A Holistic Approach to Healing Through Rongoā Māori

Rongoa Māori for me is about lifting the mana of people and place and also the mauri, that life essence, that for me is rongoa Māori. Our goal is not to heal disease, our goal is to lift the mana and mauri of people and place in order that we can be well. Lovely to have you all here. Kia ora. That's great. Kia ora. I know your face, how do I know your face? Thank you all for coming to join us, I'm really excited to have you all here. Rongoa Māori is so much more than plant medicines, but in a modern world that's how it's become translated. Plant medicines are only one way into the world of healing. It's very focused on people, individual people, more than it is on disease. So whānau, one of the important things for us is learning te reo o te whenua, learning the language of the land. It's really important, unless we connect to the whenua, we can't know the whenua, we can't know the land. So when we understand the gifts of all our whanaunga, all our relatives in the natural world, then we can start to understand our place in the world as a species. Rongoa Māori is about making sure that people know that they matter, making sure that people know that they belong, reconnecting people to culture so that they can see and feel and know themselves, reconnecting people to the ancestral world, to our spiritual world. Remember that we are all indigenous to somewhere. Today we look at it through the eyes of Māori, but it belongs to all of us. This is the kōrero of indigenous peoples throughout the world through the lens of Māori. And sometimes we need to learn through the kōrero of others in order to understand our own. We come with gifts from our respective cultures that can help each other, that can help each other thrive and grow. And it's through our diversity that we are richer, not through our sameness. The more challenging aspects to our wellness is knitting together the physical and the spiritual elements that make us whole. So if we focus on that and keeping people whole, then we are focusing on well-being rather than on disease. Rongoa Māori is not beta, but nor is it subordinate to the notions of Western medicine. I think it's really important for us to remember that our grandparents would have been grateful for the gifts of Western medicine in their time. But we are richer if we have the choice, the right thing in the right place at the right time. And what we've done is we've left a whole lot of mātauranga as indigenous people from around the world, we've left it back in what they call the Dark Ages. And we need to pull that forward because now, more than ever, it is needed. We need to bring forward the way of our ancestors into a modern world. Everybody who lives on this planet today is the living face of their ancestors. They were the first people to know and build that relationship with the natural world. They know stuff that we've long forgotten. And we can draw on that ancestral library when we slow down enough to hear the whispers of our ancestors. If we dig down here, this plant here's gift is very similar to the kōuouou, the flute. It is the connector. That's the gift of this plant. So you see all this beautiful mycelium on it here, this beautiful white stuff? This is the internet of the whenua, connecting all the plants. So if this is the connector on the whenua, what are the connectors in our bodies? Nerves. It's a nerve ion. So it helps work on pain and messaging in the body. We're trying to help you relearn how to learn. No point being dependent on me for this is good for that, this is good for something else. Because our brains can only hold so much. What's important is we learn how to discover again. We learn how to discover and always be saying, what is your gift? What is the gift of this plant? What is the gift of that plant? What is the gift of this bird? And in the answer, it tells us it's rongua. See how we're flipping our thinking. It's not what can the plants do for us, but what is their gift to the natural world. And when we understand that, we understand their healing and how we can work with them to expand that healing. That is the key to rongua Maori. I think we need to step up and assume more responsibility for our own health and well-being rather than subcontracting it to the medical profession. They can't heal for us. Only we can heal us. With their help, with the help of the taiao, the natural world, with the help of those people who understand the importance of certain connections. And mauri is the key. Mauri is like a candle that sits in the pit of our stomach. And if you can imagine every person on the planet, every tree, every animal had a candle that sat on the inside. And sometimes the flame of that candle would shine brightly, as it does here in this beautiful place. And sometimes it would be dim. That candlelight is the reflection of the mauri. Mauri is the glue that joins the physical and the spiritual worlds so that we can be whole. And in order to be well, we must be whole. If a mauri tells you to eat something, you make sure they eat it first. Okay? Teach your children this. Because we love nothing more than to watch the rest of you run to the bathroom. So, I'm just going to take a little bit because I've tasted it. But it's important that I taste it. So I go, ooh, that's not it. And I don't poison the rest of you. Or to give you confidence that it is okay to eat. So, that is our peko peko. And you can eat it raw. I hear a lot of conversation about how we need to integrate both traditional and modern ways of healing. For me, that in itself is the problem. Integration requires us to work with what is common between those two worlds. And then leave all the rest behind. The bits that we disagree on. The bits that we don't understand about each other's cultures. But it's in those bits where the gold is. If a surgeon were to be operating on my grandchildren, I don't want the surgeon to leave his science at home or her science at home because I don't understand it. I want them to bring everything they've got to that table. And I don't want to have a health system that says, can you leave that spiritual aspect of your healing at the door please because we just don't understand it. And all that requires in order for it to work is respect for different ways of knowing. Respect costs nothing. And yet we find it so hard to do. Understanding the interdependence of all things, understanding that everything is connected, is where it's at. Our interconnectedness, our interdependence is the key to our way forward. We look at plants that colonise the forest. Some of them bring great gifts that help our native species to thrive and survive in the forest. The only time that there's a problem is if those plants try to take over. But when they learn to live cooperatively and together in their own mana, in their own knowing, only then can the whole community be well. Sometimes I think about the statistics that we see here in Aotearoa. And as indigenous we've performed badly in all key health indicators. We've performed badly in the education system as it is measured today. We've performed badly in the health statistics as they are measured today. We are the most incarcerated population in our country. You kind of think, you know, what hope is there for indigenous people who are performing so badly within the realms of a culture that's not their own. And so I think some of the statistics, if we keep believing what we're told about ourselves, we forget to acknowledge how truly incredible we are. When we can operate according to our own practices, when we can operate according to our own values, we know exactly how to do it. And when we are allowed to be Māori, we are well. When we are allowed to be who we are, we are well.