KAPAI: Future promising with winds of good luck

I remember sitting a few feet away from the Dalai Lama in the Dunedin Town Hall back in the early 90s and feeling a fondness for the funny little fella in the saffron robe who had a cheeky boy grin that spoke volumes about how seriously he took this brief visit to planet Earth.
One of the jewels in the crown of the conversation that I picked up that day was the emphasis the Buddhist faith put on the touchstones of time that reflect the numbers 2 and 11. For them the most magical time of the day is 11-11 or 11 minutes past the hour of 11 and any time the numbers 2 and 11 stand side by side then good things happen.
So it was with this enlightenment that I started to crystal ball gaze into what the year 2011 will be like if we win both cups on the sporting stage at the moment and bring them back home to the land of the long white cloud.
My first full sail encounter with the oldest sporting trophy on the planet was in Newport, Rhode Island, just up the road from where my favourite television show Boston Legal is now filmed.
Big Bad Bondy, the booze baron from Ngati Skippy land gave Dirty Denis the Aporonui (Big Apple) sooky bubba the excuse me Matilda Waltz and grabbed the Auld Mug for Australia.
We all watched the Boxing Kangaroo being hoisted that memorable day on the dock, where we were working on luxury super-yachts, and sang the Aussie anthem side by side with our Down Under cuzzies as they hoisted their flag for the world to see.
Yes, that day we were all Down Under true blue, suck of the sav dingoes and proud of it. Well, those Yanks from the excited states thought it was all one and the same country so why try and spoil the party with geographical nuances?
A few four exes later we all followed Bondy back to Perth for the next cup challenge, pinning our hopes on Michael Fay's megabucks to bring the cup home to Aotearoa.
And a few wine boxes and whole lot of Peter Blake brilliance later, the America's Cup became the Kiwi Cup and everyone walked tall in red sox and black caps and sailed the sparkling Waitemata in wing-keeled waka.
Meanwhile, the boys in black were preparing to feed the backs and the faces of fanatical rugby devotees back home in the land of the long white try line. The first ever Rugby World Cup was also up for grabs and grab it they did, with both hands and a bit of biffo from Buck and the boys.
Toru trophies later and my rugby cup cabinet is far from full. Even though I have chased her around the world I am still to stand and sing our anthem in front of our boys in black but this year feels like France and moi are made for "Alez Le Black".
So that brings me back to the Dalai Lama and the gathering of greatness on and off the sporting arena in the year 2011. What will me and Mr Lama have in common when it comes to counting the calendar with divine digits that begin with 2 and end in 11?
Well for my two bobs' worth I reckon it will go something like this. The cup cabinet will be as full as a Fonterra friesian farmer with two cups up for contention, in and around the waters of the Hauraki Gulf.
Locally the glass bottomed art gallery and the waterfront walking tracks will be open for us all to admire as will be the museum masterpiece up on Cliff Rd.
The memories of a maritime museum that was an election albatross around the necks of naive councillors have all but slipped away into the sea to sleep for ever next to a reef that burst its bags and the beliefs of so many board riders who bought the dream from Doctor Big Bucks Black.
Nationally Labour will have lost much of its Maori mana and the cliffs of Matauri Bay will be filed with the Dovers and other lost leaders of Labour who promised Maori much and gave us very little.
Globally the carbon crusaders will be all pointing the inconvenient truth toward China which was warming the world with two new coal-powered stations a week back in 2007 and now twice that in 2011. Given each coal-fired power station emits the same carbon as two million cars we now know what we can look forward to.
But the good news is we might all turn on to tawhirimatea (the god of wind) and he will fill our sails and help the kiwi to fly again in the year 2011 just like my mate Mr Lama said we would. I hope so.
Pai marire tommy@indigenius.org