It was Tāne Mahuta of the brother gods who tore apart his parents embrace, thrusting Ranginuiatea forever heavenward to become the sky, leaving Papatuanuku prone to lie beneath as the all encompassing mother that is the earth. Tāwhirimātea, alone of the brothers, was against the separation of his parents and went to war bringing his winds and storms against his brothers, defeating them one by one, sending Tangaroa to hide in his ocean, Tāne to his forests, while Haumia and Rongo buried themselves in the earth of their mother. Only Tūmatauenga stood firm, finally defeating his brother Tāwhiri. Enraged and grieving, Tāwhirimātea gouged out his own eyes, crushed them in his hands and flung them up onto his father’s chest where they can still be seen as ngā mata o Te Ariki Tāwhirimātea - the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea - shortened to Matariki

Te Maramataka is our guide not only to Matariki, but to our day to day progress and conduct through life should we accept it as such. As the Maramataka - the lunar calendar describes each of the 29.53 nights/days of the lunar month from Whiro to Mutu, it also serves as a record of meticulous observation and accumulated wisdoms of untold generations of tradition that understands a different imperative to the modern drivers of an industrial-technological world that can’t quite figure out what the problem is. Te Maramataka perceives the relationships that exist between the celestial bodies of the whānau marama - the family of light - that are the sun, the moon, the stars and the lesser known light children, and their effects on Te Ao Mārama - our own world of light - the earth upon which we find ourselves. Maramataka says to us, observe your world, pay attention to her cycles, to her moods. 

With the rising of Matariki at the beginning of each year, we are drawn to remind ourselves of our place and ultimate purpose. This blog was written on Thursday 25 May 2022 according to the Gregorian calendar. The moon entered its third quarter phase on 23 May. The cusp of winter. The black face of the new moon occurs on May 30. This third quarter phase of the moon begins auspiciously and fortuitously with the gods, namely Tangaroa, Tāne and Rongo, so marking a change in fortune from those a few days prior; korekore-te-whiwhia, korekore- te-rawea (both bad days for food gathering or any such enterprise, better off staying home) before korekore-hahani marks a slight improvement as an okay sort of day. The third quarter phase begins with Tangaroa-ā-mua, Tangaroaā-roto and Tangaroa whakapau are all good days for fishing, before Tangaroa-ā-kiokio proves excellent, if a little misty on land. Ōtāne tells us it’s a good day for eeling. Ōrongonui is also a desirable day. So Tangaroa, Tāne and Rongo announce days of abundance and good fortune at this time of the month. But every month goes through its cycles. Bad days follow good. Dark days follow light. So the third quarter wanes toward the darkness of Mutuwhenua and Whiro, the new moon of the following month. Neither are good days for anything much. Every night of a lunar month has a name and various aspects attending it that should be considered before any course of action is taken. These ‘nights’ are the days of each month

The sun that gives us the days of the Gregorian calendar and the measure of a solar year instead give Māori the seasons. The sun moves north and south along the horizon as it rises and sets. Days get longer and shorter, warmer and colder as it does. Birds fly away or come home, Fish spawn, Eels migrate, Kumara sprouts, Kihikihi calls, rhythms and cycles, tides and currents, weather systems threaten. The solar calendar also neatly breaks our days into hours by which we can neatly measure our efficiency, improve our productivity, calculate down to the moment how many whatsits we can thingy.

The Māori system demands we pay attention to the environment, to the elements, to the movement of celestial bodies and what they may divine. Certain stars, by their rising and disappearing, by their placement, by their movement across the sky, their relationships to each other - these stars determine which month we are in and the activities we should involve ourselves with. Te ngahuru ma rua o Haratua - the twelfth of Haratua; The crops are stored in the pits. The tasks of the people are complete. This is the last month of the Māori year. As I write this we mark the ending of Haratua and anticipate the beginning of Pipiri or Te Tahi o Pipiri, the first month of the new year when Matariki rises. How do we know?

Te Waka o Rangi, captained by Taramainuku travels across the sky for Eleven months of the year. The prow of the waka is Matariki itself. Tautoru - Orion’s Belt sits just before the tauraparapa - the sternpost. Te Kokotā in the Taurus constellation marks the sails of the waka. During those eleven months, with each sunset, Taramainuku castes his great cosmic net to the earth and trawls for all the dead of that day. With each sunrise he hauls in his net and adorns the tauraparapa with the souls of the dead. Towards the end of Haratua, Taramainuku and Te Waka o Rangi draw closer to the sun until sometime during the Tangaroa phase of the moon, the great waka of the sky, and Matariki at its prow will disappear with the setting sun for a month. Tradition says Taramainuku has taken the gathered souls to the underworld to prepare them. With Matariki lost from sight the winter stars of Pipiri can be seen announcing Matariki will soon return and with it, another year. Te Tahi o Pipiri - when everything on earth contracts and clings together with cold, including the people