On Migrating to Substack

Here we go...

My friend and fellow writer, Nadine Hura, told me that she was migrating her writing away from other platforms – most notably Facebook - to join Substack. What does it mean to migrate your writing?

Immediately, I think of a flock of birds.

The birds (I think) are land-finding birds.  Yes they are. 

And then I imagine myself in the ocean: anu tahi (soaked-deep-in-ocean).  I’ve spent so much time underwater and up to my neck in it.  Overwhelm that is the size of the ocean - being  swamped by the sea…. It is a *thing* - the waves come, then they subside…

It occurs to me that I’ve also spent a lot of time in flight.

I am (even-now) the bird that seeks. 

I am the bird that I-spies with my little eyes.

I am the bird who scouts, who swoops, who says: “Come this way”. 

I am the bird that flies such long distances – like the tavake bird - the amokura - they say, will she ever come back. 

I don’t put a question mark on this sentence, even though it is a question. 

The way I feel it, it is such an open-ended question that I can’t close it shut with a question-mark. That question-mark might be too unsure – too doubting – too prophesizing – too self-fulfilling if I question whether I might come back.   

Yes, I whisper through the determined and unsure mouth of a bird still flying:  I will.  I will. I will. I feel a breathlessness as I say it.  It catches on the wind and it flies with me.

Once upon a time, quite a long time ago, I did the Programme at ‘Leadership New Zealand’. This was a seminal point in my life.  Things were never the same afterwards.  One of the exercises we did was an interpersonal task of inquiry.  We were asked to sit directly across from someone.   They then repeated the same question: “Who are you?” over and over again. We had to provide an answer…. A mumble, a reactive response, unsure and unsteady… Then they would ask again. “Who are you?”

I remember saying so many things: “A mother. A writer.  A researcher. A poet. An artist.  An activist…” but then, after some time… I arrived at the word: “Seeker”.  And then I stopped.  And when the next question came: “Who are you?” I suddenly had an easy answer.  A Seeker.  A Seeker.  A Seeker with a capital S. 

As if my quest for who I ‘was’ was over. I made sense of myself, back to myself, with the word Seeker.

And I am so often quest-ing.

I find it hard to be rest-ing.  Even when it is enforced.  Even when it is a non-negotiable path of official (time-off-work) healing.  Here I am writing to you.  Here I am not-resting and reflecting, reacting to my own inner works and sharing what I’m finding there via the words of my determined and unsure mouth. 

The ideas flow down from my busy mind, are checked with my heart, go into my gut faster than I can even register and then back up again – heart double-checking – mind approving – out through my arms onto my fingers and then typed. 

Typed and sent somehow, across time and space, and using digital magic that I don’t understand either scientifically and logically – to land. 

These words are not unlike migratory birds.  Each thought flies its way to you.

I have found a nesting place where you and I can reside, for a moment, we can share the curves of the nest; resting in each other. 

For a moment in a busy, busy world. 

The best I can hope is that your mind allows you to go down to your heart and then into your gut – and something happens.  Recognition.  Resonance.  I hope that something sweetens in your bloodstream, that something softens.  I too am soft.  I too am tender.  This is me resting.  This is me building a nest so I can pause and stop and make a home in the paragraphs.  This.is.me.resting.

Much of the time, however, I am quest-ing…

More than once, I’ve found myself hit hard by the flight path I’ve chosen.  More than once, it has been described to me that my lived experience and the things I’ve tried to do end up making me the bird that is at the front of the flock. 

The one who is most battered by the wind. 

The one who is choosing to do what others don’t. 

The one who is most determined. 

The one who wears failure in their feathers (the many times that we just couldn’t). The one who is adventuring to find her way home. 

The one who is most to blame for going way off course.  I have shared this responsibility with others.  Those beside me also, at times, taking the turn to hit the incoming energy head-on.  We share the impact of gale-force with each other. But I am that land-seeking bird. Desperate also for a different place of rest. Somewhere where I know deeply, I am here.   

I don’t know the physics or mechanics of flight – just like the internet – it is magic to me.  I have no idea of the science. But I do know some stories. 

When I think about migratory birds the first bird that comes to me is the wading bird: Tuli.  It is also known as a plover.  Tuli is a bird which can embody Tagaloa.  Tagaloa is the creator of land.  Tuli is Tagaloa’s messenger – I imagine her running atua errands (atua is a word that references the divine, an entity that is super-natural – of another world – but active in ours – mostly unseen – unless it inhabits something like a bird).  Tagaloa is an atua of the ocean in many Moana cultures.  

Tuli is Tagaloa’s bird. He may inhabit it. Or he may send it to do his will. Yes, I can imagine it being a busy bird. Tuli is associated with locating land.  Tuli is associated with creation stories whereby lands are created and settled. 

In.real.life (whatever that means) the tuli bird is known to be the first coloniser.  This is because it is a wading bird.  It can stand on land that isn’t quite land yet.  It can stand on the beginning of land… as it slowly arises out of the water. 

It can stand on the edges of land – the in-between of ocean and sea.  I imagine that there is so much land like this on the liquid continent that is where we live and breathe.  Reefs.  Shallows.  Not quite land, not quite sand… a wet kind of place of warm waters. 

Once again, I don’t know the accuracy of my imaginings – but I can see why the Tuli bird is important in stories to sea-people, boat-people, navigators and mariners.  I see why Tuli - the wader - the first feet - might symbolise land creation and land finding.

So today, I will celebrate Tuli as my guide.  Here I am in Substack land.  Here I am and Tuli is my guide.  I am getting my feet wet.  I am not yet sure.  And I am not yet on shore.  But I welcome you.

Tūlou, Tūlou, Tūlou,

Beg my pardon for breaking the silence.  Beg my pardon for speaking into the space.  Beg my pardon times three for drawing your attention to me.

I come in humility.

I come to relate.

I come to be of service.

I come to be myself, with the tuli bird at my side, as my guide.  We come to this place of in-between – between you are I (dear reader).  Between substance and ether… Here I am typing on solid, to transfer into air… and reach the body and water of you.  It is all-the-elements and it is an alchemy of sorts.

We will (maybe) ask a bird or creature to guide us in every delivery, to be a messenger. I don’t know. But I do hope you will come on this journey - for flight - but also to rest and nest.

Mauri ora – may the essence of you feel alive.