The symbol to guide you is a hei matau. It is a whale bone or greenstone carving in the shape of a highly stylized fish hook.
The hook shape of the hei matau finds its origins in a Maori legend, which holds that the North Island of Aotearoa / New Zealand was once a huge fish that was caught by the great mariner Maui using only a woven line and a bone hook.
For the Maori, the hei matau is taonga (a cultural treasure).
The displayed hai matau - pai rawa atu - means ”striving for perfection“ and represents the need to reach toward the heavens, one step at a time,to improve both body and soul. More generally it means safe passage over water.
BUT look! o´er the fall see the angler stand,
Swinging his rod with skilful hand;
The fly at the end of his gossamer line
Swims through the sun like a summer moth,
Till, dropt with a careful precision fine,
It touches the pool beyond the froth.
A-sudden, the speckled hawk of the brook
Darts from his cover and seizes the hook.
Swift spins the reel; with easy slip
The line pays out, and the rod like a whip,
Lithe and arrowy, tapering, slim,
Is bent to a bow oér the brooklet´s brim,
Till the trout leaps up in the sun and flings
The spray from the flash of his finny wings;
Then falls on his side, and, drunken with fright,
Is towed to the shore like staggering barge,
Till beached at last on the sandy marge,
Where he dies with the hues of the morning light,
While his sides with a cluster of stars are bright.
The angler in his basket lays
The constellation, and goes his ways.
Poem “The Angler” by Thomas Buchanan Reed
