Meditation On Mauli: Vitalising Your Lifeforce And Essence

Mālōlele and welcome to this meditation about mauri,

Mauri.

This is found in 16 languages.

It means life force and essence.

It has been colonized out of everyday use in many Pacific languages.

In this meditation we invite it out of the ancestral archives.

Close your eyes,

Breathe in and breathe out.

Let our lost languages give us ears so we may hear,

Eyes so we may see,

And hearts so that we can translate the thudding rhythm of all the co-created,

That which feeds us,

Breathes us,

Is the substance under our feet,

Is the fresh water that flows in our veins,

The air in our lungs.

It is in our mother tongues,

Almost lost to us.

We will find our way back to the future because we have different things to say about being here and being human.

Māori,

Mauri,

Life force,

Essence.

Without these words a world is lost to us.

It is in our languages,

Word by word,

Rock by rock,

Leaf by leaf.

These are the building blocks of another reality,

Another possibility,

Another way of being.

Word by word,

Stone by stone,

Leaf by leaf.

We return to talking trees,

A forest of upright ancestors,

Speaking with terrestrial tongues,

Holding up the sky,

Guiding our way.

Let us call on our family of relatives to help us heal.

The bright light of the stars,

The measured movement of the moon,

The fierce power of the tides,

The enduring knowing of the stones,

The cleansing of the water,

That can still heal everything it touches.

The earth,

Source of all sustenance,

Let it be life-giving.

Let us and our reciprocity be just as life-giving.

Let us still ourselves for long enough to feel our connections to all that is related to us.

The wingspan heartbeats heavy in the bush,

The loving pulse of living creatures,

Inhaling breath of wind,

Exhaling murmuring of trees.

Then let us listen beyond sounds,

Reaching back before we even had words,

To the earth's most profound language,

Held in all places and spaces.

Let us quiet ourselves,

Sense beyond our five senses,

Attune to the precious,

Feeling being,

Living essence of the earth itself,

That which connects us to the mystery we are,

Mauri,

Mauni,

The shape beneath the space,

The irreducible essence,

All that is natural unto itself,

All that there is beyond the seeing.

All that is within being,

Mauri,

Mauni.

Let us still ourselves to listen,

Without ears or eyes,

Using senses beyond the senses.

Let us find ourselves deeply here,

In the centre that always holds,

In the shape beneath the shape,

In the centre that is always everywhere,

Mauri,

Mauni.

Let us listen to ourselves,

Listening.