The Cake

Wowee; fireworks,streamers, balloons, and candles, paper chains, poppers and pressies, happy hats, having hope and holding time up to a circle of tiny flames. Last night I dreamed of cake. I'm 100 percent sure there is someone out there who has a Birthday today. Life is more certain I think than unclear, although it's been argued not to be so, by some. In fact, sometimes there's so many certainties we also start to long for surprises. Perhaps It's why we have Birthdays. The certainty of knowing once a year, celebration incurs and the surprise associated with gifts or new ways to experience a milestone, seems to bring together what would otherwise exist as a tension. If you have a Birthday today, Happy Birthday. The dream was not so much about certainty. Dreams rarely are. You never can tell what you might dream next. It's one reason, a great reason, to get a good nights sleep. I've often found looking forward to dreaming brightly helps with not being able to sleep in the first place.
The cake in the dream was particularly incredible. If it so happen to be your Birthday, you could certainly imagine the reason for the dream was because of you. Let's just assume it was. If it's not your Birthday, stop reading and it's none of your business. If you're still reading, it's definitely quite clear you are very disobedient  and if I find out who you are, perhaps, just perhaps expect to be trampled by a herd of hungry canines furjazzled and ready to pounce.



I wouldn't be too sure of danger here, unless of course you should come by my own personal body guard....



...in which case, quite frankly, you're in for the fight of your life.

The cake was the cake of dreaming, of imagining and in imagining, it became the cake of anything you might wish for. I suppose you could say, it was a dream within a dream within a dream. I'd like to draw the cake for you and send on a slice but for now let me tell you the story.
When you imagine, technically everything is a new image and sensation that cannot be directly perceived through senses such as sight or hearing or smell or touch, but in the dream everything was about sensing quite literally.
The cake was being made when I came upon it's wonder. What a wonder for sure, for certain. It was being made by a great sculptor and two assistants with the same first initial. The Sculptors name was Olin Levi Warner. He was an American. But it was also being made by a boy. Olin was carving many beautiful shapes. They appeared to stand out but were still in fact connected to the inner sides of the cake. It was to represent the boys incredible mind and very different yet important imagination. On the top of the cake was a great fountain of chocolate and wishes with a decaf cappuccino on the side. The wishes were not so much ridiculous but achievable. There was a lady at the top who knew a boy who could fly. She often called out "Yo, take a good look at yourself, what a wonder, take a look at what you made." but only when they deserved it which was quite a lot. You might wonder if there were many levels and the answer is yes, but not always so I suppose you could say yo! Olin and his assistants were making the cake so that sometimes the boy might climb to the top and be first or that sometimes the cake would fold into itself and make one level for all to stand with him and sometimes, there was a ladder to climb down so that other's might get a chance to reach the top too. It was then that he needed to step back just for a time, a little while, because sometimes you have to do that for people, but no always.
There was a door you could open and inside was little Mister and little Ms Imagination. They were the boys allies, but it wasn't a war and it smelt not of trouble but time. And what does time smell like? It depends what you imagine. I imagined in my dream it was the smell of sweet candle wax burning, all cinnamon and scented spice but you can imagine what you will and I hope you do.
There was so much to imagine and in this imagination, at the centre in the middle he saw the word yes a lot and that was helpful. The centre took the boy to the top of the cake and out and up and high as a kite, but flying in again he could travel down low, left and right and all about and it was a place for fun and reflection.
There was taste testing. There were many chefs in fact. The boy was choosing ingredients, but he wasn't afraid to ask for help, neither was he afraid to choose at will sometimes too.
The smell was toasty, smokey, sweet and salty all at once, although, it was hard to get the exact blend but the boy kept on trying nevertheless.
This was a musical cake of course, musical and the inside walls flickered movie reels and pictures, words and stories and number problems and scientific investigations created by the boy. The more he made for the walls and the more stories he told the more cake there was for everyone and even if you didn't particularly like cake, this was different. This was a very different but incredible and beautiful cake because it was created by some beautiful hearts, the sculptor and his assistants, the chefs but most of all the Birthday boy.
What did it feel like? It wasn't always the same. Some days the rain was coloured sprinkles and life was gentle, life was all dreamy and sweet but sometimes people took too much cake and it felt like burnt cinnamon covering all the tries but the boy would then go to the centre again with his key and open the marriage of Mister and Ms imagination and the cake would recover and regenerate and guess what??? ...and then.....
It was even more INCREDIBLE :)
So if it's your birthday (or if its not you could always imagine it is), just remember, I'm wishing for you with my own imagination because when you wish for someone else, it has a habit of ending up back on your own plate, somehow, somewhere in the future.

Shiny Shoes

Last night,
I dreamed I was standing with you
and a few
and a frightened rabbit,
round the rings of
Saturn
in a pattern
called
Melon and cholly
and the folly
was how?
How do you fill
an empty space
a quiet place
With more than
the walls
and stalls
of unsolvable black?
And we were
spinning and stinging
through space.
Then,
we found the rink
round it all
like the call
to fill boxes
with shiny shoes
Not just on
christmas too.
We found a pair for
you
and a few
or maybe
Many,
we wonder?
And under a
slated sky
We reached in on through
to a  store in the stars called
IMAGINE
for our boxes of free foot ware...
where.....
each pair
aglow
would bestow
a chance to fill
spaces and places
and more.
We put them on
of course and the source
of light from our make-believe
WONDER
made them solar powered
(and don't forget the supersonic magnifying glasses attached to each one)
So from Earth
They could see us skating then
round the rings
of Saturn
To a different pattern
And the flames
all orange-red
all dreamy head
where especially
bright as tails
on the shoes of one of us
or some of us
or all of us
depending
on the day
or the way
of life
To make
two comets
skating
skating and dancing and making more
like beautiful stars sewn into a new pair of
shiny shoes.....

A Flutter, A Breeze (and a package from King Arthur)

A flutter, a breeze
a sweet silly sneeze
and the Brolgas are dancing
round here.

By the creek that is merry
Merri and swift,
She's a darlin'
All furrowed but free.

A flutter,  a breeze
with the Myrtales to tease,
Yet they whistle
and dance by her side,

And she'll walk up the path
Round the bend
And she'll send
A key in a boat
made of life.

It isn't a diamond
It isn't a pearl,
or the whirl
of a girl
Waltzing Tilda,

But there's ribbon
times eight
round a package of wait
And
Inside
find
the seeding
for needing.

A flutter, a breeze
a cough and a wheeze,
of a time made of
smokey and grime,

We'll recall why the crown
and the jewel of a queen
Isn't black or white or now.

And she'll hope for the waters
to find true a tribute,
from the creek
to the river
and ocean,

And I hope
my loves,
you will find
this gift
in the rift
to the shore line
to motion.

And the flutter the breeze
Let her scatter your seeds
all soft
and precious
and small....

My dear and my dears,
even watered by tears
you will grow them
and know them
and shine.

And time will go writing
to Arthur
our Knight
and he'll come
all in white
with a man and his light
and the mark of the man will be orange and reds
with a woman clad brightly in tapestry threads.

Peace she'll declare for a length and a time
and moths will weave armour, steely, silken
and fine
And the crowns will be flowers
and butterfly wings
and the love will be bound
by the birth of our springs
and the hatching
and catching
of yellow and warm
will form rings
of our love
round the wild
speckled dove.

Mr Holly Was an Architect, Sort Of

There's an oven
There's an oven baking bread
Theres an
oven love,
Buddy Holly built the door one day.
There's a creak
And a middling squeak
Because, you see, he wasn't very handy.....
But he could sing nevertheless
Oh
Thank goodness....
There's a light in the
oven love
It's soft
and it glows kinda warm and yellow...
There's a light and it never goes out ,
It's double decker
Cause of the shelves
In the
Oven love,
But it's okay with the guide rails in
No need for a crash love....
We baked angel cakes
Sometimes
or we try to.
When the snow melted and it was too cold for ice-cream,
Then.....
Then.....
In the
Oven love
We had a little reno.
Oh it wasn't very architectural
and even though money makes the world go round,
we built something a bit skew-if instead.
But I never minded,
just as long as there was more room for baking
Dear....
Anyway,
Ya bloody bugger,
There's plenty of room now,
for you and your kin,
just in case
you need a place to stay.
I'm no prophet,
But I got a spare key anyway.
It's for you and my heart,
Cause at least once a year
Cornbread is secretly and most wonderfully
Stupendous,
Cause there's this Cooke and his name's Sam and like him
"I do, honest I do, woaahhhhh...."

Happy Valentines Day 2016 xx

Frangipani

I was at my local nursery recently. I was buying violets as a gift, African Violets, because it's February and her Birthday motif is all Purple and gold and it seemed appropriate and, as you might know, I love violets. Who would have thought then of frangipanis? It was an older lady in the nursery who reminded me. She seemed distressed, distressed by her frangipani tree. How is that possible, for the frangipani is surely loved by most people? Everyone loves frangipanis, well just about anyway. It turns out, she loved frangipanis too. I don't blame her. What's not to love about a frangipani; relatively small but that's okay, resilient, tropically darling, that distinct ambrosial scent, often pearly white and milky fresh with yolky centres. The flowers appear from December to April in Australia. You can barely burn a frangipani because they are determined to love the sun and I love that about frangipanis.

Like the shutters opening and closing on a summertime window, I saw pictures of childhood holidays  in Coffs. Oh it was something beautiful up there. Doreen, My grandmother on Dad's side, built her home in Coffs Harbour. It was before too many high-rise giants. It was like a country town back then. It was like plonking Hawaii into the outback a bit. There was so much sweet fruit and coloured flowers and beaches, beaches stretching miles and lapping waves and hilly topped banana plantations. I loved those days. It was a home away from home. I loved my grandmother on that side too, very much, and her sister Nancy. Nancy was a real gem. She loved me a lot. I felt that love and holidays then were something pretty magical to look forward to.

Drifting back to the present, the lady in the nursery was upset because a stranger had broken away branches from her beloved frangipani tree, possibly children thinking it was a bit of a lark. She was sharing a photograph with the sales assistant. She wanted advice on saving the broken branches. My first thought was that I was in a hurry and why would she hold the cue up with a long drawn out story about a couple of frangipani branches. The rest of the tree was still in tact, but then I stood back
and listened to the story and it got me wondering. It got me wondering about why she might not just buy another tree and wack it in the ground whole or leave the main part of the original to regrow. It struck me then that she was most probably not very rich, that it might not even be an option to buy copious amounts of new trees and flowers. In fact, while our system here in Australia for the aged is better than some, it would be quite impossible at times, to live off a pension and still have money spare for luxuries such as frangipani trees. Then it struck me that there was much more to the story too.

The Sales Assistant looked to me frustrated by the hold up in proceedings but I wasn't in a hurry now.

"No, no, don't mind me. I'd like to learn about saving the frangipani branches too. They can be propagated from cuttings right? "

" Yes, you could do that. Let me check with our horticulturalist to be sure,"

she replied, still a little concerned by the slowing of a busy day and preoccupation to get on top of time. Ironically the garden will teach you that time won't hurry up always in ways you might want and that's okay and that's actually pretty great.

It turned out, you can save frangipani branches.

"It was a very important tree,"

she said to me, the lady in the nursery.

"It was a gift. It was a gift from someone I knew. It was a very important tree."

And I knew then, it had come from a very important person.

The Sales Assistant went to collect some soil that might help with propagation and then the lady stopped her...

"Could I come back? Could I come back with the branches and someone who knows how to plant them might help me? "

And I knew then it wasn't just about the frangipani tree. All of us search for healing or love through community and connections and the nursery was going to help nurse her soul. As corny as it might sound, it was true and it is true because they said;

"Sure, come on in. We'll give you a hand."

This was in a smaller nursery with perhaps more room for love and less concentration on "productivity" and spreadsheets metering success but it got me thinking. It got me thinking that there's no reason why a larger nursery might not continue to foster this kind of connection. It's because money's pretty dull if you have to serve yourself. And the best shine comes off people and the sun of course.

Mister Pistachio

"The Nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale." Vera Nazarene


The Pistachio is my favourite, with the shells of course. Oh you have to to buy them in sweet robust little jackets or it might not be the same. The Pistachio! What a nut, wonderfully delicious, creamy mauvish, soft green to ripe autumnal yellow and red sun and that audible pop of life to see light, all in good time.

My Grandmother used to buy packages, sometimes even in newspaper. I liked those packages. It wasn't a Christmas package or a Birthday offering but perhaps it felt similar. That's partly why I loved them, but only partly. The other part was stories. Stories are really everything and always there. You can't take a story away. People might try to, but the story is still hiding under a shell, waiting. It's hard to lose a story, if you really loved the story very much. There's always going to be more stories and some of the best ones are true and some of the best ones are imaginary but about truth nevertheless in one way or another.

Inside those little packages were not just pistachio nuts or hot chips or fresh prawns. There was an unwritten invitation to share stories. We used to sit around a circular table in a tiny kitchen on white seats with bright orange cushions and it was my job to help shell pistachio nuts. During these times, my Grandmother told stories of everyday life, of backwards and forwards and holidays, bright or teary, of the beach at Bondi of ballerina feet and jitterbug thrills and spills and picture theatres with only a few shillings to spend and that was enough. And I was glad there were so many pistachio nuts then, partly because they tasted so good, but only partly.

If you get the chance to crack open a nut, buy a handful and tell a story, listen to one or write one down. It's worth gold. Beautiful storyteller under a festive tree, never leave us....