This is Taonga, treasure, it's from Aotearoa, New Zealand and I was given it on my 41st birthday.

In Maori traditions that absorbs my spirit and I wore it every day until it broke releasing all it had absorbed in 2024 when I was 56.

My time as a Poverty Truth Commissioner was a time when this treasured object absorbed and listened with me, close to my skin, to all that is dignified and just and beautiful, to all that is struggle and contemplation and all that is unjust.

It would be cold or warm or softened, uncertain, but it was a companion just as the time of companionship with all the commissioners was a time of accompaniment, of listening and absorbing the spirits of dignity, justice and truth.