What New Zealand earthquakes taught me about life

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With a few New Zealand earthquakes under my belt, this is a post about what terror taught me about life, Mother Earth, and the fragile ego. I’m proud of what I’ve written below… it outlines all the mysterious ways I feel linked to this blue planet.

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The first time I felt an earthquake, I was at work. The sudden groaning of everything felt so foreign, I thought I’d imagined it. But excitement erupted in the office and coworkers began shuffling under their desks. Terrorised and confused, I followed suit. The earth continued to rumble.

Although I work in a modern building that, I’ve been assured, is earthquake-safe, it still unsettled me how the walls swayed and popped, pressure points creaking.

Crowded under furniture, my teammates chatted amongst themselves and I held on for dear life. Someone noticed my yellow complexion and deduced my earthquake virginity with a laugh.

That day I learned that 1) Kiwis are insane, and 2) I wasn’t cut out for this.

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What New Zealand earthquakes taught me about life

Why are there so many earthquakes in New Zealand?

If you’re able to visualise the below, it’s actually terrifying… and fascinating.

New Zealand sits on the Alpine Fault – the border of two major tectonic plates, the Australian Plate and the Pacific Plate. These plates grind against each other and shape what New Zealand looks like today. In some parts of the country, the Pacific Plate slips beneath the Australian Plate. In other parts, it’s vice versa.

Earthquakes happen when pressure mounts along the boundary and the earth gives way. And boom, we have a shake.

That’s why New Zealand geology is incredibly diverse and terrifyingly active. The North Island is a volcanic zone. And the rest of the country frequently rattles with minor and major earthquakes.

I learned all this in horrified wonder. Geology had never interested me before, but I slowly developed a mental map of New Zealand’s history and how all this incredible scenery had shaped overtime.

For example, the Southern Alps and my beloved Aoraki/Mount Cook stand there as a result of the Alpine Fault running through the South Island. And if you drive along the Kaikōura coastline, you can see where the land is rising with new gravel uplifts from the ocean that weren’t there before 2016.

New Zealand earthquakes: a spiritual experience

As more earthquakes notched under my belt (including a particularly terrorising one at 3am) I began asking some questions.

Why exactly do Kiwis love their nature so much? How can they have such an affinity to the natural world when it is so disruptive to their lives and, in some cases, razing their cities?

Obvious first answer: they’re used to it. Earthquakes happen often and it’s impractical to have a panic attack each time.

But as it happens, the longer you live somewhere, the better you begin to understand its people.

Te ao Māori

As time passed, my own relationship to Mother Earth evolved. I began to understand something called te ao Māori: the Māori world view that all living and non-living things are interconnected as part of a bigger whole.

Māori, New Zealand’s indigenous people, live by values of unity and kinship and have an intrinsic connection to nature. The land they came from and their ancestors came from is part of their identity. And Māori lore tells the tales of how mountains and rivers came to be, tying them into stories of warlords, heroes, and gods.

Māori experience nature differently compared to Western folk.

The planet suffers because the dominant culture values personal gain over natural spaces and wellbeing. If we happened upon a mountain, some might have ideas to build a ski resort or mine it for resources. Māori, by contrast, look at a mountain and see a god. There is awe and reverence and respect.

And sure, a large part of New Zealand is Westernized. But the culture has a foundation of te ao Māori. It touched me deeply, even with my Western-skewed lifestyle.

Shedding the walls between us and the planet

Indegenous people across the world understand all too well the perils of this planet. These are ancient cultures that have gathered great wisdom about life and our place in the world.

But perhaps, as society progressed and we erected walls between us and the elements, we’ve forgotten to respect our terrestrial home.

It may sound weird but being terrified of nature enhanced my enjoyment of it. How vivid it all seemed now that I knew her history. Of two giant plates beneath my feet, pumping lava to the surface. Uplifting entire mountains. To be able to look upon a great valley and visualise the glaciers and erosion that carved it.

For the first time, I saw the earth as an ancient god, her work manifesting itself before me, hundreds of millions of years in the making. This is a creature of immense size, moving and breathing at a scale we can’t even fathom, wondrous and terrifying in a way that moves me to tears.

And yet, she is gentle with her murmuring waters and sighing winds and rustling leaves. Nurturing all her species who take pleasure from her creations.

The gift of what New Zealand earthquakes taught me about life

Enjoyment of a thing requires a respect for it first. Through fear and enchantment, the earthquakes reminded me to have respect for this great beast I walk upon. The earthquakes reshaped me as patiently and effectively as they shaped the earth.

It realigned my priorities at the core. My life revolves around this knowledge. I ache for the outdoors and I go into nature in a way I never did before I moved here. My body responds and I am better for it, physically and mentally.

Life, these days, feels more enriching.