A couple of years ago a colleague and I were presenting some partnership work at an overseas conference.  We were keen to include the value of building effective relationships, an easy thing to talk about, but in much of life the reality of messages getting confused in the ‘scrambulator’ is common. For me I so appreciate partnerships where there is ongoing commitment to understanding all perspectives … I asked Simon about a song / waiata that could carry these concepts for us. He shared this with ‘Dreamtree’ ,  and began exploring the sounds and words that portrayed this…  on this track you’ll here the first words in Maori, Ina mahi, tahi tatou Rongoa, woven with English, and North American Indian drums (Rob) and organic seed shakers (Erin),  acoustic guitar  and e-bow (Tamati) and electric guitar with delay (Simon),  recorded by Ian, accompanied by pie (Cheryl).

The result is Rongoa, as  in the notion of  caring, bringing health …  it happens together, in partnership…water flowing down … refreshing the soul…

I’ll never forget the moment standing in the Congress Centre far away in the North seas of the earth and hearing the sounds born in the south seas of Aoteoroa.

(Cheryl 10/25/2010)