...Pics of our new baby boy..................Agent Smith....

Hey There USM,

A few people here in USM-land know that my wife and I were recently (5 weeks ago) blessed with the arrival of our first child.

A boy.

Our wee man's name is Tuhua - pronounced Two-who-ah. In my/our native language (NZ Maori) Tuhua means a number of things: Tuhua is our word for the black volcanic glass, Obsidian, which is found around the volcanic mountains where I grew up.

The Tuhua is consider a gem-like crystal...one that is believed by my people to hold within it healing properties such as the ability to diffuse negative energies, to restore balance and harmony. Often a piece of Tuhua is gifted to someone who is going through hard times as a spiritual anchor - its function is to diffuse and deflect negative attack, its function is to calm and settle the mind/body/spirit of the person troubled.

The Tuhua is also seen as the *male* land-based counterpart to the *female* waterbased 'Pounamu' (pronounced Poe-nah-moo). Pounamu - or Greenstone as its known in English (much like the green Jade) - is also a very special, indeed in many ways sacred, type of stone within my culture. It is also gifted and used for healing, for protection, for many things.

Like all things in our culture - and I guess like so many other cultures - its about balance. In order to be at ease one must have balance...to be dis-balanced/unbalanced is to experience dis-ease. So, many things, many perspectives and perceptions within my culture are to do with balance and harmony, light and dark, the belief that all things are connected, all impact upon eachother and all in some way serves as balance somewhere long the chain.

The Tuhua is an incredibly beautiful crystal. Its form, like Obisidian, is the most amazing dark dark black...mesmerising even. A sheer black flawless glass stone.

Perhaps why Tuhua is considered to be so healing is the nature in which it is created. The Tuhua is formed deep underground, within the fire and chaos of the volcanic activity. Heat and pressure, bashing and crashing, the closest thing to Hell on Earth - and from that environment emerges the Tuhua...something so magestic and pure in appearance.

Anyway - enough of the cultural lesson - I just wished to impart some understanding of what the significance of our wee mans name was.

He was born not that big at all...7lbs 11oz. He measured 53.5cms in length. We weighed and measured him the other day and he's now - 5 weeks on - 11lb 4oz and 61.5cms in length. So our wee man is growing well. He's got some big feet too...so most people reckon he'll grow to be reasonably tall. Given that I'm 6'3'', well, he may eventually be a 6-footer plus...will see...and I'm loving every moment of it.

Maybe not so much the loud screamy screams at 2am...



..so...here he is...Tuhua:



Just had a bath and Daddy is towelling him off.



Giving Daddy the "If you say coochie coochie coo to me one more time, I swear, I'm gonna sock you right in the mouth" look.

Sorry peeps...I have no idea how to directly do the whole image thing into this post...I tried, failed miserably, used to BB-code...anyhoo...I'm gonna blame it all on lack of sleep anyway...lol!







Peace.

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