Today is Matariki - Te Mātahi o te Tau, the Māori New Year - and this year’s theme is Matariki herenga waka - For Everyone.
The phrase is connected to the idea of a mooring place for many waka, many canoes, many people arriving from many directions. It is also tied to Tāmaki Makaurau, where this year’s national Matariki celebrations are being hosted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. But the deeper meaning is the part that has been sitting with me this morning: Matariki is a place of connection. A gathering point. A reminder that this celebration does not ask us all to have the same history, the same culture, or the same relationship to the stars - but it does invite us to look up together.
And honestly, looking up is something most of us could do with more of.
I mean that literally. When was the last time most of us properly looked at the sky? Not checked the weather app. Not glanced up in irritation because the rain had started again immediately after we hung washing out (which is, I'm pretty sure, a legally recognised winter hobby in New Zealand). I mean really looked. Stopped. Lifted our heads. Let our eyes adjust. Remembered that the world is much larger than the glowing rectangle in your hand currently trying to sell you something either literally or philosophically.
Get your glasses if you need to!
Matariki invites us to widen our perspective.
It arrives in winter, when life naturally becomes more inward. We shut the doors earlier. We stay closer to home. We retreat into heated rooms, family routines, screens, blankets, comfort food, doom-scrolling, and the small domestic dramas of whether the heater is winning or merely participating.
There is nothing wrong with wintering. We are creatures, after all. Slightly overdressed mammals with passwords and mortgage anxiety.
But Matariki gently interrupts that inward curl. It says: yes, go inward - reflect, remember, grieve, give thanks - but do not become so enclosed that you forget the actual world around you.
That feels especially important this year.
The official Matariki values remain beautifully simple and deeply human: remembrance, celebrating the present, and looking toward the future. Matariki.com describes this as honouring those we have lost since the last rising, gathering to give thanks for what we have, and looking forward to the promise of a new year.
That is not a small thing. It is magically huge in it's specific simplicity;
- remember who is missing,
- notice who and what is here,
- decide how to go on
It is relevant to everyone.
Matariki is specific. It comes from mātauranga Māori, from te ao Māori, from generations of observation, story, practice, ceremony, and relationship with the natural world. It should not be flattened into a generic “stars are pretty, aren’t they?” moment, because that would be both lazy and a bit spiritually beige.
But the invitation within Matariki is wide.
All of us have ancestors who looked up at the night sky.
Every single one of us comes from people who once watched stars, seasons, winds, tides, moon phases, bird movements, plant growth, weather signs, and the behaviour of the natural world... because their lives depended on it.
They used the sky to travel, to plant, to harvest, to gather food, to tell time, to tell stories, to understand where they were and where they were going.
Somewhere along the way, many of us *cough* 'Modern Western Society' *cough* became increasingly disconnected from that. We traded direct observation for convenience, which is not entirely terrible. I am am grateful for my electric appliances and GPS. I understand people not wanting to navigate home from the supermarket using only Venus and their inner resilience.
But something is lost when we stop putting effort into noticing.
Matariki reminds us that the sky is not just background scenery. It is not merely the upper wallpaper of existence. It is orientation. It is memory. It is aspiration. It is perspective.
This morning, watching the national dawn coverage, I was struck again by how Matariki gathers the past, present, and future into one moment. That is such a rare thing. Most holidays lean heavily in one direction. Some are about remembrance. Some are about celebration. Some are about fresh starts. Matariki holds all three without rushing any of them.
It makes room for grief first.
That still matters deeply to us. We still feel the loss of Perry. We still think of him often but especially with the Matariki cluster - held somewhere in that vastness, part of the shimmer of memory and love that does not simply disappear because a calendar year has turned over. Last year, the grief was newer and sharper. This year, it is different, but it is still there. Grief does that. It changes shape but it does not politely pack itself away just because we have things to do.
And Matariki does not ask us to pack it away.
Through Pōhutukawa, the star associated with those who have passed on, Matariki gives grief a place. It gives remembrance a place. It lets us say: we are still carrying you. We still speak your name. You are not absent from our gathering just because you are absent from the table.
That is a comfort.
But Matariki does not leave us only in sorrow. It also asks us to give thanks for what remains. For food. For shelter. For whānau. For friends. For the absurd little ordinary things that keep life stitched together. A warm drink. A shared meal. A garden that might or might not cooperate. A bird outside the window. The fact that we made it through another year, even if some parts were held together with caffeine, stubbornness, and one suspiciously frayed emotional bungee cord.
And then, when we have remembered and given thanks, Matariki asks us to look forward.
Not in a shiny, corporate goal-setting way. Not “new year, new me”. Matariki feels gentler and more grounded than that. It asks: what do we hope for? What do we need to tend? What do we want to grow? What kind of year are we trying to help into being?
This is where the “look up” part becomes metaphorical too.
Looking up is not just about stars. It is about aspiration. It is about lifting our gaze beyond the immediate mess in front of us - the inbox, the bills, the winter washing, the thousand tiny loud demands - and remembering that we are part of something larger.
King Charles’ Matariki message this year used the line: “When Matariki rises above the horizon, our aspirations rise to the year ahead.” I liked that because even he nailed it. The phrasing fits the season. The rising of Matariki becomes an invitation for our own hopes to rise too.
That is the part I want to carry with me this year.
Matariki herenga waka - For Everyone.
For those whose ancestors crossed oceans by stars.
For those whose ancestors read seasons from land, water, wind, and sky.
For those who feel deeply connected to Matariki already.
For those still learning.
For those grieving.
For those gathering.
For those quietly hoping the year ahead will be kinder.
For those who just need a reason to pause, breathe, and remember that the universe is not, in fact, contained inside their phone.
Matariki is not mine to define, but it is our opportunity.
It is a taonga grounded in mātauranga Māori, and it is also a public holiday that offers everyone with connections to Aotearoa a chance to participate with humility, gratitude, and care. Not by taking ownership of it. Not by turning it into a midwinter branding exercise.
But by responding to its invitation: remember, give thanks, gather, learn, look ahead.
Look up.
Notice the sky.
Remember the dead.
Celebrate the living.
Give thanks for the earth, the rain, the wind, the waters, the food, the people, the stories, the ancestors, the chance to begin again.
And somewhere in the darkness, among the stars, we think of Perry.
Still loved.
Still missed.
Still part of the light.
Mānawatia a Matariki.
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