A Timeless Essay
My deepest dive into nature happened unexpectedly.
I had taken myself on a solo retreat to Ōpito Bay with no people, no devices, no books, no writing materials, nothing. And then as an added dimension: no clock.
That I didn’t expect. No clock would prove to make the experience profound.
It was a time when I had no measure of time at all, other than the turn of the tide, the rising of the moon and the setting of the sun.
I yearn to be more connected with nature. I have long dreamed of what it would be like to be closely attuned to changes in nature, the weather, the way plants grow, the cycles of seasons, planets, tides. Tuned into the rhythms. And yet modern life and my busy mind has made this feel impossible.
I play flutes, including Māori flutes—taonga puoro. I have a pūtōrino flute, beautifully carved into the shape of Hine Raukatauri, the Goddess of Music. The story goes that the shape is that of the case moth, sometimes known as the whare atua, home of the spirit. It is the favoured food of the kōkako. The kōkako gets its beautiful song as an embodiment of Hine Raukatauri from the whare atua.
I went to meet the carver and told him how I had played taonga puoro with kōkako in the Hunua forest. It had been like a jazz jam session. We would play, and then the kōkako would sing back. They were clearly the masters, with notes soaring into the sky and through the ngahere. By comparison the sounds and notes from our taonga puoro were that of beginners.
The carver looked at me and said: That is wonderful. But what would be truly amazing would be to hear the sound of the case moth.
That has sat me with the past fifteen or so years. What would it be like to be in such a space of silence and connection that you could hear the tiny sounds of insects, or even the sound of a seed cracking as it grows beneath the soil?
And so I found myself at Ōpito and, like the name implies, on a journey of deeper connection to sources of nourishment, sustenance, to Te Taiao—a link, a thread, a chord, a pito.
At first it seemed pretty simple, cooking food, chilling out on the beanbag chair watching the ocean, dozing, and waking, drinking in the vista across the bay, watching the gulls chase silvery schools of ika back and forth, closely followed by optimistic figures in runabouts.
At dusk, there was more land bird traffic closer to me. Tūī, waxeyes, pīwakawaka and others, swooping in and out of the trees getting a last feed before dark.There were two worlds of busy birds in the sky, above the water and above the land. Without distraction, my observations of the natural surroundings were becoming more acute, just as I dreamed of, closer to nature.
On my second day I ran out of things to do. Well, ran out of patience at doing nothing really. So I planned a walk up the beach, to the prominent headland that gives Ōpito its name too, the far away edge. I had been up on that headland before with a friend, a special place where you feel like you are in the sky, in a fusion of land, sea and sky.
I wandered down to the beach, but it was high tide. There was no room to walk on the sand to the headland. So I sat in the boughs of a Pōhutukawa, waiting for the tide to turn, waiting. No measure of time from a watch or a tide timetable, just observing and waiting.
A little time passed. I was observing a kōhatu in the water, waiting for the water to recede and watching its level against the side of the rock. I closed my eyes for a little while, expecting when I opened them that the tide would be lower. It hadn’t shifted. I got more and more frustrated, annoyed, how come the tide and nature was not fitting in with what I wanted? I felt really impatient and actually upset. What was I going to do? I had my plan, I was sick of waiting. My idyll about being at one with nature was wrecked. She wasn’t fitting into my plan, she wouldn’t budge.
I closed my eyes again, let myself settle, and let go. I tuned into the rhythmic sound of the waves, lapping. And eventually the tide started to go out.
It seems a simple thing, but it was a huge learning. I saw how much I try to control time, and control it in ways that are simply not possible. How on earth could I ever influence a tide? And actually how arrogant, to think nature should or could bend to my whims?
My mind went back to another time when I had been left alone in nature without technology. When I was twenty, I did the Outward Bound course. Part of the course was called ‘Solo’, where you were taken by boat to a small bay in the Marlborough Sounds and left on your own for 3 days. You had no watch, no phone (although then it was pre-cellphone days), a small amount of food, a tarpaulin to make a shelter, and a notebook and pen.
The first day I thought I had everything sorted out. This was not going to be difficult. I portioned out my food, made my shelter. I could see the wake of the passing inter-islander ferry passing through the Sounds, and figured I had just seen a sailing pass that was around 6 pm. So I ate a little food and went to bed. I woke up several hours later, and it was still broad daylight. I had actually seen the wake from the 2 pm sailing. I freaked out. What was I going to do? I had all this time, and I had eaten all my food for the day. I was hugely uncomfortable, and I near panicked at the thought of having to keep going.
I wonder how many of us spend several days without access to anything that tells us what time of day or night it is?
At Ōpito, once the tide receded, I took my walk up to the headland. The moon came up across the ocean, glimmering like a golden pathway to something infinite. My wait, although painful, had been worth it.
I slept well that night. The next day I packed up and headed home. On the BlackJack Road the road had slipped away after Cyclone Gabrielle. There were temporary traffic lights. They were red. They stayed that way for ages. But I was happy. I felt so nourished and nurtured by my far out time out, that sitting in the sun at the red light was no problem. I could have stayed there all afternoon. As I reflected there on the BlackJack Road, I felt immense peace. That time, by whatever measure, had shifted something in me. That impatient wait for the turning tide had illuminatedmy demanding and destructive relationship to time. I had made it a battle.
It was one of the most refreshing weekends I can remember, and it was so simple to achieve. No clock was the making of it.
My time in time out. Time In. Time Out. Time in, time out. Immeasurable.
If I take my time, one day, I might hear the song of the case moth.
