I remained glued on the spot where I stood until the women broke out into Waiata (a song used to commemorate a special occasion for the Mauri people), and then I slowly turned and walked away back through the forest and down the hill to the sound of the women singing echoing through the forest. Walking into Nelson’s CBD, I felt bemused by what had just happened. I had felt drawn to walk up there towards the redwoods, but why? To see all the women sitting there in ceremony, for whatever reason? I pondered as I walked around the city looking for my friends who lived in Nelson. I visited Zippy’s cafe to see if anyone I knew was there. Then I walked down to the Maitai River, walking along it, turning towards the Centre of New Zealand walkway, and looping back towards Gabby’s house before it got dark.
When I came inside the house, a large portion of the women that had been in the forest were sitting around the kitchen table drinking tea. Some of them saying they saw me up in the forest as I left, none of them expanding on the reason why they had been there. One by one they all departed and I was eventually left with a smirking Kiriana who sat and stared at me for the longest time before saying anything. When she did speak I was even more confused. She said, “They wanted you to be there.” I had no idea what she was talking about. Did she mean the gathering of women in the forest had collectively invited me to join them through their intentions during the meditation? “Who wanted me there?” I retorted softly. Kiriana went on to talk about the waka, the canoe of beings in the back garden that had come from Matariki. the Pleiades, and how, when all seven of the beings had arrived, they had given her a clairaudient message, ‘Take the waka to the redwoods and place it between the trees, from stern to bow, from one tree to the next.’ She then put a call out to the women in her circle of friends to come together and carry the waka (it was etheric in our dimension, solid in a higher frequency) up into the forest near Fairfield house and help her place it between the trees. The Pleiadians had told her that it was to be women only that would be doing this ceremony with respect to the cosmic energies coming to our planet were of a strong feminine nature. That was until the ceremony was almost complete, they wanted me to come to them for my energy to consummate the ritual. Their brethren on Earth. Naturally, I was stunned.
I’d visit that spot often during that summer, up there in the redwoods to contemplate, listen and feel the presence of those beings. It was always tangible for me, the feeling that rose from that space. Like a tender hug that calmed me as my world perception began to break apart, as my pain and trauma began to rise again in my everyday life. I had been to hell and back in my later years at University in Dunedin in the early 1990’s. Some of the most horrible experiences of my young adult life that I had created through my own decisions were all but memories as I reinvented my sense of self-identity in the mid-1990s (my self-image). There had been a honeymoon period for around 1.5 years since leaving University in Dunedin where I had been graced by some of the kindest people I have ever met. Richard ‘Jimi’ Jones is the one man who I want to say, thank you too with every fibre of my being. I would not be here today if not for you. That honeymoon period was almost over (for a short duration at least) as incrementally in my interactions with people my shadow was triggered out of hiding. I cried a lot up there in the forest next to those trees. Wondering why I had incarnated here on Earth. To what purpose? There had been moments of wonder and bewilderment, but now, moving forward, I felt like I was drifting without purpose. I asked for help, guidance, and strength in my darkest moments in the forest near Fairfield house. I also asked many a time, ‘When can I come home?’
I knew nothing about presence or its power, my spiritual awakening was like a waking dream where characters who came into my life experience accelerated my understanding of how mystical creating could be, and on the shadow side showed me how ego could lacquer over the language of the spirit and make one conceited, entitled and contemptuous towards those not awakening or awake. There in the forest, all these trappings of mind and ego dissolved into a sense of being, peace, and connection that I had with few men or women I interacted with daily. At the end of January 1997, I went to a festival called, Flight to Light, at Fox River on the West Coast of the South Island. All the usual suspects who I had befriended from three summers and early autumns of being in the Tasman Bay region were there at this insanely beautiful and wild location right on the Fox River and the ocean. There had been a First Nations-style sweat lodge built there on the river’s edge next to a bridge, and it was here that I would spend nearly all my days nestled in the darkness with several Mauri warrior men who through their actions showed me how it was to embody the divine masculine essence. On the last night, after being in the sweat lodge with one of these men, Ratu, he and I wandered over to the rock on the beach that had a hollowed-out cave in it where a fire had been blazing for days and climbed the rock to face the enormous oceanic swell coming in with the tide and also watch the sun setting.
I reached into my pocket and found a fat Freddy (two pieces of LSD on blotting paper) that I had brought at the Gathering festival on the Canaan Downs over the 1996/1997 New Year. I offered some to Ratu, and he laughed taking his slice, the sunset was maybe an hour away, the waves coming in around the rock beneath us sending spray into the air around us. We sat there in silence for quite some time. I wanted to share my experiences with the Pleiadians with Ratu that had taken place over the summer, from the book incident to the waka up in the forest at Fairfield house, and so, as the first rumblings of the acid kicked in, I did just that. Ratu sat there, listening, his gaze taking in the sight of the sun heading toward the horizon. My fondest memories of Ratu were from that night, and what happened next. I stopped jabbering as the sun was just above the ocean, and the spectacle before us took on a new dimension. The heat signature, or perhaps the electromagnetic energy coming from the sun was making the clouds in the sky pulsate, the hues of red, orange, and pink expanding and contracting like a gigantic lung. Not a word was said until the twilight began to encroach towards us, then Ratu put his hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s time for you and Matariki to connect.” He then stood up and wandered back over the rock and moved back towards the festival leaving me alone with the ever-dimming daylight. I had no idea who Matariki was then, the Mauri word for the star cluster was named the Pleiades (Greek). I did know that there was something to the use of the word though, and so closed my eyes and whispered, “I wish to connect with Matariki.”
When I opened my eyes my life would never be the same again…
When can I come home?