Ko Au te Atua

Every Wednesday, something in me settles.

I walk into my Te Reo class, and the noise of the week softens.
My shoulders drop.
My mind clears.
I come home to myself, not in theory, but in real time.

There’s a presence I feel in that space that’s hard to explain.
It’s not just that I’m learning the language of my ancestors.
It’s that I feel part of something.
Part of a shared rhythm.
Part of a whakapapa I was never disconnected from, just distant.

There’s a safety in that room that’s hard to find in other places.
Not because I’m unsafe in my life.
But because here, I don’t have to filter.
I don’t have to explain my humour.
I don’t have to dull down the parts of me that feel too Māori, too hori, too much.

I can just be.

I sit beside people who carry similar stories, some who’ve always been close to the reo, and others, like me, who’ve had to return to it.
And still, we all sit shoulder to shoulder.
There’s no hierarchy here.
Just a shared love for something bigger than any one of us.

Some days I wish I were further ahead, that I’d retained more, practiced more, spoken more boldly.
But I’m not here to rush this.
This is a relationship.
And like all sacred relationships, it requires time, grace, and presence.

A couple of weeks ago, my kāiako said something that landed deep in my bones:
Ko au te atua.
I am the atua.

And in that moment, I remembered.
I remembered what I already know from my work, from my own wairua, that we are not broken.
That there is a spiritual intelligence moving through us, in us, as us.

But to hear it through a te ao Māori lens...
It felt like the missing piece sliding into place.

I don’t have to become anything.
I already carry it.
The strength.
The softness.
The duality.
The memory.
The fire.
The flow.

Ko au te atua.

This reo journey is not just about language.
It’s about reconnection.
It’s about repair.
It’s about remembering that I am not too late, not behind, not less than.

I’m here.
I’m learning.
And I’m exactly where I need to be.