Poem of the Week: Shining Light – Kāpiti and Coast Independent

There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. Leonard Cohen

A time of remembrance

By Roger Childs

Twice a year the Mary Potter Hospice has a service to remember those who have passed on. It is poignant time, especially when the names are read.

Today we especially remember …

We remember them with love.

Every service has a theme and this year is was light. Candles were lit and everyone present was invited to hang a star on the:” remembrance wall” in memory of a loved one.

There were a number of appropriate readings at the service and one of these features below.

There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth,

beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.

This is the light that shines in your heart.

– Chandogya Upanishad

Return to Home Page

STORY OF THE WEEK

Kāpiti Coast councillors have toured of one of Aotearoa's unique buildings, the heritage - listed Rotunda at the former Otaki Health Camp, the country’s first.

Jeremy Smith reports that the 105-year-old, eight-sided rotunda predates the Health Camp.

It wasn't actually built in Otaki, but was one of two built in Rotorua in 1915 as part of a military hospital, on the site of Rotorua’s present public hospital.

Later they were taken to Otaki for the opening of the health camp in 1931.

Full story in the main column (December 19).

100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.