Te Wa o Te Waimaori ki Te Aonui, the Celebration of Fresh Water in the Universe · 15 to 22 October 2014 · Waitangi, Aotearoa
Once every fifty years, when the stars of the Pleiades shine brighter in the night sky, the doors of the gods open.
The Waitaha Water Gathering gathered at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands from 15 to 22 October 2014, with registrations opening on 14 October at the Waitaha Conference Centre beside the Copthorne Hotel, and for the first time in its long history the Waitaha Nation, the Water Carriers and Nation of Peace of Aotearoa, opened its fifty-year water gathering to the wider world, while Para PachaMama ~ Spirit of Earth, her partner organisations and many Ambassadors held the practical organising that let people from across the Earth arrive.
The calling on World Water Day
On 22 March 2014, International World Water Day, Para PachaMama opened the calling with a Global Water Ceremony and a healing vigil for water held everywhere on Earth, joining UNIFY in a synchronised ceremony at three in the afternoon local time, and on that same day registrations opened for the 2014 International Forum on Water, the sacred water gathering called for by the Nation of Waitaha of Aotearoa, New Zealand.
THIS YEAR, AND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR ENTIRE HISTORY, THE WAITAHA NATION IS OPENING ITS 50 YEAR WATER GATHERING TO THE WORLD FOR US TO JOIN TO SUPPORT AND CAUSE THE TURNING OF THE TIDES. FOR EARTHS WATERS FOR MOTHER EARTH. - Papatuanuku - Pachamama - Gaia - We are all her children. We all drink from the same world wide Well
Sixty-seven generations of watching the water
Grand Elder and Whatukura Te Porohau Ruka Te Korako shared how, for sixty-seven generations from the ancestor Rakaihautu, Waitaha have tracked the weather and water cycles of Aotearoa, first by the cyclic visitor Tahana Rerenga Io, now called Halley’s Comet, and then by a fifty-year cycle suited to the strong variations of these southern islands, with water caretakers on the ground and record keepers joining the dots, each cycle marked down on the bones and body of Grandmother Papatuanuku in the sacred caves.
“Every fifty years … our Elders of the Waitaha Nation would meet and speak and record the significant weather and water stories.”
Te Porohau Ruka Te Korako, Whatukura, Nation of Peace
A gathering of all who keep water
The Grandmother and Grandfather Councillors of Waitaha had long dreamed of one day welcoming every water keeper of the world to their fifty-year reporting of water, the water scientists and the water shamans, the Tohunga and Kahuna, the monks and Miko, and everyone who has kept records, made marks or carried memories of water, and in 2014 that dream opened its doors. The forum ran from 15 to 17 October with speakers famous and not so famous, voices from Japan, Germany and Mexico beside the hosts of Te Tai Tokerau, and it culminated in a grand feast Waitaha style, with food cooked under the earth, seafood of the southern Pacific and a cultural concert party of song, as international guests sang their farewells and the organising Grandmothers and Grandfathers gave their replies.
The invitation Para PachaMama sent out that year spoke of a remembrance that belongs to all of us:
It is part of our collective remembrance process for humanity in which one day we all will remember the intimate interconnection, interrelation we as people have with Water, with our Land, our Earth and with all Life.
The journey into the land
From 18 October the gathering travelled into the land, north along the journey route of mountains and lakes to Te Rerenga Wairua at Cape Reinga, the sacred place where the Pacific and Tasman waters meet and mingle and where spirits begin their journey home, held in care by the Kaitiaki of Ngati Kuri, and along the way the elders shared the cultural stories and songs of each place and related them to the water forms spoken of during the forum days, down to the bedtime story of Te Tarakona me Hine Waimarie, the Quiet Water Princess and the Dragon Prince.
On 19 October the circle turned west into Waipoua Forest to stand before Tāne Mahuta, God of the Forest, the great kauri whom the Waitaha invitation honoured as a living indicator of “the wonder of vertical water reticulation on an immense scale,” a being whose health the whole land watches with care.
Ambassadors for Water: Me and Water
Para PachaMama called on Ambassadors, Caretakers, Record Keepers and Custodians for headwaters, rivers, lakes, streams, seas and springs all around the world to gather the local and ancestral stories of their waters and to hold ceremony with them in the days of the gathering, beginning with the first step, “Me and Water,” a direct, felt and personal relationship with the water that flows through each of us.
Create a ceremonial space to tap into your sacred relationship with Water. Water holds memory beyond imagination. Water even holds you. You are a Water Carrier too.
Para PachaMama ~ Spirit of Earth, Ambassadors for Water, 2014
For those who could not reach a waterway, the invitation offered a simple way to join from home: recite your prayer and intention over a bowl of water, knowing that all water is connected, and begin with the waiata of universal peace and love, Aio ki te Aorangi.
Aio ki te Aorangi Aroha ki te Aorangi Koa, koa, koa ki te Aorangi Pono ki te Aorangi Aio ki te Aorangi Peace to the Universe Love to the Universe Joy to the Universe Truth to the Universe Peace to the Universe
Holding the doorway
Souvereign, who organised the public-facing container around the gathering as Sjoerd Aardema of Para PachaMama, looks back on that week with gratitude and with care for how its stories travel:
I could invite. I could coordinate. I could translate logistics into something people could actually arrive to. But I could not, and cannot, claim the heart of it as mine.
The circle widened because the harm had widened.
Water does not need us to “believe in it.” Water needs us to behave as if it is alive.
Peace is an active posture of guardianship. Peace is what you practice when you could exploit, but you choose to protect.
Souvereign
Where the water led
The Water Gathering grew from seeds Para PachaMama had planted two years earlier, when the Global Elders Gathering at Yarrabah sought to bring Wisdom Keepers from the Waitaha of Aotearoa to Australia, and in the years of preparation Souvereign received the teachings he came to know through his Waitaha Spirit Crone Mothers, as he apprenticed with the Waitaha grandmothers. Those same grandmothers later asked him to bring the Wānanga of Love back to the forefront, a calling that was born in Bali in 2018 and travelled on to East of Eden, Vanuatu, so the waters of Waitangi still flow through every chapter of the story that followed that week in October 2014, when a circle kept for ten thousand years opened its doors to the world.
