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CHOCOLATE CHERRY BOMBS / makes about 3 doz

PREP Blend cake mix, water, oil, and eggs in a large mixing bowl until moistened. Using a hand held mixer , beat on medium speed for two minutes. Pour batter into prepared pan/s. Bake for 29-35 minutes (see package for specific times for each pan size). Cool cake completely.

ASSEMBLY Crumble cooled cake into a large mixing bowl. Add 1/4 cup frosting and mix until well combined. Add more if needed. Scoop mixture out by the tablespoonful or use a small ice cream scoop. Roll each scoop into a ball. Drain maraschino cherries and pat dry with paper towels. Press one cherry into the center of each cake ball. Bring the cake mixture up and around the cherry. Roll in between your two hands to form a nice ball.

FINAL Melt and temper semi-sweet chocolate or melt confectionery coating/candy melts. Dip cake covered cherries in chocolate. Set on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Refrigerate if using tempered semi-sweet chocolate until set, about 10 minutes. If using dark candy melts, place your cherry bombs in the freezer until set, about 5 minutes.

SERVE at room temperature.

ING Pillsbury Devil’s Food Cake Mix 1 1/4 cups water 1/2 cup vegetable oil 3 eggs 1/4 cup from tub Pillsbury Classic White Frosting* 30-48 Maraschino Cherries with stems* 16-22 oz. tempered semi-sweet chocolate (or dark confectionery coating/candy melts)

When I was a kid, I routinely dreamed that I was flying; it was very exhilarating, but stopped as I grew older. A few months ago I was reading a book, ‘Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self’, by Robert Waggoner, and remembered those flying dreams.

After just reading a few chapters of this book one day, I went to sleep that night, found myself aware that I was dreaming, and said, “I’m going to fly!”. I flew again - making the very mistake that he mentions in the book, of trying to fly by using your arms, or swimming motions, to lift you up - so my flying was bumbling, not the effortless thing it was in childhood. I realize now that the ‘movement’ properly comes as an impulse from inside, and is a mental/feeling ‘movement’.

The point is that just thinking and ‘intending’ about this can cause you to be ‘awake’ in a dream. One of the most interesting things he talks about in the book is the possibility of ‘asking’ the dream, or people in the dream, questions; trying to find out what the dream is about, or just any old question. Dreaming must be a way of knowing deeper layers of ourselves, can be a problem-solving method, etc. But we generally just let dreams ‘happen’ to us.

I’m sure that most people have had the experience of going to sleep with a depressing problem, and waking up feeling much better about it, or even having found a solution; and then there’s the story of Kekulé and the benzene ‘ring’. That seems to have been more a ‘vision’ from imagination, than a dream; but it seems that we have all sorts of problem solving skills and knowledge that operate or are revealed when the conscious mind is somewhat in abeyance...