About the Author

Kia Ora from New Zealand! I am P.A. Minnell and I am the author, and the illustrator, of 'The Mãori Oracle' I was born and raised in New Zealand. I spent half my childhood living in Auckland by the sea and the other half in Waiouru, in an alpine desert by the mountains. Today I live with my husband and our daughter in Whanganui - back beside the sea. I am proud to be of New Zealand Mãori and European descent. On my European side my heritage is Irish, Scottish, English, Cornish, Danish, Flemish and Swiss. On my Mãori side I am Kãti Mãmoe with kinship ties to Ngãi Tahu, Ngãti Kahungunu, Rongomaiwahine, Waitaha and Te Rapuwai. I have worked in graphic design since my early twenties but when I turned 30 I went for a bit of a foray into art school, eventually graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2002. My artwork has been published in tribal publications and has featured in several Whanganui exhibitions, most notably the Exhibiting Goddesses and Manawa Ora, the Whanganui Maori artists collective. I've spent the last few years writing and illustrating 'He Matakite o Nga Tangata Mãori : The Mãori Oracle' which is now available all over the world with many grateful thanks to the team at Schiffer Publishing.

I have been walking the Pagan path since my late teens and in 1997 I began actively working in the New Zealand Pagan community to provide safer contacts and communication through message boards, chat groups and coffee meets. For a few years I published a small networking magazine and then in 2005 my husband and I started the Magick Earth Festivals. Magick Earth no longer runs under our guidance but thanks to some very wonderful dedicated people, it lives on in the guise of the MEF events.

Writing and illustrating 'The Mãori Oracle' has been an extraordinary journey of recognition, rediscovery, recovery and understanding for me. It was requested by, and gifted to us all, by the Tipuna (ancestors) and it was they who have driven it all the way. Sitting at this end of time, a hundred years after people have landed in a new country (or in the case of Mãori, hundreds of years), a person can come to feel like so much has been lost to them. It seems that to many New Zealand families there is very little left of their heritage - almost no language and few customs that they would know the origin of. Through the Tipuna I discovered just how much we really can have left in our families, with regards to our heritage. And through loved ones, both on this side of life and the other, I've also learnt to value my work and to begin celebrating my own gifts. It's been a grounding comforting experience.

The recovery and the revival of ethnic spirituality, both from a Pagan and a Mãori perspective is very important to me. It is our heritage and our blood-right but it has become scattered to the four winds. In talking and sharing with other people and their families, we can recover so much more. But we must go further than that to retain it for our children's children future. I firmly believe that the survival of the ways of our ancestors lies in openly sharing with anyone who is keen to learn.

If you would like to keep in touch (or have a look at my other work) you can join me on Facebook here: https://Facebook.com/PAMinnell