“Pounamu is the sacred stone of this land. It is the core to the spirit of this land. Within the great rainbow of the planet, the colour of Aotearoa is green; the colour of healing. The stone of this land is Pounamu, which is often called greenstone. The spirit of this land is Aroha, or love, and the stone embodies that spirit. It is a very special stone. In Waitaha understanding, it is of the stars, Mere Pounamu, the star of many colours. Pounamu is not only green, it can be white, black, blue, green, light green, dark green, or golden. It has many, many colours. No matter what colour, its spirit is always the same. It is the stone of healing; it embodies the spirit of love. When we touch the stone, we touch into the stars, into the beginning of all. All that is, is of the stone, and the stone is all that is. The stone is of the beginning, it endures and is of the end. The stone is of the mountain that stands tall, that falls down into the river, is carried to the oceans, its boulders in the streams, t o finish up at the beaches as sand, to sink deep within the ocean, to be bedded down and become rock again, to be raised again in the future as mountains. So the song of the stone is an enduring one, of all ages. The spirit of Pounamu is the spirit of creation, the lore of the universe. The lore that drives the universe is love. That is the spirit of the stone.”