KAPAI: We can all have magic moments

There is a very special tree that stands silently outside the Te Puna School our kids call the "blessing tree".
This giant jacaranda puts on a purple rain of flowers every year at this time and it was this time last year the kids came to naming it the "blessing tree".
We were visiting my niece in Tauranga Hospital with the usual flotilla of adopted tamariki that we seem to inherit every school holidays.
There were too many to take upstairs to visit my niece so I made up this story that if they stood under the giant jacaranda rakau that stands guard outside the hospital entranceway and wait for one of the falling flowers to flutter down and catch one on their heads, it would be a blessing for their aunty upstairs.
This made perfect sense to them as it would when you still believe in the magic of nature and they each found their lucky spot underneath the jacaranda that was bursting with a bouquet of blessings.
When I got upstairs and looked down, it was a sight to behold. Like children dancing beneath their first falling flakes of snow, there were these Te Puna tamariki totally into catching a blessing for their aunty. So much so that I dragged my niece out of bed, dressing gown and all, and together we stood beside the kids and waited for a flower to parachute down and give her a special blessing.
Sometimes the world stands still and allows you to hold on to a magic moment and this was one of them.
Who knows what the rest of the patients and visitors thought when they witnessed the day the blessing tree was born - and who really cares?
I think the fact that ward 16 was right opposite the tree we were all chasing falling flowers underneath probably gave them small comfort.
The colour purple for me has always been a colour of spiritual significance, right back from my days of soul searching the eastern religions of India and my hikoi through the Himalayan mountains. When I returned home purple velvet was the choice of fabric for visiting Sweetwaters festival, the violet-coloured garnet half moons on the Ratana faith's star and the purple satin sash the parish priest wears at our local whare karakia are all keepers of the colour.
This evening, as a rare sunset fare welled the day across the Kaimai skyline we went down to the blessing tree outside the Te Puna School. There we waited for a flower to fall. Our little Waiwhakaata, wrapped up like a Christmas cracker, had a look on her face like "this isn't going to be a normal childhood is it dad?"
Her mother was equally patient but I did happen to see her discreetly blowing at the branches to hasten the downward draft that would deliver a flower before any of her mates came around the corner.
Within a short while, long before the Kamai Range had gone to sleep in the background, we each had a blessing on board in honour of a dear wee departed soul who had returned home that day and we left the tree with three perfect purple presents to remember her by.
The point of this piece is that we don't always have to wait for a blessing to walk our way. Sometimes you just have to walk out and grab them by the branch full.
Right now, as we wait and wonder what we can do for a world that feels anything but blossoming, there is a tree near you bursting with blessings. But you have to be quick and you have to be brave because it only happens once a year for the middle two weeks of January and been seen standing under a tree for a flower to fall on your head could very easily be interpreted as a prime candidate for ward 16 at Tauranga Hospital.
But it's worth it, just ask the kids who caught the first flowers. They will forever call the special purple petals that they caught, aunty's angels from the blessing tree.
Pai marire