It all began the day when Alix was caring for the bees.
Several months had passed since she returned to her ancestral home on the island of Mua Tuhinga some distance from the coast of New Zealand. There, among her relatives, she found the peace that eluded her in the face-paced life of the modernized world. Underneath the palm trees and in earshot of the crashing foam on the shore, life slowed down, and even Alix’s heart beat took on the same pace as the lackadaisical clouds when they crawled across the sky.
This was not to say that her days passed in lethargy. Removed as she was from the hustle of past city life, life on the island began at sunrise and ended at sunset. Alix found herself at every job at least once, whether spearing fish out in the shallows of the island, or foraging vegetables and fruits in the groves beyond the village. There were times, especially after she first arrived, that she would wander off on the narrow paths that cut into the vegetation and invited her deeper into the island’s wilderness. Mua Tuhinga was not a large landmass by any sense of the imagination, but it was large enough for Alix to become completely lost.
As the sun blazed in the sky and made the green of the island brighten and glow, she would hike under the great palms and into hidden groves where pools of rippling water bubbled up from underground caverns, no doubt leading out to the sea. It was near one of these groves that Alix first met the shaman.
She had been sitting near the shore of one of these springs, listening to the soft flow of the spring’s water and the gentle caress of the sea’s foam on the shore when a splash of water woke her from her empty daydreams. Alix sat up to find a woman emerging from out of the pool, clothed in little more than sea plants. She shook off her long black hair and smiled at Alix’s face, frozen in gaping surprise.
“What troubles you, girl? Am I not decent?” Said the woman as she walked onto the shore of the spring and stood with her hands on her hips in humorous defiance. “I am Pania. You are…unfamiliar to me.”
The woman spoke in the Maori tongue, or in te reo, as Alix learned in the weeks living on Mua Tuhinga. She knew only a smattering of the language, but floundered through as Pania spoke.
“I am Alix, my family is from the island, but I just arrived.”
“Ah, yes!” Pania said with an outburst of discovery and a grin. “I have seen you on the boats and in the groves, pulling more than your weight. I am impressed. Though I had hoped you would do so when you returned to me.”
“To you? I’m not sure I understand.” And since she could only make out so many words that Pania said, Alix was unsure she understood the shaman’s meaning at all.
“Follow me then and I will give you a glimpse of what you could understand.”
The shaman walked from the spring, water still dripping off the leaves that clung to her body, and crossed between the tree line onto the open shore. Alix followed close behind, dusting sand off of her leggings and shirt as a warm breeze blew through their hair, black strands from both their heads blowing wildly in the wind. She covered her eyes from the sun as Pania extended her arm outwards and pointed towards the horizon.
“There, just beyond the horizon is my home, Mua Atua.”
“I’ve not heard of it,” said Alix, “I thought there was just open ocean.”
“Mua Atua is not on any map, girl, and one of those loud engines that troll the waters can find it either. But the wooden oars that once brought people to its shores have all since vanished.” Pania turned back and smiled, “But I think when you are ready, you will find your way to my island and we will speak more then.”
“Well now, I definitely don’t understand you. You’re from an island the doesn’t exist?”
“You’ll see, girl, you’ll see when you are ready to see. Keep working. Keep exploring. Make the island your own.” Said Pania as she left Alix’s side and journeyed down to the foam. Then with a laugh, she dove into the crashing waves and began swimming out toward the horizon.
“Wait!” Alix called out, as she watched the shaman’s arms cut the surface of the sea. “Where are you going? There’s nothing out there!”
But Pania was already too far out to reply. Alix could hear a laugh on the waves they crashed against her knees and finally she turned back around and went toward the village.
She shared her space with her relatives in a house that had been built and added on by countless members of her family going back decades and it was such a pleasure waking up to the smell of frying fish and vegetables smoking on spits above smoldering fires.