After lunch the official party was rounded up to participate in the parade of the Devas. A party of saffron robed monks led the parade and they were followed by a palanquin Buddha Shrine carried by six men, after that seven angels, this season's Belles decked out in Lao splendour, hair tied up in high bejewelled top knots. Six sat on the back of a decorated ute, the seventh and senior sat higher on a chair and held a polystyrene carved head with four faces. Behind them on bamboo poles was fixed the grinning monkey which I had painted. It was clutching a triumphant banana, the happy new year monkey of the Year of the Monkey.

I understand that the four faced head represents that of the Hindu God, Indra, King of Heaven, and that the seven angels represent his daughters. The old king was beheaded when he lost a wager that involved answers to riddles. Many humans had lost their heads by getting the answers wrong. But a poor man, wise in ways of the Earth and a knower of bird talk, got the answers right after overhearing an eagle and his wife, the ones who expected to feast on his flesh the next day, talking about him and the contest. The answers named the daily cycle of ablutions, the different times and different parts of the body to be cleansed with water.

King Indra honoured his wager but disposing of his head proved difficult. Buried it caused the earth to dry up; thrown in the river, the river dried up. Only by placing the head in heaven would the earth and the river be bountiful. The King's seven beautiful daughters agreed to do this and each year they come back to Earth from their heaven realm and parade with the head of their father and so refresh and renew the Earth with water.

Three times around the festival ground we went following the belles. Behind us a bevy of Lao matrons danced to a drum beat and made up ribald verses to a traditional reprise. About half the crowd joined the parade; half watched. Lots and lots of smiles.

Then we got to wash the Buddha images that had been set up in a beautifully decorated temporary shrine in front of the Bodhi tree. We sprinkled on the holy water with a flower going one at a time, the official party first while the throng of devotees all holding their flowers, pressing against one another in threir eagerness, but holding back patiently and politely. Ruth had wandered off but when she returned the Lao hosts took her to the Shrine and the sprinkly throng parted again, smiles all about as Ruth eagerly sprinkled the Buddha images.

Beside the shrine ten saffron robed monks sat at a long table in order of seniority, holding their hands forward, palms up, amongst arrays of flowers to receive our blessings of water. All Asian faces except The Venerable Santitthito, the first in line who beamed pure love to me, the sun glinting off his bare pate. "Get out of the sun!" I wanted to demand as his friend and medical advisor. But instead we exchanged blessings and wishes of a long friendship. Santi, who had a cancer form on his nose after it was badly burned while sitting outside in the patchy shade of a tree with me in January, got his nose burned again that day. Sometimes noble friendship can be life shortening.

After watering the monks and exchanging blessings, we sprinkled water on each other and exchanged blessings. Some Lao lads were most enthusiastic about this, the odd bucket came our way too. And of course the cup down poured down the back inside the shirt. All in fun and goodwill.

And amongst it all, a cross dressed clown in blonde wig, exaggerated lip stick, stockings, high heels and a short dress, was dancing about. So bizarre in a culture where gender roles are so sharply defined by tradition and family. Totally left field and unexpected. Electrifying in the crowd, the ambivalence of feelings opening up big "don't knows", engendering smiles and a here-and-now ness, like a good clown should. At the end of the day I recognised her/him as one of the mourners of one of the recent funerals and one of male volunteers who had been building at the Wat in the lead up.

This year Kevin (Khampsone) Prakoonheang, the president of the Wat's lay management committee and a major mover in the establishment of the Wat as a Forest Monastery, introduced a new ceremony to the Wat's celebration of Songkane. A baci ceremony, the tying of sacred threads of friendship.

The baci is a longstanding Lao tradition. After the revolution of 1975, the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (Vietnamese Stalinist communist regime of which Australian Lao communities were formerly refugees) ) an attempt was made to suppress Buddhism the former state religion of the royalty, in all its public rites and ceremonies. Baci was banned.

The attempt failed, based as it was on pure abstract ideology, for even the Lao revolutionary leader, Khasone himself, maintained a shrine and prayed for his departed parents. The Wheel of Dharma turned and Buddhism has become a state supported religion again and the baci ceremony is not only used in villages across the country and at tourist performances of the Royal Lao Ballet in Luang Prabang's (former) Royal Palace but also in all state welcoming ceremonies of Lao PDR. Now it was being renewed in the Australian corner of the Lao diaspora.

Kevin is also the founder and president of the Australia Lao Institute for Cooperation and Development, a front for opening up links of cultural and economic exchange between Australian Lao and the homeland and government from which they had fled after the 1975 Revolution. We were collaborators on this project. After my pilgrimage to Laos in January 2003 (see www.peacebus.com/Laos/chapter1.html) , I had returned wanting to repay the kindness of my hosts. A baci ceremony there had moved me deeply.

We had talked about it weeks before and I hadn't expected it to happen. Kevin had asked my help to build an appropriate structure for the floral arrangement and white strings but sewing flags I had no time to offer. He solved the structural problem by buying a welded stainless steel fandangle, a conical cage which was meant to serve as a stylised Christmas tree but looked like the nose of a rocket.

The eve of the Songkane celebration, working into the night Kevin and friends built a stand for it and Sthaphone and her helpers decorated it with flowers and arrangements of strings clustered on bamboo skewers.

We were sat in the sun on a line of chairs behind the beauties who sat on mats at the base of the baci. Strings connected to the baci we were given to hold and invited to make a wish while the master of ceremonies, the Lao Buddhist equivalent of an Anglican Deakin, chanted the appropriate blessing over the PA. That is to say, over one of PAs, for it was contested by at least two others, one carrying music from the band on stage and the other different music from a radio. Renewed events can have their teething problems.

So we sat in the cacophony, sun beating on our heads, piously holding our sacred threads, in a sea of profanity like shags on a ritual rock while the master of ceremonies went on and on, sitting in the shade lost in his sonorous self importance. I was sitting beside Cr Steve Chaytor who asked me immediately after for what i had wished. "For the chanting to the stop", i said. "Your wish has been granted," he pointed out. Bingo!

Then our Lao hosts took strings from the baci and went about giving blessings. Holding a hand, looking into eyes, saying a friendship blessing, knotting a string. So simple. So powerful. Lots of strings were tied and the best come as surprises. A Lao man, a Wat supporter with whom I had little acquaintance, came out of the crowd, light on his feet almost dancing with the happiness of the day. He took my hand, thanked me for my contribution, and blessed me: "May you not live alone", he said in conclusion.

The final role for the official party was to honour the beauties and Mayor Banfield was called to the stage. Brenton took up the mike and thanked his hosts, welcomed all visitors to the City and said with heart felt sincerity how welcome and important the Lao were to the cultural life of the City of Campbelltown. My! how far we have come from the passing shadow of Hansonism in such a short time.

Brenton then invited new Councillor Anoulak Chanthivong to give his maiden speech. Anoulak is second generation Lao, son of a Campbelltown Asian grocery store proprietor, who joined the local ALP branch while a teenager as a result of the influence of his then teacher and now fellow Labor Councillor, Aaron Rule. Before his election he did not have a high profile amongst the Lao, was not a regular visitor to the Wat and was swept into office on the coat tales of the huge voter swing to Labor at the Council elections of a month previous.

The Lao community had generally supported the Labor ticket. Mayor Banfield, Aaron Rule and Anoulak Chanthivong had visited the Wat in the lead up to the elections seeking Lao community support for their ticket. Mayor Banfield had also visited the local mosque and was warmly received there too. A whole mob of Bangladeshis had joined the local Labor branches and worked on polling booths. The Labor campaign for the City of Campbelltown had strong multicultural foundation.

But Anoulak was in office not because of his community leadership so much as reward for his ALP branch work. He had been given a ticket position that was at the time considered unlikely to lead to elected office. Here was a young man with community leadership thrust upon him and on a steep learning curve.

He was sitting on my other side during the baci agony in an agony of his own, anxiously reading and re-reading his speech which was to be in Lao, a second and too little practised language for him. He went to the microphone and read the speech (never a good thing to do) in a voice that although clear, stumbled some and was in tones unacceptable to Lao ears. The volume of background conversation rose like a radio being turned up.

Then Kevin, the MC for this event, took to the microphone. He spoke authoritatively in Lao and instantly the crowd was listening again. I hadn't seen Kevin in action as a spruiker before but the power of his oratory ought not to have surprised me. Before the 1975 revolution in Laos as a young man he had been the organiser for the neutralist party for the northern province and his branch had some 20,000 members, a figure that when heard by local ALP branch organisers evoked exclamations of awe. Here was an older man teaching a younger man some tricks.

The beauties were brought forward to be named, thanked by the Mayor and stand in line across the stage to be admired. We thought our official role over and were retreating to the shade with our chairs when Kevin called us to do dance with the beauties. So we were paired off, the women in our party with Lao men, the mayor, the three Councillors (all bachelor boys!), and me with the angels, and in a line we danced Lao style in the afternoon sun to Lao music, stepping and turning, waving our hands, making it up as we went along.

There was just one more thing they wanted us to witness, the performance of traditional Lao music - xylophones, one string violin, and drums by the Buddhist Sunday School children from the Lao Wat at Bonnyrig. This was the same group that had come and played for us at the Waking Up in the Bush Dharma retreat last September (see www.peacebus.com/WakingUp/). This time the folkloric dancing girls were in costume. The simplicity of the steps and gestures together with the simple beauty of the girls (6 to 9 year olds) was spell binding.

As we walked away I asked Rebecca, the Campbelltown Macarthur Advertiser journalist ,whose wrists were thickly knotted with strings and whose eyes were soft and misty, what would she write. "I don't know," she said. "I will just go to the key board and see what comes forth." I know exactly how she felt, but I didn't have to face her column inch limitations. (For what she did write and have published 28 April, see www.peacebus.com/SacredThread/040525RebeccaPiece.jpg)

A beautiful day it had been. A beautiful day for beautiful friendships. Radiant with kalyanamitta.

Dharma companion and independent scientist from the neighbouring suburb of Ambarvale, Kieran da Silva, was there. He had come gambolling with his new lover, Elana, and her happy three year old blonde haired son (the only fair haired child to be seen in that crowd). She, he told me, was the answer to his prayers to Kwan Yin at our Sacred Thread retreat. (See www.peacebus.com/SacredThread/) He came to me with a big smile and a water balloon, put it in my hand, our grasp bursting the balloon. "Happy Year of the Monkey", he said.. Happy, happy.

My ANU anthropologically talented PhD seeking daughter Holly came too from Canberra but only briefly and with great ambivalence it seemed. She was surprised by the size of the crowd and said that coming down from Canberra she had been in convoy with other parties of Lao, stopping at the same service stations and so on.

In the noise of the festival PAs and the clamour of introductions, I barely got a word of news or kindness from her. No sense of father-daughter intimacy or affirmation. Though she impressed Kevin with her fluency in Lao, she eschewed any association with the official party. She seemed to be saying that being seen officially with me was either a career risk or an emotional drain when she lunched, departed before the main event and left me feeling bereft. Disappointment for me for I was so looking forward to sharing this Lao context with her. (I learned later she was recovery from some illness.)

The clear good news was that the success of the Songkane celebrations of the year 2547 Buddhist Era at Wat Buddhalavarn means that the is now firmly established as a Lao festival ground. And it will be a cultural meeting space and a showground for Lao-Australian culture for many years to come.

What factors contributed to the upsurge of support and interest? Twelve months before Songkane at the Wat had been a much smaller event, and there was a sense of stagnation in the Wat development plans, Kevin seemed to be feeling isolated, bitter even. And now Kevin , the Wat and Songkane hugely supported by Lao family groups from all about the place.

The Leo rampant in me wants to claim the colourful magnificence of my gate banner as the key factor in lifting Songkane aspirations. But that would be as simplistic as it would be narcissistic. Truth is that success always has many fathers and mothers. (Failure of course is a bastard.)

In the lead up to Songkane lots of Lao visitors came to the Wat as part of the funeral services so diligently provided by the bhikku Sangha led by Ajanh Khamphaeng. I am told that the Wat Buddhalavarn Sangha is widely respected for its integrity.

Part of the funeral rites is the ordination of temporary monks from the family of the dead. The weekend before Songkane two young men from Canberra had been ordinated and two coaches of Canberra Lao plus about 20 car loads came to the Wat to witness the event. All of them became aware of the preparations for Songkane. And some joined in on the spot, picking up timber and tools and setting to work.

Starting after Easter and the facilitation of the building approval by the new Labor Councillors, a lot of building began: a new shed/kitchen, a new gazebo, a new storage shed. For two weeks previous there were always 12 building volunteers plus spouse cooks on site. And monks on mowers all of them including the new ones, Saffron robes rolled up to knees, going for it, tidying up garden beds and edges, pruning the shade trees for picnikers.

One Wat supporter constructed and installed a new front gates, the steel in the fabrication and the concrete in the footings would have cost in excess of $1,000. The same man also designed and constructed an impressively engineered light weight steel frame, a Hokker-like temporary shelter 6 m wide, 3 m high and 10 m long. In a week. HiTech Welding his company. Amazing skill, amazing generosity.

Kevin's wife, Helen Prakoonheang, her sisters, and sisters in laws worked tirelessly to fuel the building crews with noodle soup. Khonsavon too and she sewed up more flags and on the day, dressed in the most magnificent traditional gear, welcomed the arrivals with a happy new year, pinning coloured ribbons, extracting donations. Sthaphone did flower arrangements and worked tirelessly behind the scenes organising services. Her younger brother, an engineer who has served with a UN agency, had come from Canberra and, dressed in traditional peasants indigo dyed pyjama suit, was running around backing her up.

So many hands, so much goodwill. But from where the added impulse?

"Merit generates merit." This had been the translation of the Pali inscription in the books of photos of Luang Prabang Buddhist rites and ceremonies that Vajiro Witij had sent to the Wat as gifts in gratitude for the kindness and generous support the Sangha had given him as a Dharma teacher by hosting the Sacred Thread retreat. Santi had translated it for me and expounded upon it. Acts of generosity create further acts of generosity.

May be we shouldn't seek to know the initiating act in the cascade. Maybe it's a mystery. Maybe it's the original blessing of life itself.

But it pleases me to think of the bush Dharma retreats as a profound but subtle influence, the Waking Up in the Bush retreat in particular. Its grounded Dharma teaching, grounded the bhikku Sangha and lay people (Kevin in particular) in their Dharma Wheel turning mission at Wat Buddhalavarn. And the events' media, their good news, got people talking and aware of the value and importance of the Wedderburn Forest Monastery as a Lao cultural institution.

Since the Sacred Thread bush retreat, Ajanh Khamphaeng has been coming to me whispering affectionately: "You are a Buddha disciple." Of the time of the Buddha, he means. A kind and sweet thing to say. May it be so.

Jennifer, Ajanh Khamphaeng has named "Dharma Dog" also "Peace Dog" because she is so kindly natured that the Wat cats are undisturbed by her presence. Jennifer was much admired during the day. For the first part I tied her up away from the festival ground at Santi's corner, but too near the auxillary toilets it seems. She is a bigger dog than most Lao had seen and many Lao are afraid of dogs. Her presence was discouraging toilet use so i moved her. She lay paitiently in the shade for hours, Lao families picnicing near at hand, undisturbed as the Wat cats.

When the VIPs departed I went to exercise her and, walking through the crowd she quickly she attracted a trail of adoring Lao kids wanting to pat her. She was pleased, smiling and patient with the attention but it became too much for a dignified old lady. No place to rest.

I took her away from the crowd, walking down the trackl to our bush camp site, away from the noise of festivity, away from the clamour of Lao-ness. Like her I wanted some quiet. I was weary from my efforts, my heart wounded by my daughter's ambivalence, needing comfort, aching with loneliness. There in the bush were our markings still, the sand paintings, the arrangements of rocks and sticks, charcoal spirals on a log. Comfort in the spirit of the place for me, to sit still in the breeze and bird song again.

The evening before Songkane after a day of much labour by me and the many volunteers, Kevin laid out the grand site plan, the big brick and mortar dreams of monuments and museums, before Santi and I as we sat together enjoying the sunset. At the end of his explanation he gestured to the not-to-be-developed bushland. "And this is for Graeme's bush Dharma retreats," he said with generous flourish.

So there is a sense that I have become some sort of guardian of that patch of bush. Me and all who join in the spirit of place there, all who pick up the sacred thread of friendship there.

In the sacred cave on my knees I lit incense, took the Triple Gem of refuges and offered gratitude and merit to all beings seen and unseen, near and far, for the happy outcomes of my Dharma Wheel turning efforts at Wat Buddhalavarn.

Back in the festival ground I sought out the Venerable Santi to say my farewells. The crowd was thinning now and I found Santi sitting on a bench, set back from the proceedings watching the last of the Lao dance before the stage in the slanting golden light of the afternoon sun. I sat beside him, and Jennifer came and sat with dignity at our feet. Two old peaceniks, two dear Dharma friends, two old men sitting together in the afternoon sun on a park bench. Plus picturesque Dharma dog.

We must have looked grand because Songkane guests, departing in their cars, stopped as they passed, nopped (Lao genuflection) to Santi and gazed upon us with pure delight in their smiles.

While walking down the track earlier I had been passed by some Lao girls (9-11 year olds), five of them mounted on three ponies, the last of which was a minipony not much bigger than Jennifer. Pony rides had been part of the offered entertainment and in the parade of beauties, the pony owners, all dressed up in English private school girl pony club tack, white riding britches, navy jackets, white hard hats had escorted the procession like miniature mounted police. Now they were at ease, without hard hats, exploring the bushland trails.

As they passed one bare back pillion passenger asked: "Do you have a Lao wife?" The question startled for it was an echo from the frame of my questing when I returned from my Buddhist pilgrimage in Laos last year. See www.peacebus.com/Laos/chapter7.html

"No", I replied. "But I do have a lot of Lao friends." A lot of friends. Seen and unseen, near and far.

May you all of them be well and happy.