Light and Inner Peace on Aotea/Great Barrier Island

“When I landed on Aotea/Great Barrier Island, an off-the-grid, mostly solar-powered island in the Hauraki Gulf, off the coast of New Zealand’s North Island, it was a proper coup de foudre,” Canadian author London-based Jini Reddy writes for the Toronto Star. “The locals’ kindly welcome nearly had me in tears, and the island itself seemed like paradise to a sun-starved soul who’d travelled all the way from the UK.”

“On my first day, I spotted a pod of orca whales in Puriri Bay, close to the lodge where I was staying.

“One day I walked to the Kaitoke Hot Springs along a track that skirted a wetland accompanied by a chirpy fantail. Local Māori call the springs Wai Te Puia, or waters of healing. With the light streaming through the trees, the warmth of the water and the sense of peace, I felt my fatigue melt away,” Reddy writes.

“When I left Aotearoa, I felt exhilarated, my own beliefs in a sentient Earth affirmed by those I’d met. I was now crystal clear in the knowledge that honouring these ancient ways of seeing and perceiving are a way of deepening our connection to life – all life – and no one was going to tell me otherwise.”

Original article by Jini Reddy, Toronto Star, May 8, 2021.