​

The Fires of Remembrance

 

If we lose our story, we lose our dream.

If we lose our dream, the spirit dies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For several years, Hamish Miller (UK dowser and social activist) and Barry Brailsford (New Zealander, historian and archaeologist) worked together on the earth energies of the southern hemisphere - and on the importance of the spirit of place there.  The purpose of Barry’s talk in Marazion, overlooking St Michael’s Mount in West Cornwall, was both to honour Hamish and his work - and also to continue to disseminate the essence of their joint work in New Zealand. 

 

Although Barry was awarded an MBE for his work on Maori culture, it is his insight into the world of their predecessors, the Waitaha, which is of real significance to the modern dowser.  These pre-Polynesian inhabitants of NZ appeared to have reached a point in their development that western philosophers and visionaries can barely glimpse on the virtual horizon.  Yet it is the exactly the direction in which dowsing is leading us.  Judging from their oral tradition, the Waitaha raised awareness and used intuition in a way that is hard for us today even to conceptualise.  No wonder Hamish was so captivated by Barry’s research - and why he was so enchanted by their dream.

 

Barry’s groundbreaking work is hard to capture credibly in a few sound-bites, but in a nutshell, the stories of the Waitaha tell of a nation who lived in Aotearoa (New Zealand to us) for over 2,000 years.  They developed a society based on peace, awareness and mutual cooperation - in which the intuition we are seeking to cultivate through dowsing would have been an everyday faculty.

 

However, around 1200AD, climatic change wrought havoc across the globe.  From 1400AD onwards, waves of hungry and desperate Polynesians started to arrive on the shores of Aotearoa.  At first there was some assimilation, but as the numbers increased and their demands escalated, eventually conflict ensued.  The unarmed and deeply pacifist Waitaha chose to die in huge numbers, rather than resist by force.  No Waitaha grave or burial cave has turned up any sign of Waitaha weaponry, as they appear to have evolved beyond the need to compete for resources.  By the time the first Europeans made it to NZ, the inhabitants were fiercely warlike - and the Waitaha were no more than a memory.  

 

When Barry first started to research the subject, so little was known of the Waitaha that he had just two pages of notes, drawn from all sources, to describe a whole civilisation.  Indeed, many of his colleagues even believed the Waitaha to be just a legend.  Yet, despite the carnage, the ghost of their nation lived on through the descendants of some of the women assimilated into the invaders’ family groups.  Their wisdom and history was passed down through the generations orally, until Barry was introduced to it by the remaining elders in the 1990’s.  Astonishingly, about 3,000 songs and chants remain - many of which are extremely explicit and detailed, and some take up to 2 days to recite.  Barry won the trust of the elders - in part, by being in the right place at the right time to be the predicted recipient of their knowledge.  

 

The rest of the story unfolds in Barry’s books, and in his joint work with Hamish.

 

For the dowser, the Waitaha are an almost-tangible memory of intuition in action.  They appear to have been a people who worked, planted and explored using the influence of the moon.  For a period either side of the full moon they were outgoing, active and vibrant, but for a period either side of the new moon, they reflected and recuperated.  A time of energy, followed by a time of recovery.  So much of our stress-laden modern world is a result of us fighting against the flow - and then beating ourselves up when things go wrong.  The Waitaha seemed to grasp and internalise the concept of balance - of cosmic harmony.

 

Long before science, the Waitaha understood that they were children of the stars - that they came from the very essence of the universe and had developed over aeons of time.  They respected their ancestors, on whose shoulders they stood metaphorically and, millennia before Darwin, they realised that they were the sum of all that had gone before them.  For them, stone was their first ancestor.

 

They noticed their children exhibited traits and tendencies that displayed their inner selves from a very young age.  The stone people, who loved to work with rock and crystal; the green-fingered tree people, who brought life from the earth; the water people who fished and sailed; the children who wandered out of the village at the full moon, who would become the next explorers; those who drew close to the hearth, who would nurture and heal; the fire people with a burning desire to create; the lion and the wolf people with their affinity for the feline and the canine; the bird people, the dolphin people . . .  Instead of forcing their offspring into a hard-moulded future, they worked with these traits to bring out the best in their children - for the good of the community at large.

 

The deepest message of the Waitaha for us today is the urgent need for the awakening of awareness - and awareness is at the very heart of dowsing.  The Waitaha were deeply aware of their place in time and space; of their part in history and of their role as custodians of the land.  That awareness led them to have the courage to walk their truth.  To suffer the disaster of the complete annihilation of their culture was less important than holding on to that truth.

 

Barry is a quietly-spoken and very sincere man, who has been passed a baton by the remaining elders of the descendants of the Waitaha, to convey this wisdom to a wider world at a time of great need.  His basic message is one of great hope - we are living through a time of great opportunity.  As more people wake up to the realisation that humanity has taken a wrong turning, the distant echoes of the Waitaha are resonating more strongly through the ether.  The rhythm of their drums is beating more audibly.

 

Transcending the world of matter and the world of energy is the world of consciousness, the world of spirit.  In many ways, there has never been a more benign time to live on this planet - and we have a unique opportunity to live our own story and to bring our shared dreams into reality. 

​

                                                                            Nigel Twinn    May 2011