I watched the latest storm roll in over the ocean – Why the Mt Maunganui landslide has hurt us all

I love storms.

I love standing on the beach in the teeth of a storm as it comes ashore.

This years Summer Weather has been atrocious and I was at Waipu when this year’s storms smashed in.

The foam was flicked and the raw energy was incredible.

I scan my memory for when the chaotic anarchy of storm energy made ripples inside me the way this year’s did.

You can taste the power inside the storms now, the insane frisson of extra heat caused by our pollution sets off a spastic knee jerk in the atmosphere unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

The pull and push of forces beyond our personal comprehension build and build and build until they collapse upon us all.

There is something different in the air now, an uncontrollable environmental rage, a global fever aimed at killing a two legged virus.

Our collective grief towards the Mt Maunganui landslide is unique.

Māori have a deep spiritual connection to the land, and despite cracker’s best efforts, that cosmology has actually rubbed off on many, many, many pakeha.

Our collective grief and never ending vigil isn’t driven by just the six lives tragically lost, it isn’t the memories many of us have of holidaying there, IT IS this deeper grief for the Maunga itself.

Those deep gashes in its side, as grievous as any fatal wound on a whanau member have awoken something far sadder in our collective imagination.

Deep, deep, deep down in places we don’t like to mention at dinner parties, there is a realisation that global warming and our denial of it is coming home to roost.

We know we’ve fucked up.

We know we’ve empowered politicians who protect the polluters.

We know our greed has a price that our souls must pay.

Understand that the climate simply rapidly deteriorates from here.

This is the age of consequences.

Weep.