A recent comment gave me pause to reflect: that Māori energy feels 'heavy' at the moment. I wonder if what is named as heaviness is, in fact, history speaking.

Māori energy isn’t heavy by nature — it’s burdened by centuries of harm still unhealed. It carries the long memory of colonisation, of a treaty honoured in law but rarely in spirit. It’s the collective weight of survival: the effort of continually asserting identity and sovereignty in a nation that still centres whiteness as the default.

When governments begin rolling back progress, when language and land rights are questioned, when policies lean nostalgic for “simpler times” — times when white men ruled without question — that weight deepens. The haka, that powerful embodiment of pride, becomes both celebration and protest. It speaks of resilience and resistance, of the pain of being unseen and the power of refusing to disappear.

From across the waters, I see a similar story playing out here in Australia. First Nations peoples also carry a heaviness, one that many non-Indigenous Australians are quick to misread. After the Voice referendum’s defeat, that heaviness grew thicker, not because hope had died, but because yet again the message was clear: You may live here, but your voice will not shape this nation’s future.

It’s easy to label that energy as heavy. Harder to ask why.

What my friend feels is not Māori anger alone — it’s the spiritual and emotional residue of ongoing injustice. It’s the ache of being unheard. And perhaps, if we are honest, it’s also the discomfort of privilege sensing its own reflection.

So maybe the better question isn’t why are they so heavy? but what weight have I not been willing to feel?

Because when one group shoulders the pain of a nation, the imbalance touches everyone. The land itself grows weary under that distortion. The heaviness isn’t theirs alone — it’s shared, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Perhaps the invitation, then, is to stay present to the heaviness rather than recoil from it. To let empathy, not defensiveness, guide our response. To understand that grief, resistance, and pride can coexist — and that each carries truth.

When the air feels heavy, it may not be a warning. It may be a call — to listen, to learn, to finally take our part in lifting the weight.

What heaviness are you being asked to feel, rather than fear?

Love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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