In Observance of Decay

It’s November. Look around. What do you see? A world spinning, almost as if out of control. Firm forms feel frayed at their edges. Weathered and tattered against the cold. The old balance tilts and we are left wondering if it will ever be restored. Should it?

The march from Autumn to Winter can feel endless, but, assuredly, it begins as the first leaf changes color, as the first swift cold wind pushes its way beneath your coat, as the soil in the garden cools, as the first sign of decay becomes unavoidable. Decay comes in many forms, startling and sad. In the world of tea, one can’t help but to anticipate its arrival for once it is here, we cannot help but to welcome its presence into the tearoom.

In early Winter, this comes with the transition from the portable 風炉 furo (lit. “wind furnace”) to the 炉 ro (sunken hearth), bringing the heat of the hearth closer to the guests, a welcomed sight as the days and weeks grow ever-colder. Yet, even before this, for a brief moment, the stability of the tea space is shaken. The furo does not immediately disappear, but, instead, shifts to the center of the host’s mat (点前座 temaeza), and the 水指 mizusashi (fresh water jar) is placed further away from the guest. This arrangement (中置 nakaoki, lit. “center placement”) typically only occurs in October (although I tend to practice this throughout Winter), and, like an Autumn leaf which clings to the branch of a weathered tree, this captures the essence of the tenuous nature of the world before it, too, plunges headlong into a new form.

The observance of decay is core to the practice of tea. Indeed, it is the celebrated quality that defines 侘び寂び wabi-sabi, and that guides the aesthetic of 茶の湯 chanoyu towards the austere and rustic, the simple and imperfect, the modest and asymmetrical. The lack of balance that is everywhere in the world, which at times can create the sensation of a wild, tumbling free fall, is what drives chanoyu from moment to moment. Not static, but dynamic, by early Winter, this crashing is captured perfectly by the gentle sound of a sudden but brief rain (時雨 shigure), of the soft rustle of red 紅葉 momiji leaves that fall and curl against the cold earth, of the silence that arises when the first snowflakes dance across the grey November sky.

In my tea space, now weathered by the years, decay seems to become more apparent each time I open its door.

I can tell how often I have enjoyed its company by the steady growth of cobwebs that have been forming against its lone window, a gift from a spider I’ve befriended since late Summer. Her web, a silken shelter, kept warm by the thin walls of my makeshift tea hut, appears to me as a readymade art piece, which I choose to celebrate as much as the scroll or flower I set in my 床の間 tokonoma.

She, like the moss that grows on the roof and vine that creeps between the crack in the door, reminds me that even with decay there is vibrancy and life.

As I let my kettle boil and allow the temperature of the small room to rise, I arrange teawares beside it and enjoy the sound of the wind outside. The darkness of the tea space is broken by light reflecting off of lacquer and catching against the interior of a black teabowl.

The black lacquered 棗 natsume holds within it enough tea to entertain a party of guests, but today I practice alone. The image which adorns its shining surface of a gathered bundle of wood, an axe, and a gourd fashioned into a drinking vessel, all rendered in gold and silver dust by artist 田中平安 Tanaka Heian, feels in accordance with the world around it.

It represents a meager collection of what’s left over by the remainder of the year. Leaves cast about, brilliant in their sheen, but no longer secured atop their trees, are left to wither and rot. The axe, often emblematic of virility in the context of traditional Japanese symbolism, feels more utilitarian against the heaped and tied-up twigs.

A quick look out the window of my teahouse reveals a similar image as I have recently begun the closing of my garden for the Winter, all it’s missing is the 瓢箪 hyōtan gourd and its magical powers.

The teabowl, a 黒楽茶碗 kuro-raku chawan by famed ceramicist 佐々木松楽 Sasaki Shōraku III, feels cavernous in the dark space.

Unable to see to its bottom, it calls to mind the concept of 幽玄 yūgen, which evokes the feeling of the unknown within a dark and mysterious world. Into the concave I first pour hot water to cleanse and warm the bowl.

Then three scoops of tea.

A half ladle of hot water from the kettle…

…and then the tea and water concoction is whisked into a bright foam.

As I sit and peer down into the bowl, as I listen to the wind and sound of the steaming kettle…

…the din caught within this little world of tea feels as thin as the walls around me.

It’s hard to sit for tea when the world is seemingly spiraling out of control. Losing one’s center can feel uncomfortable. The sure thing one might have clung to, now gone, can feel destabilizing. Fear, sadness, and, at times, terror can arise.

But with decay comes the removal of superfluous forms. Trees without their leaves reveal the branches beneath, cold and bare.

The structures, once obscured, now can be examined for what they are.

Sometimes the mightiest of trees can appear spindly, more vulnerable once they have been stripped of their verdant garb. Huts, too, once decay sets in, let slip their secrets, weak points in walls, gaps where gusts of wind pour through, cracks in their foundation.

In observance of decay, I look to myself, to my hands, to the skin that wraps around these bones. How they hold each object for tea.

How they’ve practiced for almost twenty years to learn how to move and place the various wares in accordance to an oral tradition that stretches back for centuries.

I wonder how the movements they make have been maintained over time, and how the muscles in my body now know where to place each object.

I question if their eventual decay over time will mean the deterioration of my practice, as the body weakens and memory diminishes.

As I close the lid of the steaming kettle and of the cold water jar, I close my tea practice session with a final 拝見 haiken.

As I look upon the natsume once more, I see my hands, my body, my face reflected in the slick surface of its black lacquer.

In its mirror-like finish I can see myself.

I notice how my skin has changed with time, how my beard has grown.

I see someone who at this time last year was not yet a father and now sees himself as one.

I see the past and the present collide.

In my study of tea, I study myself. As I study myself, I see that which I’ve known as myself change and dissolve over time.

As that self changes, transforms, decays, it is eventually forgotten, actualized by the myriad of things that surround me in this chaotic world.

Body and mind, like leaves on a tree, drop away.

No trace of the old self, of the body, the mind, the tea, the lacquer container, the tree, the leaves, the world we knew remain.

Once fully decayed, everything gone, what continues on?

Tea for Health

As late July’s heat hangs and the humidity rises, bodies grow heavy and slump in the ever-present languor of the day. My tea practice, too, finds the warmth unbearable save for the earliest of morning and the final darkness of the day. Here I find a momentary respite and relief from the heat of Summer’s end and the approach of an eventual Autumn’s arrival.

Traditionally this was a time of year to avoid strenuous work lest one’s constitution weaken and succumb to illness. In the cultures of East Asia, where tea practice first took root and evolved, folk traditions abound which met the need to abate the potential spread of plague. One such practice, which continues today in the Gion district of Kyōto, is 祇園祭 Gion Matsuri.

Originating as a 御霊会 goryō-e, purification rituals to appease evil gods and the spirits of the dead following a plague epidemic that ravaged Kyōto in 869, it has since evolved into a complex series of ceremonies and events that span the whole of July, many of which still maintain their original purpose of promoting health and protecting the local population from sickness during the high heat of Summer.

Just as the year makes its way towards the first days of Major Heat (大暑 Taisho in Japanese), things couldn’t get worse in my household. Having just recently celebrated her fourth month, my daughter received a series of inoculations and, subsequently, came down with a fever. Stressed to see her in such a state, my wife and I found ourselves barely sleeping for three days straight, seeing to the needs and recovery of our young daughter. Our minds in a constant daze, we’d often imagine of ways to comfort her.

On the third night her fever began to break but I still could not sleep. As my wife and child rested, I stepped out into the early twilight to prepare to practice tea. The garden still asleep, I make my way across the span that separates my home and hut in which I have been making tea in now for three years.

I light incense in the dark empty space of the tea room. In the alcove I set a single flower, a purple 木槿 mukuge (Rose of Sharon), its buds still unopened. I carry water, kettle, and other assorted wares with me into the wooden shed, leaving the door ajar as if to invite the growing light of early morning to join me.

At this early hour the world is quiet. The sounds of human activity remain mostly dormant. No low hum of engines, no high peal of aircraft, no chatter of neighbors, nor the throb of a lawn mower in the distance to busy my mind. Just the sound of the kettle and the water within it coming to a boil. Just the song of morning birds. Of crows in the pine trees waking. Of deer gently crushing grass beneath their hooves. Of the tree branch lightly tapping the moss-covered roof of my makeshift tea hut.

In the pristine world of the morning I begin to cleanse the objects to make tea.

Lacquer catches the light as does inlaid abalone on a tea container covered with seven precious objects.

A wide antique teabowl, moistened 茶巾 chakin, weathered whisk.

Objects first set side-by-side, then one in front of the next.

The lacquer is wiped and so, too, is the 茶杓 chashaku.

The old teabowl is emptied of its objects before hot water from the kettle is poured within it.

Uncovered, the center reveals a circle where once in the kiln another bowl would have rested. Now, in my mind, I think of an 円相 ensō. A circle painted with a single stroke, its sured path reflecting the perfect peace of mind.

The circle, too, carries an additional meaning during Summer, calling to mind 茅の輪 chinowa, temporary circular portals of cogon grass through which people pass during Summer purification rites, to help protect them from sickness and evil.

The whisk is wetted and flexed in the hot water.

The bowl is emptied and wiped clean. I breathe and pause for a moment to think about those who still sleep inside my home. My daughter who has been fighting a fever. My wife, who has been unwavering in helping her through her momentary suffering.

As I lift the chashaku and then lacquered 棗 natsume, I expand the circle wider. I think about my parents and their health. To my sister and brother-in-law and their newborn child. To my wife’s mother. To her late father. To my wider family and dear friends. To those who have passed through my lives. To those I’ve never met. To my teacher.

Three scoops of tea. Cool water from the 水指 mizusashi mixed with the hot water of the kettle.

The cup of the 柄杓 hishaku bows and pours half of its contents into the open 茶碗 chawan.

Tea powder and water blend and the concoction is whisked into a velvety foam.

Once prepared, I reset my stance and offer the bowl to the space of the guest.

I stand and place myself where the guest would sit.

I enjoy, first a sweet.

Then the bowl of fresh 薄茶 usucha.

Once drunk, I let myself sit for a while to meditate.

Tea was once and still is seen as a medicine. Its bitterness a quality first favored by the peoples who first cultivated the plant more than six thousand years ago in a region that now straddles the borders of Laos, Myanmar, northern Thailand, southeastern Tibet, Yúnnán and Sìchuān, probably first as a food source and then as a sort of panacea to ward off a multitude of ailments.

While it has become a trend for modern audiences to paint the practice of tea as an exercise in mindfulness, with the rather whimsical (if not overly exotifying) marketing casting it as some form of mystical art in the same way zen or yoga or the other myriad of Eastern-born cultural traditions have been exploited and re-imagined for capital gain, tea, and the various practices that it can engender, can support a healthy life.

Away from the panoptic gaze of social media and its pervasive voyeuristic demands to capture and ostensibly share everything, away from the crowds that flock to public tea events and performative demonstrations, away from the pay-to-learn pathways that might lead the unknowing astray, and away from the targeted advertising of tea as a lifestyle, there is a humble and down-to-earth practice of tea that is healthy.

As I continue to deepen my tea practice, my desire to write and photograph and share tea in virtual manner is fading. The weight of life and supporting those in my life has grown and, with it, its importance. Tea, and my daily practice of tea, has also grown, equally, if not more so, than ever before. And, yet, the weight of it has lightened.

Like a great bundle of extraneous “stuff” I’ve carried for years, I feel the congestion of my old practice lifting and dropping off my shoulders. The worries and desires melt away. The wanting to make big waves subsiding and calming in favor to small ripples. What I crave now, more than ever, is the intimacy of sharing tea with myself and the moment, or, at most, between one or two other friends. My wife. My child. My teacher. An honored guest. An old friend.

I share these little glimpses into my practice because I know there are some who use them as a meditation and, as someone who appreciates tea writings, I, too, hope my readers find some value in what I write. However, to read about tea and then to actually sit for tea are two very different things.

I practice for a multitude of reasons. For enjoyment, for relaxation, for focus, for a form of deeper understanding that comes when I can just sit and make a bowl of tea. There are many movements that come before I sit. Many actions that come together before I can make a bowl of 抹茶 matcha. I must be limber and fit to sit in 正座 seiza for several hours at a time. I must be mentally and physically alert to prepare tea at any hour. I must be flexible enough sit and be fully present in times that are agreeable and disagreeable. I must be resilient to do this not just once but for many years. For a lifetime.

All of this helps. It is a sort of medicine I make for myself and, perhaps, for others too. This is, as I see it, tea for health.

With wares cleaned again, I pause once more. In shadows cast by growing morning light, objects and their shapes become more pronounced. In these shadows and with the sun’s glow that joins me, I decide to make a final 拝見 haiken.

Light glints and bends off of the rounded shape of the lacquered natsume. The various images of the 七寶 shichihō, which often make their first appearance during New Years, have been chosen again, this time as a symbolic safeguard against illness. Seven treasures, each with their own purported powers, have been dutifully applied in gold lacquer 蒔絵 maki-e by master artisan 市中 五稜 Ichinaka Goryō, with a noted exception of the 隠れ笠, kakuregasa (“hat of invisibility”), which he rendered with a thin veneer of iridescent abalone shell.

Next, I reach behind me and grasp the handle of the chashaku. From left to right hand the object passes until it, too, is placed atop the wooden 香盆 kōbon.

Finally, both object placed side-by-side, I sit and appreciate the qualities of both wares.

The the early morning light, the objects appear softer, lighter.

Undulations of the chashaku scoop and the minute remains of tea dust that still cling to its tip appear in a dreamlike state.

The glow of the abalone catching reflections of daylight.

In selecting these objects I make a nod to the time of year and the significance the growing heat can have on one’s health. With talismanic imagery such as the shichihō, the mukuge, the chinowa, I acknowledge and hope to assuage the anxiety I have as a parent trying to keep my child healthy.

This practice I’ve conducted over what is now twenty years, has evolved. The challenge that comes from making tea, in the growing heat of Summer and in the growing heat of this little world, I find myself returning back to this practice now more than ever.

When a child is sick, when the world is ailed, there exists for a moment a sense of hopelessness. The mind stirs and cannot rest. Where one once found comfort, either in sleep or joyful activity, now feels unbearable. All one can do is to sit and meditate. In the meditation that is tea practice, I find I can engage with these emotions, with the difficulties of these situations.

Rather than be a distraction or anecdote to the stress of the modern and wounded world, tea is a mirror, a microscope to the microcosm that is the self.

To bring awareness that one is sitting amidst the world of agreeable and disagreeable situations, here is where one will acquire the strength to endure.

As light filters through the open door, as the heat of the day rises, I look to the alcove to see that the purple mukuge flower has opened.

Interdependence Day

July fourth came and while much of the country remained asleep, I wake and began preparing for tea practice an hour before the sunrise. Slinking from my bed so as not to wake my wife and baby daughter, I make my way downstairs. A candle is lit, a stick of burning incense is placed into a tripod censer, a container of fresh-ground 抹茶 matcha is put aside to acclimate to the heat of the day, and a kettle is set to boil. In the twilight of the morning I gather and prepare both implements and mind for お稽古 okeiko (tea lesson) with my tea teacher, the first since my daughter was born.

The previous day my teacher had asked me to prepare to practice tea not in my indoor studio as we had done every time before but, instead, outside in my garden shed. With Summer Solstice (夏至 Geshi/Xiàzhì in the old lunisolar calendar), the heat of the day is too strong to want to make tea during normal active hours. Instead, tea gatherings (and practice) is best conducted during early morning and in the evening when the air is coolest. 朝茶 Asacha (lit. “Morning tea”) is preferred, as the light of the morning is gentle and one’s consciousness is given the opportunity to wake with the world around it.

Collecting my wares, I trek across the grassy divide that separates my house from my garden shed. Between, I pass flowers and plants as they slowly begin to wake, still covered in sparkling dew and collected rainwater from a midnight shower. A caterpillar still sleeps along the length of a bright green branch.

A stalk of blooming yarrow growing beside my vegetables catches my attention and I lean down to pick it, setting it into an old cut bamboo 花入 hanaire I’ve brought with me for today’s practice.

A fresh leaf of wild grape is cut from the vine to be used as a lid to a glass 水指 mizusashi.

Once settled in my makeshift 茶室 chashitsu, I pour water into my iron and bronze 風炉釜 furogama and wait until it comes to a rolling boil. The gentle sound of rain begins to beat against the roof of the shed, coming and going like a cool breath.

I sit and wait for my teacher to call. We’ve been meeting virtually for years now since he lives in Paris and I, now, in New York. The digital divide seems vast yet, when I see him on the other side of the computer screen, the distance does not seem so far. We greet one another with a bow and I offer to walk him through my garden path that leads from my house through a patch of trees and eventually to my makeshift tea hut. The stones that lead the way are wet and becoming more and more overgrown with time. Leaving the doors open, the growing light of the morning pours into the small shed as I begin okeiko.

The mizusashi with a leaf for a lid is brought out and placed beside the kettle. This morning I’ve chosen to practice 葉蓋点前 Habuta temae. While I usually reserve this for 七夕 Tanabata, it feels right to do this today, as the freshness of the leaf lid seems in line with the refreshing feeling of the Asacha gathering.

Next, an offering of sweets, fresh-picked mulberries, is made to my teacher. This is fitting as one of the star-crossed lovers of Tanabata, 織姫 Orihime (lit. “Weaving Princess”), is also sometimes referred to as the 梶葉姫 Kajinoba-hime (“Paper Mulberry Princess”), a link to the 和紙 washi paper made from the paper mulberry upon which wishes are written upon.

Finally, the other tea objects are brought out and arranged before me in order to prepare a bowl of matcha.

A red lacquered 茶桶棗 satsū natsume (lit. “tea bucket” natsume). A wide Vietnamese celadon teabowl from the Lý and Trần period (1009-1400). A old 茶杓 chashaku. A 茶筅 chasen made of dappled bamboo.

A 柄杓 hishaku and a ceramic 蓋置 futaoki.

The gentle hum of the boiling water continues to rise as I cleanse each object, first with the silken 袱紗 fukusa and then the hot water from the kettle.

My teacher offers guidance here and there, correcting my posture, the way I hold an object, the way the 茶巾 chakin first cleanses the corner of the 敷板 shiki-ita and then the shoulder of the bronze 風炉 furo before first placing it down on the shiki-ita, then, eventually, atop the lid of the chagama. All the while, I try to maintain my focus and even breath so as not to stop the constant flow of movements that go into preparing a bowl of tea.

This, since I first met my teacher over fifteen year ago, has been the steady basis of my practice. Layers of guidance, corrections, movements, memories.

Objects cleansed, I offer my teacher the mulberries as a tea sweet and begin to prepare a bowl of tea.

The lid of the natsume is removed.

Three scoops of matcha are carefully placed in the center of the old 茶碗 chawan.

Excess tea powder is gently tapped off of the curved tip of the chashaku.

For a moment I stare down into the concave created in the heap of tea powder held inside the lacquer tea container.

The leaf that covers the mizusashi is lifted carefully and tilted over 建水 kensui. A large drop of water rolls down its surface, letting out a satisfying resonating tone as it falls into the wastewater bowl.

Instantly, I feel refreshed.

Cold water is lifted from the mizusashi and blended with the hot water of the kettle. Cooled to the appropriate temperature, I pour half-a-dipper’s worth of water into the teabowl and whisk the tea into a soft delicate foam.

The gentle sounds of rain and birdsong blend as I bow and offer my teacher a bowl of tea. He then offers to me the bowl I’ve made for him as he has done time and time before.

I bow and enjoy the mulberries and bowl of tea from the position of the guest. For a moment I imagine he and I are sitting together in my makeshift tea hut. The space between us feeling not so far.

Finishing my first sip of tea, my teacher asks me how is the flavor. The tea is fresh, having been ground and gifted by a dear friend in New York City’s East Village. The flavor surrounds me in a sweet air.

I finish the tea with two more sips and my teacher then asks me to then smell the interior of the bowl. The aroma of matcha still remains, almost stronger now than it was when the bowl was full.

The warmth of the tea still radiates through the ceramic, although cooling as I hold the empty chawan. A refreshing feeling as the morning’s heat rises.

I return now to the place of the host to clean each tea object. Cool water to cleanse the wetted implements. Soft silk to purify the dry wares.

The whisk is set with its thin tines pointing upwards to help them dry faster in Summer’s heat.

The bowl set beside the natsume once more.

The light of the morning shines and bends through the glass mizusashi.

The kettle is closed and objects set aside.

I perform a final 拝見 haiken with the guidance of my teacher.

Selected tea wares are examined and their usage and reason for selection explained.

The chashaku is covered in tiny spots to reflect a wish for Summer rain.

The red lacquered natsume to reflect a link between tea and Buddhism and earlier Korean and Chinese forms.

The Vietnamese tea bowl, with its foliate design on its outer surface, represents a lotus flower, which bloom in July.

Why now? Why today? Why bring these objects together under such circumstances? And why all this for the enjoyment and contemplation of both host and guest? These are the unspoken questions of a tea gathering.

It is the Fourth of July, and yet I feel no desire to be patriotic. Why celebrate the birth of a country that was founded on the premise of the preservation of slavery, on the inequality of different races, on the genocide of the native peoples? Why celebrate when this nation still denies equality to all, still denies the atrocities it has committed, still wages wars, still destroys the environment at a horrendous rate?

Rather, the fourth, for me, is a questioning of the nature and danger of independence.

The perilous quality of pure individualism and the alienation that can come from seeing oneself as being truly independent.

Instead, I offer tea today to my teacher, who joins me virtually from France, as he’s done so for well over a decade now, as a meditation on the notion of interdependence.

As an acknowledgement and celebration of the reality that we are all connected. To be humbled by this quality, that we are neither wholly independent nor fully dependent in our lifetimes. To recognize the importance that we ultimately must rely on everything and everyone around us to exist, all the while, realizing that there is still the possibility for each of us to be our own selves.

To make a bowl of matcha in a manner that evolved from practices handed-down and influenced by Chinese and Korean forms in Japan from a millennia ago until today.

To offer it in a centuries-old Vietnamese celadon chawan to my tea teacher who lives in France over a virtually assisted medium. To sit in the Hudson Valley, in a small makeshift tea hut fashioned from plywood sourced from the timber from forests of Canada. To whisked tea freshly ground by friends who live in New York City.

Nothing in this interconnected web of events, objects, and beings is independent. No existence is more valid than the other. Nothing is alone or alien. Nothing arose by itself, but through the influence and confluence of other external forces do they come into being. They are all interdependent. Linked, like two star-crossed lovers who meet if only for once a year across the Milky Way, through space and time.

Dreams

March arrived and with it came the birth of our daughter. A full moon, a cold night, rain that turned to snow as we left for home from the birthing center where she was born. Upon our arrival, the dog greeted us with joyful anticipation which quickly turned to confusion which turned to trepidation as if to announce to us the obvious, that life would never be the same.

It wasn’t long after returning home that the magnitude of this change hit me, as if for the first time, all at once. Teary-eyed as if caught between sadness and shock, I looked to my wife who was more resolved. For her, the change had been more gradual, the reality of our child and the role of being a parent being more present for her during those thirty-eight-and-a-half weeks of her pregnancy.

As for me, nothing seemed to have prepared me for the coming of a child into this world. Not my wife’s pregnancy. Not the countless articles we read nor the endless teachings we received. Not the Summer that turned to Fall, that turned to Winter, that hinted at Spring. All this time and due diligence seemed only to have gotten me so far.

The true learning, I’ve found since then, comes only in the free fall. In the crisis of life. In the crying, the feeding, the sleepless nights that turn to tired days. In the passing of our child from the hands of my wife to mine and back again. From the consoling of our newborn when she weeps, to the support of my wife when she says I’m a good father and the reassurance I give her that she is a dedicated mother. Our new roles embodied and realized as we step into our new practice, each day, each instance, one after the next.

In the momentous change that has since come to my little life, it seems ridiculous to think beyond the immediate. Long has been the time that’s lapsed from when I first was able to find time to write. Less time, for sure, has passed since I have been able to sit and make some tea, first for myself and, then, eventually for my brother-in-law, who traveled with my sister across the continent to visit our new and scrambled family. For him, a bowl of 抹茶 matcha was all I could muster, a gift for him as he awaits the birth of a son, as if to tell him that everything will be alright, but not without its challenges.

In these briefest of moments where I am able to collect myself, feel my way through the process of making tea, I wish for a sense of clarity and calm, only to realize that in this practice, one that exists in and outside of child-rearing, the flavor of fatherhood cannot be escaped, dulled or numbed.

Instead, I find myself dreaming. Dreaming due to lack of sleep. Dreaming of time that’s since passed and no longer exists. Dreaming of words I could potentially commit to a page, of bowls and cups of tea I could make a share with friends far-flung, of my many unfinished projects that wait for me and may never see their end.

My makeshift tea hut, which still contains the many dreams of becoming one day a full-fledged 茶室 chashitsu, looks at me from across the garden as if with the same longing eyes as my dog, wishing for more time to be spent with it, not sure where or if that time will ever come.

Without consistent sleep and my once-regular practice of tea, I live my life as if I were in a dream. In these restless nights, I see darkness turn to day. The ink black sky, with its faint kaleidoscope of stars, slowly warms to a gentle indigo just before the Sun breaks over the horizon.

Light filters through the branches of the trees which, in Winter were bare, now, in Spring, are full and flap with foliage and bear within them the voices of songbirds and night owls.

One such morning, as the light of dawn grows, and my wife and daughter sleep, I sit in a tenuous silence and decide to make tea. Dreamy celadon accompanies me for an existence now that feels like a dream, one seemingly born from a dream that then folds into a dream, just one I’ve only just begun to recognize is not fully my own.

Poet 莊子 Zhuāngzǐ’s butterfly’s dream seems a fitting companion to this new life. A question of whether I or the butterfly are the holder of the real state of being. Am I the dreamer or the dream? Is my life wholly my own or is it now just a space within which my newborn daughter can exist, explore, and play?

In the dream state of morning’s twilight, before the plaintive cries of my daughter arrive, before I must return to my partner’s side, I wait for water to boil. Unwrapping a small pressed cake of 冰島古樹普洱茶 Bīngdǎo gǔ shù pǔ’ěr chá, I notice that leaves which were once a silvery white have tempered and aged, turning orange and brown with time.

Breaking off a small portion to place in an awaiting scoop of bamboo, I am reminded of the old tradition in southern China where, upon the birth of a daughter, cakes of tea were set aside and left to age. These 茶餅 chá bǐng would then become part of her dowery, a show of value gained over the years, a reminder of the weather and harvest of the year she was born into this world.

An empty vessel, first dry, is wet and warmed, and left waiting for leaves of tea to be placed within it. The rounded volume of the tiny teapot evokes the potential for creativity all the more this morning. Time taken to sit between the waking hours of my wife and daughter to enjoy a moment of tea, coupled with the realization that their rest is just as much a meditation.

Water pours forth from the kettle and sends the flattened leaves tumbling within the tiny world of the teapot’s interior space. Earthen hues of speckled clay offset by earthen hues of tea leaves aged.

For a moment, I watch the steam swirl, the curled leaves unfurl, and let my mind wander to and from dreams.

Dreams of what’s to come.

Dreams that drift and pass like clouds.

Dreams that arrive during sleepless nights.

Waking dreams.

Exhausted dreams.

Personal dreams.

Collaborative dreams.

Dreams of wanting and of goals desired.

Dreams of letting go of dreams.

Dreams of a child transforming over time.

Dreams of dreams that have yet to form.

Dreams that have not yet been dreamed.

Morning’s light rises and settles, warming surfaces both wooden and clay. Cracks in the ceramic’s glaze become clear.

Colors in the tea deepens with each subsequent steeping. Shadows darken as the daylight grows. Bird’s songs amplify and then fade against the din of the brightening day. The first rustlings of my daughter come as she wakes from her dreams. My wife’s voice calls as she beckons me.

The kettle cools and the teaware is left to dry.

To Practice in the Cold

Ever since I’ve moved up the Hudson, away from the big city, into the hills and rivers, lakes and mountains of rural New York, I’ve made it a point to seek out the coldest day of the year. Even as the obvious effects of climate change make snow more and more a rarity in this region, there still are days where flurries occur and the feeling of being completely covered in ice and cold still remain. In these changing times, I chase these days with great vigor.

Having grown up on the West Coast of the United States, snow has always held a curious place in my heart. Now living in a region where snow is generally seen as a nuisance, something to clear off the driveway or dig one’s way through, I feel like the odd-man-out as I gleefully await a snowy day, gladly taking on any snow-bound task, but only after I take a moment to appreciate its flawless, sparkling, undulating qualities.

Along with all the joy that it brings me, I also greet snow with a quality of solemnity. Its arrival marks a turning point in the year, a deepening of the cold of Winter. Especially now that the lunisolar new year has passed, the Northern Hemisphere remains gripped the coldest period of Winter. 大寒 Daikan (Dàhán in Mandarin). “Major Cold”. It is during this time, especially, that I await the coldest day, when the wind picks up, and dark clouds obscure the warming rays of the Sun.

This year, the coldest day comes during a busy work week. Tied to my computer and tending to emails, I catch a glimpse of the first falling snowflakes out the window that opens onto my now barren garden. I begin to feel the pull towards the world outside.

Gathering up a small selection of wares, I prepare for my trek into the cold. Even if it is just a walk across my garden, I treat it as if it were a journey into the mountains. From pouring water into thermoses and wrapping up my iron 茶釜 chagama, to sifting and scooping of 抹茶 matcha powder into a small 茶入 chaire, each step in preparation for making a bowl of tea readies my body and mind to brace against the cold it was about to encounter.

Finally, with all items wrapped-up and bundled into several sacks, I make my way across the increasingly snow-covered scenery.

Patches of grass peek out from underneath a freshly-fallen drift.

Flowers capped in snowflakes bloom once again.

Spiny thistles and dried-out burdock soften with the snow.

Pine branches glisten green against the contrast of crystalline ice upon their needles.

Footprints follow me in the snow.

Finally crossing the threshold of my makeshift tea hut, I enter into a new world.

Dark, save for a single window that looks out onto a cluster of pine trees, I light a single candle set in my makeshift 床の間 tokonoma, using the flame to burn the tip of an incense stick.

I unwrap the kettle and fill it with fresh water, setting it into the 置き炉 okiro (which I’ve fashioned from an old apple crate) to begin its slow rise to boil. For now until I finish, the heat from this improvised hearth will be the only source of warmth while I practice.

In the time it takes for the water to boil I arrange the small space for tea. I place a small sprig of greenery in the alcove. Cool fresh water is poured into the 水指 mizusashi. I set a small woven box beside me containing the tea implements and wait, using the time to meditate in the cold.

The aroma of incense in the tea room grows and then fades. The din of the wind blowing outside against the wooden walls of the hut grows and then melds into the sound of kettle as the water begins to boil. Soon a column of steam begins to rise and I ready myself to make tea.

I lift the lid from the woven box beside me to reveal objects needed for tea. A chaire enrobed in a silken 仕服 shifuku nestled in a 鬼萩茶碗 Oni Hagi chawan. As I begin my tea practice in the deep cold, the sight of the bundled wares conveys to me a sense of warmth.

I remove and place the chaire before the mizusashi. In my mind, I imagine what one would see if they were to enter the tea room as a guest does before the host. In this moment’s practice, I will be both.

I remove the white tea bowl with its unctuous glaze and arrange the implements for tea within and upon its smooth and crackled surface.

This I set beside the tiny chaire and ready myself to prepare a bowl of tea.

In the moments before tea is made, the hiss of the kettle becomes ever present, hanging in the air alongside the heat that radiates from its iron skin. Despite the relative stillness the tea room presents, the sound of the boiling water infers an palpable quality of movement and vitality. Even if I can feel the deep motionless torpor of Winter’s frozen world outside, I delight in the song the kettle sings, pairing sweetly to the rush of wind through the pines. For the moment , this seems enough to keep feelings of cold at bay.

In this practice, motion becomes a bulwark against the cold. The action, more than the act, of making tea, becomes the focus. Setting down the bamboo ladle beside the okiro feels heavy.

Moving the teabowl and chaire into place is a challenge.

Untying the 緒 o (the braided silk cord that secures the shifuku pouch) requires the utmost concentration.

As the shifuku is peeled away, revealing the shape of the chaire within, a greater sense of ease arises.

Setting the silken pouch beside the mizusashi reveals the woven motif within the sky blue and silver brocade. Peonies, a flower often reserved for early Summer, make an appearance again in January during the depths of Winter. 寒牡丹 kan-botan, or Winter Peony, blossom come mid-Winter, their delicate ruffled blooms protected from the snow and cold by tiny huts made of woven straw. Seeing them now, brought into my tea practice at this time, helps me to push forth against the frigid conditions.

Objects are cleansed one after the other. The chaire and scoop with the purple silk of the 袱紗 fukusa.

The whisk and the bowl with hot water drawn from the boiling kettle. The sweet scent of wet bamboo arises as the thin tines of the 茶筅 chasen are wetted.

As the cup of the 柄杓 hishaku is set atop the open mouth of the iron cauldron.

Hands are drawn together in a momentary clasp as I pause before I set forth to prepare a bowl of tea. The cool residue of water from the 茶巾 chakin slowly drying from my fingertips.

The sound of water rushing and turning in the hollow of the kettle remains constant. The gentle aroma of incense and the crisp fragrance of fresh snow.

The tiny bone lid of the chaire is removed and set beside the teabowl.

Scoops of tea are measured and placed against the white glaze of the chawan.

The chaire is turned over to pour the remaining green tea powder out from its interior into a scattered pile.

Hot water is drawn again from the boiling chagama and a small amount of it is poured upon the heap of matcha powder. The bright green darkens as the tea saturates and blends with the water.

Lifting the chasen, I begin the methodically knead the tea into a thick paste, releasing the intoxicating aroma of fresh ground tea into the cold air of the tea room.

Steam from the kettle and steam from the chawan rise and coil in large swirls along with the steam from my breath. More hot water is added and the thick tea paste become looser, more pliable, more consistent for consumption.

Breath and movement match and a beautiful bowl of 濃茶 koicha emerges.

As I do whenever I make tea alone in my makeshift tea hut, I serve the bowl of matcha as if I were offering it to a guest sitting beside me. Body turned, I lift upwards and sit down in the position of the guest.

From here, the perspective changes. The light feels softer. The shadows longer.

Staring down into the chawan, the koicha appears almost black, set in stark contrast against the thick white glaze of the Oni Hagi teabowl.

I lift the bowl and offer a moment’s pause to give gratitude to my practice, to my teacher, and to the cold that has accompanied me throughout my time making tea. I turn the bowl and take the first sip and the warm tea awakens my frozen body. Two more sips and the remaining tea clings to the inner edges of the white chawan.

For a while I hold the bowl in my hand. The vessel is a relatively recent acquisition, a piece made by the contemporary Japanese ceramicist 山根清玩 Yamane Seigan. As with all Oni Hagi wares, the glaze is wild and uneven. Thick in some places and absent in others, revealing a dark iron-rich underbody that looks like frozen earth revealed beneath a layer of fresh snow.

Over time and with regular use, this iron color will push and seep through the many cracks and fissures present in the glaze, making the overall appearance more crazed and crackled. For now, however, the bowl appears bright, clear, just beginning its journey that may last for many lifetimes.

I return myself and teabowl back to the position of the host. With ample koicha residue still clinging to the sides of the teabowl, I opt to make a very casual bowl of 薄茶 usucha with the remaining dregs. In the spirit of 勿体ない mottainai, I choose not to waste the precious tea, giving it new life and enjoying it in a different way.

In mid-Winter practice, I remind myself to use up all we can. Even leftovers can become nourishment.

Teabowl cleaned, I set it aside and use a separate 替茶碗 kae-chawan to clean the chasen.

The 茶杓 chashaku, fashioned from a piece of red cedar, is cleansed with the fukusa.

The residual tea dust is tapped-off into the 建水 kensui.

Objects are rearranged and set to rest. Cool water is poured into the boiling kettle and the long hiss of the rolling water stops.

The cover is drawn over the iron cauldron.

The ladle and lid rest put away.

For the first time since I first set out to prepare a bowl of tea the space within the wooden hut is silent. The sound of wind rushing outside is audible again. The song of the pine trees moving in the breeze. Crows cawing to one another in the distance. The creaking of branches against the side of the small structure.

In this world of shifting sounds I pull forth an old wooden incense tray upon which I will place tea objects onto for closer inspection. I first cleanse the old 香盆 kōbon with my folded fukusa.

Next, the chaire is cleansed.

The lid is removed and the mouth of the tiny tea container is wiped clean of tea powder. The chashaku is set in the center of the tray and the shifuku beside it.

As I had done before with the bowl of koicha, I offer the 拝見 haiken to myself as a guest. Shifting positions once again, I feel the cold creep back into my bones.

Sitting down before the collected wares, I let my eyes travel across the wooden tray, admiring, once again, the objects I had used in making a bowl of tea.

These implements, like a hiking staff…

…a container to preserve precious goods…

…and a satchel to keep my worldly belongings safe as I travel through this wintery world, remind me that all objects of use have their own innate beauty.

Whether rough and rustic, weathered by time and use, or refined and splendid, kept clean by care, the tools of one’s practice reflect a sense of purpose.

In the many years I’ve used these objects (and the many more years they’ve been used before they came to me), they’ve acquired a patina of time. Perhaps the blue and silver silk of the shifuku’s brocade had never before crossed a snow-covered garden. Perhaps never did these objects sit in the deep cold of a mid-Winter’s practice. Perhaps never were they used as implements in a tea person’s 寒稽古 Kangeiko.

The practice of Kangeiko, often reserved for the martial arts or ascetic forms of Shintō and Buddhism, is used as a test of one’s endurance in extreme cold. Through this, it is thought one’s skills can improve and one’s mind can achieve a level of discipline not found in more comfortable conditions.

As I close this tea session, packing away the wares to cross the snow-covered garden again, I reflect upon both what I’ve learned and felt along the way. In the time that passed, actions felt more urgent, their consequences more profound. The heat of the kettle became more important. The transferral of that heat to the water, to the tea, to myself more critical. In the cold, the mind and spirit can waiver. It is here that one’s practice is forced to its limits.

Emerging from the thin-walled hut out into the now snow-covered world, I feel refreshed, stronger, my mind acutely aware and attuned to the harsh cold. Whatever warmth was contained in the tea space was used up entirely. Nothing left over. All for the nourishment of my practice.

Whatever thoughts that had bothered me, piles of work and worry that had once cluttered my mind, has been dug through, cleared off. I walk back to the warmth of the world I left behind, tracing footprints in the snow.

Future, Past, Present

Today is the fifth of May. Ostensibly, it is the beginning of Summer on the traditional lunisolar calendar (立夏 Rikka). And, yet, all around me it still feels like Spring. Rain clouds gather overhead. New green leaves bristle on trees. Shoots rise from the earth. Peony bushes push upwards in the garden, yet their showy blooms have yet to burst. There is a feeling of anticipation, a longing for flowers to unfurl, for skies to clear, for the heat of the day to grow. Alas, the cool of the previous season still lingers and morning’s mist hangs long until noon.

In the practice of 茶の湯 chanoyu, May 5th, the fifth day of the fifth month, is marked by celebration, flavored heavily by its culture of origin. Double five, or 重五 Chōgo in Japanese, is one of the five seasonal festivals on the traditional calendar of Japan, and is associated with a myriad of observances.

Today is 端午の節句 Tango no Sekku, which demarcates the beginning of the month of the horse (the fifth month). At this point in the year, one should begin to feel the heat rise. Yet, here in Upstate New York, a chill remains.

子供の日 Kodomo no hi, or Children’s Day (historically 男の節句 Otoko no Sekku, or Boy’s Day) also falls on this day. The birth of the new season, rites of passage, youthful vigor, 鯉幟 koinobori fluttering atop homes with children. All around boasts the promise of great things to come. Alas, here, Summer’s throb still feels faint.

It is also 菖蒲の節句 Shōbu no Sekku, referring to the practice of hanging shōbu (sweet-flag, Acorus calamus, or Japanese iris, Iris ensata var. ensata) and 蓬 yomogi (mugwort, Artemisia) from the eaves of one’s home (which were believed to ward-off evil spirits and fire).

Here in the Hudson Valley, the iris have yet to bloom, although I still manage to create a bundle of mugwort and iris leaves, which I hang-up against my makeshift tea hut.

With such a multifaceted day, it might feel overwhelming for a tea person to choose what they will do. So much expectation on just one day. For me, it offers a unique meditation, one which I infuse into today’s tea offering.

Setting off across my garden to the dark interior of my weathered shed, I’ve created within it a space to ponder time. Outside, purple-capped deadnettle and broad-leafed garlic mustard grow high. Remnants of Spring.

Inside my hut hangs the soft scent of 白檀 byakudan. The sound of water boiling within the bronze and iron kettle is faint but audible.

Summer in the world of tea is marked by many aspects. One major event is the closing of the 炉 ro and the beginning of the use of the portable brazier, the 風炉 furo. 初風炉 shoburo (lit. “first furo”) marks the first use of the furo. Today, I will use my furo for the first time, in anticipation for Summer’s emergence.

As I look forward to the new season, I also look back time. The bronze and iron 風炉釜 furogama are of an ancient tripod form, akin to those used during the 唐 Táng (618-907) and 宋 Sòng (960-1279) periods.

Beside it sits a square-shaped 鬼萩水指 Oni-hagi mizusashi, and before this I’ve placed a small round 茶入 chaire, enrobed in a blue and silver brocaded 仕服 shifuku, emblazoned with a design of peonies.

As I place a peach-hued 茶碗 chawan beside the tiny tea container, I recognize the significance of the choice in wares I’ve made.

In the practice of tea, we sit and hope to become connected to the moment. “Now”, as a distinct moment in time, is fleeting.

The instance we recognize it, it has passed. Rather, the moment we find ourselves in is often experienced tangentially.

The peonies on the brocaded pouch refer to a flower that has yet to bloom.

Future.

The tradition that associates this aspect to Summer is based on an understanding of the peony’s significance in ancient East Asian culture.

Past.

The presence of the flower woven into silk, which I splay open to reveal the ceramic chaire it contains.

Present.

Angles shift in the tearoom as object are oriented and reoriented based on their action and function.

During the furo seasons, objects are typically set in line with the brazier.

Then, as each object is cleaned, they reset again against the line that runs parallel to the mizusashi.

The bowl remains between host and furo.

The lid of the kettle is removed.

The 柄杓 hishaku rests against the open mouth of the steaming 茶釜 chagama.

During Kodomo no hi, or, more specifically, Otoko no Sekku, references to ancient 武士 bushi (warrior) culture abound. As a rite of passage, it marked a moment in time where a child could take on the affects of a 侍 samurai. In the realm of tea, the hishaku becomes an arrow, the iris becomes a spear.

Here, too, future and past oscillate to triangulate the present. A child assumes the role of an adult, even if just for a day. The adult longs for the carefree nature of when they were a child. Objects used to mark the coming of a new season are imbued with ancient connotations. Between these vectors exists, somewhere, now.

The lid of the tea container is removed and tea is heaped into the center of the peach-glazed teabowl.

A small mountain to climb rises within.

Hot water is drawn from the boiling kettle and poured atop the bright green 抹茶 matcha powder. The tiny mountain collapses, sinking slowly into the warm sea.

As the kettle murmurs and birds call, the tea is mixed in a slow, methodical manner. A slight breeze kicks up outside and I can hear the leaves of shōbu and yomogi beat against the exterior of my tea hut.

In the darkness of this tiny space, I make a single bowl of 濃茶 koicha. An offering for the season to come. A medicine of the past to fortify me as Summer arrives.

Drinking the tea down and concluding my lone tea session, I am yet again drawn to ponder time.

A shallow teabowl is employed as a 替茶碗 kae-chawan to cleanse the whisk. Perhaps I will use this piece for a future tea gathering.

I observe the angle at which I place the bowl down and arrange the cleansed objects upon it and within it.

These angles point towards the heat that will rise as Summer continues.

Cold water is added to the chagama and the bronze lid is placed back upon it.

The bamboo ladle is laid across the rim of the 建水 kensui.

A final 拝見 haiken is prepared to mark the first use of the furo.

Light from the small window beams and catches against the gold foil beneath the lid of the chaire.

Light catches against the curved surface of the tea container.

Against the carved tip of the 茶杓 chashaku.

Against the woven fibers of the shifuku pouch.

Future, past, present caught in light.

Exposed. Laid bare. There to be pondered.

As Spring shifts to Summer. As the portable brazier is used for the first time.

April’s Air

Finally, Winter’s cold seems like a memory as Spring’s first warm day is here. Birds call and breezes push through the trees whose branches now brim with red and green buds of the new season. April’s air is fragrant and fresh. So, too, is the soil, waking from its hibernation.

Shoots and seedlings push up from the wet earth, soaked and saturated by the weekend’s rain.

Stepping across the garden to huddle in my makeshift hut, I dust-off the floorboards and bring with me a bowl to make tea.

A whisk.

A 棗 natsume.

A wooden scoop of speckled bamboo that looks like dew, that looks like intermittent showers.

An old thermos filled with hot water.

A 建水 kensui to collect the dregs.

Sitting in my hut, I meditate. Wisps of incense smoke fade and the sound of a bird scratching at the moss upon the roof wakes me, rousing me to make tea.

I arrange the wares to make an informal bowl of 薄茶 usucha.

The silk of my 袱紗 fukusa is folded and pressed against the lid of the tea caddy and then again against the spotted surface of the tea scoop.

Bowl and whisk are warmed and in the sunlight that pours through the one window of my hut, steam is seen rising from wetted objects as they wait to be used to make tea.

Unlike Winter, the world of Spring throbs with life, pulsates with energy, and booms with noise and sound from all directions. The ring of the 茶杓 chashaku against the inner edge of the grey-glazed clay of my 井戸茶碗 Ido chawan pairs with the sound of a robin digging for worms outside my garden hut. The rush of water from the thermos into the bowl harmonizes with the song that the wind and the trees sing above me.

The back and forth of the whisk as bright green foam rises creates a rhythmic tune that syncopates against the hum of the warbler’s whistle, the crow’s caw, the horn of the train along the river’s edge, and the din of the town in the distance.

I am reminded that what we often call peace is just another word for chaos. What we often label as silence is just a cacophony of sounds that blend and meld together.

Spring in full vigor is activity emerging from below the soil, from the wooded husks of once dormant trees, from the silvery swirl of clouds against a bright blue sky.

Tea alone at this moment is just that. A moment borrowed from an otherwise busy world, on an otherwise ordinary Monday.

Time taken to reinvigorate the heart and remind the soul that the seasons are changing constantly.

Momentarily replacing the glowing screen and clicking keyboard for the dim light of a tearoom and the sparkling foam of 抹茶 matcha radiating from within a matte grey teabowl.

For this moment, the only thing I have to examine are the last drops of tea that remain.

The unctuous glaze that has collected and congealed along the 高台 kōdai of an antique chawan.

The rippling lacquer that shimmers atop a natsume.

The speckled pattern of black dots that nature has arranged upon the skin of my bamboo tea scoop.

As the incense burns down, the light of the day shifts, the call of songbirds collect and crescendo, I take my cue to gather-up my items again.

Dregs in a teabowl are wetted and wiped clean. Water evaporates off of the thin tines of an old and broken 茶筅 chasen as it’s set upon a folded 茶巾 chakin. The tea scoop is dusted-off and laid across the chawan’s ceramic rim.

Tea caddy and chawan set side by side before they are put away.

I screw the cap back onto my old metal thermos and open the door of my garden shed to walk back across the stone path that leads to my studio.

Birds call. Wind blows. Branches shift. The soil softens and the first leaves of a radish pushes up to greet the sun. All of these moments combine and culminate together, contributing to April’s air. Fragrant and fresh. Sweet and fleeting.

An Unseen World

Late January and the depth of 大寒 Daikan (Dàhán in Mandarin) is here. I woke this morning to mounding snow drifts, falling flurries, pine trees capped in white. A storm had passed during the night and continued on through the dawn, bringing wind and cold and ice on windowpanes. Although, inside my home is comfortable and warm, I wish to experience Winter in its fullest and feel determined to make tea outside, within the confines of my makeshift hut.

Trekking through the garden, wares packed and wrapped-up in 風呂敷 furoshiki, I come upon a realization.

The world of snow is mysterious. Forms covered and obscured and made unknown by layers of ice and air. The steps of my path are softened.

Rocks and branches from sapling trees feel formless.

Wind makes hollows. Snow creates volume.

Undulations and caverns that once weren’t there.

The door to my tea hut is frozen shut.

Once I pry it open, I find that snow has entered before I have. Soft sprays of snow.

Fine white crystals scattered on the floor and below the crack between window and sill.

I set the kettle to boil and fill my 水指 mizusashi with cool water.

In the 床の間 tokonoma, I place incense to burn and a 蜜柑 mikan citrus as an object for meditation. As I sit and wait for the water to boil, I listen to the hollow howl of the wind against the small shack I have chosen to make into my space of practice. Thin walls of pressed wood abating the cold but not by much. My breath and the steam from the kettle conjoined in our efforts.

Objects for tea are unwrapped and unboxed and placed in accordance to their various usage.

The tall form of a slender 茶入 chaire before the mizusashi.

Much like the stones outside my tea hut, the true shape of the tea container is obscured by the striped and spangled silk of the 仕服 shifuku pouch.

Beside this, I place a 備前焼筒茶碗 Bizen-yaki tsutsuchawan, a teabowl used only during the coldest days of the year.

Chawan and chaire sit as I pause to listen to the sound of snow tapping against the single windowpane that lets light into my small tea hut.

Ice crystals forming slowly as the cold of the world around me deepens.

As I move objects from rest to motion and back to rest, I observe how shadows shift and move with them.

The chaire is shrouded in its shifuku pouch.

Once removed, the shifuku becomes an empty vessel.

The chaire, a full, voluminous form.

The teabowl, tall, slender, tube-like in shape, is cavernous, dark, full of shadow, dwelling at the bottom unseen.

I pour a dipper’s worth of hot water from the kettle into the open mouth of the tsutsuchawan. Everything that goes in, the water…

…the splayed tines of the 茶筅 chasen…

…the white linen 茶巾 chakin…

…and eventually, the tea…

…disappears into the deep void of the tube-shaped teabowl.

Only employed during this time of year, before the first hint of Spring arrives, tsutsuchawan convey the depths of what this ice-locked season represents.

In the low light of my makeshift tea hut, the bowl seems without end.

A tunnel rather than a vessel. An portal into something unknown, unseen. What lies at the other end?

Pouring hot water from the kettle into the bowl requires focus and practice. Concentration as liquid cascades from the sunlit cup of the 柄杓 hishaku into the darkness of the narrow opening of the tsutsuchawan.

Pressing whisk into the tea-and-water concoction to make a bowl of 濃茶 koicha presents another unique challenge. The bowl is deep and the walls close together, limiting one’s motion. Even knowing what is happening as one kneads the tea is difficult.

Unlike other bowls, one cannot easily see into a tsutsuchawan. Compounding this, the dark umber color of the Bizen-yaki fades to black in the low light of the tea space, in the dull glow of Winter during the last days of the period of Major Cold. In an unseen world, one must rely on practice alone to grope and clamor through the darkness.

In the time it’s taken me to whisk a bowl of thick tea, spindly needles of frost began to form and make intricate patterns against the outside of the windowpane.

As I move teabowl from the host’s position to guest’s, I observe the light from the window push through the steam rising from the boiling kettle. The soft hum of the water. The high-pitched whirl of wind between cracks in the door.

I look down at the bowl. Both empty and full. The bright green tea invisible in the dark hollow of the tsutsuchawan. Its presence only known by the heat contained in the ceramic, from the aroma of the koicha rising into the room. Deep and vegetal during the cold torpor of late January, of Daikan, of Major Cold.

I lift the bowl and drink the tea. For a moment I pause and let the flavor and the heat of the tea permeate throughout my mouth, my throat, my body. My cold, stiff fingers hold the narrow bowl tight, as if it were a warm being radiating heat to help me survive the harsh weather outside the walls of my tea hut. I sit and hold it longer, meditating for as long as the heat remains within the clay.

Several minutes pass and the heat fades. The hollow of the bowl cools. The dregs cling and thicken against the dark, blistered walls of the tsutsuchawan.

I return to clean the bowl, not with cool water from the mizusashi but with the hot water from the 茶釜 chagama. In the depth of Winter, I opt not to waste anything. The final dregs of koicha are no different.

Water warms the bowl again and I whisk the remnants of thick tea liquid into a bright foamy bowl of 薄茶 usucha.

Thousands of tiny bubbles look back up at me like thousands of bright lights peering from the end of a long dark tunnel.

The flavor of the tea is sweet, grassy, light. It comes and fades gently against the harsh cold of this day of practice I’ve made.

As I clean the bowl once more with cool water, I close the tea session. Objects for tea are laid back to rest.

The lid of the chagama is placed atop the steaming kettle, save for a small gap to let the heat rise freely.

The light of the day grows brighter through the windowpane yet the frost has grown thicker too.

As I prepare an informal 拝見 haiken for one, I recognize that the light that now reflects off each object will grow brighter more and more each day.

With the end of Daikan comes 立春 Risshun (Lìchūn in Mandarin), the start of Spring in the lunisolar calendar.

During this liminal time, the new year will begin.

What will come in this fast approaching Spring, this Water Tiger year?

What we’ve seen so far is an unseen world.

Dark, cold, foreboding, with new rules and new expectations.

A deep tunnel devoid of light, of murky dimensions. A space cold, save for the heat trapped within our bodies, within the clay body of a Bizen-yaki tsutsuchawan.

Even as steam climbs skyward from the hot kettle, that which lies within it is a mystery.

How do we exist in an unseen world, one that has never existed before, a world with an unseen future? Do we seek the comforts of warmth, of home?

Or do we trek out into the cold, with only a few objects wrapped-up and packed upon our backs?

And what do we do when the terrain changes, landmarks shift, the path becomes obscured? What if there is no way back home? Just towards a future unknown? Footsteps fade as snow falls.

Wind blows over once sure stones that pointed the to the Way. An unseen world lies ahead, with only one’s practice to perhaps fortify you.

Dark Days

Winter is here and the days grow colder, the shadows that are cast from the bare trees grow longer, daylight’s passage shorter. The festivities of the Western calendar seem to run headlong against the chaotic times we all seem to find ourselves in. The pandemic. The global climate crisis. War. Indifference. As the year draws closer to its close, to pause and sit and meditate on what we’ve just been through seems like a heavy task. And, yet, in these most difficult of times, it is when meditation seems most fitting.

It is December 21st, 2021. Today is the Winter Solstice. 冬至 Tōji in the old lunisolar calendar of Japan (Dōngzhì in Mandarin). On this day, I prepare the last kettle for the year that has now grown older and colder over these last few months. Since Autumn, I’ve transitioned from using the portable brazier to my improvised 置き炉 okiro made of an old New York apple crate. Its pine wooden walls are about the shape and size of the real thing, close enough for this tea practitioner to adopt it into his little world of tea in an act of 見立て mitate, whereas items not normally used in 茶の湯 chanoyu are incorporated and adapted for this purpose.

In the cold dark world of my tiny makeshift tea hut, I light a candle in the 床の間 tokonoma.

I carry the old iron kettle from my studio across the still frozen pathway that weaves from my home through the garden. I set the dark iron and patina’ed vessel down into the old wooden crate and within ten or so minutes small threads of steam begin to rise from the gap left open in the lid. Soon after comes the faint sound of the water boiling. 歳暮の釜 seibo no kama. Kettle for the year-end.

I wander back out into the cold world of the garden and then back into the warmth of my studio to gather more items for the 点前 temae. Since my makeshift tea hut has yet no 水屋 mizuya attached to it, I venture back and forth server al times before all tea objects are brought into the tea space. A tall, white glazed 水指 mizusashi made by a former tea teacher. A small eggplant-shaped 茶入 chaire enrobed in a 仕服 shifuku emblazoned with motif of pine sprig and chrysanthemum.

Other items come in last. A blush-colored 赤志野茶碗 akashino chawan, a 茶筅 chasen by 谷村丹後 Tanimura Tango, a 茶杓 chashaku made of carved cedar. These, I place beside the tiny tea container. Finally, I trek once more from hut to studio and back, bringing with me an old 建水 kensui, a 蓋置 futaoki made of a piece of mottled bamboo, and 柄杓 hishaku.

In the dim light that illuminates the speckled and patterned plywood floor of my makeshift tea hut, items are arranged by their use. I place the futaoki beside the old apple crate. Atop this, I set the cup of the hishaku. The kensui is moved upward towards the edge of my left knee.

The chawan and its accompanying wares upon and within it are set at an angle beside the mitate okiro. The chaire in its pine sprig and chrysanthemum brocaded coat are set before this.

In a 炉点前 ro temae, during the season of the sunken hearth, objects are placed at forty five degree angles against the right angle positions of the open 炉口 roguchi or okiro and accompanying mizusashi. This all in accordance with the angle in which the host sits, which, during the dark and cold days of Winter, is made more informal and adjusted to feel as if closer to the guests. Even in my solitary practice, I take this stance, angling myself so that the small space between the upper left corner of the okiro and the uppermost border of my knees becomes the area in which tea will be made. While it may initially feel more limited, the movements of the host become more open as the Winter position allows for the arc of the right hand to move from one’s far left to draw water from the mizusashi to its far right to offer a bowl of tea to the invited guest. In this, there remains a naturalness to it all, with a heightened sense of down-to-earth informality that embodies the markedly more rustic and 詫び wabi aesthetic found in Winter.

The meditation of the tea practice continues well before its beginning and well after its end. The pause that comes before one sets forth to make tea is preceded by a myriad of actions to enable this moment to happen. Steps in the path between this moment and the many moments that led to it. I feel this most of all during the silence that exists once I place the chaire before the chawan and before I reach down with both hands to untie the cord that binds it within its shifuku pouch.

The motion is simple and direct. Both palms remain flattened, fingers pointed downward as they gather first around the base of the brocaded bag and then upward towards the purple braided cord. One finger holds onto one loop of the tie, the other loosens the other and pulls.

The 緒 o is drawn towards the body and the knot opens.

The tiny tea container and pouch are turned a quarter turn and each side of the gathered fabric is pulled flat. The tiny object and its covering are then placed in the left palm and each side of the cloth is peeled away with the heal of the right hand.

The chaire is then lifted out of the pouch and placed before the chawan.

The shifuku is placed beside the mizusashi.

In preparing a bowl of tea, each step flows into the next. In a similar fashion, Winter emerges each day. At no time does one day seem more different than the next. The change over time is gradual until one suddenly realizes the truth of what it means to be cold, to see ice, to know what snow feels like and how it sounds as is falls. In the tearoom, the stillness is broke too by action, silence broken by the sound of the kettle coming to a boil, of the gentle setting down of wares, of the gliding of cloth over objects as they are cleansed.

The folding of the 袱紗 fukusa comes first with an inhalation and the sensation of cold air filling my chest. The left hand grips the silken cloth and pulls it from the side pocket of my Winter jacket. Pinched with the thumb and index finger of my right hand, I open it along one of its folded corners as if lifting a page from a book. I lift it upward and the cloth unfurls. with my left hand, I fold the cloth in midair into a series of triangular corrugations and then over onto itself. It is folded and then folded once again, moving from the right hand to the left and then back again.

With the left hand, the chaire is brought upward and cloth and tea container meet. The chaire is turned against the smooth silk fabric of the fukusa, first cleansing the sides. The fukusa is then pinched and the corners are used to lightly cleanse the lid of the tea container. The lid is then lifted momentarily to inspect that the chaire contains tea, and the chaire is closed once again.

Once the tea container is placed down, now between mizusashi and okiro, my gaze shifts to the teabowl with its collected wares. First the fukusa is refolded and the chashaku is cleansed. The silk cloth runs over the thin handle and carved top of the cedar scoop several times. It is then placed atop the white bone cover of the chaire, beside the nodule that is unique to the 瓶子づくの牙蓋 heishi-zuku no gebuta style lid, the shape of which is reminiscent of ancient jars used to hold offertory 酒 sake in 神道 Shintō shrines. The angle in which it is set points away from me towards the crack in the door that I entered, towards a small shaft of light that tells me that morning’s time continues to pass.

I breathe again and lift the chasen out from the deep-set teabowl and place it beside the resting chaire and chashaku. The line that the whisk and tea container creates connects the space between the place of the cold water container and the position of the okiro, the heat of the hearth, and the element of water boiling within the void of the iron kettle. Between this small space is contained all that is needed to make a bowl of tea. Heat and cold. Fire and water. Metal and wood. Leaf and clay. Space and the air between.

The bowl is moved forward, the 茶巾 chakin is pulled from its interior, refolded, and placed momentarily atop the lid of the mizusashi.

I breathe and, upon the exhalation, I reach for the long thin handle of the hishaku that has been resting parallel to my right thigh. I shift the water scoop from right hand to left. With my right hand, I return to lift the chakin, pinched between thumb and the first two fingers. The angle of my arms opens up as keep the hishaku stationary, pointed cup facing upward, in line with my left thigh, while I move my right arm to reach to uncover the boiling kettle. I use the chakin, pinched between my forefingers and thumb, to grasp the hollow copper knob of the kettle’s lid. The thin, folded linen cloth protects my hand as I tilt and lift the circular metal top from the boiling 茶釜 chagama.

Steam rises wildly from the kettle as I remove the lid and place it atop the cut bamboo futaoki. I let go of the hollow bronze finial of the lid and rest the chakin beside it. The shadows these resting objects cast are dark and muted in the low light that filters through the sole window of my makeshift tea hut.

I transfer hishaku from left to right hand and dip its bamboo cup into the hot and boiling water of the kama. The stippled and curved shape of the ladle disappears in the dark world of the kettle’s interior, reappearing filled with bright clear water.

For a moment I naturally pause, the cup of the hishaku hovering above the open mouth of the chawan.

A moment more and, with the turn of my arm, the water cascades into the empty teabowl.

I set hishaku down upon the open kettle, its cup turned downward, the flat side of the bamboo handle rests against both the rim of the kettle’s mouth and the pine wooden edge of the okiro.

I return my gaze to the teabowl. Clear, clean, steaming water glistening within its concave interior. What little light of the morning enters and curves against the edge of the water that meets the inside surface of the bowl. Colors and cracks and crazed glazes come forth from what were once dull features. The heat and the liveliness of the boiled water reanimates the body of this small, handheld tea vessel that hasn’t yet been used since last when Winter’s words were spoken, during the final moments of the cold months, before Spring’s arrival, as the days grew incrementally lighter. Today, on the shortest day of the year, the darkest of days, seeing this bowl again is like being visited by an old friend. The passage of time, of the almost twenty years now since I first made tea with this bowl. The decades seem as if they are momentarily forgotten as I peer down at the bowl, the sparkling light through the water, remembering when we were both much younger than we are now.

I lift and dip the bamboo chasen into the warm water held within the chawan. The carved and sharpened tines fade into the shadows and the steam.

Pressing and whisking and placing the chasen back beside the chaire. Lifting and turning and warming the round teabowl in my hands before I pour its contents out into the until now empty kensui. I catch the last drop of hot water with the folded chakin and begin to use this simple moistened cloth to cleans both rim and interior of bowl.

Surfaces where lips will touch, where tea will be made. These are wiped and made clean, both for the eyes and for the mind. As I cleanse the bowl, it remains firm in my hands. Whereas other schools may tilt the bowl, my school holds it level, steady, keeping it upright as a gesture of respect and reverence to the object. The bowl is set down in a similar manner, leaving the chakin pressed against its inner edge.

The moistened cloth is then plucked up by the right hand, placed into the left, and then refolded to be set down again atop the kettle’s lid.

For a brief moment, everything in the tearoom is still, save for the rolling water of the boiling kettle. The shadows of the morning light rest on each object, collecting in dark pools.

The deep, narrow concave of the round 鉄鉢形茶碗 tetsubachi-nari chawan (iron basin-shaped teabowl) seems especially dark in the low light of the Winter solstice. A faint layer of steam still rising off of its red and umber glazed skin.

Minute amounts of still warm water collected in the tiny fissures that mark where heat caused expansion in the kiln sparkle like snow and ice.

I set forth to begin to make tea, a hearty bowl of koicha to fortify my spirit and body on a cold day. I grip the thin handle of the chashaku between my thumb and fingers of my right hand and bring it towards my body within the span of one exhalation and inhalation. One out breath and I reach for the chaire with my left hand. One in breath and I bring the tiny ceramic jar towards me.

The lid is removed with the right hand and is placed beside the teabowl.

The chaire is brought down to the level of the chawan’s rim and the chashaku is dipped into the dark open void of the tea container, the carved cedar scoop disappears in the shadows cast by the low light of the early morning.

Three heaps of powdered tea are placed into the center of the bowl and the chashaku is placed at an angle along the edge of the iron basin-shaped chawan.

The chaire is held in both hands and is tilted and turned slowly over the teabowl, sending a thin, bright green cascade of 抹茶 matcha downward, piling into an ever-growing mound of tea at the center of the chawan. Once fully emptied, the chaire is turned upward again, the lid placed back upon it, and the small ceramic tea jar is set back beside the chasen.

I lift the chashaku once more, and with its rounded tip, carve the sigil of my school into the small hill of powdered tea.

With chaire, scoop, and bowl at rest, I draw a scoop of hot water from the boiling kettle. Carefully, I pour a small measure of the water down upon the mound of green tea, focusing my awareness on how much water I am adding and what initial effect it will have on the matcha. I pour the remaining water in the hishaku’s cup to the kettle.

I return the bamboo ladle back to the kettle and lift the chasen with my right hand. With my left hand forming a half moon shape, I grip the side of the teabowl to steady it against the wooden floor of my makeshift tea hut. With my right hand, I bring the chasen downward into the hollow of the chawan, pressing down into the wetted mound of matcha and begin to slowly and methodically whisk the concoction into a thick, even paste.

As I stare down into the dark world that exists within the teabowl, I feel as if it is a mirror to the world which I currently occupy. Dark yet warm and full of activity, creation, transformation. To successfully produce a bowl of 濃茶 koicha requires a keen understanding of uncertainty and meeting a multitude of challenges. In the cold of Winter, the kettle requires a higher heat. In the dark of the year’s shortest day, one cannot see clearly into the depths of the teabowl and, therefore, must feel one’s way through the action, as water and tea combine into one fluid matter.

At this point, all one has is the senses. The feeling of the resistance of the tea as it slowly melds and blends. The intense aroma of matcha as it lifts upwards into the cold air of the tea space. The sound of the whisk as it slowly pushes through the thick tea liquid.

I move the handle of the chasen from right hand to left, keeping the tines inside of the teabowl. With right hand, I lift and dip the ladle into the hot boiling water of the kettle, drawing from it another draught. Carefully, calmly, I inhale as I bring the hishaku’s cup down towards the bowl. I exhale and let a minute amount of hot water pass from ladle’s bamboo cup through the tea-covered tines of the chasen whisk to the dark interior of the teabowl.

指湯 sashi-yu. Adding more hot water so one can adjust the thickness of the tea. If this is done correctly, it means that the koicha’s consistency will be perfect. Too much water and it becomes too thin. Not enough and the reason won’t flow down the tall, narrow walls of this particular teabowl. In this practice, experience leads to balance.

I return the remaining water in the ladle’s cup back to the kettle and set the hishaku back upon the kama and okiro. Breathing inward, I return my focus to whisking tea. Breathing outward, I press the whisk back and forth, slowly, attentively, until the mixture is even, the surface of the liquid flat, glossy, mirror-like akin to that of lacquer.

I lift the whisk upward above the bowl and turn it right-side-up in mid-air. A thick coating of koicha still clings to the cut bamboo tines of the chasen.

I set the whisk back down beside the chaire, beside the carved cedar scoop.

For a moment I sit once more, pausing to hear the sound of the kettle, to the breeze pushing through the pine trees that tower over this simple garden shed, to the large iron bell that hangs beneath the eaves of my home on the other side of the curving stone path.

The bustling world outside the quiet of the tea hut. The chaos and clammed as people rush from this place and that in preparations for the holidays and for the year’s end. The craziness of the current state of the world and the death that hangs heavy in the air. The fear, the sadness, the longing and grief.

To think this is kept at bay by these thin walls of mine, to fool one’s self into thinking that the crack in the door that lets in the light of the early morning won’t also let these energies pour forth into here as well. To resist the crashing waves only leads to one’s collapse. To dive deep into the swirling and turbulent times may prove to be a wiser choice.

In the dim light of my garden shed, the koicha I’ve made looks especially dark. As I lift the bowl to turn it and place it in the guest position, I notice how the light wraps around its round, globe-like shape. How the shadows it casts stretch and crawl across the chaotic patterns upon the plywood floor. How the edges of these shadows fade into light so that the boundary between light and darkness is not defined but permeable, nebulous.

As I stand up and reposition myself to accept the bowl of tea as a guest, I’m given a new perspective of the space I’ve been sitting in. From this vantage point the light is brighter, catching in the wisps and plumes of steam that rise from the kettle’s open mouth. I see the shaded outlines of bare tree branches, of roof tops in the distance, of ice crystals that form at the edges around the sole window pane. I see the dark lustrous emerald green of the warm, flat, lacquer-like surface of tea that I’ve produced for myself as host enjoy by myself as guest.

The small world of the empty tea room feels both constrained and expansive. The space between where I once sat and where I sit now seems a world away, yet barely an arm’s length.

The alcove in the corner, with its lone burning candle light shimmers and glows, flickering with the wind that creeps between the boards, between the joined edges of walls.

I lift the bowl of tea and drink from it whole heartedly. The liquid is thick, warm, awakening. The bitter and bittersweet of koicha is arresting. A shock to the system. All previously drowsiness abated. The instantaneous quality of the moment made incredibly clear.

I tilt the chawan back again and drink twice more from it, the remainder of the tea is reduced to a thick coating upon the inside of the bowl. I set it down once more before me to appreciate its shape, its dried persimmon-like color, the upward path of the residual koicha along its inner walls.

I return the bowl back to the host’s position and return myself to the position of the host. Before I opt to cleanse the bowl, to close-up my day’s tea practice, and to close-up the small tea hut to retreat once more into the warm interior of my studio space, I decide to use the remaining tea left in the chawan to make a bowl of 薄茶 usucha.

To do this, I draw cool water first from the mizusashi and blend it with the hot water of the kama. Next, I draw water from the now cooler kettle and pour half-a-ladle’s-worth into the bowl.

I whisk the tea in a vigorous manner, pulling it from the inner walls of the teabowl and whipping it into a bright, light foam.

I pause for a moment more as I enjoy the sight of this impromptu bowl of tea. Observing how the light of the day dances on the surface made of tiny bubbles. It serves as a reminder that even in these dark days there is still light, however minute they may be. It is found clinging to the imperfect, rough surfaces of everyday life, of practice, of the choices we make, as we take time to sit and be silent with ourselves away from the clamoring masses and social requirements. The light of meditation found in the dark corner of an old, run-down garden shed at the edge of a small forest.

I lift and turn the bowl and silently thank the madness of the world that pushed me to take time to be alone. I tilt and drink up the last bowl of tea made from the waters of the last kettle of the year’s end. It is sweet, bright, sparkling with a gentle flavor that lingers.

As I place the bow in my hands to inspect it, I gaze upon the small collection of foam against its dimpled surface. The depth of darkness of this deep-set bowl. Light and the residue of tea just eking-out a foothold.

With cool water I cleanse the bowl finally. I place the chakin back within its hollow form.

I set the chasen against the fold of the linen cloth, the thin bamboo tines silhouetted against its pale white woven surface.

I cleanse the chashaku once more with the folded silk of the fukusa and place it down upon the rounded rim of the teabowl.

I return chawan and chaire before the mizusashi. Cool water is placed once more into the steaming center of the boiling pot. The lid placed once again on top. The hiss and tumble of water settles momentarily to a quiet stop.

In the stillness that exists as the water cools and the light shifts, I put objects at rest.

The hishaku is placed atop the kensui and the bamboo lid rest placed below it.

Items once used to prepare tea are then arranged once more to be viewed and appreciated in a simple 拝見 haiken.

An old 香盆 kōban incense tray becomes an open field upon which objects are placed upon. First the carved lid of the chaire is set on its side, waiting as its corresponding other half is cleansed.

When they finally meet again and are placed upon the tray they appear jewel-like in the low glow of the morning light.

Next, the shifuku is lifted from its resting place beside the mizusashi and is formed in the hand to appear full, voluminous. It is placed down beside the chaire it had first enrobed, now both empty of their hallowed contents.

Finally, the carved chashaku scoop is set between both brocaded pouch and small tea jar.

These, the tools that came into contact with the tea.

Offered up to the guest to enjoy once more before they are, like a memory, packed away.

Warm light cast against cooling objects. Dark pools of shadows collecting in corners. Set within the alcove there is a single candle light. No flower for this gathering. Just the flicker of a flame and the cold iron rings of the kettle’s 鐶 kan set on old weathered Beacon brick. Dark days for this moment in time, followed by the deepening of Winter’s cold. This, the last kettle for the old year. What potential to come from its boiling and bubbling core? What will come from the chaos with its dark interior? Perhaps it will engender this practice of mine as I sit in these shadows now.

Let Life Get in the Way

It’s the morning of the ninth day of the ninth month. In the old lunisolar calendar, this is Chrysanthemum Festival. Sitting in my studio, looking out across the garden, vines wrapped around the trellis, flowers of the bitter melon bursting against a dark green canvas, I think about the months that have passed since I’ve given myself time to write, to put thoughts down on page.

The cicada’s hum seems to now be giving way to the sound of field crickets, to the call of crows, to the geese and katydid. Gone is the heat that, as a tea person, I sought to abate with references to water, to coolness, to impossible ice. Soon, the decay of Autumn will be all around me. Winter’s withered repose soon there after.

To sit and ask “what happened?” or “how did I get here?” will not do. Questions of the past rarely help to give a clear picture of the present. Instead, as I sit, I find myself using the stillness as an opportunity to examine my current practice and reflect on this Summer as a great moment of change.

It began amidst a flurry of activity. I had become engaged to my partner earlier in the end of Winter-beginning of Spring, and found myself planning for a wedding in the time of an unpredictable pandemic. For what “free time” I was sporadically given, I used most of it to piece together the logistics and physical material that would eventually make up the wedding celebration. Like a massive 茶事 chaji, I threw myself into the act, ideating with my partner, collectively envisioning what a day built on intention and mindfulness would look like. In those brief in-between moments, I would make tea.

As the heat of Summer climbed, I sought momentary solace in my garden shed. With resources and time stretched thin, my hopes of transforming the meager structure into a full-fledged 茶室 chashitsu was put on hold. The result was a meditation on what life gave me. A weather-worn hut. Barely walls enough to keep the rain out, barely doors firm enough to keep a mouse or squirrel from wandering in. Spiders clinging to the rafters. A butterfly caught against the window pane, let free to soar skyward.

The hut became a refuge against the world outside. The path became grown-over. Slick with dew in the morning, the high humidity of the day left the stones wet until dusk.

Inside the shack, I made impromptu 点前 temae. 葉蓋点前 Habuta-temae became my regular favorite, using leaves from the local maple trees found around my property.

Hydrangea from my garden glistened in my makeshift 床の間 tokonoma.

Mulberries from the woods made for a readily available 和菓子 wagashi, their uneven leaves providing for a perfect surface to set them upon.

Old wares kept me company.

A shallow tea bowl from the 宋 Sòng period (960-1279) became my Summer bowl.

A 茶杓 chashaku fashioned from speckled bamboo became my wish for rain.

The light that gathered on the plywood floor of my teahouse was the first to fill the cup of my 柄杓 hishaku, well before hot or cool water did.

It was a world of light and a world of shadow. A realm to calm the mind, to cool the soul.

The practice that evolved over the Summer, from one tea session to the next, came in fits as starts. All the while, I felt my hands becoming steadier, my form more fluid. Subtle adjustments that had come from regular practice joined now with accepted muscle memory.

Water from kettle to 茶碗 chawan. Light flooding into water, illuminating the interior of the small, shallow bowl.

Tines of the 茶筅 chasen opened up. The practice expanded into regions of my life I had not anticipated.

The mere act of setting down the tea scoop lost its gravitas. In exchange came the ordinary.

Wiping of the tea bowl from when it was first wetted felt like polishing a mirror, in that I could see my reflection on the action.

Cool light against a warm ceramic surface. Woven textures. Rumpled edges. Old fabric, as old as my practice.

The steam that rose from the 茶釜 chagama and the freedom of being able to make tea outside of the home gave me a new sense of levity against the deadlines and time stamps that came with planning a wedding and building a life. Work felt like it was somewhere else, somewhere outside the four thin plywood walls of my tearoom. The regular roar of a far-off road a reminder of how busy everyone and everything can be. The hum and hiss of the kettle became a quiet reminder of the need to stop everything. To sit and practice.

Scooping tea from the wooden interior of an old 平棗 hira-natsume felt like Summer. Deep, soft, luscious tea powder placed into a crisp blue-green celadon bowl. The mark of my school’s sigil upon the bright green mound.

The delicate tap and bell-like sound that rang from the small shallow bowl.

The shadows that collected in the concave, in the pits and scratches, the ripples and edges fashioned and formed a thousand years ago.

The kiln of life shaping me now as I practiced tea in the heat of a Summer morning, in the scant spare time I gave myself, in the brief interludes between work and work after work.

The lifting of the large maple leaf off of the glass 水指 mizusashi.

Folding it and placing it into the dark void of the 建水 kensui.

Dipping the ladle into the depths of the cool water so as to bring it forth and let it mix and coalesce with the bubbling boiling water of the 釜 kama. Fierce forces merging with the gentle. Quiet and still with moving and churning. Sitting amongst these forces, the mind isn’t given the chance to discern which is “right” or “wrong”. No value to these elements as they conjoin. Instead, just a reverence for their place within a practice. Their importance to the moment. As important as the tea. As important as the wares. As important as the space they all occupy. As important as the persons who brought them into being.

Tea and water are brought together, first in a great wave, one upon the other.

Whisked and whipped into a single concoction, both combine, suspended one alongside the other.

The bowl is lifted and passed.

I, practicing alone, move to the space of the guest and delight in the flavor of wild fruit before enjoying the soft, bittersweet flavor of tea.

Light gathers upon the foamed 薄茶 usucha.

Sipped and savored and gone, the empty interior of the tea bowl feels vacant.

Warmth still radiated from its clay and glazed body. The scent of tea still lingered in the air. The afterglow of a moment still present.

Cleaned and objects put away, the practice in the shed did not end when it was over. The steady pace of work and life kept on and pushed me forward.

Tomatoes grow green on the vine, slowly turning red as they ripened.

Okra flowers blossomed and bloomed and bore their bright green and red pods.

Ground cherries formed little lanterns upon their hairy stems.

My partner and I wed, first over a bowl of tea, then before our friends and family. Like a beautiful storm, it came and passed, and scattered all who came to witness the moment back across the earth, back to their homes and back into memories. Now, savoring the flavor of the tea that was served in silver and shared between my love and I, it’s impossible to encapsulate the experience of this Summer in words alone.

There were sounds, sensations, scents. A great fragrance made of a myriad of qualities wafted through the terrible and terrific world and kept me buoyant throughout it all. Stress and pressure would sometimes rise and crescendo, but in moments like this, I’d walk across the garden and find time with myself alone.

Now as Summer is gone and Autumn is here, the clinging to desires, to goals, to wants and needs, seems to have mellowed. Where once I had wracked my mind to write and to perform the very best I could, to turn each moment with tea into poetry, each allotted time at work into productivity, I’ve now since let this give way to a settled practice.

I am reminded of sitting by a rushing stream; its movements fluid and sure. Water passes over the rocks and around the rocks. Rocks and trees and mountains get in the way of the water and yet a river forms between them. Letting life get in the way of practice does not hinder it but shapes it. Let life get in the way. Assuredly, your practice will form around it, with it, conjoining into one form, one concoction of the surrounding elements.

As Summer turns to Autumn, the earth cools again. The skies, once a bright azure, turn a buff grey. The pumpkin blossoms bloom.

The wild grape leaves grow weathered more and more each day.

Old carrot flowers dry beside fresh morning glories.

The path and the first fallen leaves.

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As a final note: Thanks to Sam Bufalo LLC, @sambufalo for the photo of the outdoor tea gathering!