The film Once Were Warriors has stayed with me as my world outlook broadened over the decades. 

  What happens when once mythically encompassed men lose their centre and their bearings? And what happens to a community when the orienting mythic underpinnings dissolves or is torn from it, leaving nothing but a gaping hole in the lives of its members? 

  In the film the Māori erstwhile warriors, once defenders and providers for the health and well-being of the group, now live in poverty and squalor on the margins of South Auckland and have become unmoored from their long and noble tradition. They drink and do drugs, abandon their responsibilities to both family and community… and fight. The male drive that once was directed outwards, to provide and protect as it were, has been turned inwards against themselves and anyone who stands in their violent way, including tragically their women and children. 

  It’s not a pretty sight watching the women and children suffer for the dislocated male energy. 

  But it isn’t all darkness. 

  There’s a grey haired elder quietly teaching and mentoring lost boys. At first he is a figure of mockery and scorn, a seeming has-been giving instruction in foolish ancient wooden club warrior ways. But his message is universal, concerning courage, discipline and service, and it gradually resonates with the young who have largely been abandoned to their own devices by their hard pressed harried adults. 

  The message is one of renewed hope for the future! 

  Why has Once Were Warriors stayed with me nearly twenty-five years since I last watched it? 

  Because we Westerners are living it today! 

  Sure, on a much grander slower evolving less stark stage, but those once Māori warriors are us and we are living the unmoored disorientated demythologized existence depicted in the film! 

  Time to step up, men…

  Time to rediscover ourselves…

  And a New Centre…!