Our Language of Blood

Erin Matariki

Wāhine

Womxnkind

Wā of time and space

Hine the feminine

Wāhine

We are the beginning and the end

Portals between realms

We birth life into being (mai te pō ki te ao marama)

We take life returning to Papatūānuku (ko te matemateāone)

Blood tides on the moon

Our sacred awa atua connecting Earth to humxn

Flowing from the womb

We release the trauma of our kuia

Wāhine. Creatress. Nurturer. Strategist.

It is time to ReMember who we are.

Lis O’Kelly, 2020

Erin Matariki Carr is born of Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Awa descent, and lives on her homelands in Tāneatua, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Erin is a lawyer and community worker, contributing to constitutional transformation in Aotearoa to support the tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty) of Māori people. Erin is currently the co-manager for the New Zealand Alternative (an independent not for profit think tank focused on New Zealand’s place in the world) and the co-lead of RIVER (an international collective focused on revitalising Indigenous values for Earth’s regeneration.