WOW: Wise Older Women
“Wisdom That Grows Louder with Time.”
Welcome to WOW: Wise Older Women a podcast dedicated to raising the status of ageing women and dismantling the narratives that silence them.
Here, older women speak with authority, beauty, depth, and fire. Their stories challenge, inspire, and illuminate.
In a world that too often ignores, isolates, or diminishes older women, we choose to listen. To revere and celebrate the brilliance, courage, humour and tenderness they bring along with plenty of high‑vibration wisdom carried in their words.
These conversations aren’t just stories, each one of them is a teaching. A personal map from the past, forging the way ahead, full of magic, medicine and momentum.
This storytelling series presents ageing not as decline, but as ascent. It’s a platform where older women don’t need to hide. This is where they are honoured, uplifted, heard and held; with reverence, respect, and wonder.
Their voices are powerful, their wisdom is vibrant, and their stories are a gift to us all.
Welcome to the podcast. Settle in. Let their voices guide you.
WOW: Wise Older Women
S2 Ep5: Kara Gray (Carole)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
My guest Kara Gray lived a life shaped by forces no child should ever have to face. But she’s also lived a life shaped by ancestors, ceremony, by intuition and compassion, and by a fierce commitment to breaking cycles that have travelled through generations.
She joins us not to relive the past, but to share the wisdom she’s gathered, the healing and reclamation, the return to her inner child, and the deep knowing that we are more than what happened to us.
Before we begin today’s conversation, I want to acknowledge the courage, heart, and the deep wairua (spirit) that our guest brings into this space. It’s also important to acknowledge that what you’re about to hear is not just a story of trauma, it is a story of survival, cultural memory, spiritual awakening, and of a woman who has walked through the shadows and chosen again and again to stand in love and light.
CONTENT WARNING:
This episode contains discussions around childhood sexual abuse, violence, and intergenerational harm. They’re difficult topics, and they might bring up strong emotions. Please take care of yourself as you listen. Pause if you need to. Take a breath. Come back when you’re ready. If what you hear brings up overwhelming emotions, please reach out to Beyond Blue # 1300 22 46 36 or Lifeline # 13 11 14
Side note: The way that Kara speaks her truth creates a confronting yet comforting listening environment. There’s a calming wisdom that prevails which allows us to feel into a life that many would deem unbearable, were it not for the innate wisdom within, the wairua, the spirit of the soul, guiding it home, beyond what was happening and into what it has become.
It’s an honour to hold this kōrero with Kara Gray. To listen and be trusted with such an important sharing of wise and tender words.
I never know what a guest will want to share in their story and I want to thank Kara for the bravery and authenticity that carries the messages that come through, which will land differently in each of us.
Kara would like to acknowledge the creators of the Waiata (song) that came through to be here today, which is included in this podcast.
Find out more about Kara and her work here - Facebook
Series 1 & 2 were made possible with assistance from the Community Broadcasting Foundation. cbf.com.au.
Support future episodes of WOW: Wise Older Women - here
Contact Host & Executive Producer Rasela Torise - aloha@plantationstudios.com
Music generously provided by Purple Planet Music
S2 Ep.6 Guest: Simone O'Brien - COMING SOON.
Welcome to Wow, Wise Older Women, Wisdom that grows louder with time. It's a podcast dedicated to raising the status of aging women and dismantling the narratives that silence them. Here, older women speak with authority, beauty, depth, and fire. Their stories challenge, inspire, and illuminate. In a world that too often ignores, isolates, or diminishes older women, we choose to listen, to revere and celebrate their brilliance, courage, humor, and tenderness. They bring along plenty of high vibrational wisdom carried in their words. These conversations aren't just stories. Each one of them is a teaching, a personal map from the past, forging the way ahead, full of magic, medicine, and momentum. This storytelling series presents aging not as a decline, but as a scent. It's a platform where older women don't need to hide. This is where they're honored, uplifted, heard, and held with reverence, respect, and wonder. Their voices are powerful, their wisdom is vibrant, and their stories are a gift to us all. Welcome to the podcast. Settle in. Let their voices guide you. My guest on the podcast today is Kara Gray, who lived a life shaped by forces no child should ever have to face. But she's also lived a life shaped by ancestors, ceremony, by intuition and compassion, and by a fierce commitment to breaking cycles that have traveled through generations. She joins us not to relive the past, but to share the wisdom she's gathered, the healing, the reclamation, the return to her inner child, and the deep knowing that we are more than what happened to us. Before we begin today's conversation, I'd like to acknowledge the courage, the heart, and the deep Wairua, the spirit that our guest brings into this space. It's also important to acknowledge that what you're about to hear is not just a story of trauma. It's a story of survival, cultural memory, spiritual awakening, and of a woman who's walked through the shadows and chosen again and again to stand in love and light. This episode contains discussions around childhood sexual abuse, violence, and intergenerational harm. They're difficult topics and they might bring up some strong emotions, so please take care of yourself as you listen. Pause if you need to, take a breath, come back when you're ready. The way that Kara sees the world creates a confronting yet comforting listening environment. There's a calming wisdom that prevails which allows us to feel into the life of someone that many would deem unbearable were it not for the innate wisdom within the Wairua, the spirit of the soul guiding it home beyond what was happening and into what has become. Each interview in this series so far has moved me in their own way. Not only the content, but the bravery that accompanies it, the authenticity in each voice and the messages that come through. We're traveling to Aotearoa with my guest Kara Gray to begin this episode of the CDF grant-funded series Wow, Wise Older Women. Wisdom that grows louder with time.
Speaker 1This is our Waiata. Kawaiata is the name of this song. And it's um a song that we sing for the women, and remembering that it is through the women that humanity comes into this life. It's called Kawaiata.
Speaker 4Your story's not just about what happened to you. It's about whatyou've become. How are you feeling, like right now, sitting right here, about to embark on this this life story.
Speaker 1So what I've felt today in coming here is aligning with what it is that I want to share. And in aligning with it, in me, it's happening for us. It's it's not just for me and my story, it it's for all of us to share their story, to express it the way that you want to say it.
Speaker 4For listeners that might be hearing stories like this for the first time, what would you want them to hold in their hearts as we begin?
Speaker 1Well, you know, the first thing would be to hold them, hold them here and and remembering their pathway to this world, you know, through the women, through ancestors, through connection to country, that being elements, you know, water, fire, earth, air, and being in remembrance that we are all this, everything that is here is for us to live with and become.
Speaker 4Let's go back to the very beginning. Your whakapapa, early life, cultural foundations. You were raised on the marae by elders, your grandparents and your great grandparents, until the age of five. What did that time feel like for you? Can you take us back to that marae as the small Kara?
Speaker 1Yeah, I can. And it's something that I didn't remember. I was in my thirties and I had a healing because it was like two weeks before I was ready to go back to New Zealand for a um family reunion on a marae on the North Island. Our final reunion was happening there. And the work that I was doing at the time was rebirth work, and I woke up this one morning and I had a pain in my neck. Long story short, I got a hold of this um woman whose number I had and asked her if I could have a session with her because I've put this pain in my neck, and she said yes. So I booked in with her and had a session, and it was her that was telling me after the session. So the session was a kahuna bodywork. First time I'd had it. After the session, she said to me, You're going back to a marae you were raised on as a child, and um you'll receive a gift from your ancestors, and she was telling me what I needed to be doing around the water because the marae runs along a river on the side of the river, and there's waterfalls. She told me a few things. So anyway, I thought, oh, they must be changing the a reunion because I had no memory of going to this marae as a child. It just wasn't with me in my memories. So when I got back to New Zealand for the reunion, I said to my mum, I said, Oh, they they changed the reunion to another Marai. And she said, Why do you say that? And I said, Um, oh, because I had a healing and I was told I'm going back to a marae, I have no memory the one where the reunion was being held. And then that's when she told me. So when my mother had me, she'd given me to the old people, and that I was with my grandfather, and he was Ringatū minister, which is a Maori faith, and he would take me everywhere for ceremonies, um, gatherings, and so because he did that, that's where my first learnings came from, but I have no memory of them. Even today, I'm living them, but they're not memories of who I am right now. That has all come to me, and I see it's this little girl that's inside of me, had learnt all these things, and she spoke language, she sung to the trees, the water, and I always wondered why I did those things everywhere that I that I was over here in Australia, and then realizing it just woke me up. And I saw that I've learnt all this from my grandfather who took me towards the ceremonies as a child. The next thing I know I'm with my mother, and I don't remember going to my mother, and I've grown up believing I'd always been with my mother. I didn't know I was um raised by the old people. So my grandmother was there, my great-grandmothers, grandfathers. And this my mother's marae, on mother's side.
Speaker 4What was it like in that moment to realize that your memory of childhood wasn't really the full story?
Speaker 1I started to remember why I sang, but I I sang them quietly, you know, in private and you know, up in the trees. I'd climb as high as I could in trees and I would just sing at the top of these trees or on the roof when nobody was around. Because when I went to school, my mum's got me back and then put me into school in Wairoa. When I went to school I wasn't allowed to sing the songs, I wasn't allowed to speak language and I wasn't allowed to do ceremony, you know, I'm being taught another language and another way of being. So I see how that's come to me. What was that transition like for you? I guess when I look back at it, I can feel it today. I can feel what what this little five year old had gone through with all of that, all the feelings and and what she really loves, which is where I am today with culture, language, expression, uh ancestors, you know, spirit. And a lot of it with the land itself, you know, Tangata Fenuwa or Voltero. Even in other places, even here, with the Tangatafenhua here on this land, I have the same experiences, culture, song, dance, language. It's not a separate story. It's like still part of the oneness of all cultures and the great learnings of remembering our connection to everything.
Speaker 4You always did what you were told to do because you didn't know what people really wanted from you. How do you understand that now through a a wider lens at this time of your life?
Speaker 1I've just learned that it's good to ask what people want from you. It is a good thing to ask rather than sitting on it like I don't know what they want and I don't know what to say to them. You know, like it's an us them story that I've grown up with and I do realise it it still can be looking like that. Oh, I don't know what they want, I don't know what they mean. I especially when I'm put in a learning space workshops and things like that, I get confused with language, like words mostly, don't understand them, so maybe that one word throws the whole sentence out so I don't speak up and say, Oh, what does that mean? There's a lot of that comes with, you know, nobody listening to you or shame of, you know, being not clever enough, you know, just not good enough for that. I think at five I would say I I must have been very spoiled because when I did catch up with um some of the old people's stories, they would tell me stuff about me that I have no memory of, and do I remember these nannies and those nannies and all that? And I'd say no, I don't, and they say, Oh yeah, she took you everyone, you know. As I've grown, things come to me to show me what I did with these old people when I was with them, then they're just like glimpses of, you know, looking through the window and going, Oh, oh my god, I used to do this.
Speaker 4You grew up in a blended family once you'd moved back with your mum, a blended family of fourteen, which is it seems like a lot, I guess, to in the Western world, but families were different as well back then, and and through culture, they're always, I think, a lot larger. What did belonging or even not belonging feel like for you?
Speaker 1I'm third eldest. My mother had fourteen children, and I have an older sister, and we have the same mother, different fathers, and then there's my next sister who actually is my father's, and two younger brothers and one baby sister. So it was just us. I've come back and this is who was there. My older sister's with my mother's mother, so she was raised by my mother's mother, because this was the time that my mother actually got with my father. So my father didn't know that my mother had had my older sister. She was his baby. Two years later, my brother tells my father, so he goes around and has a chat with her and my mother's parents and then and wants to marry her, so he takes her back to Tongoyo and which is a Napier Hook's Bay. And then they get married in 1956, and then they have me. Then when I'm born, I'm actually given to my grandparents. And then the following year, my mother has my brother, born on the same day as myself, and he's given to my father's eldest brother because they couldn't have children, so he goes there. And the following year after that, my mother has another son, and he's with my mum and my dad, and this is the year that we lose our dad, when my brother is one, and my mum's pregnant with my baby sister. This is where I'm going back to school. Now I end up back with my mum after my dad dies.
Speaker 4Do you remember being told that your father had passed? Were there any conversations of of understanding where he'd gone?
Speaker 1No, no, I I have no memory of I have no memory of under five. I just remember being with my mum and going to school. And it's only kind of more now I've realized that wow, I I didn't know how to be at the school. It's a bit like moving to an environment you just don't know how to be here. Kind of sets me up in that story.
Speaker 4And what about friends? Were there people there that you could connect to that you felt maybe you had a place with them, or did you still feel just quite alone?
Speaker 1Well, I had my older sister there, and when I would talk to her about things that have come to me, she goes, Oh, well, I I didn't even know who you were when you showed up, so she had no idea who I was. So there's a lot of missing gaps of not knowing, and I kind of put that down to trauma as well. That being taken no one tells you what's happening, and you just end up somewhere, so it's like it's a normal thing to be taken.
Speaker 4Violence and sexual abuse were all around you and disclosures were met with people saying things like, Oh, you'll be right. How did those responses shape your understanding of of what it means to care?
Speaker 1After my mum moved us to Napia because she was pregnant, we moved down south and to an area a place called Otaki, which is amongst the Requa peoples, and my mum met uh stepfather down there and got together with him and I guess I didn't really know what sexual abuse was about. Anyway, my mum ended up marrying him s with all of us. These are my three sisters. And they were babies at the time too. And my mum she had seven more children with this man and he was pretty much our um he was our abuser. So when I say our because it wasn't necessarily just me, it was my older sister, myself and my two younger sisters as we got older. And that kind of continued on. But when I say it was around, it's like I didn't know it was happening to my sisters. But as I'd gotten older, cousins were starting to tell me what was happening to them with other uncles. And, you know, even being at school, there were girls that were talking about what was happening with them and their fathers and so when I say it's around, I'm I'm very young and I'm hearing it and then I actually know it because it's in my life as well.
Speaker 4Did it feel like this was something that was normalized?
Speaker 1Yeah, because it's not something you can talk about, you know, like uh there's a threat to life, you know, you're already being told you don't speak, you don't say anything, you just well, there's a threat.
Speaker 4When you did try to tell somebody, what was the response that you got?
Speaker 1Well, the first one would be my mum. So on a becoming a teenager, even with the aunties like the stepfather's sisters, it was telling them as well that you know, I I really thought they cared about me because they would always say, Oh, you know, we'll be all right, we'll look after you, we'll look after you. But when I look back at it, it was more about they were watching me to make sure I stayed silent. As um I see now they were protecting their family story because what had come from that from what my mother has shared with me is that he had done that to his sisters as well and everybody kinda didn't talk about it. And my mum became one of those ones that didn't really do anything about it. But were you aware that it was happening to her as well? This is something we lived with domestic violence and you know, it's like a once war warrior story. And and this had d a lot to do with his drinking as well. So there was always fear and you know, anticipation around whenever he'd come back from work and I kind of thought my mum's gonna say something and then they'll have a fight, the house will get smashed up and my thing is to grab the babies and and run down to the grandmother's house. But then being told I was not to do that. And I wasn't to take the kids down there. And so there's just this acceptance that you're listening to what they're telling you because they're all in control of how you have to be.
Speaker 4What did it mean to be a child carrying such adult responsibilities, you know, grabbing your young siblings and and probably even raising them to some degree, protecting them and also guarding these family secrets. I guess when I ask you what it what it meant i looking back on that, because at the time I don't think anyone can really understand what's going on.
Speaker 1Yeah. Look, I I don't even un I didn't understand it myself at that age. I just knew that I was protecting my brothers and sisters and protecting my mother and because of the threats that he's made to me, should I say anything, he was going to kill my brothers and sisters and kill my mother, so that became he would be that person because of what he was doing to me. And you're just in fear of everything. You know, every breath you're taking is in fear when he's around. That's just how life was.
Speaker 4Did you feel that when you were outside of the home, when you were maybe in nature or at the beach or doing other things? Was it something that was always present in you or were you able to escape it?
Speaker 1Yeah, no, that that was very present. It was, you know, even just like say climbing trees was my way to to live in a higher existence and looking at the world below and like I didn't know what any of that was about, but I can see that it that brought me peace and joy and kind of wish you could just stay up there. Always wishing there was someone that would come and save us and come and help us and my mother and they took us through religion, you know, they'd all repented and you know, in the assemblies of God and thing, but then behind closed doors is a whole different story. There was violence, you know.
Speaker 4My mother was still getting beaten, we were still being violated and there was a time where you also approached the welfare and told them what was going on. What happened there?
Speaker 1When I went to see welfare, I had a probation officer on because I got brought up for shoplifting and I'm 13. And I said to my mum, I'm going to tell the welfare officer. See, my mum wouldn't do anything, but I told her that's what I was going to do. So I got on a train, traveled to go and Just probation officer I had, and I was telling him what was happening for me, and uh sitting there and I'm telling him, and then he'd go upstairs to talk to somebody else, who I never met, you know, and come back down and said, Oh, look, we can't do this and we can't do that, and then I'd say something, then he'd go back up. So it's it was just relating something to him, and he'd go speak to somebody else to come and tell us what he can do and what he can't do. But and for me it was more about asking him to remove me from the house. And he said, They can't just do that. And I said, Well, you've done that with my younger sister who ended up being put in a girl's home, so how can I not have that then? I said, because the last thing I'd want is for the stepfather to know that I've been to see you and I don't know what's gonna happen to my mother and my family. So I I just want to find a way to have me removed. And he said, Well, we'd have to disclose the sexual abuse and he'll talk to his people and come back in a week. So we'd come see me every fortnight on a Friday and it's uh stepfather's drinking day and all that sort of stuff. But he never um he never came back with that. I never saw him again after that. So I had no probation officer and but it's not like it was just too hard. Well it just felt like that when I look at what age I was at and what I was thinking, you know, knowing I'm not fully developed in my brain around life. I was just making a lot of stuff up too to survive. But I was telling them this is what's happening. And we just stayed there until mm we could find another way. It's a bit like a whole town knew what was happening to me, but nothing could be done, you know, like the family all knew. It was like, you know, you it treated like it's normal. Did you ever feel like running away? Yeah. I've done that and told my brother. And where I went and hid was in this factory down the back of where we lived. And he brought my mum over and it was my mum that talked me into going back and it won't happen. It's all right, you'll be all right. But it wasn't all right, you know. I I look back everything I was doing was for the love of my mum. To feel like you had someone there for you. Was there anyone? Yeah, well I had these aunties which were sisters, you know, they were the ones that would tell me to come around because then there was this part where um I told the auntie because that you know, the younger one was quite lovely to me actually, and I was telling her what was happening to me, and then I was told her that I was pregnant. And um she was organizing uh an abortion with friends of hers from Wellington and then they showed up and I decided to go around there and but her and her husband end up having a domestic, so I went home and nothing happened after that. It what just wasn't talked about.
Speaker 4So did you just work your way through the pregnancy alone? Was anybody there to support you through your pregnancy? And this is age fifteen, isn't it?
Speaker 1Yeah. Well nobody really knows that I'm pregnant. I'm at home, I'm I'm not at school anymore, and I'm just not even shown that you're pregnant. And I was looking after my baby brothers and sisters. My mum had left and that kind of just left me in the house with that.
Speaker 4Did your pregnancy change anything in the mistreatment that you were receiving from your stepfather? Uh no.
Speaker 1No, no, it it didn't. It was just a more hidden story. I think for me it's just accepting your lot there and lope, you're just here, and your brothers and sisters are still alive. We're all good. We're all good here, you know. They're okay and uh You could either wish that this man would die or do something or anything like that, or visions or wanting to kill him, and then it was like, oh, after all the religion that's been pumped into us, it's just like, well, how bad's that? You know, like can't even have thoughts about it. But you know, I can laugh at that now, but the fear that you're living in. Because the kids all do, you know. I'm there with my brothers and sisters. Who supports me, these kids? They know what he's all about and what's happening and what he's been doing and what he does, and and they know that I'm I'm there to protect them because our mother's not in place there either.
Speaker 4Eventually something was done about it, wasn't it, through your sister and yourself? Tell us about how things eventually changed.
Speaker 1She was coming home on the holidays and he was molesting her, so she ended up telling welfare that that's what was happening for her, why she didn't want to come back. But you know, it's that thing about you miss your family and you don't know what to expect when you get there, but you're hoping for the best of something. Anyway, it was a powerful stand. He was out of the house, he was arrested, went to court, went to jail. He got six months jail. The fair's still there because you're knowing you know he's gonna come out. Anyway, I'm just living my life. My mum's there, my brothers and sisters are safe, my mum's safe. I had the baby when he was out.
Speaker 4Yeah. Were you able to mother the child? Was that something that was even an option? What what was the process of having a baby so young?
Speaker 1Well, having baby was then my mother comes back and she's with me with the baby. He's still there in the house 'cause I realised it wasn't even about me, it was about them. If I had to look at the truth of all of that, it was just about them. As long as they got to do whatever they wanted to do, that's all it was about. It was nothing to do with safety and what's wrong and protection and well, it was just threats, lots of threats and we're surviving. You know, we're just surviving, we're in survival mode. And just because you have a baby didn't change anything. I had a baby and I just had to love this baby. And you know, love ourselves into safety, you know, safety was me. Well, that's what it felt like for me, that I was just keeping everyone safe and we'll be okay.
Speaker 4It's amazing that a child can still feel the essence of love, you know, having all of these reasons not to. Was that just always present in you? Was it something that you were able to come back to?
Speaker 1Yeah, I think that that's all that mattered, really. It wasn't so much about loving me, I I think. I knew that there was so much love around me, and I don't know what I mean when I say that, but I know it was around me. And you know, I had a stepfather who'd be saying that as well, and I knew that that wasn't true. As a kid, you kind of know the difference between what love is. It's not the same love as I would have for these kids. Well, I didn't think so anyway, but then I, you know, I'm only a kid. Then I move into teenage and then I've got a whole nother outlook, but you know, not many perceptions of anything else in life other than what I read and see. And what you felt inside? Absolutely. I think you always feel that. You always have that feeling. Just being with that is enough.
Speaker 4A year after your baby was born, you started nursing, nursing at age 16. What do you think drew you to caring for others so young? I suppose you already were in a a lot of ways.
Speaker 1It took me to Wanganui. My older sister had twins, and one of the twins had died, and my older sister had wanted my mum to go and help her with the baby where she lived in Wanganui. But as you know, my mother had seven children of her own. But my sister would see me as the one looking after the kids while mum goes and helps her look after her baby. So my mum asked me if I would go and help my sister and she would look after um my baby. So I I said yes. And that for me is for the love of my sister. Like I just know I had all this love for this family and I didn't know why all this shit was happening. Everything was either good or evil, you know, it's the teaching. It's either good or bad, whatever it is. So we'll just try and be as good as we can with all of this. But then when I went to Wanganui, uh this is where I met my daughter's father. And while I was nursing there, I'd on the weekends I'd go back and be with my family and my baby.
Speaker 4It sounds like to me that family is at the core of all of this, no matter what else is going on in the world, that you always bring it back to being part of this family and your place in that family seems so important at that time. Does it still feel that way for you with your own family?
Speaker 1Yeah, I think it has it's times where I realize we just move on and we grow into other things. So our time is taken with other things, whereas, you know, there are other commitments as well. It's like going away for ceremonies, you know, your family say, Oh, are you gonna come home because we need someone to look after you, you know, thing, you know, and there was a time where I used to give my time and energy up to take care of my grandkids, my brothers and sisters, whatever the help they would need in there as well. They were back in New Zealand. I for me, coming to Australia just gave me a whole nother lease on life. So, okay, I'm here, what are we doing? I was open.
Speaker 4And nursing brought you over here, or did you continue to nurse when you arrived in Australia?
Speaker 1I end up picking up nursing, yeah. When I did arrive, I moved to the Blue Mountains and started nursing with aged care. And and I love nursing with aged care. And this is before I even knew that I was raised by old people. And I was like, ah, so you know, as we moved on in life and we start to see the pattern emerging from, you know, the pleasure that I would have looking after old people. And because old people looked after me when I was little, and I I remember that energy, yeah? And out of that comes, you know, lots of love and lots of kindness. I still see that today when it comes to um elders and ancestors and you know, and now my becoming of that, being amongst elders of my age as well, and saying, ah yeah, just remember how young we are. You know, I'm telling my grandsons, now don't forget, you're now the old people. Say, remember when we used to rock you when you were babies? And I was like, Well, you're going to be rocking us now. Because you're getting older, we're getting younger, and we're going back to the babies. You're going to be those ancestors that are taking over our spaces, you know, you'll be the next ones.
Speaker 4You've said that you are spirit as well when you were looking after the older people. What song does this person need? Tell us about those experiences and and how that relationship with spirit developed.
Speaker 1Oh, look, it's been many things. I I think since I was a child, whatever was happening, there was a knowing there was something else that was with me and uh I can choose to not be here or stay with the children, you know, like or stay and look after the old people, whatever it is. So that kinda comes up. So when I know that I've always had conversations with the Waiter World and knowing, oh, okay, we've just got to put up with this, right? You know, like I think even they're saying, you know, that it's alright. You're gonna be okay. But then there were times I've I've worked in many things, like even women's refuges and and I always found that singing was soothing. There was something about singing this I guess even before I even remembered uh my time of this grandfather that I used to travel around with as a child, and that's what we would do. We'd do a lot of a lot of prayers and a lot of singing, especially in a lot of ceremonies around culture. Now I see it's just an everyday, that's a natural thing in life, you know, being being grateful, thanking for everything, e even the harm that could be done to us, and it's like I'm sorry for the energy that's that's harming in any way, whether that's harming me or harming another. It's um having those conversations with the spirit that will take care of the healing of that. And you know, being able to ask the spirit what can we do here? And you know, the first thing would always come in is you know, sing them a song. And I I I could say to people say, Hey, this is your song, I would ask them, Do you have a song? And that would be this one, and then I would say to them what they need to do with that song. You know, this is the one you sing to your old people, and the song you sing to your babies, this one you sing to your family, this one you sing to the trees, this one you sing to the water. You know, it's a bit like digging out stuff in people, asking people those things that nobody asked me. So I would ask people what I would have loved to have heard from anybody, what is it that we can connect to to help the energy? It's it more about uplifting the energy. As you know, in culture we we do have then whenever speeches are spoken and whenever we're acknowledging everything, there's always a wayta, which is a song that comes after the conversation, the cordial.
Speaker 4Did you have a song when you were young growing up where there were moments where you were in the trees or you got that time to yourself that you would sing to yourself that uplifted you?
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, we were going to church, so we knew a lot of church songs, and yeah.
Speaker 4Do you think then it's also the actual act of singing, not necessarily a specific song, but just being able to release some kind of emotion.
Speaker 1Yeah, whatever song comes in, you just sing it. And songs that I'd learnt, and I just start singing them, and I didn't have to make it about anything. It was just that's what soothes my soul. Yeah? That's how I see that I've lived. When I look at it, it's like it may be seen as survival, but that's how I lived, yeah? Through anything. It's like living through a war. And this is what you sing. You sing your way through it.
Speaker 4During your nursing years, you were in Australia in a sexual assault training course. So you watched a video that broke through an element of numbness. What happened in that moment?
Speaker 1Well, it's like going through life and always being told when I was a child and became a tender that it's okay, you're gonna be alright, you know, and I didn't have to talk about it, you're okay. And it this kind of felt like this moment that I've stepped in to do this training. And in this training, it was all around working with children and child sexual assault. And what I saw in that it actually brought all my stuff up, and then realized, oh my god, there's something wrong with me, you know, like I'm more broken than ever. It's like life showing me that what I believed about the everything being my fault and I've just gotta, you know, listen to what everybody tells me to do because what I think isn't good enough. I'd realize I'd just gone along with that and just kept living and I I ended up in a um relationship where I was experiencing domestic violence and, you know, just powerlessness and uh and it was like the memory of it, it was like my mother's relationship with my stepfather, but then in acknowledging it's the very relationship that I was having with the stepfather. So, you know, it's just like another energy, whether it's a father, mother, brother, whatever, it's still a violent energy. Yeah? It's about disempowering you in some way. So I see that these things are all part of the lessons in life. You learn something too, you question and say, Why is this happening? What can I do about it? So then things start to arise from that. Finding ways to still be in life like nursing and looking after old people, you know, and then going home and stuff's happening, you know, you go, Wow, how do we balance it out? But that was the story of my life as a child. I lived like that as a child and I still was living that into my twenties. It's not till I'm my thirties, and I'm starting to be shown things, and then I see that I I have a great relationship with the Waidua world. And let's get on with hanging out with them, yeah.
Speaker 4You have said that you didn't want your trauma to define you, and instead you asked, What's my soul here to do? What answers started to emerge when you started to ask those kinds of questions? Yeah.
Speaker 1What's my purpose here in life? For me to be with that was to find the purpose in everything that I'm doing, you know, my baking's cake, well what's the purpose of this, you know? Oh, that's right, we're making it for those old people. And I guess anything that we do is connecting to others and staying connected because it's so easy to disconnect and not want to be part of the world, to the point of taking yourself out. It's over, you know, we're out. That's it. And then wake up and go, Oh, obviously we're still here and that's not it. So, you know, for every one of those moments there's an awakening happening that kind of puts me back on track. Everything's about a path that I'm choosing to go down or escape from, a path that I need just need to take myself through it. And that's changing the energy of what it is that I've been experiencing is actually going through life, living and doing things that I love. That shit's happened to me, but what would I love to do now? What do I want to support? You know, how do I want to m make a difference? So ending up in refuges, working with women. So it's like old people, aged care, and then going working in women's refuges, and I did that off and off eight years, and especially with child protection for children, you know, and I just felt like I was in this pattern of trying to saving my family. So it's not something that's new to me, it's something that I came in to do as a child because I learnt things quite little, and we know things, you know, probably before we even came in. We knew we were coming in to do something. And yeah, there's gonna be some really hard stuff come through. So, you know, you're still up for that? You have a choice. You know, I I see that, you know, I've made choices to experience it. And now I can empathize with anybody, men or women, children that are going through any separation, death and dying processes. When I say death and dying, it's like not wanting to be here, then where do I want to be? And it's like if you don't have an answer there, then you'll stay.
Speaker 4Tell us what that birthday included.
Speaker 1Yeah, that was pretty amazing when uh, you know, my family and friends wanted to put a 50th on for me, and you know, it was all dressing up, set up a party, and I was getting anxious and I didn't know why I I didn't want to have this party. And I said, I don't want a party, and I was crying well outside, and they came and they said, So, okay, so what do you want to do? And all I wanted to do was dress up as a Māori girl, sing my Māori songs, go and do ceremonies with the water down at the lakes, the women's lake, and the other lakes, just go and put some these waters that I'd collected from around all the other sacred waters, and I just wanted to go and do the ceremony of putting these waters because it was all about keeping that connection alive and our connection to all of that, you know, to the ceremonies itself, and keeping connected to country, water, land. And I had that as a child, and then I realized, you know, I'm 50, you know, that everything changed when I went to school, and you couldn't speak this, couldn't do that, didn't they? And then my mother was all part of them. We go into church, you know, we joined the Mormons, we joined the Jehovah's Witnesses. And I I it's just new, it's like going to all these different schools of thought. But I learned something about my mum, and I was always thanking her. I was grateful for the learnings I had through going through those religions. But they're part of that whole spiritual realm as well. Everybody's got their story around it all, and but Deswages think a lot of it is around, you know, all the beliefs that are created around us and the beliefs that are imposed upon us, and you know, our limiting beliefs. We're a lesser being and we're not as sacred as everybody seems to think, you know. And I was like, oh well. But then, you know, I've grown into a greater awareness that all life is sacred. So that holds me here in in this space now.
Speaker 4When you were sixty, you had a birthday party for the six year old in you, and and you're turning seventy and you're going to have a birthday for the seven year old. There seems like there's an element of reparenting as well that's coming in here. Do you feel that?
Speaker 1Yeah. You know, I look back at my five year old having to see it was all about the gifts that I came with to this world. Then moving through, developing, you know, ending up in trainings, all sorts of things to go and learn about things, you know, transformation, rebirth. It's almost like it found me. I wasn't looking for anything. It was landing with me. To come, you're gonna come and do this. Well I was like, why would I do that course? Things like that. Even down to where my cousin had asked me to come to India. She asked me the year before and I said, oh no, not feeling it the following year. She asked me again, I went, oh, I felt that. I might have to tune on to it because I felt a wave go over my heart and then I was like, yeah, I think we're going to India because even when I tuned in with my friends, they all got I was going to India. Then I went straight to Spirit and said, okay, what's in India? And they said to me, Your ancestral heritage. So that took me to India and we arrived at night the next morning, walked out and it's like I saw the faces of my son, my nephews, my cousins. This woman in the one of the shops tapped me on the shoulder and said, Oh excuse me, are you Mari? And I turned around and I looked at her and she was the spitting image of my mum's eldest sister, Auntie Lovey, who had died like ten years beforehand. So my relationship with the spirit world is ask them anything and they will tell you what's going on and if I have a plan. If it doesn't align with them it's not happening.
Speaker 4Having these birthday parties, being able to reparent you know yourself the way that you would have wanted your childhood to be, being able to provide that for yourself now, what have you gained from this idea of of almost a second childhood? Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1And it's that thing about coming back to innocence, I think um I'll just share that every day you just came back to the thought that you're just this brand new baby being you've just entered the world into this moment in this space and you can create from there anything that you would love. Because all the memories come through but they're just memories and your heart and your soul just really want the world to know how present really is in life, you know, how it serves you and to just be here now rather than being yesterday, tomorrow. We can talk about all these experiences and it still touch on nerves around things, which is that whole aligning of our nervous system and learning how to reset and to have all these things that are available to us to change the energies of what it is that we're living in this life. But we're learning so much about who we are and we know why we're here, you know, it's for the love of humanity. And we can all be in the energy of uplifting ourselves. We're already doing that for the planet and the ascension of all beings that are in the same vibration, consciousness, frequency, whatever you want to call it, but remembering that we're we're all breathing here together. So stay strong in that. Breath is everything.
Speaker 4Is it possible, do you think, to teach people how to rewrite their childhood stories?
Speaker 1Yeah, I think so. I think we all have an imagination that's the one that'll set us free. I is imagining our life, you know, and in that imagination, you know I just imagine this and I mean and I love it because a child just makes up everything and when you're with children it's like whoa how free is this having an imagination or having a good relationship with your imagination and being in the freedom of being able to just express yourself through your imagination and come through it in innocence, you know, elder being or young being 'cause me myself I d think elders are just children coming home. We're just going home now. And we're helping the energy of that to arise. And lift everything up and sing for it all, breathe for it all, love for it all.
Speaker 4Do you feel that the importance of young babies, young children being with elders which seems in the Western world to not be as common or as revered as it should be, that that is a time of coming together where you're almost in the same place? Yes, totally.
Speaker 1Yeah I look forward to that you know like even just having my great grannies around and I feel like I'm with these grandmothers. Yeah, I'm watching my granddaughter go through the birthing with having twins in the hospital. You know, just feeling the energy in the room that yep, these babies are coming. That was an experience, you know, when my great grannies were born, uh Ezra and Aura, they showed me things, you know, on how there's a lot of damage being done to their physical being, to their spirits you know, 'cause you'd imagine there's a a haka would be performed when they'd enter the environment sort of thing, you know, so no, that wasn't gonna happen in that see. 'Cause it was full of nurses and yeah and there was a lot of panic around it all too and I was like, wow, yeah. We can be there as calm as we like with the midwives and then it was beautiful and just waiting for baby to turn. And then an energy would just come in and say, we're in control here. And you d either have to leave or or you stay and you don't get to say how this works because you're in the hospital. So my thoughts of that is that, you know, our young women and the men as well wanting to be part of that is um having these natural births, but knowing from the time they've conceived, following that through, that you now are bringing the energy through for this little one to come into the world. So you're along for the adventure with them in the womb until this little one steps out. Just keeping the connections alive but learning how to do that is the thing too and that to me is about listening to nature. Just listening and they'll tell you every little move. And trusting trusting what's true for me to do here right now if I went into a panic what's true for me to do right now and you can just trust that the first thing that comes in is the truth. Anything after that is rational mind.
Speaker 4Belief belief in yourself you once called a family meeting to speak very openly about the past.
Speaker 1What inspired that moment for you? Yeah I guess my feelings and my thoughts around it was all about healing. It was just bringing the healing energy together that you know we as a Fano have created this and now we can see it for what it is and accept whatever it is that we accept it. We can accept or not accept but it's there to be looked at and that's where healing begins as soon as you see that you're part of that as well.
Speaker 4And you did share some teachings from The Magician's Way which was maybe about getting uncomfortable and and really speaking the truth. How did your family respond to that?
Speaker 1Well they actually came in and did the trainings with uh William Whitecloud so yeah it was a nine month long training that came in once a month and participated and what's beautiful about that when family work together, you know like in a work transformational work together it's gonna get uncomfortable because there are things that we knew but we didn't talk about and now we can talk about it and be real and nobody's gonna judge you because that's just what we saw and that's what we made it about. And it doesn't mean to say it's true. Their experiences and then I realised for a lot of transformational work that been part of with family it was all about uplifting our families to see that they're a greater part of the whole of the far no, you know, the far no happy we we we all resonate back to the stars stories. So I think we know that pathway it's not just about the little girl and you know the little Carol and you know little Ricella that we're part of a greater scheme of things.
Speaker 4Tell us about that name change from Carol the little Carol to the cara the name that you carry these days.
Speaker 1Yeah. That was like claiming my Maury Dom this is my name. I felt like I'd gone through a journey where English was everything. You had to fit the shoes and wear them, you know, like this is where we're at right now. It just felt like a reclaiming No, that's my name I'm going to sip with that, you know, and I allow myself to have that. Just because it's on the birth certificate, the English naming that doesn't mean that that's the true thing for you. You have a higher resonance to a lot of your naming and there are those that love their naming I was like yeah whatever that was but it wasn't for me. It was a reclaiming of my Mauriness and being called Kara. It's just like Kya you know even for me to embrace my culture and and why it's in my way through the world with trio and I think I don't have enough of um culture around me to speak of it. Well I have moments of feeling little and then we say oh no that's just what I believed is that little girl. Now we're we're grown up and we're embracing everything that this little girl was showing us and just want me to listen.
Speaker 4Many of family Farno still keep things under wraps. What have you learnt about the cost of silence?
Speaker 1Yeah pain and suffering it exists. And your children and your children's children will carry that as far as you allow that to happen. And it's up to us and what stories we're going to be telling the next generation about who they are and why they came here to be telling your story on what you've learned. And now we're telling our next generations and this is what Nana learned when this happened this is what I did. When this happened that's what I did. And they hold that because they know who we are I always say until they go to school and then they got a whole different picture of what life looks like and it kind of separates them from culture and beliefs around where power sits in the house. It's like you don't have any power you know as a child which is not true.
Speaker 4Are the younger generations growing up differently to how you were brought up is there more listening going on? How does it look from your perspective?
Speaker 1We've seen disconnection we think it's disconnection that's exactly the world that we're looking at because we're part of creating it because we've got it going on in ourselves. So might be connected to our jobs but not connected to our family relationships, not connected to our families but not connected to the people we work with and not connected to country, you know, don't know anything about the trees, the water, the sky. There's disconnection it's all of that it's like we're just in a bubble but when you pull everything down and just sit in that you just see how amazing this world is that gives us all of these treasured moments of miracles really everything like seeing our babies born seeing anything born actually insects and birds and animals and singing for all of that you know I was like oh what's our whyata I just sing 'cause then we've sung it up like singing them all in because they're just like us. We're not separate from all of this.
Speaker 4Yeah how are we living like that? In the Māori culture children can be given to other members of the family. I think that would be almost unacceptable to someone that didn't understand that culture.
Speaker 1Yeah there's such an acceptance in that well I look at the way I've grown up from my experience you know um we're like looking like we're farmed out to a lot of the family. Going to live with the Santi for the holidays, help look after kids while they go to work and live with them taking the kids to school you just it's like you develop a skill but it's something they see in us that we can do. She's good with those babies let her look after them. You know she's good with those old people let her go there. And it was kind of like that for my daughter for me to give my daughter to the old people. I was like eighteen and the old people were fifty you know they took my daughter on at fifty but they asked me for her. They asked if they could adopt her and I had some hesitations at first but I had elders around me that said to me you should give that girl to them they'll look after her and they'll give her this and I could see all of that too, you know security safety and yeah when I look back at it and look at myself it's like I would have never felt safe with anything until I've started doing work.
Speaker 4So you know it gave me the opportunity to see you've said that children don't belong to us necessarily but that they come through us. How has that shaped your own parenting?
Speaker 1Children come through and they're meant to go to the families that they get guided to go towards whoever has them they'll have the experiences they'll have. You know they'll be loved they'll be cherished they'll be used they'll be abused whatever it is you know there's something in there that is profound in them that they will come through you know and for some that don't that's all part of the journey as well there's no right and wrong in this story and it's not even a good and bad story. We have wars. There's nothing good about wars. So what is violence? I'm one that'll align something up to see what's true in that story and how are we living through that how are we surviving? What do we need to do? What are we preparing for? So food, making sure the kids know what to do when something happens like a safety net you know if anything happens to me you'll go here.
SpeakerYeah?
Speaker 1You run to those aunties house and run here and all that sort of thing. We're already setting that up. That's just all part of skills that you learn around anything that's going on around your environment or what's going on inside of you that you know something's gonna happen and we need to prepare our kids for for what they need to be doing. Lessons don't only come through parents do they? Yeah that's right. It comes through everything comes through nature profoundly. It's like having a flood a fire and the the way we we swim our way through life or we're battling flames and climbing trees, whatever it is where we're still in life because we're choosing to live, yeah?
Speaker 4And I think that's the greatest thing is that choice to live and go and live the life that you love your son, your first son, returned to you when he was sixteen?
Speaker 1Yeah, so then he stayed with me. This was the beginning of our healing and our relationship.
Speaker 4How had he lived his life? Did he have a sense of belonging or or what was that reunion like for both of you?
Speaker 1No, he didn't have a sense of belonging. It's a bit like I was his mother but my mother's his mother and he's kind of been pushed towards me to come. It was like have a holiday and and all that. And I was in a relationship as well so Mick who's English he pretty much took Calvin on and you know took him to work with him and yeah it was like that boys to men connection sort of thing at sixteen.
Speaker 4Sixteen is a tricky age to all of a sudden be in your mother's life and living there and did it take some adjustment for both of you?
Speaker 1Yeah it did. Yeah it did. But you know what was beautiful about it? He is him talking to me about what life was like with my mother. It wasn't even about his father so there's that. But it was around his brothers and sisters because he's raised with his brothers and sisters and those are my brothers and sisters too so how do how do I see this life? Yeah you've come through to be here and there and you know like I was saying um my mother was pregnant at the same time lost the baby and this is when my mum passed and I'm back at her funeral I'm looking at the Paka Papa genealogy on the wall it was like oh oh she had a boy and then I realized this name had come to me for him as well which was Kraytyana and my mother had named this boy that she lost at the same time I was pregnant Kraityana but I always thought she had a girl. I don't know why I thought that but it didn't matter and I wasn't thinking well in a lot of spaces at that age and this happened when she passed and I was looking at the genealogy on the wall and I just went wow and the first thing that came to me I I just went oh my goodness he's my brother I didn't even make it up I didn't make that up I can see that he's the same one the same energy that was gonna come in there is the same one that came through me so whether the fathers are are available or around that don't have a lot to do with the weight of a of a child that's gonna come through and there'll be a story out there around this child something between myself and the child you have explored where violation comes from even in ancient stories where gods were violated, they violated other gods.
Speaker 4How do these oral stories help you to understand human behaviour and and the human behaviour that you were exposed to oh yeah it was like going back into the ancientness of life we thought this is how life is right now.
Speaker 1Yeah, that is kind of you went beyond that into the consciousness of life just doesn't even exist. Fakapapa goes back to the land itself coming back from Hawaii from star systems then arriving in Altiaroa and you know and these chiefs got together and said oh you know I'm gonna marry your daughter and but that wasn't a marriage just about love or anything. The a lot of that was about to hold the land together, you know, to keep the relationship with the land, the connection alive connection to country is us, our connection to ourselves, us being earth beings on this earth we're not standing on this ground, we're lying in it. Yeah? And it took me back and remembering that in the ancientness of life that we're one with this life force in here and we're all gathered, we've come together in this this energy and it's a bit like we're following blood lines culturally when I think about our bloodlines in Taiwan thing. And when I looked at that I can just see how how simple life is really we're not caught up emotionally around rejection and you know abandonment and we're part of a a greater story that takes us back to our elders, you know, all those gone before but the ancientness of all that is so old because it all takes us back into the earth itself. And star systems we're just in the universe is part of this whole world and there's so much more.
Speaker 4And when we were talking about sexual abuse and young people being normalized, I suppose when you look back that far the continuation of a pure bloodline which then enabled people to keep the land that they had in the family then that is also woven into that story as well do you feel?
Speaker 1Yeah because then you're caretakers of this country and everything will change when it's necessary. It's like the colonized story. So then the colonized comes in you know and then changes the whole story to suit them and that's okay because that's what they do. It's a colonized story. And meanwhile we're starting to forget our connection because it it's like we're being um seduced or duped or you know and that's a violation in itself. You know where does violations come from? It's all of that there's an abuse that's there. And it didn't just happen with the people it was happening with the land. But it's been my experience to connect everything back in time that goes back in time when we were all connected to remember this was our connection to this world and this is why we came there it's like saying you and I are one in this world as it is for everything and everyone 'cause then there's no separation on colour, genders and fighting all these separate things. There's n nothing wrong with it. It's it's a belief. I just think we've just got all these beliefs running around and they're limited. Well that's why we're limited is because of those beliefs. And you say that that we're this and that's it and it's like oh no, it goes way beyond that. And I think when you have that knowing you'll express yourself a lot more back to your truth than what it is to your belief.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Your learned belief. Yeah, learned belief. Yeah, that's right. And and that's what's good about saying, Well, what I learned when I was in this country was da da da da and then you go to another part of the country and say, Oh, they don't do that then. It's like, oh, what do you do? You know, so we're just learning. We're not saying this is the way this is just what we learnt. You tell me something 'cause that's all I've learned so far. And we'll just keep learning.
Speaker 4So you've said that healing comes from listening to the language of the soul rather than the language of abuse. What does the soul know that trauma doesn't?
Speaker 1Mmm. That you're an eternal being. Yes. Soul to me speaks a language that's not understood in a language English, Irish, Scottish, whatever. It's not understood in that. It's about sitting in the presence of that energy and your connection with all of that. It's a bit like being born, you know what I mean? You're kind of just wandering around inside this world, but you can see everything going on, but you know, and then all of a sudden you realize like, oh my goodness, it's bigger than what you thought. But you know you're one with all of this, you know, the water, the land, the everything you've been eating has been coming through you, you know, you've you've embodied this whole earthly being. You know, my favourite thing to me is like everything is alive, everything is sacred. There's nothing here that isn't unless you make it so. If you separate that, then that's okay, 'cause that's just what you believe. But you will learn something, you'll open up more. We're just opening up more to then we surrender to the breath of life. You know, we have this thing like T moo Diora. I breathe, therefore I am the breath of life.
Speaker 4You can't change the beginning, but you can change the ending.
Speaker 1Or what does that mean to you? Oh, it kind of feels like a fairy tale, doesn't it? Once upon a time and lived happily ever after. It's like, who made that up? I lived in fairy tale books when I was a kid, and I can see how I escaped to them. So it was a bit like reading your sleeping beauty, Cinderellas, and all that, but everybody lived happily ever after. But I remember challenging that and was like, well, that's not even true, because my mother thought that and she wasn't living happily ever after.
SpeakerAnd that's my perception as a child of like that is not a happy ever after thing, you know. Yeah, we might have looked like we had a house, okay, that can be a castle, you know, like we just had to pretend a lot of stuff to make it okay, you know, like well, we're we're working on it, you know.
Speaker 1But then realize, you know, you you do have to work on the energy that you're hanging out in and keep letting it go, because it'll just be a new thing, your new way of being will come through and then let go of that and then the next thing will come through and yeah, I guess that's me that thing about eternal. What what's eternal? It's like, well we just do that. Aki aki. Forever and ever.
SpeakerNo end, you know what I mean? And to be continued because you now have another generation coming in and they are not thinking like us.
Speaker 4And what about your grannies, as you call them? I love that, your grandchildren and your great grandchildren. Is there anything that you want your grandchildren to know about your life that you feel is important to include?
Speaker 1The first thing that comes to me is that I want them to know how much they're loved. Not even just the me story. It's like you look forward to being nana and then, you know, all of a sudden you find yourself your great nana, and I was like, what is this about? You know, because I'm a sudden feel like the babysitter, you know, like feel I'm connected, thinking, you know, I'm becoming useful again. It's like I'm with my brothers and sisters and kind of on a on the wheel again, you know. And I was like, okay, why why am I thinking that? Yeah, and that's because I'm not doing something in my life that I love doing. When you do what you love and you really love what you're doing, that's what your family are experiencing as well. Because you're with them, you're part of them, you know, or everybody around you, yeah. They pick up on it. So that makes us all family, right? So now that's why as Maori would say, Oh, now that you've come and stayed, well, now you know you've met us, you're now Fano. Not many would know what that means, and it's like, well, now you get what Farno is, isn't it? We're family now because we can share the same cup, whatever that is, and share stories.
Speaker 4Is there anything that you do on an everyday basis or a regular basis that brings your Mori culture and understanding into this Western kind of world that I suppose, especially here in the Byronshire, that we're quite surrounded by?
Speaker 3Mm.
Speaker 1I think it always starts with me first though, you know, and the first thing is a acknowledging everything around me. Even in the waking room if I haven't had a great sleep, but i it's that acknowledgement of like the restlessness that's here. I was like, oh, Kelda, what's that? You know what I mean? It's like saying hello to something that's just here. And it was like, okay, let's get up, and then, you know, you go out and meet it. Or you you're meeting it, and then you go out and take it for a walk or whatever, or go out and uh talk to the rest of the energy, the sun, the the rain, the whatever, the trees. And that's that thing about connection. Just remember your connection to this world. And that's that whole thing around birthing. Because when you look at the women, it's like, remember your pathway to this world. And that's what we're we're here to be. It's like be still and know that you are God in this light. You know what I mean? You are a light. This is the light, you're the god, you're the goddess, whatever. Choose it for yourself. This is the disguise.
SpeakerCan change, it's going to change again.
Speaker 4If someone listening has lived through something similar, whatever part of your story that you've been sharing here, what would you want them to know about healing? Maybe even hope or soul purpose.
Speaker 3Mmm.
Speaker 1I just say everything's about healing. Everything you do and every thought you have is about healing. That healing's all about raising the energy of life for yourself. Because when you do that for yourself, you're actually healing a whole generation of everything that's around you, everything that's in you touch. But it's more about who you are right now, because this is going to change. Who you were yesterday is not the person you are today. That was an experience of you yesterday. So every day's like a new baby born. You know, this is where innocence comes in. When you come under that energy of innocence, you can just know everything brand new from there, like you just came to life. And you're remembering everything right now. And that too is going to pass. Because it's always that thing, show me the way home when you're lost. You know, when you're lost, you know, it's like, okay, you best be showing me the way home because I don't know how to get here, how to get there, how to get anywhere. There's nothing around. No hope and there's no help. And it's like, oh well, you're it. We're sitting on a squeaky chair, and it's okay. It isn't, even that will change.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 4Speaking of healing and ongoing healing and bringing yourself into what you're doing here, now, today, you were mentioning earlier, voice out of recording, about healing pathways, adult survivors of sexual abuse. This is something that you're in right now, isn't it? Tell us about that.
Speaker 1It is, yeah. See, it's always that inner work that you're working on because there are many things moving through you at the one time. You've just grabbed that one thing to say, okay, we can look at that. How's that going? Yeah? Because that's the energy that's going around inside of me and outside. Things are being obvious that women are seeking survival, peace, truth, love, harmony. It all comes under the umbrella of safety when we think we need protection. And a lot of the protection is actually from ourselves because it's our fears that put us in an unsafe mode of thinking. It's like m going back into the past. We must feel the past and feel the pain and remember what that was like. Oh, that's right, because that's how we remember, we feel it. And then we can move it forward because we can see how we how heal that and how that's affected your family, the world, your children, whatever. It's not just a one thing, but it's like to be put into the light sort of thing, you know, so we can all see what that's created for a lot of people, for men and for women, for children. You know what always comes to me is wars. When there's wars, that's such a brokenness in that. This is kind of like that abuse. The abuse of energy, the energy of abuse. Sexual, physical, psychological, emotional, financial, you know, you can have abuse is abuse. I'm not just sticking under one thing. You can open it up as far as you want to explore you in that story and what you did to survive what you did to help see it for what it is, to heal yourself through it, talk yourself through it, whatever you did, whatever action you took, you took action. You're always taking action. Even if you're just speaking to spirit, speaking to nature, speaking to the neighbours, speaking to whoever your brother and sisters, telling them what a great life you have or what a shitty life you have. You're telling somebody all the time. And you they're helping you keep the secrets as well.
Speaker 4Well, how are you feeling now after telling all these stories and sharing all of this today, which is a really deep, deep conversation.
Speaker 1Yeah, thank you. Um how am I feeling with all that? I think for me I was um I was open. I just opened up to a pathway that says, just come and speak about whatever comes up. There's no rights and is that the right answer? Is this the right question? Is that a good what do they mean? You know, nothing means anything for me right now. It's just speaking as it as it comes through, you know, as as I feel it, as I sense it. And is that what I really want to say? I'm not even questioning it, whatever's popping out. It's like I'm not editing life. I'm allowing life to express itself. And I just think energy is like that. You just hear it how you want to hear it, because I I could say one story and then someone says it in another way, and I was like, I didn't say that, you know, like and it's okay because I'm telling my story. And you know, I look forward to everybody finding a space, a platform like yours that is about telling their story of whatever age and building the bridges of consciousness with that, you know, being open, it is a consciousness and it is a bridge that we're building bridges for humanity to be express themselves in whatever realm that they're in, whether it be fear or love. It's either one of those two.
Speaker 4How do you see aging in the world that we live in now compared to how elders are seen in multiculture?
Speaker 1I think that changes for a lot of Māori, depending where they sit with culture, where they actually sit in relationship to elders. I've seen even with elders who still disconnect from elders, you know, it's like, oh I'm not hanging out with them, they do this, do that, and oh they're hard work and And you see that going on in society is when your elders are hard to manage, look after, or there's no one there putting their hands up as part of a far no that want to look after them either. So you'll always be looking for the one that's going to give them the best care ever, you know, and knows what they're doing. It doesn't have to be a far no story. Just someone that knows how to manage that without it being a struggle. We don't need to struggle, we just want to learn. It's like learning how to take their temperature and learning how to check their tongue and their hands and just really simple things, but even just holding them and talking to them. It's like just go and hang out with your core and go and have a conversation with them and tell them what you've been doing. 'Cause it's that. It's keeping that connection with just that breathing together. Doesn't matter what you say, you're both breathing this life. Yeah, moody order. That's always going on. There's nothing here that separates that until you stop breathing. Staying connected is that. Even just being present, you don't even have to speak. You can just be around them and they're they can feel you. I can feel them, you know, feel the babies, it doesn't matter where they are, even though they're overseas or whatever, I can feel them. It's like that with your own children. Whether you're in good relationships with them, you can feel them because they're a part of you and that's just a natural force in life. You can dismiss it, and that's okay because that's what you're doing. No one's here to judge you for all of that because that's an experience that you're having, just to see what that's like.
Speaker 4So there's a coming together of healing and singing and culture that I'm taking away from this. And that's something that you're looking to share with other people, aren't you? Tell us what's on the on the horizon.
Speaker 1Oh yes. Um, what's on the horizon is that I want to share with everyone, with the women especially, a teaching of a karakia, which is a prayer in Mali, and a uh wayata, which is a song in Mori. So teaching this um song in Mali in language is to share it with others. So this is what the healing is all about for me, is having a prayer and a song. So the prayer before we go into the work that we're doing, and a song that uplifts it after the work is done, and we're thanking everything for being present, all our ancestors, all beings that are with us that hold us in the space. This is how we share our healing. And it feels simple, but believe me, it's breathing. It's all about breathing. So we're going to do a little workshop when that time comes. I'm sure I'll let Rocella know. She can put it on up on her um post and we'll, you know, I would love to have you come with your um prayer and your song that you love to sing and um would love to give thanks for.
Speaker 4Is there anything you'd like to finish with? Any messages out there to other wise older women or even women who are afraid and fear getting older and are trying to hold back the hands of time as such?
Speaker 1You know what comes to me even in this time, it all comes back to self-care. It's a ball about loving ourselves and looking for ways that nurture us and support us for whatever's going on. Physically, emotionally, mentally. It's like what you seek out in the goodness of the spirit. It's a bit like show me the money, you know. Show me the way, which you know, who can I call when you don't have a thought of anybody. It's always the first thing that comes in is the one you follow. But when you think you're alone, you're actually listening to your own thoughts. But you're actually listening to yourself. That's when you're really listening. Unless you think you're going mad and then that's what you'll create. Yeah, it's more chaos that you've only been able to survive in chaos. But as soon as you acknowledge, oh yeah, that's chaotic, well, we're not gonna have that, we're gonna have this other thing. Try this out. And we're just trying things out, putting them on, wearing it to see if this suits and is this really what I want, and we can take it off anytime. It's like that, putting on your disguises for life, costumes, joy, love, peace, and trying them out for size. See if that's something you you want to hang out with. And if you like it, you'll stay there. If you don't, you know, take it off, put something else, or have a try something else. But I think it's about having fun in life because it's all about learning how to play together. And this is where we celebrate life. This course that I'm doing, The Healing Pathways for Um Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse, finishes on my birthday. So it's been a ten week course, and I would recommend it to all women who are looking to dismantle a lot of the myths and that's really opened up a pathway, a neural pathway in my consciousness as to wow, for years I believed this thing, and you know, it's a myth. Big breakthroughs every week. Because it's us that's doing the work. These amazing women are presenting it, but we work it for our own heart, for our own soul, for the joy of living this amazing life that we we have. After I finish the course, go and celebrate there, and I'll be seven. Come seventy. I just think life's for celebrating. Everything is for celebrating. Just celebrate our lives, our life for living. And everyone celebrates with us because somebody was born on that day or reborn. Yeah, yeah, or reborn. Yes, always reborn, huh?
Speaker 4Thank you so much. It's been an absolute honour, privilege, always.
Speaker 1Thank you. Thank you, Rosilla.
Speaker 4As we close this conversation, I want to take a moment to honour the immense bravery it takes to speak a story like this into the world. Our guest has opened doors that many people keep locked for a lifetime. She shared not only the wounds, but the wisdom that arose from them. Not only the trauma, but the transformation. Not only the pain, but the purpose that has emerged from it. I've learned here that healing is not linear, rather, it's layered with culture and ancestors. It's also spiritual and deeply personal. Kara has shown us what it means to reclaim the inner child and rewrite the ending, to stand in truth even when generations before couldn't. She's shown us that we can break cycles and choose love over fear, and that we can honour the soul's purpose even when the path has been paved with harm. To our guest, Kara, Carol Grey, Namihi Mayoha, Favata Lava, thank you for your courage and your vulnerability, your absolute clarity and your generosity. What I take from this is that we're not defined by what happened to us, but by who we choose to become because of it. And to you, beautiful listener, take what you need from it and carry it forward with the same compassion, insight, and strength shared here today. I hope you listen more deeply to yourself, to your children, to your elders, and to the quiet voice of your own soul. Until next time, take care of your heart, take care of your Wilur, your spirit, and take extra special care of each other. Join us next week for the final episode, episode six of Wow, series two, with my guest, Simone O'Brien, a physical theatre performer, a feminist, a firecracker of a woman, and a bloody great storyteller. She's done so much in the 60-odd years that she's been on this earthly plane, much of it flying high above audiences on a trapeze. She's also toured the globe with a queer aerial trouble, survived a damaging fall, battled endless, confronted her father in a moment of radical forgiveness, and rebuilt herself audience whole to emerge as the person that you will meet. You can find more episodes of Wow where you found this one or on any major podcast platforms. Series one and two were made possible with the assistance from the Community Broadcasting Foundation, cbf.org.au. If you'd like to support future episodes, you can do so via the links in the episode description. I'm your host and executive producer, Rasella Torres. What an honour to be bringing you this project. Alofa Atu, much love until we meet again. Thanks for listening.