Matariki: Horizons, Invitations, and Wayfinding | Paul Fromont
BY PAUL FROMONT, MATARIKI 2025
Me mātau ki te whetū, I mua it te kōkiri of te haere
Before you set forth on a journey, be sure you know the stars.The human heart is searching for something larger, something greater than its own pettiness.[1]
Beginnings often frighten us because they seem like lonely voyages into the unknown... A beginning is ultimately an invitation to open toward the gifts and growth that are stored up for us. To refuse to begin can be an act of great self-neglect... Our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning.[2]
I think often of my friend and fellow wayfinder Mike Riddell.[3] I especially think of him during Matariki each year.
Mike would often say to me, paraphrasing New Zealand poet James K. Baxter, that ‘we Pākehā have to bow the head and learn from our elder brother[4] – Māori – for then the water may begin to flow in our dry watercourses.’[5]
Each time Mike said it I was aware of an often-felt dryness in my own life, of just how little my life intersected with te ao Māori, te Tiriti o Waitangi[6], and marae. I nourish the desire[7] that this will change and I long to discover how to walk upright[8] within a Māori world, to become a better Pākehā, a better human being.
Moana Jackson has written that ‘... the Māori intellectual tradition is a navigational one’, a tradition that is ‘forged in journey’s across the Pacific, [journey’s] that looked back to Rangiātea, while longing to know what lay beyond that distant point where the earth met the sky.’[9]
As an intellectual tradition, Jackson tells us, it has always been one that is daring and imaginative, one propelled by both the longing to explore, and a confidence that has come from stories told in this land.
And so, in 2024, I decided to approach the Matariki Advisory Committee’s principles[10] from the perspective of navigation.[11] I read Jeff Evan’s book Polynesian Navigation and the Discovery of New Zealand, and watched the 2022 documentary film Whetū Mārama: Bright Star, which tells the story of Sir Hekenukumai Ngaiwi Puhipi and his significance for Māori in their recovery of the traditional arts of Polynesian navigation.
More commonly known as Sir Hector Busby or Hec Busby (Te Rarawa and Ngāti Kahu), he built 26 traditional waka and the double-hulled Te Aurere, which has sailed over 30,000 nautical miles in the Pacific, all the while using traditional navigational practices and seafaring knowledge.
I am inspired by the way these wayfinders gave themselves over to ‘the lonely vagaries of wind and weather’[12], by their courage, and their willingness to extend themselves into the unknown, out beyond their comfort zones and their fears.
Also, much on my mind during Matariki is always Louis Teumere Atger[13]. In his own way he was a wayfinder too, my Tahitian-born grandfather who at the age of sixteen, left his parents and all but one sibling, as he bravely followed that sibling out beyond the horizon to Aotearoa-New Zealand, his future unseen and uncharted.
Horizons
The greatest challenge is to begin; there is something deep in us, that conspires with what wants to remain within safe boundaries and stay the same.[14]
There is always something beyond the horizon.[15]
God is the far horizon of your yearning.[16]
Shit happens. And in the midst of the shit, God.[17]
As I read and imaginatively reflected, I began to feel something of how those early Polynesian wayfinders saw horizons as a line between life and death, the fine line separating the living from the dead, the past from the present, and the known from the unknown; something I also see in some of Colin McCahon’s paintings. To embark on a journey across the vast Pacific Ocean, was to have no certainty of ever returning to the place one left from.
John O’Donohue calls horizons: ‘the shorelines of new worlds.’ Similarly, ‘Te Ruki Kawiti, whose signature sits atop te Tiriti o Waitangi[18] exhorted his people to ‘look to the horizons of the sea,’[19] and hope for the transformation of the future.
Hope looks into the distance, it watches for the first sign of the shorelines of new worlds, of new invitations, and new possibilities. Hope invites mutual trust, it faces into fear, and it responds to invitations to work together for better futures for us all.
Fr. John Main OSB writes, that having been rooted and grounded in Christ, our lives and their horizons continue to expand as we learn to live into the infinity of God. ‘We find ourselves within His mystery and we lose ourselves within it.’[20]
I think of my life, and indeed, of all life, life lived between the already and the not yet. I think of my deepest desires, desires that Fr. John O’Connor encourages, are ‘planted in us by God to direct us to the purpose of our human existence.’[21]
In my life, I also consider my own interior horizons, the expectations I have of myself, my hopes for the future, my deepest desires, and the invitations to change and growth.
I also reflect on the place of fear in my life, fear that has all too often manifest itself in my life as a denial of the summons to live what Jungian psychoanalyst James Hollis[22] describes as the ‘largeness of our calling’, a calling lived, lived with integrity and courage amidst the uncertainties, vulnerabilities, troubling questions, fears, and conflicts of our lives.
From time-to-time I notice in myself that I’m both daunted and fearful in the face of the unknown, and as I look up from typing, and out the window, out beyond the Tutukākā Harbour, out toward the horizon, I feel the questions and contradictions of my own life. I reflect on what I’m grateful for, what I’m scared of, and I think about my growing edges. I listen. I feel for what seems most alive in me at this point in my life.
As you might be sensing, for me, there is both attraction and resistance when I look to the horizon. There is also a deep recognition that there will be ‘no growth if I do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different.[23] There will be no growth either, unless I learn to deeply trust God.[24]
For those first Pacifica wayfinders, their journeying was a practice of what the ancient desert monks called memento mori. Their mortality and finiteness was ever before them, but still they reached for the horizon.
Mortality too, my own mortality, is also on my mind as I contemplate journey and horizon, and as I reflect on the possible meanings and purposes of my own life. During Matariki, I feel ‘the fragility and the preciousness of existence’, together with the longing to better learn to live and grow ‘continuously against a horizon of ultimacy.’[25]
When you look to the horizon, I wonder what you see?
What do you experience?
What comes to mind?
What are you grateful for?
What fears arise? What hopes?
What experiences of God in your life do you feel able to confidently navigate from? Where is the aliveness in your life, the insistent invitation?
What might be stopping you from taking the first step?
In what direction might Jesus be walking, inviting you to trust, to follow him, to take that first step[26], out beyond the place you currently find yourself?[27]
The Journey (We Call Our Life)
Now we have our brief moment here,
We came yesterday, are here today, will be gone tomorrow.
Let that brief moment be spent in communion
with the whole of life
so that we will not have lived in vain.[28]
Matariki reminds me that through baptism I am inescapably in Christ[29] and Christ is in me[30]. This, more than anything else, is my standing place, it’s my tūrangawaewae. I have a Jesus-shaped identity and that’s important to me. I’m grateful.
In our contemporary times, where so many people and so much has proven untrustworthy, Jesus remains my trusted means of orientating and directing a journey that is uniquely my own, even as it is also a journey with, for, and alongside others.
In calling disciples, the invitation that Jesus envisages is plain and simple, it’s an invitation to be on a journey, learning across time how to live a more fully human life[31] against the horizon of Jesus’ example.[32]
It’s not an invitation to fill our lives with more and more so-called religious activities and behaviour; learning from Jesus, following Jesus, is both more challenging and more befitting those who are called to be his disciples.
That said, it’s sadly not uncommon for people to believe that being Christian represents a departure or an escape from the world, or that being a Christian is to be over and against the world and all who aren’t Christians, or Christians of my variety.
I understand that impulse. I’ve been there, but it’s no longer the posture that I choose to adopt. For me, Matariki serves as a reminder that the being in Christ is not to deny, oppose, or compete with the life of the world. It’s not to be over or against others. It’s to be for their thriving, and they for mine.
Matariki, for me, is about being willing to respond to God’s invitations, about our willingness to partner with what God is doing, to be a part of the transformation of all life[33], including God’s working of new life into own individual lives, as much for us, and for the others we share life with.
Wayfinding: Te wa, the journey of life.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.[34]
The one journey that ultimately matters is the journey into the place of stillness deep within oneself.[35]
I try to recall
the currents, compass
errors and storms that took me
off course, asking
whether, and for how long
one’s initial bearing lasts.[36]
The moment of change is the only poem.[37]
Australian theologian Heather Thomson writes that inner work accompanies the outer work of action.
While disciplined, self-reflective, transformative practices such as contemplation, meditation, spiritual direction, and retreats enable healing from past hurts, Thomson reminds us that these practices also enable us to let go, usually unconsciously, of our innate desire for power and control, driven, of course, by unhealed wounds, their orbiting fears, and habitual defensive and offensive reactions.[38]
The Jesus stories, theology, prayer, the arts, the company of others, the richness of good conversation, being in the world, but not defined by it,[39] the Holy Spirit, and contemplative spirituality[40] are how I find my way.
They’re the practices I use to navigate and discern by, the resources I take with me, out beyond the horizon.
They’re the ocean currents, the stars, the sun, the birds by which I find my way toward the fulfilment of God’s loving intentions for my life, while also supporting God’s working in the lives of those to whom I am connected.
These practices help me set my ‘sail’ to catch the wind of the Spirit. They help turn me toward the grace[41] of a Jesus-shaped journey of becoming freer, more deeply human, more alive, and all this as I age toward that ultimate horizon, death.
Cistercian monk Fr. Matthew Kelty, writes that “contact with elemental forces[42] has a way of reducing life to fundamental questions. The sea, the mountains, the desert, and the wilderness have all been, from ancient times, the testing place of the spirit.”[43]
During Matariki I consider the broad lessons of Polynesian wayfinders[44]. I reflect on the importance of living more fully into an expanding vision of what it means to be a relational human being. I also think of lessons gratefully learnt from wayfinders like my grandfather and my Iranian born wife. I appreciatively recall Fr. Neil Darragh[45], John Bluck[46], Glenn Colquhoun,[47] Dame Anne Salmond, and Annabel “Ani” Mikaere (Ngāti Raukawa, and Ngāti Porou) who encourages me, as a Pākehā, to take a “leap of faith.”[48]
Matariki, while multifaceted in meaning and significance, will always be for me an invitation to navigation and discernment, will be a reminder of God’s invitation to me to reflect on who I am, where I am, where I belong, and in which direction I’m being drawn and invited.
It will always remind me too, of the critical importance of my being an engaged, sincere, humble, and Jesus-shaped bi-cultural partner, one caught up in the rich and life-giving possibilities inherent in te Tiriti o Waitangi.
All photos by Paul Fromont
[1] Henri Nouwen, in Michael Ford, Wounded Prophet, p. 26.
[2] John O’Donohue.
[3] Mike, a wayfinder, died in March 2022. He has these words on his headstone: ‘There are rumours of God, and I mean to follow the trail.’ So do I!
[4] And sister.
[5] I’m thinking here of James K. Baxter’s poem ‘The Māori Jesus’, and his ‘Song to the Holy Spirit’.
[6] Here I was thinking of anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond’s article ‘Injustice is Like a Whale’ first published in Newsroom, 23rd of August 2022, and republished with permission in independent Catholic magazine Tui Motu InterIslands, Issue 275, October 2022, which is where I read it. In that article, she wrote, citing Pa Henare Tate, that ‘Te Tiriti was not implemented’. Encouragingly she reminded me that ‘the intent of the Te Tiriti’ is to ‘uphold the tapu and mana of all parties – the Rangatira, the hapū and tāngata māori with their tikanga, and the incoming settlers.’ She concludes, ‘Rather than seeing the Treaty as a “bridge” across a chasm of misunderstanding, in the spirit of “pernicious polarization”, perhaps Te Tiriti can be visualized as a meeting place where different groups of New Zealanders come together in a spirit of tika (justice), pono (truth), and aroha to share ideas, resolve injustices and seek peace with one another. Instead of working towards separation maybe we can try to “live together differently”, respecting the tapu and mana of others.’ As an aside, it was a real privilege to listen, for the first time in person, to Dame Anne when she was interviewed at the 2024 Auckland Writers Festival.
[7] Jim Manney, ‘when we find out what we really want, we find out what God wants too, because God has planted his desires in our hearts’.
[8] Thanks to New Zealand GP and poet Glenn Colquhoun.
[9] Moana Jackson, ‘The Art of Having Faith in Ourselves”, his foreword to Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art (2022), p. 1.
[10] Remembrance, celebrating the present, and looking to the future.
[11] Matariki, and more especially the star Puanga (Rigel), were associated with ocean-going navigation.
[12] Peter Bland, a line from his poem “Elegy”.
[13] Born 04/09/1906 at Pīra'e on the island of Tahiti. His father was Albert Eugène Louis Atger and his mother, Taharoa Tutea.
[14] John O’Donohue.
[15] Jose Andreas, Chefs Table television series.
[16] David Whyte on The One You Feed podcast, episode 810. 07.05.2025.
[17] Mike Riddell, Sacred Journey (Oxford: SPCK, 2010), p. 30 (or p.22 in the Bucket Press edition). See also his chapters titled “Beyond the Horizon” and “Facing the Unknown”.
[18] Alistair Reese convincingly argues that Te Tiriti’ should be understood through the theological lense of covenant. See his excellent little book He Tatau Pounamu: The Treaty of Waitangi: A Covenant of Reconciliation (Auckland: Karuwhā Trust and Venn Foundation, 2024).
[19] Ibid., p. 79.
[20] John Main, Word Made Flesh.
[21] See his book Food for Faith (2023, CopyPress: Nelson), pp. 100-103.
[22] See his book, A Life of Meaning (2023). Hollis provides rich and wise insights into the human condition and the deep needs of the soul. Since I first encountered him in 1998 he has provided the impulse for me to live a more self-reflective, examined, and thoughtful life.
[23] John O’Donohue.
[24] All too often I catch myself verbalizing a trust in God, but in the realities and challenges of my everyday life I often recognise a disconnect between my words and the reality of my living. I’ve discovered myself to be profoundly self-reliant, effectively atheistic with respect to the practicalities of living, allowing no space for me to actually trust God.
[25] Douglas E. Christie, The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 76.
[26] Here I’m also thinking of the opening stanza of David Whyte’s poem “Start Close In”:
Start close in,
don't take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
Collected in River Flow: New & Selected Poems 1984-2007 (Langley, Washington: Many Rivers Press, 2007), pp. 362-63.
[27] Here I’m thinking of Matthew 14:22-32, the story of Jesus calling Peter to get out of the boat and walk across the sea to him. Also worth thinking about at this point is the practice of spiritual direction which can be very beneficial in helping discern the invitations of horizons, the content of your journey, and wayfinding more generally. Highly recommended is NZ Anglican Priest Sue Pickering’s book Spiritual Direction: An Introduction, while Spiritual Growth Ministries (SGM) offer great resources too, including help finding a spiritual director. David Whyte has a poem, “The TrueLove” that might provide you with a different standpoint and means of reflecting on this Jesus-story. The poem can be found online, and is collected in David Whyte, River Flow: New and Selected Poems 1984-2007 (Langley, Washington: Many Rivers Press, 2007), pp.198-200.
[28] Fr. Matthew Kelty, OCSO, An Elemental Life: Mystery and Mercy in the Work of Father Matthew Kelty by Louis A. Ruprecht (2018).
[29] Galatians 3:26-28.
[30] Colossians 1:27.
[31] All too often we live what might be called partial lives. We never fully wake up. We resist wholeness. We resist freedom. We resist the invitations to live fully human life, which is to say, a Jesus-shaped humanity; a Jesus-shaped aliveness.
[32] St. Irenaeus ‘the glory of God is a human being fully alive.’
[33] Sarah Bachelard.
[34] Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude.
[35] Gordon Cosby, in his foreword to Elizabeth O’Connor Search for Silence.
[36] From “Dead Reckoning”, a poem by NZ poet Michael Jackson, collected in his collection of poems titled Dead Reckoning (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2006), p. 50.
[37] Adrienne Rich, from her poem “Images For Godard”.
[38] Heather Thomson, No Sense of Entitlement (2023).
[39] John 17: 14-15 (MSG).
[40] Living spiritually is ‘living with Jesus at the center’ – Henri Nouwen.
[41] Adapted from John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us, p. 14.
[42] On the themes of the elemental and place, I highly recommend the writing of Belden C. Lane. Start with his The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality.
[43] Fr. Matthew Kelty, OCSO, “The Psalms as Prayer” from Sermons in a Monastery: Chapter Talks.
[44] During my most recent visit to Te Rerenga Wairua (Cape Reinga), in January 2024, I looked out to the horizon, struck again by the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, and the scale of their achievement.
[45] His essay, “A Pakeha Spirituality”.
[46] Long, White & Cloudy: In Search of a Kiwi Spirituality.
[47] His experiences at Te Tii, on the Purerua Peninsula, 15 minutes northeast of Kerikeri. See his collection of poems The Art of Walking Upright, and his essay ‘Jumping Ship’.
[48] ‘[T]here is nowhere else in the world that one can be Pākehā. [And] whether the term remains forever linked to the shameful role of the oppressor or whether it can become a positive source of identity and pride is up to Pākehā themselves.’ ‘All that is required of them’, Mikaere writes ‘is a leap of faith.’
Paul Fromont and his wife live in Te Tai Tokerau on the beautiful Tutukaka Coast, the realisation of a long-held desire to live more simply, more contemplatively, and much closer to nature, especially the Pacific Ocean.
