Dave Mollard’s Change is Constant: Matariki is a time to consider how we spend our time

Puanga - the bright star at top left, also known as Rigel - is in the Orion constellation.

OPINION

Next week we will celebrate Matariki. It’s a new celebration for most of us but a very old one for others.

Matariki is a cluster of stars, known in other parts of the globe as the Pleiades, which, when viewed in the morning just above the horizon in the eastern sky, represents the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one.

Here in Palmerston North, it’s hard to see these stars at this time of the year as we have two great mountain ranges obstructing our view. Our local iwi, Rangitāne, look to a different star for their celestial calendar, Puanga. It’s a bright blob of light sitting directly above Orion’s belt.

But, by and large, the various iwi and hapū of Aotearoa have looked to the stars in the eastern sky at this time of year to tell us it’s time to reflect on what was and what is to be. To make it easier on our system, a group of Māori scholars, each steeped in the realms of history, culture and astronomy, have outlined when as a motu (nation) we will celebrate the new New Year.

Like Easter, it will move with the lunar calendar, sliding back and forwards between June and July, slightly out of sync with the solar year.

Almost all our public holidays are imported or shared with the rest of the world. Some 170 countries observe Christmas and Easter, 160 celebrate a form of Labour Day, 10 have a day off for King’s Birthday, and two countries remember Anzac Day.

Only our regional holidays, Waitangi Day and now Matariki, are unique to the Land of the Long White Cloud. I have written before how Wellington Anniversary Day has no meaning for me other than I don’t have to turn up at mahi (work).

I have also written about how awkward Waitangi Day is for many of us, either through collective historical guilt or the intergenerational trauma that the Crown (our Government) has forced on our first people. It’s not a happy day, a day for family; it’s a day for us to either try and ignore our past or relive it.

What makes Matariki/Puanga unique is that it’s an indigenous day we can all get joy from. Most people on Earth acknowledge the new year starts in the midst of winter.

It’s when life slows down and we have time to think about the past, and also to plan for the future.

I’m not advocating we change our calendar (that’s another column), but I am lobbying for all of us to use this time to gather with the people we love. Talk about what has passed and plan what and who we are going to sow our most valuable resource into, our time.

Mānawatia a Matariki. Happy Māori New Year.

Dave Mollard is a Palmerston North community worker and social commentator.