10 minute read
DAVID HARTNELL: ONE MINUTE INTERVIEW
LOCAL NEWS DAVID HARTNELL: ONE MINUTE INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL OWEN
Michael Owen shares his views on life and the values of therapy.
Tell us about Shen Therapy. SHEN Therapy is a hands-on energy based framework for helping mind and body integrate stress and trauma from a place of deep stillness and holding. It is both very gentle and transformative and reminds me of the deep value of touch, unconditional holding, and the innate wisdom of the body.
When did your interest in therapy start? In my early 20s, with training in nursing and knowing that this was not the model for me (nurses are amazing though). Post diagnosis with CFS in my mid 20s I had to move to other forms to re-establish and engage with new definitions of wellness. The relationship between mind and body and the space within which these aspects of ourselves sit; well, it's simply bloody fascinating!
What do you like the most about working and living in Ponsonby? I am blessed with a little home that provides all my needs, my practice, and a home garden. Closeness to the ocean for swimming is just awesome for this Pisces.
How have you survived the pandemic and has it changed your life? I have not been able to see clients, which has been a deep loss in terms of service and doing the work I love, BUT it has clarified what is important for me and how I live on this planet. Keep it simple, Michael.
What was your childhood like? A very fractious parental divorce and separation from my identical twin had deep ripples in terms of how I felt safe and at home in the world. My mum did an amazing job as a solo-mother and despite much trauma in her past, managed to weave love and fun into the world. I felt deeply blessed.
Where would your dream holiday internationally be? Probably back to India. I went there for a few months when 21 and when leaving on the plane I was already homesick for its wonderful soul-affirming chaos - a challenging and viscerally rich experience.
What is the most Kiwi thing about you? Bare feet - often, love of the ocean and wild landscapes, keeping it simple.
What job would you do other than your own and why? If I'd lived a different life with a different culture at the time I grew up, probably a dancer.
If they were to make a movie about your life who would play you? Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, or Janelle Monae - gender and race, irrelevant here, heart and intelligence the key. Powerful hearted women rule!
If you were reincarnated what would you be? As a simple sparrow - community based and loving a good dust bath!
How would you like to be remembered? Read Alexander Pope's poem - Ode on Solitude. It says it all that truly matters to me.
What do you love most about your age? It gives me some tender and mutable wisdom as well as the capacity to let go of inessentials.
If you won a million dollars, what would be the first thing you'd do? Create a fruit, nut, and organic garden trust for lower-income communities.
What motivates you? The multiplicity of challenges in simply being alive, the desire to love, and to be ever more internally deeply satisfied.
Have you ever seen a ghost? Yup, a few times. I simply reminded them, with compassion, that they were lost on their journey home.
How do you chill out? With dance, meditation, nature, friends, reading, film, yoga. Loads!
Which item of clothing can't you live without? Shoes that are ever, almost always, falling apart but are the easiest to slip on.
Most treasured possession? Probably my CD collection. Music birthed me into life and continues to both nourish and silence!
What is your greatest fear? Failing in the challenge of love.
Which talent would you most like to have? To sing with abandon (and well).
Your dream guest list for a dinner party and why? Nina Hagen, Dalai Lama, Luther Vandross, Jesus and Mary Magdelene, too many wonderful other creative humans to mention. Rebels of the heart all welcome.
If you could change one law or policy in New Zealand, what would it be? In these climate change times, and until we reach the economic capacity for low-income earners to afford electric vehicles, please can we recreate carless days/weeks, car-pooling, car-sharing etc. The crisis is now. Can we make policies which enable change, responsibility and transportation opportunities now, for all sectors of the community? And income-related rents for low-income earners - can we have that yesterday! (DAVID HARTNELL, MNZM) PN
by Karen Walters
A body of works inspired by ‘Hikurangi’, the primary feather of a bird.
March 4th - 27th
2 Matakana Valley Road
Matakana Village
artformgallery.co.nz
09 422 9125
KAREN WALTERS @ ARTFORM MATAKANA
Karen Walters is known for her gentle manipulation of woods of all kinds.
With this exhibition at Artform, Karen takes Heart Rimu to create breathtaking indoor and outdoor sculptures based on the primary feather of a bird, the ‘Hikurangi’.
The Hikurangi feather is symbolic within this series of work as it references the motivation for flight, for freedom, for self-control and the motivation for moving forward. Using this stunning recovered wood to show something that is a juxtaposition of strong and fragile, it defines Karen’s work and capability beautifully. The show is on until 27 March, view at Artform or online at artform.co.nz.
AK HAVE YOUR SAY
‘We want more focus on climate action’
Have your say on how we can speed up our climate response in Auckland Council’s Annual Budget
2022/2023.
Go to akhaveyoursay.nz/budget
Welcome to 25 Tirotai, Westmere, where cutting-edge architecture meets an enviable location. Situated just 50m from the water’s edge, this brand-new boutique waterfront development consists of just eight unique three-bedroom townhouses.
A masterclass in location, 25 Tirotai is just a short flat walk to several iconic nearby shops and Westmere Park - where picturesque views of the Waitemata Harbour await. These tasteful townhouses will leave their mark above the rest.
Standout features include:
• 3 Bedroom, 2/2.5 bathroom and study/office • 5-min flat walk to Westmere village • 5.1km to Auckland CBD • Dual outdoor courtyards w/natural stone paving • Secure underground parking • Private entrances w/ keyless entry • Premium brick façade • 2.7m stud heights in living area • Natural stone benchtops • Miele appliances & Zucchetti tapware • Elegant monochromatic bathrooms • Extensive floor-to-ceiling tinted e-glass • Full-height kitchen cabinetry
Architecturally designed by the diverse team at FORMiS Architects, 25 Tirotai will be the dawn of a new era of premium living in the inner-west.
For more information, please contact me anytime blair.haddow@bayleys.co.nz +6421 544 555
LOCAL NEWS PONSONBY NEWS READERS ARE EVERYWHERE
Locals Joyce Karena and Margaret Reelick enjoy a read while having fun at the Jervois Wine Bar in Herne Bay.
Leza Corban and Paul Voight of the music duo ‘The Love Jones’ reading the Ponsonby News in their break at Jervois Wine Bar last month.
Arch Hill locals Chris McGeechan and Sam Farrissey travelled to the UK during December and told us, “after 38 hours travelling we landed in Glasgow and I got a train north and Sam a train south. It was a family, family, family visit and we were lucky to secure the MIQ spots when we did as my mum passed away early January."
JOHN ELLIOTT: FARMING AND THE URBAN RURAL DIVIDE
All my early arriving ancestors to New Zealand were farmers, except for my father’s grandparents on his mother’s side, who were miners from Scotland. They came in 1840, 1852, 1862 and 1864. Alexander Love managed the Whau Valley mine in Whangarei.
I was brought up rurally, just north of Whangarei, but have lived most of my life in Auckland City. All four of my sons are city born and bred. They know nothing about farming.
At a time of desperate climate devastation world-wide, farmers, especially dairy farmers are under attack from cityslickers.
I spoke with a Northland dairy farmer, a remote cousin who farms 750 cows on 800 acres on the Hikurangi Swamp near Whangarei and I asked him: “If The Greens were let loose on the environment would they ruin farming in New Zealand?”
He said they would. They are unrealistic, he told me - talking farm composting as if it was a domestic house issue. He poopooed the trend to almond or soy milk in coffee, telling me that almonds were a worse environmental threat in California than the majority of New Zealand dairy farmers.
My cousin agrees there are maverick farmers, like in any industry, but told me about his farming out of bobby calves, no longer sending any to the works. Furthermore, he retains all his effluent and discharges it suitably.
Ken still enjoys farming, but the uncertainties of cash flow and weather patterns make life difficult. Lawyers' incomes continue to grow whatever the weather, he said - not halve over night as milk returns did in 2013. They’ve climbed now, but there is tax, and increased expenditure farm-wide. He mentioned Speiring's eight million dollar farewell from Fonterra, sarcastically. No one person is worth that, Ken reckoned. And he believes Aucklanders, with their huge traffic conjestion and polluted beaches, are out of sync with rural life.
The Hikurangi Swamp, where Ken’s family have farmed for three generations, was a huge swamp until remediation some years ago when Ken’s father, Ross, farmed it. It still floods, especially as climate change hits it. They get a one-in-five year flood every year now.
Ken also told me about a subdivision of a farm I know well, up Three Mile Bush Road where a beautiful stand of native taraire trees has been devastated in the process. Most farmers look after their land, and bush remnants very well; they add more trees rather than cutting down existing ones.
Still there are far too many New Zealanders not taking climate change seriously enough. Most are just trying to cope with the threat of Covid-19 and earn a living.
The government needs to address desperate urban problems and not just pick on farmers. Housing affordability is connected to taxation. Why not a capital gains tax?
Sewerage floating free at many of our beaches is a Third World issue. If council can’t or won’t fix it, then the government’s Three Waters Plan may be part of the answer.
The Prime Minister has talked up the team of five million - and quite rightly - but we are now facing a serious group of divides; rural/urban, poverty and the one percent, the obscene growth in inequality.
I totally accept the government’s priority has been the pandemic, and I admire Ardern’s promise that she would not sacrifice the health and well-being of New Zealanders on the altar of GDP. But now is the time to balance the waka for all Kiwis. If a centre-left government can’t do that, who can? Certainly not National led by Luxon, who appears to have no philosophy or principles which would guide him in government, and would govern by polls and focus groups, telling him the most popular routes to take. (JOHN ELLIOTT)
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