Marmalade and Miso Making A batch of marmalade is an hour of shared chopping, stirring and interesting talk when three of us gather for the task in the Earthsong Common House kitchen. Learning to make miso with Yuki is even more exciting as we try to toss lumps of the mix from hand to hand […]
a city of contradictions…
September 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment
beauty … The kowhai around Ranui are in full flower now, and visited daily by dozens of tui which hurtle with aerobatic skill through branches, and chortle and warble their spring invitations. Piwakawaka – including a rare pale cream one (leucistic is the technical description) discovered by Earthsong resident Melody – flutter around the trees in […]
an election..
September 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Some days we find it hard to know whether news headlines signal the coming election or a rugby tournament . Our political environment has become, this year, more and more like a series of aggressive rugby games. Several largely male teams charge and tackle. There are a lot of missed kicks, a few tries, endless […]
Women’s Suffrage Day: VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
September 19, 2014 by 1 Comment
Today, September 19, is Women’s Suffrage Day. Women have had the vote for 120 years in New Zealand, and yet this is the picture of all the political leaders on offer in this election. OR IS IT? Metiria Turei, co-leader of the Greens, and Number 1 on their party list, and Laila Harre, leader of the Internet […]
Left…Right
September 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment
I wonder how different our elections – and our governments – might be if we abandoned the metaphors Left and Right. In English, as in French and Latin, right is seen as good (right, droit, dexter), left as somehow inferior (left, gauche, sinister) Why should these labels, left and right, be used in politics in Aotearoa in the […]
Earthsong: from WOW! to HOW?
August 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Robin Alison, the founder of Earthsong and project manager during its building and development, is offering to run workshops for others interested in co-housing and/or sustainable development. Robin is a lovely woman, a great presenter, and has a wealth of knowledge and experience- she is a leader in New Zealand in the field of co-housing and sustainable […]
Artist in Residence
August 19, 2014 by 2 Comments
We are delighted to be hosting at Earthsong our friend and artist, Nic Moon, from Nelson. She is creating an amazing indoor Earth Forest on the walls of the new Ranui Library currently under construction. Each day we marvel at the different phases of the project, starting from the gathering and mixing of local clays to […]
Atiu Island
August 19, 2014 by 1 Comment
We’ve been lucky to spend a week of our winter on Atiu, which is a small island three-quarters of an hour’s flight north-east from Rarotonga in the southern Cook Island group. It’s a volcanic island 11 million years old, with a central plateau slowly rising from the sea, a raised fossil coral border (makatea), and a […]
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