ko au te kete

It’s a process that has it’s own speed

internal and constant.

It can’t be named, although the word truth, expresses something close.

It’s a knowing, an unfurling, that little spark that flickers inside, when you know you’re on track.

Mahi raranga is known as an art, a craft, a way of making things that you need in daily life out of the naturally occurring material in your surroundings.

But to me, it’s a structured and disciplined way of living.

There’s been a small amount written on Te Whare Pora – The Ancient House of Weaving, mainly by anthropologists that studied the old people and their ways in the late 1700’s and throughout the Victorian era. Elsdon Best wrote prolifically on his observations thankfully, and much of what is known today was well-preserved in the written form by these very curious, mostly gentlemen.

Sir Peter Henry Buck – Te Rangi Hiroa, also wrote extensively, his observations from a more localised perspective, often drawing comparisons with other Pacific nations’ styles and flavours of weaving.

While research is fascinating and at times necessary, especially in an education space, the true gift of mahi raranga, is in the doing, the reflection and the process that unfolds, not only with the material, but also the weaver.

There aren’t many things we do from beginning to end these days. When I think of the daily processes I complete, it looks a little like this;

Wake up, shower, dress

Hop in the car and drive to work

Walk to office, sit down in front of a screen for around 6 hours with a couple of breaks for meetings and lunch, then back in the car….

Something along those lines. Barely a need for strength, fitness, creativity.

Everything there, instantly available at our finger tips. I can also grab my phone and check the news, social media see what my friends and family are doing around the world even have instant text conversations with them if I want. I can do some banking, shift money around, buy some shoes with money I haven’t yet earned and join a protest I heard about via an email or Instagram message. It’s mindblowingly insane how much I can do, without moving my body or actually physically doing anything at all. Much of it happens in my imagination while looking at my phone!

Traditional weaving is a lot different. It asks much much more of me. Not only must I learn the techniques necessary to make all the different types of objects I want to create but before I even start I need to get outside and hunt down the correct weaving material appropriate for my project. That’s right, indigenous weavers in my country must start by processing their own raw materials.

This can send me across my suburb, town, or city in a number of directions, depending on the supply of different types of materials available in each location.

I must dress appropriately. Cutting harakeke in ‘the wild’ is surprisingly dangerous and requires a level of focussed calm, appropriate clothing and footwear, and very sharp tools that can cause serious injury. If you saw me out there cutting harakeke, you’d probably think I was a council gardener, or even a mechanic or janitor, it’s that unglamorous!

And I must be fit and strong enough to carry out of the bush, these huge bundles of unprocessed plant matter,

First things first, am I well? Weavers run through a preliminary checklist of physical, spiritual and mental considerations prior to entertaining thoughts of going out to pick harakeke. Indigenous weavers have practiced this for centuries and we continue to do it in modern times.

Next thing is the weather. Seasons and weather patterns have a major impact on our weaving material. Face it, we live in a country that’s cold and wet for up to 75% of the year. Rain, frost and cold have similar effects on the plants as they do on humans and so it makes sense to prune in favourable conditions.

Often times the plants are neglected and overgrown and in need of some tidying. This adds extra time but also an element of danger. Sharp objects thrown out of cars or the dried out plant material itself, can be very rough on the hands and body. Sometimes there are awful smells where animals and even humans have left all kinds of rubbish and waste behind and don’t even get me started on the spiders and cockroaches. If there’s no one available to come with me, I let hubby know before I go out and have a GPS signal turned on so I can be tracked, staying as visible to passersby as possible. Overboard is the general rule when it comes to safety during the collecting of materials.

Once all the conditions are right and you’ve been able to finally get out there and find the harakeke you’re looking for, you need to bring it home and prepare it. This can mean up to two to three days of work before you finally have weaveable material.

It sounds like a lot, and it is, but can you imagine the satisfaction derived from all this effort into creating a piece of purposeful art? Well, maybe you can’t! It’s a creative thing, some will understand, many won’t, but all artists needing to create their own medium for their art will relate.

I’m driving at something here though.

In modern life it’s rare to experience life this way. It’s ancient, the way most people once lived. To eke out their existence uitilizing their minds, bodies and environments in a structured and cohesive manner. To make absolutely everything they required from scratch, by hand, from resources readily available and growing freely about them. To visualize, plan and execute SOMETHING from NOTHING. To bring an object into being. To morph or transform material into a basket, bag or item of clothing.

This is alchemy.

It does something internally that nothing in modern life comes close to, except maybe creating life, and I say this because weaving, although there are men that do it, is a uniquely female pursuit and seems to suit the physicality and natural make up of women.

It activates the system and weaves all the neurology and biology together and invigorates all the senses into a new and better order. It wakes up parts of the body and mind that had been dormant and allows for a flow between all the parts of the physical, mental and spiritual. But don’t quote me on any of this! It’s just what it feels like based on my own journey and observations of teaching mahi raranga. It’s what seems to happen to people as they perform each of the different parts of the process, repetitively and over time.

It’s almost as if learning the art of mahi raranga, re-weaves all the different parts of the person back together, in a more functional and cohesive way.

And life begins to flow.