Tuesday, June 30, 2009

lifelong-love-of-learning


Life is very interesting isn't it?

I've just read about
Te Kooti's first visit to Waihi.

Waihi is in the news because they have just evacuated it due to concerns about an eruption or slips.

"The historic village - the ancestral base of Taupo iwi Ngati Tuwharetoa - is on a seismic fault line in an area of known instability near the Hipaua Cliffs geothermal area at the southwest corner of Lake Taupo.

Sixty people - including paramount chief Te Heuheu Tukino II - were killed in the village after a landslide in 1846."


If you had of asked me a month ago where Waihi was i might have struggled to answer correctly. Yet this place has a maori history, a strong, detailed maori history. And knowledge of that maori history would enhance the lives of everyone.

Back to the book... one of the great joys with an author that i haven't read before is getting used to their style. I have found that Judith Binney's writing is so good that i am there at that time, and place, and I can feel the emotion. She layers this with an amazing amount of detail and facts from many sources. I, like many I think, think about those times and imagine a 'Piano' or 'Vigil' or 'River Queen' style - dark, raining, dirty etc. But was life really like that? Is the weather always dark and dismal today?

Learning is quite joyful. Do natural events have any connection to what we are doing, collectivelly rather than individually? Is everything just little and big coincidences?

What would maori of Te Kooti's time have said about the omens.

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