Eva: Hine Ahu One – Eva

A Matriarchal Salute

Raymond Te korako Ruka, Son of Waitaha – The Water Carriers

If only humanity could replicate in a

manner to the starling and collectively

weave patterns of behavior through-

out the world in a glorious symmetry

of murmuration. Surely that would be

an example to all our children of the

grandeur that could be realized of

those higher kindred potentials that

dwell within the very fiber-being of all

of us. So that we can keep reminding

each of us that the seasons of our time

here on this miraculous Blue Sphere

need not ever have to decline. Rather

they might stay forever implanted in

our children’s minds to become the

legacies that they in turn will leave

behind for their more tender hearted

generations still yet to come. Then

those new distant beneficiaries standing

here one day, centuries away, may they

contemplate quietly for revelation into 

what we, you and I, their peaceful for-

bearers had murmurated deep into those

souls of theirs for them to opine upon.

And maybe then they might kneel more

gratefully on a greener, lush, and quieter

global home. An Ancient way, a pathway

for them to follow should they choose

to accept and not decline. A legacy we,

their distant ancestors had bequeathed 

not only to them but to everyone of their

subsequent heirs as well so grand and far

reaching was cast our spell. Because with

the endowment would surely come the

necessary trials and tribulations that we,

the wordsmiths of the texts we each and 

every one of us received from our own 

beloved mix of teachers each generation

knitted to each. Silent, watchful, thought-

full, aiding and abetting one another until

we had passed the baton on knowing that

some future visionaries, one of our very

own would from some distant mountain-

top spy the finish line in the far away 

unknown. Then run more passionately

toward it, and though her final breath had

just begun and have figures of ancestral

imaginings lining the landscape whispering

encouragement, emboldening her on.

For this sacred life cycle circles itself

relentlessly around, generation after

generation we are bound and no matter

how far distant away the end may be when

we each are called we must raise our hand,

stand tall as we can and lead from the front 

to the fullest extent as anyone can. For sure 

as sure is the time will come indeed – to

acknowledge that we had done our best to

ensure that those dormant star-clad

embryonic generations of those far off

unrevealed tomorrows will have the 

enshrined right to whisper into our

consciousness: “My unique speck of dust

within all those diamond glittering strands

of cellular molecules stretching across the 

infinite lengths of our genealogical lines

has within it a foundational building

block that was laid specifically for me

by a loving ancestress who had whispered

her prayer into the numbing quiet that 

somewhere in the distance of a faraway

time a starry-eyed replica of her, meaning 

me, would look out onto the cosmic glory of

the incalculable sky and silently 

salute the flesh, the bone and blood of her

rather than some ephemeral form of

goddess or god, imagined into being from 

man-kinds disparate systems of beliefs and

of others misrepresenting the simple truth

of her, Hine Ahu One, Eva our ancient and

incredible flesh and bone, First Mother”.