Lili, I knew, had special healing powers. She and her husband had also refused to move from the land. Instead they hid themselves high on the mountain where they made a little house and lived off forest foods. Lili had chants and prayers and potions to drive out illness and torment. She had advice to give. Her husband was a healer of a different kind; he was my tooth puller of many years before.

We arrived at Lili’s house with gifts and sat among the trees while she talked of many things, other things. After a time, without asking why we had come, she stood and put her hands on Ela’s temples, then on her back.

No one spoke. She beckoned Ela to follow her.

Lili took Ela along a forest track to a deep pool. Whispering her incantations, she immersed Ela several times, pressing her head under and stroking her hair down so that not one strand floated on the surface.

On a special fireplace to the side of the house, with utensils kept aside for the purpose, she made tea from laukahi flowers. ‘This will be your drink now,’ she said to Ela, and she told us how to collect the flowers and prepare the tea. She had advice to give about foods and their preparation; and finally she instructed Ela to take kalo, which she was to prepare herself, and present it to her ocean guardian.

‘She’s well now,’ she said as we left.

What I can say about those words of Lili’s, ‘she’s well now’, is that I found them to be true. To be well in spirit is the most important health. Ela was the song of that run-down house. She was its roof, its walls, its windows, its doors. She was its song.

To be well in spirit is the most important wellness. To be well in spirit lifts the physical and mental state to an extraordinary level. All are affected by it. Dark thoughts disappear.

I’m not sure of the reason for it, but during those days of caring for Ela, my thoughts would often return to the time of my childhood when I would hear the old people say that we earthlings are related to the stars. The stars are our flesh and blood. I came to understand that this must be true in the deepest sense. We come from the dust of stars.

Chapter 28

Oriwia

Oriwia made preparations to go to Hawai‘i the following New Zealand winter. Marianne would manage the shop and bakery while Dulcie helped out with the baking. Also, the shop was to close for two weeks while Taana made the alterations needed to change the premises to a tearoom.