Ngahi Bidois: There's a right place for right things

Have you ever noticed how many names we give everyday common green grass? The other day I was doing some gardening and noticed how many blades of grass I had to pull out from among the plants and bark. Grass in the garden has a name - it's called weeds.

Later that day, I was walking up our gravel drive to get the mail and noticed how grass was growing in a few places among the gravel - also known as weeds.

Then even later, I was mowing the grass alongside the driveway, otherwise known as lawn, and I dumped the lawn clippings over the fence into one of our paddocks for the horse to eat. The minute the lawn clippings crossed over the top of the fence, they became pasture.

Realising all of those names for grass got me thinking about how there seems to be a right place for the right things. That is, grass growing in the garden or the gravel driveway is not good.

There is also an acceptable height for grass grown as a lawn. However, grass growing as pasture is cool and, in most cases, the longer the better. Grass as pasture is a good thing and it is all about grass being in the right place at the right time.

Having grass growing in the right places is a bit like the traditions and protocols we hold on to.

There are many reasons why we prefer people not eat food in our whare tipuna or wharenui on our marae. One of them is that we do not want to attract rats or vermin into the place where we will be sleeping and therefore be defenceless. I must admit having rats in the place you sleep is a lot worse than grass in the garden or driveway.

However, it is the daily adherence to the tradition such as not having food in a wharenui that keeps us safe. Just like it is the maintenance routines of weeding and mowing that keep a garden and lawn manageable.

So what traditions do you hold on to? How are you keeping you and your whanau, workplace or organisation safe from rats? What daily, weekly or monthly maintenance routines do you adhere to that keep your patch of grass in the right place or at the right height?

Any acceptance of activities such as bullying has far worse consequences than attracting rats into the places we sleep. Bullying is not acceptable in the garden, on the driveway, as lawn or even as pasture. Even the horse won't eat it. Kia kaha kia maia kia manawanui.

Ngahihi o te ra is from Te Arawa and is an international leadership speaker, MC and author. Book him for your keynote presentation, training, or seminar by phoning 021482281 or through his website at www.ngahibidois.com.