Tohunga
Home » Magazine » Good, issue 6 » TohungaHirini Reedy,
Maori Mr Miyagi.
With a distinguished career in the military and an honours degree in civil engineering under his belt, Hirini Reedy seems an unlikely spiritual guru.
He’s been described as a Maori mystic, a shaman, a metaphysical life coach—but Hirini prefers to think of himself as a catalyst. “I’m a bit of a boot in the bum. I help people move into what they want to achieve.”
Hirini’s maverick approach to self-help is rooted in Maori culture and language, and combines studies of neuro-linguistic programming and hypnotherapy with his military background. The result is what he’s dubbed Aio Koa, an “inner martial art” that helps people find their calling and ‘recycle’ negative experiences into opportunities for growth and change.
A modern sage, Hirini uses Skype and email to work with clients in the US and Europe. Sometimes clients make more than just a spiritual journey to New Zealand. “They come all this way just to find themselves,” laughs Hirini.
In 2006 Hirini answered his own call of the wild, spending a year living in the bush, in caves and on beaches. It hardly sounds like something a successful entrepreneur would do, but to Hirini, a person’s success in life is intrinsically connected to their relationship with nature.
Despite his nomadic existence, he would still put on a suit and head into town on business, tucking a reminder of where he was living—a fern frond, a flower—into his lapel. It’s about bringing nature’s voice into the boardroom, he says; more koru to the Koru Club.
“When we are born into this blessed country of ours, we have a responsibility to the land, and the sky, and the air. We’ve taken those things for granted.” There’s a certain irony, he says, in that some of New Zealand’s newest immigrants—those who feel drawn to these islands, and have uprooted their lives to move here—may be the most likely to look after our country.
“Who is going to look after the mountains, the waters? Who’s going to look after the birds, our native species? It may not be the people who have lived here 1,000 years. It may be ones who’ve come here and have a sense of reverence.”
Hirini believes it’s the blend of cultures in New Zealand that is our greatest gift. “When you marry the best of people together with their history, you marry all our essential best qualities.”
We’re a peace-building nation, and Hirini has seen our strengths played out by the New Zealand Army’s peacekeeping work in places like East Timor and Afghanistan. Here the softer, intuitive Maori style complements strong Pakeha processes and structure. “The two go together like yin and yang, left and right. We’re creating a unique Kiwi style. Why can’t we extrapolate that into the rest of New Zealand?”
Despite his army background, Hirini’s attitude to the military has undergone a paradigm shift. “What’s the point of winning wars if we’re living on a dying planet? We need to become part of an army of change that’s going to protect our resources for our children’s children.
“We’ve got a duty. You’ve got to look at yourself in the mirror, think of your ancestors looking back at you, and you’ve got to put your hand over your heart and say ‘Yeah, I remembered you, I thought of you’.”
Get a FREE copy of Hirini’s e-book, 7 Secrets of Maori Wisdom
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