The Power of Words

 I was outside the library last week waiting for it to open and I had time to stop and actually notice the sculpture that I have walked past  hundreds of times and never really stopped to appreciate. This time I walked around it several times and admired the sculpture itself of a man and a woman and a child all holding hands. Around the plinth at the bottom were several poems that had been etched into copper and each of them was quite beautiful in their own way.

The poems were mostly written in response to the earthquakes that devastated our city and the surrounding districts 10 years ago. They all got me thinking but there was one that stood out for me from all of the others. I could not say why. Now a week later knowing what we know, with my husband's cancer having come back, those words mean a whole lot more.

As the mother I will need to surround myself with the power of greenstone/pounamu which is a highly revered in New Zealand. As the poem says I will need it  for "courage and light" when the dark days are upon me. Pounamu is one of the taonga (treasures) of the Maori people of New Zealand and I want to be able to draw a positive energy from this. To me this beautiful stone holds stored energy of millions of years of change in the earth beneath us and I am going to take that energy to give me the strength to fight the battle ahead. I have several pieces at home - my most favourite was a gift and it looks like a small mountain which is symbolic to me of the mountain we have to try to surmount. I plan to take pleasure in that piece of greenstone and remember the words of this poem each time I hold it.