In the winter of 1993, there was widespread concern in New Zealand over the low level of the country's hydroelectric lakes in the South Island.Meteorologists were proclaiming doom and gloom and plans were being drawn up for electricity rationing. As a nation, we are quite dependent on hydro generated electricity, so the situation was regarded as most serious. In the midst of all this confusion, I received an usual request from my teacher, Venerable Lama Karma Samten Gyatso, He asked if I could arrange for him to visit the hydro electric lake area in South Canterbury, the heart of the country's hydro electric generation. What was unusual about this request was that he said he might be able to do something towards ending the electricity crisis! Having spent quite a bit of time with Lama, nothing much really surprised me. I made the necessary arrangements and the two of us set off to Lake Tekapo in late July.

I had a wonderful time talking to Lama on our drive down to Lake Tekapo. He told me he wanted to do practices to placate the spirits that lived in that area, in particular nagas. Nagas are a species of animal associated with water and invisible to our eye. They are highly intelligent and their moods affect changes in the weather and in the feelings of people. They have been known to cause plagues and disease. Lama described to me in great detail what they and a number of similar beings look like and how they behave. He thought the natural balance of the MacKenzie Basin had been upset and these beings weren't very happy. In the weeks leading up to our arrival, Lama said he had established contact with these spirits and they were expecting us. It certainly seemed that way if the weather was anything to go by. On the days leading up to our arrival, there had been blizzard-like conditions at Tekapo but we arrived on a remarkably hot day, canopied by a cloudless azure sky. For much of our ride, there had been snow piled up on the sides of the road.

Upon our arrival, Lama surveyed the area for the best place to do a fire puja. This turned out to be behind the Church of the Good Shepherd, an old stone church on the senic lakefront. I asked permission to use this area but this met with a resounding "No" from the local vicar. He said he, "Could not allow us to use church land for that sort of thing!" That evening Lama performed a puja on the lakefront, just down from our motel unit. It was quite an experience. All that could be heard in the silent punctuations of the puja was the lapping of icy water on the stony shore. The next morning we ran out of milk, so I set off to town leaving Lama by himself. While there, I called into the Community Police Station to see if we could get permission to do a fire puja somewhere else around the lake.

The police constable had been called out but was due back at any moment so his wife invited me in by the fire. I explained to her about Lama and what he wanted to do. She was very interested. She had seen him on t.v. not so long ago in the build-up to the visit by H.H. the Dalai Lama a few months before and had friends who had tramped in the Himalayas. When her husband returned, we continued our conversation and he, too, seemed genuinely interested in what we wanted to do. He said there would be no problem using the foreshore behind the church, as it wasn't church land anyway. He also gave us permission to light a fire. I was so excited with the turn of events and couldn't wait to tell Lama. Lama must have anticipated this because when I got back he was ready, waiting.

We brought some wood with us from Christchurch but Lama now told me it wouldn't be enough. Unfortunately there wasn't any for sale in the township either. So, I called into the Police Station again, this time to see if they could suggest anywhere we could obtain fuel for our fire. Much to my joy, they said we could have as much of their own wood as we needed, at no cost. They even cut it for us and transported it to the lakefront. This was just one of the many extraordinary incidents that occurred. The previous night we were let into a restaurant after it had closed for a meal. The only other people there were a couple in the far corner. Upon seeing Lama, they came up to us and greeted Lama with, "Tashi Delek", which is Tibetan for "Hello". It turned out they had recently returned a tramping expedition in the Himalayas. What a small world!

By the time we arrived at the Church of the Good Shepherd, a gathering of a dozen or so onlookers had collected and were waiting expectantly. The fire puja went very well. In the space of an hour or so, Lama performed a number of pujas under a clear blue sky in the snow. By the end, clouds began to form. Afterwards, I asked Lama how he felt it all went. He said he felt it went very well and had observed some positive signs. We then left for a neighboring lake, Pukaki, where Lama made some prayers and threw precious offering substances gathered from various holy places throughout Tibet and the Himalayas into the water. I recall feeling a deep inner peace at this time, some sort of communion with the environment. A week after our return, the lakes had filled to the point where the government was confident enough to announce the end of the electricity crisis. The media reported that an unexpected rise in the lake levels that previous week had obviated the need for power rationing.

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