Socrates | Whangārei, Northland

“Twelve months ago, I was at Norsand Boatyard, and it’s really hard being in the yard. I’d hit the rocks at the Poor Knights, and so I had to get out of the water because we had water coming in, and so they pulled me out and put me in the graveyard, very few vessels get out of the graveyard, and so I’m sitting there, and it’s summertime.

I had to wait four months and three days for the insurance company to get this stuff together and pay me. So, I couldn’t leave till they’d paid me, because I couldn’t pay the yard. It’s like being in prison. It was very hot, and very difficult. So, I was watching to see what the recipe was for the most successful boats. They all had couples. They were from overseas. There’d be a man and a woman, or sometimes two men, a couple running a boat, and I thought, gee that’s a great formula. So, I made a decision and I thought, look it’s been 10 years, I want to get married again, and I felt so wonderful, because I’d been very precise on my desire, and very white-hot about my desire.

It all just happened last year. I have a friend who I always buy my organic vegetables from. His name is Tim Vallings of the Food Jungle at Maungakaramea, and Tim and his partner Dana, I always give Tim a bro hug. A heart to heart, and anyway, this became a habit, and then I met his partner Dana, and we do the same, and then one time, about six or eight months later, a lovely young Japanese woofer is there, and I’d hugged Tim and given Dana a hug, and I looked at her, and I thought, she’s going to feel really upset if I don’t give her a hug. So, I gave her a hug as well, and that became a habit. Three months later, I said, you should come sailing some time, and two or three months after that I sent her a Facebook message, on 16 December, a Monday, I said, do you want to come sailing?  She said, yes. So, we went and sailed to Great Barrier Island on Monday 23rd December. On Tuesday morning I asked her, would you marry me, and on Wednesday, Christmas Day, 25 December, our crew member bound us together like the Vikings do in a rope-binding ceremony on a beach in Kaiaraara Bay, Port Fitzroy, and it made me feel so wonderful that this vibration that I’d been sending out, that it happened so naturally and easily. We’d never had coffee. We’d never been on a date, never done movies, hadn’t been dancing, none of that. We just went sailing, and on day two I said, would you marry me. So this was 133 days ago roughly, that she said, yes and we got married on a beach, and so I felt so proud that the universe can read our hearts, our sincere heart-felt vibrations, that it just makes it happen, and there was no effort at all involved.”