slightest, but there's a wonderful limitation of scale. There's a wonderful, uh, idea of intimacy. So many of the climate saving solutions, I think, lack intimacy. Maybe maybe all of them. Maybe we can go that far and just say all of them, but there's an intimacy that you're talking about with your net, with your reach, with your local landscape, with the seeds in your mouth, the trees. That are great gossips. So we have time, we have scale, we have limitations, we have intimacy, acknowledgement, soul work.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:21:36

You know you were speaking about that seed, how everything is contained within there. You made the comment earlier in this. This thought just reemerged within me. Both of these thoughts are yours, but you were saying how the tree sees your life source and your spirit. I wonder how much of this intelligence is just that. I don't, maybe. I don't wonder. Maybe it is true. Like what if his intelligence is just that life source and we've totally mistaken this intelligence? You know I get so bored with people talking about the left brain and the right brain. You know I'll be saying something and somebody in this group or whatever would be like oh, that's your left brain talking or that's your right brain talking? And don't get me wrong. Scientifically it seems to be thus no-transcript. What?

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:22:49

do you think? Well, I don't think.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:22:57

I feel why would you make me smile? Why would I just interrupt your thoughts? You make me smile, why would, why would they just interrupt your thoughts? You make me so.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:23:02

you make me smile so much because my conversations with trees are not thoughted, they're felt, and so what that signals to me and this is probably too where you feel a little bit problemed by the mind intelligence which is required. But at this point in time, where we've been so deeply anchored in the mind, we need to switch that off a little and rebalance and recalibrate, because what we're really seeking to do is to come back into the heart intelligence which is felt. It's not logical, but it is of the truth, because the heart doesn't know how to lie. And that's why I'll trust a conversation with the tree over a conversation with the person any day, because the tree resonates at the heart frequency. It's a felt experience. It's a felt experience, it's a felt connection. It feels your life force. How does it feel me? It feels my presence. It feels that modi, that life force, that energy. It feels my wairua, my spirit. It doesn't have eyes, physical eyes per se, so that it will physically see me, so why would it be interested in my physical form? It is feeling me in its intelligence. That's the difference. It's a recalibration from being in and of the mind intelligence to being in and of the heart intelligence.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:25:12

Yes, and when you go sit with that tree. That's what it will be recalibrating you to, taking you back into the heart, and I feel like this is really where our work is as humans, that's where we really can connect to one another. You know is through the heart space. The head has its place, for sure, but if we can learn to work with the two, create that synergistic balance, it's like you're speaking to when you sit with the indigenous. We're like trying to place the solution. It's a solution from the mind. Is it a solution from the heart? Because if we open a conversation with those elders and went to them and said what is it that you feel you need? What can I do for you, and they listened with an open heart, you'd probably be surprised by the answers you'd get.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:26:38

You'd probably be surprised by the answers you'd get. Yeah, I think, yeah, surprise would be a light word for the many of us. I could see us together in this tree festival somebody running out of the woods, screaming, half naked their clothes can't keep up with how fast they're running Just like you know, holy hell, the tree is speaking. It's actually happening. You know like it's, just like. Oh, you're alive for the first time. Welcome, welcome. You know this. This, this world has existed you left. Welcome back to the circle, welcome home.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:27:13

Yes, well, shaleta, I see that the sun is kind of rising behind you. I hear the birds. The day is truly beginning. I think we could talk and I say this so often and I mean it every time. But, like the main reason I have this, this podcast, it's so interesting I just want to have an excuse to have these deeper conversations, and you and I have not needed this excuse. We've had unbelievable conversations in the past. At least they've been world changing for me, and I'm so privileged and honored and blessed to have you with us today, um, and sharing this space, just it's. It's a blessing I can't say anything more.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:28:01

Your, your unbelievable wisdom. But then, like gosh, like the lightheartedness of it all. I don't know if you feel like you're a lighthearted individual or a well-hearted individual, but, oh my gosh, your laugh lifts me up and I'm so thankful. Thank you, my friend.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:28:20

I feel, if you've, if you've had to carry a lot of heavy burdens in your life and you set your mind and heart and presence on healing what needs to be healed, you find humor in it because, gosh darn, you just have to find the things that are gonna lift your spirit. You know, at times, and you find the people that do that lift your spirit. You know, at times, and you find the people that do that lift your spirit too, and this is why it's so important. You know that we, yeah, that we set about decolonizing the circle. We want to find our way back to it and, as I say, everybody is welcome in the circle, everybody is in and of the circle and we need to get back into those circles so that we can all truly reclaim our to dance, to love, to sing. You know, this is what it truly is to be in those places of common unity, community, and that's what was so beautiful with my beautiful Matariki weekend that I had was that I got to experience all of those things. I sat with the trees, I swam in the waters, yeah, I danced, I shared kai, we laughed and we laughed and we laughed. It was fun, yeah, yeah, and that's what it is to be here and be human.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:30:13

This lifetime, as we know, is so brief and, yeah, I wonder. Sometimes she's like, yeah, just as I'm listening to the birds starting to sing, I wonder what this tree, what these trees land, these birds, what will they remember me for in this lifetime? Will they remember I came and sat with them? Will they remember that I bought my son? That I know they will remember Because they tell me so. The greatest gift you can ever bring the elders, and whatever way, shape or form that they appear to you, is bring them the children, bring them the future generation, bring their laughter, bring their joy, bring their happiness. That bring their joy, bring their happiness. That is their dream realized, wow.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:31:17

Wow. We're trying to think our way into so many solutions and the image that you've given us is paralyzing almost in its simplicity. But I can I don't know know. I don't know how the listeners here are are feeling, but I'm looking outside. We still got the remainder of our day left the afternoon, and I just want to take the kids out into the woods.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:31:42

I'll be honest yeah, that's what I'll be doing today. I'm gonna head to the head to the beach with my son, even though it's you know, it's not the warmest. We'll probably dive in the water, who cares.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:31:53

Who cares? I love it. I love it. Shalita, I don't want to assume that you want people to find you, but if people were interested in this conversation and learning more about your work or your medicine or your time, your, your, your, your time how can people find you?

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:32:13

Uh, I have my own website. You can find me on shalitazainicom. Um, similarly, I mostly uh share through Instagram. It's my kind of chosen preferred platform. Yeah, I'm always weaving in and around this beautiful whenua, this country, but I'm hoping and planning to come over to Turtle Island sooner rather than later, For sure For tree festivals and other things I was about to say let's just get this planned.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:32:54

Yeah, let's do it. You tell me what the best time of year is. I can't wait to bring gifts from this land to yours and to carry the waters. So Waitaha part of my lineage is to Waitaha the water carriers so I will be bringing the many waters that I've gathered over many, many years and sharing those with the waters in your lands. So I'm really looking forward to that.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:33:26

I don't know why I just got this little story that popped into my head and I was sharing this with a friend the other day and this just blew my mind when I heard about this and I guess this is speaking to the potential of whakapapa. So, however many years ago it was, there was a Maori man and he traveled over to Canada and somewhere over in those lands he was gifted some salmon eggs which he snuck back into the country. He snuck them back into New Zealand and he put them into the ancestral waters, into the rivers, and the salmon began to spawn and breed and they populated themselves in the rivers and this is down in the South Island, in Canterbury, where I just recently was and this beautiful salmon population grew. And then in the meantime what happened over in Canada is that the salmon population over there decreased, began to depopulate itself, and the indigenous elders from those lands obviously were concerned and they somehow heard about how there was this salmon population in New Zealand. So those elders travelled recently to Aotearoa to New Zealand. They spent a week or so with the hapū, the sub-tribe, that is, the guardians, the kaitiaki, of the salmon population. They gifted back to the canadian elders, um, some of the eggs from the salmon and they have taken those eggs back to canada to repopulate their salmon population, which was indigenous to them first, but how and this is what I like to refer to as divine choreography.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:35:38

It's when we do things I don't know I I haven't had a conversation with the tani that instigated all of this, the man that instigated it, but I wonder what possessed him to take these eggs originally back to his homeland In the first place. Did he know? I bet he didn't know, but he would have been following some type of guidance that maybe was outside of himself. He did the thing and then look where that whakapapa has gone. It's done like a full circle back to itself. This is why I say nothing is ever truly lost. If it is supposed to have its place in the circle, it will always find a way back there, always. Wow, isn't that a beautiful story? It's just just so brilliant yeah, it's never lost.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:36:41

I think that's a big, big takeaway for me. It might have been forgotten, but that doesn't mean it is lost, because it is never fully forgotten.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:36:53

Yeah.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:36:56

So much, so much there. I so appreciate you. I am honored and blessed, thank you.

Chelita Kahutianui-o-te-Rangi Zainey: 1:37:05

You're welcome, my friend, anytime.

D. Firth Griffith: 1:37:10

Well, we made it. Thanks for listening to this episode. If you've enjoyed the content or the conversation and you want to join the content and conversation, I beg you, I plead with you, to allow us to create a two-way conversation and it's not just us speaking at you, but join us online on substack. It's free, doesn't cost you anything at all. It's the wildland chronicles on substack. It's a link in the bio. You know what to do. Click it, join it and all of these episodes are posted there, with some further discussion topics and a way for us to discuss and comment and critique and further these thoughts together, which is, I have to be honest with you, the only reason we do this. I have no interest in talking at people, with people. So join us. We'll see you there.