Aotearoa Dreams Part 1: Color, cultural humility, White privilege

I lived in Aotearoa (New Zealand), “Land of the Long White Cloud" with my family for three months (February, March, April) of 2026. There is no simple way to summarize my experience—it was emotionally intense, visually stunning, intellectually stimulating, and physically challenging. In looking back through my dream journal from that time a couple major themes jumped out—the first being cross-culture interaction and working through my feelings of being a White person of privilege in a country with a complicated history of British colonization beginning in the 18th century. The Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of Aotearoa who arrived in the 13th century. New Zealand is the last major habitable landmass on Earth to be discovered and permanently settled by humans. It has no native mammals and almost 50% of the native birds are now extinct due to introduction of non-native species including dogs, cats, rats, possums, weasels, ferrets, and stoats.

Prior to going to New Zealand I had this dream:

12/14/25 “Petting a rare mini pet moa on a roof at night”

It is night time and I am outside the front of a white clapboard two-story house. There are two women about my age who are also there but they are birders looking for birds. I am looking for something else. They hear the call of a rare bird and go around to the side of the house to climb up on the roof. I need to get on the roof for whatever it is that I’m after too but I just scramble up the front of the house. I get to the roof and now it is flat and the back half is covered in something very soft like quilted blanket or furry carpet. There are other birders up there as well. We all sit down and observe in amazement as this very rare, practically flightless, soft fluffy bird about the size of a large chicken lands on the roof. I am near the two women who were down in front of the house with me and the bird comes over to us. It seems to want to be petted but I am cautious to touch it because I don’t want to scare it away and anger all the birders. I hold my hand out and it nuzzles my hand like a cat so I pet it. The other birders and I realize that this is someone’s pet that got out. The fact that it isn’t a wild bird makes it less special for the birders but it’s still a very very rare bird so we are all still in a state of awe about getting to see one up close. I understand that it is somehow related to the flightless Moa birds of New Zealand which are extinct.

While in New Zealand I had the following dreams:

3/10/26 “The Māori Woman’s Purple Cloth”

I am in a large church with auditorium seating watching a special performance/ceremony honoring Māori women. A group of approximately 20 Māori women are up on stage and they are topless—wearing only bras. This is to symbolize their vulnerability and authenticity as strength. There is a deep sense of respect and honor for these women by the audience and specifically the men. I watch as a large, dark-skinned woman joins the other women on stage. She is a few months pregnant which increases her vulnerability and strength. She is wearing a long, flowy purple piece of fabric wrapped around her torso and I watch as a man assists her in taking it off. Somehow the purple fabric is then in my mouth and I am chewing it like a piece of gum. I feel uncomfortable and embarrassed about this and try to think how I will spit it out and return it to the woman before the end of the performance without her realizing that I had it in my mouth. It tastes bad and I can tell the dye is washing out in my mouth. I spit out the wad of wet fabric and see that it is all faded now. I open it up to its full size and drape it over the back of my seat so that it can hopefully dry quickly and I can return it to the stage unnoticed so the woman can put it back on at the end of the ceremony. I feel a sense of guilt and shame for it having been in my mouth and causing the purple dye to wash out.

4/6/26 “Choosing Feathers for my Headpiece”

I am at a gathering of some sort of Māori rangatira (chiefs), each one representing a different iwi (tribe). They have created a circle and I am inside the circle. They seem very tall and almost like spirits or visions. I have a large collection of bird feathers that I have laid out on the ground in neat rows and grouped by color. Each rangatira has a unique colored feather head piece. I am picking feathers for mine. There are some fluffy, downy light pink feathers from roseate spoonbills that are getting blown around by the wind and even though I like the color I know they are not suitable for my head piece. I look for sturdy tail feathers in my collection and find some yellow ones in the middle. I look across the circle and see a rangatira with a headpiece featuring bright yellow feathers and I feel some reassurance that yellow would be an acceptable choice.

4/12/26 “Baby’s first solid food”

I am sitting at a table eating dinner. I’m across from my husband and there is a woman to my right who we are close to but the exact relationship is unclear. She seems a little older like an aunt or mentor. We are eating rice with peas and carrots and my husband asks if the baby can eat this food today for his first experience of solid food. He doesn’t know much about babies, the woman and I know a lot more. I explain that for the baby’s first food this meal would be too hard to eat and that normally you start with something like mashed banana or sweet potato. It hasn’t occurred to me to start the baby on solid food but I am open to his suggestion that we could do that today when the baby wakes up from his nap. The baby is ours but I didn’t give birth to him, it feels more like we are his caregivers but that we aren’t the only ones who have connections to him. He’s been asleep for almost two hours so I go upstairs to see if he’s starting to wake up. I’m sort of excited to feed him and feel confident that I know what I’m doing. When I approach the room I see the light come on inside the room through the crack at the bottom of the door. I understand this to be a light on a timer set to come on when his nap is over and think “perfect timing!” But when I open the door I see that there is a group of several girls and women hovered around the sleeping baby and holding him. The other women are all related, sisters and cousins, and they care about this baby too and are just trying to get some time with him. The women are Māori. I know that I have more privilege in terms of access to the baby and that as the “White mom” I could tell them to leave but I don’t. I say, surprised, and in a sort of judgy tone, “Oh! You’re ALL in here? When I saw the light was on I was like, ‘what the hell’s is going on in here?!’” They just look at me but don’t say anything and I leave because the baby is obviously being well cared for and I know that it’s only fair that they get time with him too. I know I have more privilege as his assigned mom and that I will be the one who gets to feed him. I go into the bedroom next door to wait for the baby to wake up and cry so I can take him downstairs to feed him his first bites of solid food.

In Aotearoa Dreams Part 2 I share my dreams relating to themes of travel, transition, and liminal spaces.