We celebrate the autumn equinox with a general focus on connecting with Nature at this special time of the year. Expect a short pagan ritual, a special altar, a bit more participation than usual, and a 2-part talk. Part 1 concerns contemplation of this special midpoint between days of light and night and earth’s energies relative to our own energy. Through a story or two, Part 2 focuses on our spiritual connection with Mother Earth as our precious planet faces another tipping point.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Barbara Thomborson

No recording this week

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Barbara Thomborson © 22 March 2026

Autumn equinox’26, part 1: contemplation of this special midpoint between days of light and night and earth’s energies relative to our own energy

How many of you say autumn is your favourite season? How about second favourite one? Yes, many people like or even love autumn very much. There’s so much to love about early autumn: the warm afternoons leftover from late summer but the cool nights to make sleeping easier; the long, languorous, golden sunsets; the early vegetables and fruits along with produce of late summer; leaves of changing colours that we know will start falling soon; even the moody skies and mystical mist – this seasonal change sometimes feels magical. I love the anticipation of cooler, fresher air; the change in weather that requires long sleeves and heavier fabrics, jackets and raincoats. Where I’m originally from, we say no such thing as bad weather – you just need the right clothes.

Discovering the essence of humanity from stories – seminal moments in a teaching career.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Maria Hayward

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Maria Hayward © 15 March 2026

A brief caveat: these stories include mention of suicide and incest.

I want to share some stories today – stories that derive from my early teaching experiences. Stories that shaped me into a different type of teacher than the nuns and others who taught me.

I learnt something even from just remembering the stories I’m going to share with you today. These are stories about how I, as a teacher, most poignantly and most intensely was able to develop and strengthen my pedagogy; and this learning derived in significant part, from the students themselves. I could tell so many refugee stories, but the following are from my secondary school teaching experience, and one is from my adult teaching role.

Today is International Working Women’s Day

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

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Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, quotes, etc. shared in the service.

Rachel Mackintosh © 8 March 2026

In 2017 the tide was in.

It was a tide of transformation.

One small second-hand car dealer in Invercargill sold 40 cars in a month. In Invercargill.

The women who bought those cars each had one less worry. The stress of wondering if the car would get them to their next job without breaking down evaporated. The tension leading up to the six-monthly warrant of fitness check eased. They could all breathe more easily. They could replace a tyre if it went bald. It was a transformation.

The second-hand car dealer also experienced transformation, as his income increased dramatically in that month. Because he and we are all part of an interdependent web. And he went out to dinner more often, and the local restaurants’ takings increased, and so on, and so on …

The tide was in because the government had agreed to fund the transformation after the Supreme Court ruled that care and support work had been historically undervalued because it was predominantly performed by women. The ruling was the final decision from a claim for pay equity under the Equal Pay Act 1972.

For those women who bought new cars, and for other care and support workers, there were other transformations.

In a continuation of the service done on Mental Health Awareness Week last October, this one focuses more on dealing with your own mental illness stigma and understanding mental health for anyone.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Barbara Thomborson

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The personality disorder in you

Last October I led a service on the United Nations’ Mental Health Awareness Week. Many who were present at that service commented favourably on new understandings of mental ‘illness’ and mental health and asked for more. Today’s service is that follow-up.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Ted Zorn

So much can be achieved if we share honestly and listen deeply to each other. But what if we do so and find that our beliefs, needs or values are fundamentally at odds?

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Ted Zorn © 22 February 2026

I’ve spent my entire adult life believing in the power of communication.

I have a PhD in the subject. I’ve spent my career studying it, teaching it, writing about it, and trying — not always successfully — to practise it effectively.

Next week, when classes begin at the uni, my main teaching responsibility will be a course entitled Managing Conflict.

So I am personally and professionally invested in the idea that clear and honest sharing and deep listening matter.

And I believe that from the depth of my being.

Speaker:- Dr. Tof Eklund
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

If you find nonbinary gender(s) confusing, want to understand what it means to be nonbinary, or are nonbinary, this one’s for you. Dr. Tof Eklund (they/them) speaks about being nonbinary, the challenges and prejudices nonbinary folks face, and the profound implications of nonbinary thought and spirituality.

Dr. Tof Eklund, (they/them), is Lecturer in English and New Media Studies @ AUT.

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A Reflection on Rainbow Flags

Maria Hayward © 15 February 2026

Kia ora koutou katoa. I am going to read a personal reflection on this month’s Pride theme, and then I’ll introduce our guest speaker, Dr Tof Eklund.

I thought I’d talk about flags.

I had intended to open the Pride month services with brief explanation of the rainbow flags we’ve been displaying, but I didn’t manage to get around to it. Then, with the occasion of Tof speaking today, I wondered if there was a non-binary flag – and there is, so I’ll talk about that soon, but this gives me an opportunity to also talk about the rainbow flag in general.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Keola Whittaker

Instead of preaching about queer folks as people who need support, I’m inverting it to what can queer and trans people teach the rest of us about being fully human? Especially now, when authoritarianism and even AI are trying to flatten us all into simple categories. I’ll be weaving in the story of the Kapaemahu stones in Waikiki – four healing stones connected to mahu (Hawaiian gender-diverse) practitioners that were literally buried under concrete for decades and then uncovered in the 90s.

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Reading 

Our reading today comes from Hawaii. It is the ancient legend of the Kapaemahu Stones, which I will talk about in my sermon. Here is the story:

Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Rachel Mackintosh © 25 January 2026

Why do we repeat this ritual every year? It isn’t just to brag about our travels. When we share our water in the common bowl, it reminds us that while we are separate people, we are also part of an interdependent community.

You probably know about the water cycle.

We are in the middle of this cycle. When we drink about two litres of water every day, and then sweat or urinate, or die, we take and then put water back into the water cycle. So water is constantly on the move.

Even if you didn’t study chemistry, you might well know that water is a molecule made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. This molecule being tiny, if you had 18 grams of water, or a little more than half an ounce, that would be about 6 x 10^23 molecules.

This would be 602 sextillion molecules. If you were a 10 year old child weighing 35 kilograms you would contain 20 litres of water or 20,000 grams or 602 septillion molecules. That child returns ten percent or two litres to the water cycle every day.

Because water is constantly cycling around, and because every human being has such large numbers of molecules of water cycling through them, there’s a very good chance that each one of us has at least a few molecules of water that were formerly in the bodies of Socrates, Sappho, Jesus, Mohammed and the Buddha, and any number of great and wise people who lived in the past as well as some of history’s villains.

Thus when we say that we are all interconnected, that statement is quite literally true — we are all interconnected through the water cycle, not only with each other, but with all living beings past and present. Mary Magdalene, Kupe, Mary Wollstonecraft, Te Puea, Billie Holiday, your grandmother, my grandmother, our first minister, William Jellie all might literally be connected to you through water.

I now invite you each to bring your water — and if you didn’t bring it, please feel free to use the virtual and also real water here in this pitcher, that can stand in for the water you are connected to. Those at home, if you have water, pour it; and we will also pour water for you here.

Links

Karakia:- is from “A Ritual for Ingathering/Water Communion” By Eric Cherry

Closing Words:- “All Rivers Run to the Sea” By Kayle Rice