"Did you see any Ancients?"

We all looked around at each other in silence a littled stunned at hearing such a provocative question and not really sure what he was asking. " Either you do or you don't have the ability to see them. " he continued on.
After spending the afternoon hiking to a remote less travelled part of the forest on Mt. Taranki we were sitting in the little tea room/cafe near the visitors center eating a nice lunch and drinking coffee waiting for Jim and Lyllie to return from the forest . The older gentleman who asked the question continued on telling us a little bit of his experience with the spiritual aspects and the history of the mountain. His family had been connected with Mt. Taranki for over 150 years. He talked about seeing the Ancients faces in the mist above Dawson Falls, of having to step aside as an ancient war party passed by in the forest, and of feeling pushed aside by the "angry energy" around the the north side of the mountain.
The stormy rain and wind accompanied us as we left wondering what to think of what he said. We had already been introduced to the idea that we were interfacing with the ancestors of the Maori people as we made our way around the Taranki region. It was interesting to hear another perspective on these ideas.
Later I thought of the early Sci-Fi writer H.P. Lovecrafts short horror stories which were concerned with a mythology he had made up where present day people somehow wind up encountering an unspeakable race of Ancients that came to Earth millions of years ago through a fictional sort of witchcraft and that our encounter sort of strangly felt like the begining of one of Lovecrafts stories. .........




Later as the sun was going down I hurried out to the beach to try out the Night Kite again. I had fixed the LED string and built the sound player into a payload to suspend off the tow line. The wind was a little gusty so I was little apprehensive about flying it. Diana and Janine came out to watch but were soon helping out. The wind was coming from inland and the beach area was protected by trees so it was a bit tricky trying to launch it. I had it up and was about to attach the sound player and suddenly the usually taut line went limp. I looked up and ...oh oh .. the kite was drifting out toward the water and slowly descending. The tow line had detached itself. We watched as it came to rest on the rocks out near the water line, the bright blue LEDS twinkling away marking it resting position. I headed out to retrieve it only to find that I had to traverse a sort of field of round stones and shallow water to get it...in the dark. I managed to retrieve it with out getting a booter and when I got back to the beach I was amazed at my Blundstone boots ability to not soak through even though I had stepped in the water quite a bit.

We carried on with flying, but the wind was really up and down and the kite never really stabilized enough to attach the sound payload so I left it on the beach and the Huia song cried out into the night air along with the sound of the surf pounding the beach as I tried to keep the kite flying.



With the residency winding down and the sympsosium starting today I find my thoughts about what I have been doing drifting about leaving me a little unclear of what I actually achieved with the kite project. With my thoughts of dealing with issues back home, travel arrangements, the symposium and documentation starting to become a priority I find myself feeling like I am not done here. There's too much left to consider. I 'll have to come back.