{"id":170,"date":"2010-06-20T21:57:06","date_gmt":"2010-06-20T09:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=170"},"modified":"2010-07-06T15:20:46","modified_gmt":"2010-07-06T03:20:46","slug":"winter-solstice-loulandia-matariki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/06\/20\/winter-solstice-loulandia-matariki\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Solstice, Loulandia, & Matariki"},"content":{"rendered":"

Traditionally, either June 20 or 21 is our shortest day, so without being precisely certain, I’m picking today as “the date”\u2014the unofficially official “winter solstice.” New Zealand is a fairly temperate country, so we don’t get a lot of snow outside of the mountains, and today wasn’t even that cold, although there was plenty of intermittent rain, and wind with a sharp bite. So although I had the opportunity to scale a near-vertical hillside on nearby Banks Peninsular, slogging my way through knee deep mud and the aforesaid wind and rain, by way of a winter solstice celebration, in the end I chickened out and chose the comforts of home instead. (Lack of boots and other appropriate winter walking gear, combined with the inclement conditions, was a major factor in this decision; the fact that I was probably a cat in a past life and mislike being wet, dirty and cold if I can possibly avoid it, may <\/em>also have played its part.)<\/p>\n

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Loulandia<\/p><\/div>\n

The near-vertical hillside in question belongs to my friend Lou, who has embarked on the strenuous and time-consuming project of revegetating it in native bush. (This should signal to those who know about reforestation projects, that Lou is a conservation superhero.)<\/p>\n

“Loulandia”, as we like to call it, is a popular picnic venue for Lou’s friends<\/p>\n

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Lou, Conservation Superhero<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2014despite a steepish climb to the “picnic tree.” This climb can usually be managed by 4-wheel drive, but not at present, given the steepness of the terrain and 3 weeks of rain after a prolonged dry spell. And the ascent to the summit, with fantastic views west to the mountains and east\u2014at the very top\u2014to the sea, is a grand fine weather expedition (for a gal like me anyway; 3 intrepid folk did make the ascent today although I gather it was tough going.)<\/p>\n

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"Amon Sul" (aka Weathertop)<\/p><\/div>\n

One of my favourite views is to a nearby rocky hillside which always makes me think of Amon Sul (Weathertop) in\u00a0 The Fellowship of the Ring<\/em>.\u00a0 The photo is a little out of focus but I hope you get the ‘gist.’<\/p>\n

As well as Winter Solstice in mid-June, 14 June (this year) also saw the official celebration of Matariki, the Maori New Year. (Maori are nga tangata whenua<\/em>\u2014translated, “the people of the land”\u2014or indigenous first people of Aotearoa-New Zealand.) Matariki is the Maori name for the Pleiades star cluster; the rising of these stars was important for traditional agriculture in terms of signalling when to plant certain crops, such as the staple kumara (sweet potato.)<\/p>\n

The first rising of Matariki\/the Pleiades occurs just prior to dawn in late May\/early June, although<\/p>\n

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Matariki<\/p><\/div>\n

traditionally the celebration could take place anywhere from immediately, to the rising of the next full moon, or at the next new moon after Matariki first rose.<\/p>\n

And just to end with one last image of Loulandia, as we dream of a return to the sunlit green of summer, here is a photo of regenerating poroporo:<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n

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Poroporo<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traditionally, either June 20 or 21 is our shortest day, so without being precisely certain, I’m picking today as “the date”\u2014the unofficially official “winter solstice.” New Zealand is a fairly temperate country, so we don’t get a lot of snow outside of the mountains, and today wasn’t even that cold, although there was plenty of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}