In this painting called ‘Whangaroa rising’ Hine nui te po demonstrates to us the stages of consciousness she transverses.

Transformation: Hine-ahu-one (the first women) created from the fertile red clay found on the pubic area of Papatuanuku.

Tane moulded her form and breathed life into her by performing the hongi and the expression ‘tihei mauri ora’ originated.

Transition: Hine- ahu- one becomes hine- ti-tama (wife of Tane and mother of his children). Distraught to find out that Tane is not only her husband but also her father, flees to Rarohenga (the underworld) where Tane cannot follow. However the maternal love for her uri (descendants) remains and is what seals her fate to become Hine-nui-te-po, the lady of the night.

Transcendance: Hine-nui-te-po, devoted mother who waits patiently at Rarohenga – the underworld that she has lovingly prepared for her uri.

‘I do not cause death, and did not ordain it. Human death was ordained when human life was ordained. I am a practicality, merely an instrument in the sequence of life’.

Wahine Toa: Women of mythology – Patricia Grace

Hine-nui-te-po is sacred and has no opposite.

Herstory ignites within me a sense of connection that guides my spiritual nature to a central place. Where language is visual and metaphor reigns.

Pu rakau contain myth messages passed down through generations of life experience to guide and uplift the people for whom they were created for. These myth messages transcend past, present and future.

Through emotional turmoil, trails, tests, illuminating revelations and spiritual adventure herstory guides me.