Lecture - Matu Apiata
Sunday 14th December 2025
So, as I begin, I just want to say thank you to Val and the committee for inviting me to speak today and I am really excited to be on platform with the crew, my Spiritual teacher and mentor Sheila. Sheila was the one who started me on my Spiritual journey back in 2010. I am so excited to see Kaylene up here. I have wanted Kaylene to be on Platform for such a long time – no pressure whatsoever. And Jennifer too. A great combo.
I have got some very big shoes to fill today because I am standing in for Alan Bennett who has stepped back from doing Platform work. I recognise that I am stepping into a space that is very honoured and very true to the Mornington Church and I wish both Alan and Ann all the best and hope that their twilight days are spent well.
When I was connecting in I was very aware that Alan likes to study Silver Birch so I thought that I need to look up some of Silver Birch’s teachings and it was quite interesting because I said to my Guides, “I want something very joyful, uplifting and ‘Christmasy’ to speak about a the end of the year”because normally my talks are very, well not serious but very journeyfing if that is a word. But they said, “You have to talk about the review of this year and looking forward to next year” because we are on a cusp. We are in a transition from a very strongly clearing a very strongly reflective year; to a year that is going to be one of the lines in the sands in your lives.
I am aware that this is more that I will be able to talk about,but this is about reviewing what was and looking forward to what is to come.
This year has been very challenging on many levels for many people. On the level of form, we have seen many physicalchallenges; a lot of injuries, surgeries, illness, as in the flu, a lot of Covid which I am surprised to see pop up. I began this year with a cracked tooth which for me metaphysically, a tooth represents the lock of repressed emotions and traumas that we are not able to integrate into our being and so wecapture it because our mouth is about processing new ideas, new experiences and when we can’t process them, they have to go somewhere. They don’t just go unless you spit them out.They get captured in our teeth. So, I began the year with a cracked tooth, and I thought it was repaired, but as a result of a workshop on belief patterns and structures of my life some things came out. So, I dutifully did the work and I came through.
Then a couple of weeks ago I started developing a toothache and I wondered what it was. I put it off and you know, you get to the place where you think that you have to deal with whatever it is, so I went to the dentist. I asked my Guides and they said there was a crack so I thought that maybe the dentist will fill it. However, the dentist said a molar had to be extracted which was quite extensive and they told me the tooth was cracked right down to the root, so I had to have minor surgery to get to the roots that were remaining. I thought, “My goodness, this is a complete cycle on the physical level. This was important.” For me, that was a complete removal of the locker of repression that I had been dealing with.
Now for many people this year has been like that. On the level of mind, there have been a lot of mental health challenges, a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety, a lot of addictions coming to the fore to be processed and reviewed and these need to be dealt with before we journey into the brand-new era that is coming.
On the level of Spirit, for some of us our faith has been challenged. Our beliefs about what it is that we are a part of have been challenged and, at the same time, our self-identity;who am I? For me that was a big one this year. The releasing of the superficial understandings to dive deep.
So, I was reviewing Silver Birch’s teaching on this type of experience at this time of the year because I wanted to know more about Christmas and the significance of Christmas.
Silver Birch taught that Spirit have their own celebration at Christmas time. They have been celebrating since before there was an idea of Christmas. It was a pagan festival, and it was about connecting to those aspects of ourselves which are greater than ourselves. In the Norther Hemisphere, it is about connecting and preparing for the coming of the winter, the changing of the seasons. So, Spirit celebrates in their own festival to help us to awaken to our truth and so, when I say our identities are being challenged it is because you are asked to be different for next year.
I will read from Silver Birch; Every experience is a part of the pattern of your life. You try to judge eternity by temporal happenings. (In other words, our physical reality.) You seeapparent confusion, but you do not realise that a Divine thread runs throughout our lives and the great Universe where harmony is the law. Each one of you contributes to the plan. The events in your lives, sometimes of bitterness and despair, of pain and misery, all play their part in preparing the soul gradually for the path that is being trodden.
So, everything we experience has a purpose. Even if it doesn’t make sense. For me, this year has been one of the biggest lessons of letting go of having to know why. Why is this happening to me? But that is the thing that we need to let go of because that is the ego trying to get us stuck in the crisis, in the event, in the experience.
So, Silver Birch goes on to say, “The darkness and the light,the shadow and the sunshine, are all reflections of onewhole. Without a shadow there could be no light. And without light there could be no shadow. That is so important. You don’t know light unless you know the dark. Similarly, you don’t know the dark unless you recognise your shadow.The difficulties of life are steps which enable the Soul to rise. Difficulties, obstacles, handicaps, these are the trials of the Soul and, when it conquers them all, you rise a stronger, more purified Soul, deeper and more intensely and highly evolved.”
That in a nutshell is 2025! Don’t you agree? We have been put through a forge and, when you go through a forge, you come out of it stronger, sharper, more attuned to your purpose. So, even the most challenging events serve a purpose, a plan to help us grow and evolve. We have to keep our eyes on that prize because we can slip into the distractions; T.V. social media, our family and friends. We get involved in their stuff and we forget we are a Soul having a human experience NOTthe other way round.
So, I asked my Guides to give me more clarity, and they reminded me that this is the year of the Snake. It is about clearing the karmic loop. Repeated emotional and behavioural patterns were targeted to be cleared this year.
Now, on a level of form, if you are not ready to process the mental aspects of your life the body will help be being in ‘dis-ease’. It start as an energetic factor in our aura and then quietly comes closer and closer to the body until it manifest inthe body. Its purpose is to wake us up. To let us know that it is time to extract it or deal with it. For the longest time I thought you have to knock it on the head but sometimes, you just have to know that you are moving on.
And this is what this year has taught me. It is easy to get trapped in the drama, trapped in the dis-ease; you focus on the pain not on the light and what it is teaching you. These loops keep returning in one form or another until you are ready tochoose differently. And that is the name of this talk today, “Choosing Differently.” And that is for the preparation for the end of this year.
The deep Soul work that challenges us, helps us shed the old skin. That is the symbolism of the snake. Snake can’t grow until it sheds its old skin. I have a client, a lovely man, I have coached him since he was eighteen and he is now thirty something with four children. He calls me Dad which I like. He now breeds snakes and I asked him about it and he said,“It is quite funny because they get titchy and agitated just before they shed their skin.”
Have you noticed that before you deal with something difficult you might see red, arguments might fly, things might go a bit roughly in your life? That is because you are preparing to moult. The new skin includes increased awareness, boundaries, a new sense of self-worth. My client tells me that snakes are very sensitive when they have moulted. The skin is still new; they are still getting used to it. And that is what it has been like this year. Once you have shed what you have done and experienced, you have to learn to navigate a new body.
I have gone back to the gym after twenty years, and I thought that I could go back as that young person I once was. Oh my God! I was sore, I was tired, I was grumpy and they said, “Yeah, that’s because you are trying to be the young buck again. You have to learn to navigate who you are now.” So, I toned it back. I listened and I was wanting to go to the gym but, with my tooth they said, “No, you need to rest.” and I said, “No, I feel fine. I’ve got painkillers, and pain killers are wonderful.” But they insisted that I had to rest. I had to listen.I had to pay attention to the signs.
So, the reason for all of this shedding? And we have got through a lot, and I will tell you about a marker in the sand that happened just this week but, first let me just give you a glimpse of where we are heading. So, next year is the year of the Fire Horse. Fantastic. The element is Fire. Fire is about passion, motivation, it is about the energy rising.
The Horse is about freedom, expression, momentum. It is about excitement. But the horse is also about running with the herd. Horses don’t like being by themselves. So, finding your tribe, your people, your friends that matter, this will guide you through the next twenty years. There will be a sense of fearlessness going through next year and you might even be feeling that now, as clarity begins to come through. If you have been wanting to have something happen, if you have been wanting to manifest something, or if you have been wanting some correction or change in your life, you might be finding that you are a bit more optimistic, more hopeful. The signs are beginning to show and that is the energy, the pre-framing for next year happening.
This coincides with a very powerful astronomical event this week. Neptune went direct. Now Neptune is our planet. It is a Water planet. It is our Spiritual planet. It is the planet that influences transformation. It entered Pisces in 2011 and, if you think back to what your life was like in 2011, what was happening? I was going through some legal challenges and a complete change in career at that time and, I met my Spiritual teacher. It was the beginning of my new journey. In 2011,because of Neptune entering Pisces, our intuition began toawaken. If it was already awake, it was shaken up,highlighting the spirituality while dissolving everything that was built on illusion.
So, in 2011 things would have changed. You will have seen through, excuse me, the b.s. Maybe at your workplace. You will have seen that they didn’t care about you, they were moreinterested in the bottom line than in my career. So, maybe you thought that you needed to take more responsibility. Or if you were in a relationship, you may have been awakening to the thought that, maybe this person is not who you thought they were. So, some change happened back then and, since entering Pisces, we have also seen some increase in escapism, addictions, overwhelm, psychic exhaustion as well as the collapse of old identities. That has been happening since 2011 till now.
We have been going through a major spiritual shakeup. These are the shadow aspects of the spiritual nature of Neptune. These are the things that hide in the background that we may not wish to acknowledge. Many of us are addicted to something. I am happily addicted to chocolate. Anyone else? Coffee? It is a thought process that starts us thinking that we need our addiction to start the morning. I need that sweet treat after dinner. That’s a pattern of thought. It comes from somewhere. So, you will find yourself wanting to know why or finding an alternative. Some of the alternatives? Carob? Nah. The healthy alternative? Not so much. See that is my addiction talking. See it has a voice. It’s that little voice in your head that says, “Go on have a chocolate. It’s okay, no-one is watching. It’s just a square. No four. Oh, it’s a line. Bingo.”
So, in March 2025, Neptune moved into Aries and it is the first time since 1861. We were given a glimpse of the new world that is coming, and we would have been shown the possibilities of who we could become. But then it slipped back into Pisces when it went back into retrograde in July this year. The retrograde asked us to finish off the clearing and the cleansing and really strip off the last shreds of that skin that we may be holding onto. I find for myself that there was a time when I was really resistant to change. “I can deal with that. It is okay.” The reason I went back to the gym is because I had a few health scares. I was told I was pre-diabetic, and I thought what does that mean? Am I or aren’t I? And they said, “You are on the cusp; you have a decision to make.” Now back in my youth, I was given a similar decision. You have tostop the drugs, or you have six months. My best friend at that time, who happened to be a girl, she didn’t and she died. That was a wakeup call for me. And that is the level of awakeningthat we are coming through. We might think that they are little, laughable moments but, these are the signs of change that we need to pay attention to.
The retrograde asks us to finish that cleansing so that we can reclaim our spiritual sovereignty. It is very strongly spiritual till the end of the year. And now with it being direct, the fog may be lifting. You may notice that you have a better idea of where you want to go or how you want to make things happenin your life. We recognise what has been dissolved and why and that the chaos has been replaced by a sense of order as we prepare for a new identity. Remember the snake? It is vulnerable after it has lost its skin. So, this is when you need to be kind with yourself. You may not be quite ready to see how to make the change within yourself and you may feel a little frustrated. You may try pushing out of time but be kind with yourself. Allow it to reveal in its own time. If you do that it won’t be rough. The transition will be smoother.
So, in January 2026, Neptune moves into Aries permanently and by that, I mean beyond our lifetime. It will stay there. The era of the Spiritual Warrior will begin. I have spoken about the Spiritual Warrior before. We are the warriors. It doesn’t mean that you need to take up arms. It doesn’t mean that you need to start hitting or being violent. It means that you need to stand in your own truth. This year is about finding your truth. Next year is about standing. And spirituality becomes action. And one of my goals is practical spirituality. Practical spirituality is not just about how I use it. It is about asking myself if I am ready to imbed it into my life. How can I be that person?
Intuition becomes the leader. You no longer rely on your logic and your, what I call my ‘personal will.’ The “Yeah, I know what I’m doing.” No! Instead, we take a moment to stop and ask the question, “What am I meant to be doing?” We need to be doing more of that next year. Dreams become movement so, if you have a dream, it is time to put it into action. Now dreams are just a plan without a date. You know that don’t you? It is not to say that you had to fix a date but now, you make it an actual point in your life.
Healing becomes embodiment. One of the things about healing is that we often see our body as something needing to be healed. We think of our body as a structure that needs to be fixed without really connecting into the spiritual aspect, the Soul aspect of our being. Our body is a responsive tool. It is the vehicle we are using but it can only operate by responding to our call. That is why dis-ease is highlighted where you are not paying attention. There are things you need to change. And the ultimate outcome when you don’t listen? Well, you know what that is.
Next year is also a very strong year for social justice. And if anyone is following politics you will be going, “YES!” But it is actually more than just the political level of being. It is about you, as Val was saying, looking after your neighbour. You have neighbours right here who may need help. Theymay need a smile; they may need support. Helping them find their feet, that is social justice.
Aries is the first zodiac sign on the calendar, and it represents new beginnings. I find that fascinating. Actions and leadership. Now, next year is a One Year which means new beginnings, leadership, action, so it is all coming together.
I asked my Guides to give me something fun to speak about,but they gave me something else. This a period of extraordinary events. 2,000 years ago, another extraordinary event occurred where there was a star that rose to guide the wisest of us to be born. Now we all know the story of Jesus and the Master Teacher and the events around His birth but,the star that was created in the sky was the conjunction of two planets that came together to look like a star.
That happened 2,000 years ago and my Guides were saying, “Do you understand the significance of what is happening in the sky right now?” Do you know about the A1 comet?On December the 19th it will come close to the Earth. It is our Star of Bethlehem. It is our star moment. It is the herald of the new beginning. So, I asked, “Does that mean the Jesus will be coming back?” and they said, “No. Jesus is already here.” I said, “What do you mean?” They said, “Jesus is reincarnated as all of us. The Christ consciousness is already present. He doesn’t need to be a body anymore.” We are being asked to heed the call within ourselves. That is what the spiritual journey is all about. The clearing away of our physical human self so that we can hear the quiet voice of the Christ consciousness.
I thought WOW! And another thing they said that this was prophesised by the Hopi Indians, and they spoke about the coming of the Blue Kachina and the return of the Ant People. Now the reason I found this and they guided me here is that I have been doing a bit of trance work and, in my trance speaking and writing, my Guides have been taking about the Ani-Katsina, the Ant People. These are creatures who were here many, many lifetimes ago. The Hopi Indians used to talk about the Ant People, about how they would come to rescue the humans in periods of massive change and, in those periods of massive change, the world would change. There would be cataclysmic events that would destroy civilisations.
In this moment in human history, when ancient prophesy stops feeling like a story and starts feeling like a memory, my Guides were speaking about the world of the Ani-Katsina, the Hopi prophesy and the world they lived in. So, they remembered through storytelling and every time the world reached the end of a cycle and prepared for a new cycle, they noticed the herald for the coming changes and told of the signs.
One of the signs was about a global web covering the earth. They described it long before the internet, satellite and wireless technology existed. They saw a time when the entire world would be wrapped in an invisible spider’s web,connecting everyone. Another sign was a star falling from the heavens. The Hopi spoke about a dwelling place in the sky losing is position. This could be a satellite or objects held in orbit then falling out of orbit. What has been happening in the past few weeks? The Starlink satellites have been falling because of the solar activities and people have seen them streaking across the skies. The other signs. Weather no longer following the old rules. What was yesterday? I thought it was spring again. Changes in climate stability and changes in the magnetic field resulting in the shifting of poles and violent storms as well as increased flooding. We see this now. And the magnetic pole has shifted. It is moving to Siberia. I wouldn’t pick that place, but that is what is happening. The pole has wobbled.
Sickness and sudden departures are rising. The Hopi warned that when the world was spiritually out of balance, many would become ill and many would leave suddenly to return home rather than choosing to stay. It is not random. It is choosing to escape. And the prophesy spoke about a great purifier that would cleanse the world through fire from the sky. This is from the Sun and its hyperactivity. We have been bombarded this month by the most extraordinary level of solar flares and the radiation that is getting through the electro-magnetic field around the planet that normally deflects the solar radiations has increased. The field has weakened andradiation is hitting the planet at ground level. This might be why you may have been feeling tired, a bit run down, a bit exhausted.
The Hopi called this the time of the ‘Purification of the Fourth World.’ It precedes the next cycle which is called the ‘World of Illumination.’ The prophesy says that the signs will appear when humanity is out of balance. I would say that is true. The most significant sign relevant to now is known as the Blue Katchina, a brilliant blue object that would appear during the purification. This is the clearest sign that we are in this period.
The Blue White Comet A1 Atlas, is our Blue Kachina and it is reaching close to the planet. Now the Hopi never said that the Blue Kachina would destroy anything. It was only a sign, a reminder, a messenger. This is a about a cleansing time. It is preparing us for the new beginnings next year. My Guides said this cleansing may continue through January.
I am going to reveal something. Normally on the 1st of January I usually go through a ritual. I believe in the ethos of the Red Indians that your hair is an extension of your spirit that connects you to the world and enhances your senses including abilities like tracking. This was discovered when, during the Vietnam war, the Army cut the hair of their soldiers and suddenly, they could not track anything. They couldn’t find anything. And it was proven when they did not shave an Indian and he could track without any problems. So, I have taken this on and I shave my head but this time, I felt that I had to do it earlier because this is part of the cleansing process that I go through and it is a representation of the change. It is a visual representation for me to cut off the things I no longer want.
Now to finish, as Val is right at my side, I get two words for next year. First word; Authentic. We are asked to be authentic next year. We are asked to be vulnerable to our truth and to stand truly in our authentic selves
The second word is Commitment. Do what you need to do to commit yourself to a spiritual path. It could be choosing to wear a specific colour or piece of jewellery. Whatever it isyou choose, you need to be committed. I will leave it there. Thank you for listening.