Harata Meretana Ma Charitable Trust

5th & 6th – 26th – 27th May – 23rd & 24th June 2025

Romiromi Wānanga Notes

Kia Ora e te Whānau

This app is designed to support your learning by revisiting some of the content I present during our romiromi wānanga sessions. I know the knowledge shared is deep and often a lot to take in … so by sharing it here in picture form on an app, it becomes easier to remember and apply in your everyday lives. This isn’t just about learning, it’s about healing. Healing ourselves, and on that healing waka, healing our whānau at the same time. What you do in terms of healing, ripples out to your whānau.

It was awesome to meet you all as part of the Hoki whānau, starting out with the parenting program in May. Nau mai to the new and the not-so-new facilitators joining us on this romiromi healing journey. It is not by chance that the universe has bought each and every one of you together for a shared healing journey. Sometimes, there is only standing room in our wānanga with all your spiritual ancestors being with us as we work together as a whānau to heal. Remember, spiritually, you are never alone!

Romiromi can be life-changing so well done to those of you who had the courage to come and have a one-on-one sessions with me. Just a reminder, it’s important to do your self-care after a session, drink water, have a hot Epsom salts bath and oil your body up with coconut oil to support your body and do the homework I may have asked you to do please.

After 20 years of medications by Drs (that never worked) the romiromi I experienced made such a difference in my everyday life. I became more aware and more committed to becoming the best version of myself without dragging all the hara and mamae that I’d experienced right throughout my life. It’s like getting a second chance where you rise up and stand in your own mana, like never before.

Please know that under no circumstances are you EVER unsafe during the romiromi wānanga nor during a romiromi session with me. I have worked in this field for over 30 years with both lived experience as a whaiora seeking wellness as well as having professional traditional Māori healing romiromi and rongoa experience working with high and complex needs whaiora. Many are blown away that I can work intuitively with whānau to find what is at the core to heal long term mental health and chronic health conditions otherwise known as incurable to health professionals.

If you need extra support, look for Charlotte Mildon on Facebook messenger or on the Telegram messenger App. This link has my Healthpoint profile with my contact details on it:

https://healthpoint.co.nz/community-health-and-social-services/acc-registered-rongoa-maori/dr-charlotte-mildon-of-aio-healing-limited/

Papa Joe De La Mere

Romiromi is very old. It is not a new contemporary healing modality like massage that only works the body physically. Romiromi has deeply spiritual healing rituals and practices that our old people have used for many generations. When I was first introduced to Papa De La Mere, he could not even look at me because I was full of ngangara (spiritual entities) after working people for 10 years not knowing how to clear myself. I was like a magnet drawing people’s hara and mamae into my own body. They got well but then I carried all their mauiui in my own body. It took 6 months of being worked on every week to release all the mamae and hara from my body.

Papa De La Mere otherwise known as Papa Joe was very patient and kind with me. Did he growl me? Of course he did! I was a haututu with no ears. Falling into my human self, the mind, instead of standing in my full power in the whatumanawa. Asking dum questions that were based in the mind. There is only YOU in the mind but, in the whatumanwa, there are ALL the ANCESTORS going right back to mai rano (the beginnings of time. They are there to support you.

Papa De La Mere was always there for me spiritually. I could hear him talking sometimes even when he wasn’t there physically. He knew I was a haututu but said that those who could think outside of the square, had the makings of a good Tohunga.

I feel very privileged to have learned this mahi from Papa De La Mere that was taught to him at the age of 3 years old. His parents took him to learn from his grandparents where they did takutaku every morning at 3am.

It is my passion that our tamariki learn this mātauranga at an early age so they will have it for a lifetime. It means though, that you have to DO YOUR OWN HEALING, as our tamariki are sharp. They know when you are telling them to do something but you are doing something very different. So, walk your talk whānau! As a parent and a grandparent, you are a blueprint for your tamariki or your mokopuna as they do exactly what you are doing or saying AND/OR copy what you are not doing or not saying?

Whakapapa of IO & Rikoriko

These are the two ultimate Atua in the Māori culture, the female being Rikoriko and the male being IO. The female Atua have remained unknown to many in these contemporary times as this is ancient knowledge that cannot be found on google. Only the Tohunga of old know that Rikoriko is all about unconditional love. There are many other female Atua in our culture as well, each of whom have been hidden for centuries but all of whom are part of nature, healing, nurturing, caring and feeding the progeny of mother earth and grandmother and grandfather of the moana, Tangaroa and Hinemoananui.

Below is a diagram of what we went over during our session in June.

Spiritual imbalances are what are at the core of being unwell mentally, emotionally and physically like the word dis-ease. In te ao Tohunga, there are different mate that are specific to these dis-eases like mate porangi, mate wairangi, mate Maori and mate makutu that are in effect spiritual imbalances. The medical doctors do not understand the spiritual philosophies of the Tohunga as their practices are scientific not spiritual. Instead they prescribe synthetic medications that cause more symptoms and do not heal the dis-ease and this makes them more money. We are only guinea pigs for the medical doctors as they look up their symptoms in a book as if one size fits all.

Karaputoro is what the Tohunga call the first thought especially when you are doing intuitive diagnosis in the third eye otherwise known as the whatumanawa. When we first go in to look at the body spiritually, if we start to think then we have gone out of the whatumanawa which is why our Tohunga would say Karaputoro, it is the first thought you had that was right.

Notes in May

The female and the male side of the body

The left side of the body is the female side which is your spirituality. The female side is all about your spiritual insights, your intuition, your creativity and your passion in life. Being able to link into your spiritual abilities supports you to work smarter instead of working harder.

In my experience, the female side is the spiritual side of your body. According to Dr Rose Pere, (who mentored me for 17 years) the male Atua Tumatauenga resides on the right side of the brain to govern the (left side) spiritual side of the body. Whaea Rose growled me when I said he is the God of War saying he is most certainly not but instead is the God of People.

Click on the link below to see Dr Rose Pere, a Tuhoe Tohuna, talking about our connection with the plants. She had a wonderful sense of humour that would make the whole house rock. You see beside her was her husband Joe Pere. Lovely to hear how connected we are with nature, having a relationship in terms of living and healing as one.

https://youtu.be/nwZoQuOgRaY?feature=shared

I was very grateful to be mentored by Dr Rose Pere for 17 years. As a rainbow warrior of peace, she explains how Papatuanuku means ‘the standing place of the rainbow bridge’ meaning that we are one with everything that exists.

Many matekite (visionaries) were able to see Tumatauenga in my work space and they would look right up in the air, as he is a giant. Some women would blush because he had no clothes on and has a toned muscly body. I did not know who this was until Dr Rose Pere came into the tent where I was doing romiromi at a Women’s Indigenous Wellness Conference that we hosted in Flaxmere, Hawkes Bay. She looked right up in the air and laughed and said to me ‘I see you have out tipuna Tumatauenga working with you Charlotte, the keeper of the Violet flame of healing (Kahukura). I explained to her that I did not know his name but became aware of him when the late Tom Maraki, Tohunga Rongoā from Ngāti Porou, said he would put an Atua in place for me in my work to keep me safe because I kept forgetting to do karakia before and after my work.

Once Dr Rose Pere asked me how I knew that Tumatauenga was there working with me. I described that I could see a vision like a ship moving through the ocean like how the Titanic moved through the water at the front and so knew that he was there, guiding me and keeping me safe in my work. Dr Pere nodded and commended me in my work explaining how the Kahukura is about spiritual cleansing, transmuting negative energy and protecting.

The right side is the physical otherwise known as the male side. The female Atua Rongo resides on the left side of the brain and governs the male side (right side) of the body that is about our strength, our courage, our determination and leadership abilities.

The right side of the body connects with the left side of the brain and works with the rational mind and the physical body. Remembering that we are a spirit first having a physical experience not the other way round. We are taught Pakehā/Palangi philosophies as children at school, that Dr Pere called being conditioned by the state. We normalise living as a physical body having a spiritual experience every now and then but really for us as indigenous peoples, it is the opposite where we are a spirit first having a physical experience.

Being deeply spiritual as Māori and Pasifika when we become unwell, depressed or seemingly blank where the spirit has left the body, the physical body is affected. Just treating the physical body with drugs does not heal the body or the mind. Instead, it is the synchronicity of the spiritual female energies with the male energies that can rebalance the spiritual imbalances. When the right side of the body is swollen and sore, this is the body communicating that it is struggling with having to take the lead in their lives.

Understanding this concept of the male and the female sides of the body is incredibly healing for us. Many of us were conditioned by the state schools being told by teachers to be quiet, sit still, and don’t cry and this has affected us in terms of our healing as it is normal for us to cry out loud when we are sad or overwhelmed with hara, mauiui or mamae.

All the indigenous cultures have very similar philosophies in terms of healing. We all have the personification of the elements of nature being Atua, all of which are both male and female, not just male. Unlike the colonisers who bought their own worldview of only having a male God with no Goddesses. The synchronicity of both the male and female Atua are a very important part of our indigenous healing ways being connected in nature.

According to our Tohunga, both males and females have a feminine and a male side to their bodies. The feminine side (left side) is your creativity, your passion and your intuition. The male side is about taking the lead, your strength and your courage.

In order to do your own healing mahi, you need to access the whatumanawa otherwise known as the third eye.

The whatumanwa is a deep place of knowing where you can have access to all the spiritual ancestors and the Atua.

Often you cannot make sense of the whatumanawa but if you discipline yourself to breathing every day little and often, the whatumanwa can take you to a place of enlightenment providing you can silence the mind.

In the whatumanawa, we can have a rest from the ongoing thinking and negative thoughts. It’s like a TV that won’t turn off. It is a place where you can heal. There are no emotions or thinking in the whatumanawa. If you find yourself thinking then know that you have gone back into the mind so just breathe deeply to return to the whatumanawa, as this is who we really are. You are not just the thinker behind the thoughts.

Takutaku are incantations to incite natural phenomena that are basically calling to different personified phenomena of nature, many of whom are Atua Wāhine who work together with Atua Tāne.

The Mind

It is only you in the mind. Nobody else. The mind is the enemy of the whatumanawa. It is often difficult to shut the mind down. It’s like a TV that won’t turn off even when you go to bed, it is still going on and on and on like a dripping tap. It is very critical, full of emotions that will guilt trip, shame and blame that comes with lots of negative illusions that we create to justify what we are doing. The mind will analyze, criticize, justify, deny, blame and shame with lots of emotions.

Drs prescribe anti-depressants and antipsychotic medications to numb the mind that make you a duuuuuhhhhh. Many years ago a Dr told that I would take these medications for the rest of my life. This only makes Pharmac more money as the medications keep us down, slowly killing us and harming our organs in our bodies. It is merely another colonising tool as they do not heal but rather mask the mauiui or spiritual imbalance like a plaster.

There are ways to detox ourselves from these synthetic medications using our breathing, by grounding ourselves, making and taking rongoā or natural herbs to heal and/or by eating raw unprocessed foods that heal the body as opposed to processed sugar laden foods that keep us sick with many diseases.

TAA MIRI – Intuitive Diagnosis

Click on the arrows on either side of the page to see the slideshow of the pictures if there is a blank here. The slide show shows a number of you learning about the whatumanawa to spiritually tune in to what is going on in the body.

Knowing the different parts of the body and seeing when they are swollen and often sore, is how we intuitively diagnose where memories are sitting in the cellular memory of the body.

Romiromi opens up and releases these memories so you have more room for yummy things instead of holding on to this old hara and mamae for a lifetime.

It is life-changing to shift and move these old memories out of the body.

Sometimes we need to change our perception of how you see things in order to heal. Is there any other way you can see your most innermost mamae? Otherwise, if we don’t, we continue to do the same things and get the same outcomes. Nothing changes.

Working the Haemata (master psychological points)

You will see the picture of the haemata that we did in one of our sessions which are working the master points in the head otherwise known as the psycholgical points that need to be worked to release the effects of TOO MUCH THINKING. Mental health patients are driven mad by the thinking mind and cannot turn it off and this is when we can become suicidal where we can’t take it anymore. If you continue to do your breathing as a discipline, every day, then you can stop the ongoing thinking. This is very good for those who are in anguish or lost emotionally like when you see a person who looks like a shell; the lights are on but there’s nobody home

The memories we have had during our lives, sit in the cellular memory of the body. In the pic above, the left thigh (right in the pic) are about female relationships and the right thigh (left in the pic) is about male relationships. Can you see which one is different?

In the picture above we see the right calf muscle in the picture is swollen, much bigger than the left side (female) which shows the male childhood memories that are being held in the right calf. Can you see it? This is how the body communicates with us by becoming swollen and sore.

Releasing some of these memories can make profound changes in our lives and we can feel lighter afterwards.

Working the lower back and the tailbone

The lower back is the body communicating with you about a lack of abundance or the idea of poharatanga, meaning that the person is worrying about ‘not being enough‘ in their lives. Using the knees in the butt can help to release some of the mamae in the lower back and anybody can do it. Do not let just anybody work you though as if they are unwell, nek minute, this energy goes into you and then you can become unwell too.

One tauira reflected that ‘having password-protected, exclusive access to these sessions, is part of being a trusted learning environment‘ therefore I ask that you do not share any of this information on social media. Another tauira commented that ‘this content is more than just a resource – it’s a living vessel of ancestral wisdom‘. As so many of you already know, the Western health, justice, education, social services and child services systems (and so many more Crown systems) have failed us since the coming of the colonisers.

Thought you might like this Billy T James version of the colonisers when Captain Cook came to NZ.

Our Tohunga went to great lengths to keep this mātauranga safe for our future mokopuna yet to come even right through the Tohunga Suppression Act that was in force for over 60 years. So let’s take back our mana, and stand in our own truth in the wisdom of our ancestors.

Here’s another Facebook reel to shore the kuwaretanga (ignorance) of the colonizers who came to Aotearoa in the early 1800ʼs who believed we were heathens with no religion, no systems and no structure and no culture. How very wrong they were as we have long had our own spirituality which is being in tune with everything that exists on earth in the universe, in nature, with other indigenous culutures and even in other galaxies in the universe. Our people even traded in other countries on boats as amazing entrepreneurs.

Click on the Facebook link below to see the reality of how they treated us in those days wanting to trade with the natives offering muskets, gun powder, axes, tobacco, beads and glue.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/197HLZPEHf

Traditional Māori healing knowledge belongs to our future generations of mokopuna but it means you must continue to do your own healing as this is how they learn, even as an infant. Just as you saw our little taonga in our wānanga as shown below in the picture, she was very busy copying everything we did and said, without question. Let’s role model the aroha that she deserves!

He Whakataukī Ahakoa he iti, he pounamu’ translates to ‘Although small she is our precious treasure’

Hopefully the quizz will be added this morning by the app developer which helps you to review the app content. Meanwhile keep being the best version of yourselves. Please remember when it comes to re-living your life story, that you are not what happened to you. It is only what happened to you and this is not who you are.

Big thank you to the facilitators for supporting these wānanaga when I come from Hawkes Bay in taking the photos and writing up the notes on the board and organising for some of you to have sessions while I am in Auckland.

He Whakataukī – Whaia te iti Kahurangi ki te tuohu koe he maunga teitei. If you must bow then let it be only to a lofty mountain!

Ngā mihi aroha ki a koutou katoa

Nā

Charlotte