Made of Stars

I wrote this story over 10 years ago. I wanted to share my childhood experiences in a creative way that reflected my love of nature and growing up with the ngahere (forest) as my playground. As a child I was always searching and curious. The story shares some of my memories woven with a bit of magic!
My book Hinātore - A Special Light (currently creating) is about my love of nature; shared through creative words and photographic images I’ve captured over the last 20+ years. This is where it all started for me - in the ngahere wandering / wondering, curious about nature and life, questioning everything. And capturing that special light as memories.

Her inquisitive eyes reach for the sky; searching, searching for life in amongst a canopy of green. Her long fingers outstretched, gently touching fluffy clouds, oh how she wanted to bounce into them right now. It is a place to dream, her stairway to the realms of ngā ātua, the ancestors, and here she is with Papatūānuku, woven seamlessly into the roots of trees, grounded, at one with the earth. Here, is where dreams become reality.

“My sunshine has come, there’s no more rain in this cloud…”

Her song lingers, finding those spaces in between tangled branches and decaying leaves, those hidden spaces of freedom, untouched. She skips, a rhythm of intent. Each step leaves an imprint in the forest floor, creating her master plan. The world hums along, a symphony of fresh air and worth every breath to get to where she wants to be.

The smell of fresh pine mixed with some native, strong, it tickles her nose. A big fat “tihe i a mauriora” rushes forth like a gush of wind — haaaaaaa, the breath of life! “Yes, I am alive!”

Rātā, Kahikatea — some of the great elders of this forest, she knows them well. But where are the others? Questions, so many questions. This question after that question. Her sister is always hōhā (annoyed) with her, “too many questions,” she says, “you’re always asking too many questions!”

“Leonardo da Vinci never went to school,” she mumbles to herself.

She justifies every day, that this is school — and she can ask all the questions she wants and one day she will find her way into the answers. This land is her teacher; she sits here every day, attentive and willing, understanding every smell, every breath.

She delights in cool crisp winters when all is asleep, often saturated with water, the forest sparkles. And in those burning hot summers, a different scent wanders, carrying with it a new song bursting with life. And autumn, full to the brim with colour. “How can nature be so, so…” there are no words. She loves this place with all her heart. Her spirit soars in every moment. Here she is, free to just be, to listen and learn. In her own time.

She used to have dreams of being a scientist. She used to want to be a musician too. But her love of music got stood on one day, an innocent yawn in a classroom at the end of the day, met abruptly with “how rude — get out!”
She shrunk after that and never did enjoy that music class again and that teacher, now a fading memory. Would she still know her if she saw her in the street again? That if she’s still alive? If she is, she’d be ancient! What would she say?

“Boundaries, fences, limitations, put me in that box and I will take myself right out again!” She yells at the top of her lungs because she can. Here is a place made for yelling, she could be as loud as she likes and all will understand.

She has never fully understood science. What is it all about? The thought of being a scientist intrigues her. They look like important people and she wants to be important too.

She has always been curious, always wondering about the world. She loves getting her hands in the earth, mixing, shaking, measuring, weighing, creating, but the rest, my gosh it sends her into a spin! Too many words, too much terminology, too much head stuff, just too much! Her last science report reads, “steady progress has it’s own rewards.” What did that mean? Was that good or bad?

She had always been an artist, it came naturally to her and she could create whatever she wanted. She marvelled at how light fell each day, the movement of the sun around the earth, she followed it like a bad smell, just like how Māui captured the sun to slow the world down, she captures that light and transforms it into beautiful images that slow the world down too. Timeless. “One day I will have a nice new camera and I will have that for real.”

But for now, a memory will do. So many memories uploaded to her busy brain. “My brain must be so clever!” The thought amuses her. Every detail, every spec of light falling, softly caressing a leaf, each image reflecting her inner joy, it makes her happy. She has been chasing this light all her life and in this moment she remembers what has brought her here every day.

And so this girl, she makes her home in the bush, a telephone made from sticks and pine cones cleverly strung together with nature’s fibres, the flashiest one you’d ever see! The already grooved forest floor is the perfect foundation for a house and the ever faithful fern unfolds so wonderfully into a whāriki she moulds herself into. She yawns contently.

Each day she would come; rain or sun and bask in the beauty of this place. “Those poor people in the big city, they don’t know what they’re missing out on!”

And she wonders about her experiences, what if I could record everything? Why did my ancestors not tell me about this world? Perhaps they wanted me to discover it for myself, this beauty of nature given so freely?

And her ancestors were far more creative than words could ever be. They embedded their stories in the intricately carved whakairo that adorn wharenui walls - placed with a purpose blending with woven tukutuku patterns that lay in between, these were her ancestor’s masterpieces.

Her head props up, a smile emerges. And they left their stories with nature ready to connect with the next generation who would one day come. And there were no words, no writings on the wall.

It is the language of nature, the moment by moment creations she brings forth every day of her life, alone in that forest - that is her learning. But there was no proof that she could see and feel and hold nature in the palm of her hand and know the heart beat of that tadpole and that weta and that world she had come to know so well. The succulent blackberry juice that stained her hands, smeared intently over her face, deliciousness, only experienced in the moment. They never made it home. How to capture that?

She yearns to be more, and does not realise that her heart is always in the right place and that she can be anything she wants to be. And if old Leo could, so could she.

“Perhaps there is a science in that too? Perhaps this is why I was always destined to be an artist as a child, because the connection to nature, to science itself has always been there, instilled in my being and I just needed the creativity to get it out.”

Her body is fully up now. She affirms, “here’s hoping.” She crosses her fingers and her toes just to make sure. She sends that vision off into the sky, like she did every day on a manu, on a leaf, on a cool blowing wind that would lift that dream to the highest, into those billowing clouds way way up there to the stars.

And each time she would say, “yes I understand, I am made of stars, I am a star.”