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.

Summer Rain and a Bowl of Tea

Early August and Summer’s heat peaks. Out in the garden, daylight glows radiant orange, beaming off of the flat broad maple leaves, through skin of squash flowers, through vines that crawl over the wire trellis down onto sunburst tomatoes.

In the high heat of late Summer, 大署 Taisho (Dàshǔ in Mandarin, lit. “Major Heat”), the intense warmth of the day is inescapable. Tea practice, if in the environs of my makeshift tea hut, is limited to the very early mornings or late evenings when the air is cooler and the light is low. Otherwise, I sit by the glass doors of my studio, looking out on the garden, waiting for the inevitable rainstorm to grace me with a momentary respite from the heat.

Summer rain in the Hudson Valley is frequent, so much so that I’ve begun to sense it. Bright sunlight gives way to dark clouds and warm breezes kick up, pushing the canopies of trees in great green tumbles and swirls. Within minutes, a storm can swell and, for a moment, abate the heat of the day.

As I walk and wander through the garden, enjoying vignettes of flowers and foliage, daylight dims and the first drops of rain begin to scatter.

Quickly, I pluck small, ripe fruit from beneath jagged leaves and bring them with me back into my studio space before the downpour begins to swiftly overtake me.

In my studio, the air is sweet with lingering incense. The temperature cool. The smooth surface of the wooden floorboards invite me to sit upon them and set before me an arrangement of objects for tea.

It is an informal affair. The sound of water boiling echoes the sound of rain. The shuffle of my bare feet across the floor and the quiet landing of a lacquer tray upon a flat plank of wood. Tea and teabowl. A clean cloth and utensils of bamboo. A deep breath and I let thoughts and feelings fall away.

The neatly rounded edges of a small 平棗 hira-natsume feel slick in the hand. If left to wander, the plain curving pattern of time-polished wood grain would have me imagine the cool climes of an 縁側 engawa, the kind of enclosed porch I wish my own home had on days like today.

The cream color of the old bowl is welcomed and relaxed.

The soft crazing of the antique glaze feels at ease alongside Summer’s heat and the sudden showers.

I cleanse each object.

I cleanse the bowl.

Hot water from the kettle feels refreshing and cool as it sparkles translucent, catching sunlight as it filters through the rain clouds, through the glass doors of my studio,

…through the thin cut bamboo tines of the wetted 茶筅 chasen.

Even when wiped clean does the old bowl exude freshness. Even as it sits within the wide expanse of the shallow vessel does the white linen 茶巾 chakin feel inviting like a crisp breeze.

Tea is drawn from the wooden caddy and placed down in the center of the bowl where a circle of glaze sits, surrounded by exposed clay where once the bowl had been stacked with others upon it in the kilns of Vietnam perhaps as long ago as the 14th or 15th century.

The bright green mound of freshly sifted tea glows against the soft earthen colors of the old bowl. Three scoops. A sigil is carved.

The 茶杓 chashaku is lightly tapped against the inner edge of the bowl.

Shadows collect in the cool concave.

On the hottest of Summer’s days, I relish when I am given the chance to make a bowl of tea, when I can softly set the whisk’s tines upon the heap of powdered matcha, and delight as I pour water from my kettle down through their spindling structure.

Small beads of water cling to these thin cut tines, resembling drops of dew, glittering jewels. So refreshed I feel upon seeing these that I, perhaps just for a moment, forget the heat of the day and the worries of life. I sometimes struggle not to daydream, caught in the vision of being contained with such a dewdrop.

Hand to chasen, I center myself and whisk the tea. Soon, 抹茶 matcha powder, water, bowl, motion, and breath combine, giving rise to a fine light foam. The shallow bowl cools the tea and, as I lift the whisk, a slight dome rises upwards from the center of the 茶碗 chawan.

Light dims as thunder peals and the sound of rain surrounds me. I pluck a fruit that I’d picked from my garden and remove it from its lantern skin. Tart and sweet akin to the pressed sugar sweets I once savored in tea gatherings long ago.

I pause for a moment and let the flavor of the fruit fade. I observe the time it takes for the sensation to pass. For the light to shift.

For bubbles to burst within the foam that floats upon the tea. I note time in the space it occupied, in the shape of the tea bowl, the cracks in its glaze, the unevenness of its edges.

I breathe and lift the chawan, holding it wide in the palms of my hands. The heat of the tea radiates through the clay and glaze and out onto my skin, and, although warm, the effect it has on my mind is cooling.

I watch as the matcha’s foam crawls down the inner walls of the shallow bowl. Down the cream colored slope of the surface. Down until the ring of exposed clay emerges. Down until the tea reaches my lips.

Three sips is all it takes and then it’s gone, save for a bit of residue that has collected against bubbles and bursts in the glaze.

As the storm outside settles, I cleanse the bowl and objects once more. The bowl is wiped clean and the chasen is set upright as one does in my school during the hottest days of Summer. The scoop is set beside it.

The natsume is moved once more.

Bowl and objects are placed once again atop the lacquered tray. At rest.

Summer rain and a bowl of tea. Shadows collect in concave shallows. Cool comfort and moistened surfaces. The lingering flavor of tea, of fruit from the garden, of fragrance of long faded incense. As Summer’s heat peaks, rain clouds come and cause reason for pause. As they part and the heat rises again, what did we glean from this momentary respite? Was it enough to cool the mind? Is this the first sign of Autumn?

Take the Time You Need

Take the time you need. No one will give it to you otherwise.

Take the time you need it takes to boil water. To set out wares for tea. To sit.

Take the time you need to breathe in and to exhale.

Take the time you need to step away from work. To put space between you and your job. Between you and your expectations. Between the expectations you have of others and the expectations others have of you.

Take the time you need to pour boiled water into pot. Boiled water from pot to empty cup. Warmed cup to waste water bowl.

Take the time to sort through leaves, to pick those you want to steep, to place them into the open pot.

Take the time you need to inhale aromas awakening, sense flavors arising, arouse thoughts from a curious mind.

Take the time you need to brew tea leaves. As much time as you need. As much time as the tea likes to steep. As much time you like to sit.

Pour out brewed liquid into cup and take time to ponder how long it will take you to drink it up.

Take the time you need to do all of this. Again and again and again if you need.

Take the time you need to take up space, both here in this world but also in your mind and in your heart.

Take the time you need to stretch out your body, your wanting soul, your unmet desires.

Stretch each thin until opaque becomes transparent and take the time you need to explore each facet of yourself. Of your inner world and outer world. Of your insides and of your surroundings.

Take the time you need. Take all that you can spare. And when you’re done, return back to your day, knowing you’ve given yourself the time you need.

****

Dear Beloved Blog Reader,

Upon publishing this article, I thought I’d offer my afterthoughts on writing my 200th blogpost on Scotttea, which I’ve included below.

Thank you for your support, your feedback, your continued readership.

Thank you,

Scott

“Take the time you need”

Words that kept rattling around in my head.

I have not been on social media for a short bit and I plan not to be on for a while longer. Life, expectations, social and professional demands. These things can push one inwards and, hopefully, allow for an investigation into what truly matters.

Years of being on social media, fighting screen addiction, and fretting daily about am I on too much or too little has come to this. A breath. A long, drawn-out breath. I’ve chosen to just sit with this feeling and to just engage with the act of not acting, not using online life to become a replacement for the real thing.

Hikes in the forests with friends. Sunlight and the warmth of a Summer’s day. The slow growth of gourds in the garden. The sounds of birds in the trees.

I can’t cling to these things but I also can’t capture them and share them the way technology seems to want to promise it can. Can we truly experience these phenomena through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Twitch? Can an hour on YouTube teach you both how to fix your furnace and fix your life?

Will comments and likes, link shares and photo album memories spark the real change we all need to see in our lifetimes? Or, is it a carousel that keeps us spinning, approximating forward motion but amounting to stasis, to stagnation over decades of use and being used?

For all this, I feel like I still have accomplished nothing. Friendships and memories are the jewels drawn from this hard time spent and these I cherish.

200 blogposts on tea. Digital paper and words. Flavors and phantasms. Pictures and poetry about things long passed.

I hope for more meaningful moments. More life not led online. More connection through cups of tea shared, not facilitated through fiber optic cables.

Summer comes but once a year. In our lifetimes, perhaps, if we’re lucky, we’ll experience enough to count 100. Then where will these Summer’s warm days be? In memories. In the sensations of heat against our skin as we sip from warmed cups of tea. From the feelings of friends and family whom we still can meet.

To do this, all this, we must all take the time we need.

Rain Breaks the Heat of Early Summer

Today thunder peals through the Hudson Valley and the heat of the day hangs overhead like a thick, heavy cloud. In early Summer, the garden blooms and bursts in bright colors of iris’ feathery flowers from every corner and nook. Spikes in heat are a reminder that the depths of Summer have yet to come, while the occasional rain shower refreshes the body and mind like a welcome gift to abate the swelter of an early Summer’s day.

Earlier this week I had received a gift of from my dear friend in Seoul, South Korea, and as the heat lingers, I choose to enjoy these by the open door of my garden studio. Packages of tea and a piece of ceramic ware come as a delightful respite and reminder of friendship’s power to assuage feelings of loneliness amidst a period of separation and isolation.

From paper of pink and white emerges a marbled and splashed surface of glazed ceramic. What is revealed is a fine piece of 분청사기 buncheong-jagi made by Korean potter 신용균 (申容均) Shin Yong-Gyun.

While I have come to amass a small collection of this ceramicist’s work, I’ve not yet seen anything like this. Its form is similar to that of a teapot, save for the absence of a lid. Rather, it is a ewer, or, more specifically, a 숙우 sookwoo, a vessel to cool water before it is poured to brew tea.

Unlike the austere white wares I’ve come to associate with the artist, the glaze of the tiny vessel is brushed onto the ceramic body in exuberant splashes and scrapes of white and blush pink, revealing the grey, iron-rich clay beneath their undulating veneer in a style known as 귀얄 guiyal.

Turning it in my hand,

inspecting its foot,

its handle,

its spout,

I imagine my friend’s presence, her keen love for buncheong pottery, and her ability to affect my aesthetic with hers. I am reminded of when we first met and how she explained the qualities of Korean tea. The emphasis of naturalness and ease, both in the appearance of objects, but also in the manner one makes tea. Over the many years since then, I’ve come to realize that these qualities arise only with practice and sitting with life as it reveals itself through time.

The sound of the kettle boiling breaks my focused gaze and ceramic daydreaming. I set the tiny sookwoo down upon the broad expanse of wood beside my open studio door and begin to assemble wares to brew tea.

A pot.

A joint of bamboo cut and cleaved to form a scoop for tea. A thin branch from a fruit tree to help push the tea leaves from scoop to pot.

A cup and wooden cup stand.

A flat black rock found in my garden to act as a lid rest.

Objects are wetted and warmed and the heat of the morning grows.

First the small sookwoo,

then pot,

then cup.

Tiny curled leaves of tea are pulled from a neatly sealed pouch and placed onto the upturned curve of the bamboo scoop.

Dark, blue-green buds of the year’s first harvested 우전차 woojeoncha (lit. “pre-rain tea”) picked in April before 곡우 Gogu (“Grain Rain”, April 20-21) shine like lacquer and curl like old, soft leather. Their scent when dry is sweet like guava or ripening loquat.

I lift and tilt the scoop downward towards the open mouth of the empty teapot, using the thin branch as a guide to move the tiny leaves along.

Resting within the dark hollow of the warmed vessel, the aroma of the tea rises and reveals notes both sweet and savory.

Water resting in the sookwoo is warm enough now to pour onto the delicate leaves.

As they submerge and saturate, they tumble and twirl in spirals and swirls until they float upon the bubbly surface, then sink.

The lid is placed atop the pot and, for a minute or two, I wait for the tea to steep. I wait and a thunder cloud covers the sun.

From sookwoo to pot and now from pot to sookwoo, I pour the tea. New fragrances emerge from the flared opening of the serving vessel. Sweet still, yet with hints of young grass and flowers.

Poured into the cup, the color of the tea is revealed against the matte grey and white background of the buncheong glaze. Vibrant golden green. A hue I’ve come to recognize from fresh Korean teas.

I lift and enjoy the aroma. Sweet. Delicate. Complex but not overpowering. I sip from the cup. Beautiful. Satisfying. Layered. Flavors from the air, from the rain, from the soil and stone that I’ve only found within the rocky and wooded slopes of 지리산 Jirisan decades ago when I visited the farms where these teas are grown and hand-processed. A sweet reminder of my life’s wanderings and the friends I’ve made along the way.

So small is the pot that only three cups are produced and easily savored. I return the kettle to a gentle boil and pour more water into the sookwoo to wait until it has cooled enough to brew the delicate tea buds. Once ready, I pour from sookwoo to pot again.

Leaves tumble and settle and begin to look as if they were alive again with varying colors of emerald and mossy green.

I place the lid back slowly upon the open teapot, admiring the leaves as they continue to unfurl.

Again, I pause and wait for the tea to steep. A cardinal booms his high-pitched call from atop a pine tree in the garden, its scarlet coat contrasting against the deep green of the conifer needles. Wind pushes through the pines. The sky grows darker and the heat rises more.

I lift and pour the tea from the pot into the empty sookwoo.

A second round of tea fills the small cup. The color is brighter, deeper. The aroma is thicker, more pronounced. The flavor is more pointed, greater clarity and bold. The finish lingers longer. Hints of limestone, mallow, clean river rock, the sweet taste of a forest right before a rain.

I stop and admire the leaves at this stage. The crackles and patterns and brushstrokes on the cup. The absence of glaze where potter’s finger gripped the clay. Spots where iron burst and pushed through the white and blue and grey of the fired slip.

Wind begins to grow outside my studio’s door. Whispering through flowering catnip.

Tossing umbels of tightly-grouped Spiraea blossoms against their bright green bases.

Inside, action and inaction meld. Practice is made of pauses, of stops and starts.

Water warms and is poured again from sookwoo to pot.

Leaves rise with the tide of liquid. Foam of oils and air collect and gather around exposed edges and against the round of the teapot’s mouth.

Light enters into this tiny vignetted world, eliminating leaves, sparkling against convex bubbles and the rough edges of exposed clay.

Lid placed back atop this shining world and the tea is left to steep once again.

Rain begins to patter outside upon the concrete flat, upon the leaves of bushes, between rocks in the garden as I wait for the tea to brew.

Moisture caught underneath teapot lid slowly evaporates in the growing humidity of the approaching storm. The heat of the day throbs less intensely now as rain drops’ cadence quickens, pushing cool air into my studio space, wafting fragrances of flowers, wet earth, moss on rocks, brewing tea.

The iron bell hanging in the garden gongs a low sonorous tone and I pour the steeped tea out from pot to sookwoo once more.

From sookwoo to cup.

The heat of early Summer fades and refreshing air wafts as water pools and rain crashes and thunder softly booms. I am reminded that today is 단오 Dano (lit. “the first fifth”, 端午 Duānwǔ in Mandarin), a day filled with 양/陽 yang/yáng energy, a day of ancestor worship, a day when members of the 조선/朝鮮 Joseon royal court would present the king with a book of Dano poetry (단오첩, 端午帖 Danocheop). In turn, the king would present his courtiers with special Dano fans made by artisans, which were in turn tributes from the provinces.

A fan given by a king to his courtiers as the yang energy rises. A sookwoo to cool water as a gift from a dear friend. Rain showers to allay the warmth of early Summer. Fresh tea to occupy my mind. As the rain breaks the heat of the day, a reminder of friendship breaks the feelings of loneliness.

****

Dear Beloved Blog Readers,

If you are interested in learning more about buncheong-jagi, I’ve included a link to a fantastic book Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art by Soyoung Lee and Jeon Seung-chang, published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012).

Similarly, if you’d like to learn more about the history and traditions surrounding Dano, I’ve linked an insightful article from Korea.net.

Enjoy!

International Tea Day: Today, and Everyday

Wishing everyone a beautiful International Tea Day! Drink a cup, bowl, or pot of tea and think of all that went into the growing, harvesting, processing, packing, shipping, selling, and sending of that tea so you can enjoy it! There are lots of people and beings that work towards making that little cup you and I savor. As they say, it’s all in the tea! So, drink up, give thanks to all the labor and love that went towards making this moment happen, and share!

Today, I brew up a personal favorite of mine: a 鳳凰單樅烏龍茶 fènghuáng dān cōng wūlóngchá poetically named 《兄弟》“Xiōngdì”, “Brothers” which I and two of my own “tea brothers”, So Han Fan of West China Tea in Austin, Texas, and Steve Odell of Enthea Teahouse in Portland, Oregon, sourced while traveling in China in 2013.

The tea is grown, tended by, picked and processed by the 林 Lín family on the high slopes of 烏崬山 Wūdōngshān in 潮州 Cháozhōu, in northeastern 廣東 Guǎngdōng province.

The tea’s poetic name alludes to how it is made up of two distinct cultivars that are grown in a single grove, which when processed, maintain a unique harmony and balance in their flavor.

I brew the tea in a contemporary 汝窯 Rǔ yáo celadon teapot gifted to me by So Han, long before he had opened his tea house.

I brew the tea in a contemporary 汝窯 Rǔ yáo celadon teapot gifted to me by So Han, long before he had opened his tea house. The cup is one of a pair, a gift from 郑国谷 Zhèng Guógǔ of the Chinese artist collective the Yangjiang Group, whom I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with on several art projects, namely the 2016 site-specific participatory installation Unwritten Rules Cannot Be Broken at the Guggenheim Museum.

Using the cup today, I’m reminded of my time working and making tea with Guógǔ, who, while widely known for his art, is also a skilled practitioner in tea, often infusing tea and local tea culture into his art practice.

Flavors and memories always seem to mix and bring up emotions from the past.

Gratitude. Joy. Bittersweet remembrances. Longing to be with friends whose paths I’ve crossed a myriad of times or just once and never again. Teachers and students. Tea masters and aficionados. Farmers, artists, poets, musicians, and monks. Deepest of thanks and warmest of thoughts to all who’ve been part of my life in tea, each somehow pointing the way. So much to celebrate. Today, and everyday.

Warm Winds and a Shallow Bowl

Spring has faded and the first warm days of Summer of the old lunisolar calendar have arrived in the Hudson Valley. Birdsongs peal against the bright blue sky. Rhubarb flowers climb and explode in the garden and I don’t have it in me to cut them down.

Heat rises. So, too, does a wisp of smoke from my incense burner, filling my studio with the soft scent of 伽羅 kyara. The plastered walls and wooden floors remain cold to the touch. How long before these will warm as well and no cool solace will exist until Autumn arrives?

I pour fresh water into my kettle and sit myself down upon the floor before a sliding glass door that looks out onto my garden. Sounds and fresh breezes blow in, mixing with the incense in the air.

As the heat from the kettle grows, I produce a small ceramic container: a celadon jar originally intended for sweets turned tea caddy with a lid made of dried leaves, cork, and thread.

Inside are the tightly rolled leaves of a 大禹嶺高山茶 Dàyǔlǐng gāoshān chá that a friend gifted to me last Winter. Will their flavors be as tightly kept as their leaves are bundled? Or will they open as Summer has here in the river valley I’ve called home for these past few years?

I loosely arrange objects across the wooden plank I use for a tea table. Cloth. 茶船 chá chuán. A vintage 綠泥西施壺 lǜní Xīshī hú. A shallow 青白茶碗 qīngbái cháwǎn from the 宋 Sòng period (960-1279). Objects are kept informal, alluding to the feeling of the day.

I measure out a portion of tea and place it into the hollow of my warmed teapot.

I wait for a moment and watch the sunlight filter through the pines and maples that tower over the garden outside the open door.

Birds cackle and dogs in the distance bark but do not wake mine who sleeps beside my work desk. A relaxed state seems to settle all about me as I wait for the tea to brew.

Pot in hand, I draw it to the wide opening of the shallow teabowl.

With a simple downward tilt of my wrist and the pot and the tea pours effortlessly into the empty vessel. The color of tea is initially bright and clear against the pale blue-green of the qīngbái cháwǎn.

As the liqueur continues to pour, the color deepens and darkens, until jade turns to gold.

The light of the day is caught against the flat surface of the warm liquid. Blue sky against the crystalline tea liqueur.

As I set the teapot back down into the chá chuán and lift the lid off and angle it upon the open top, the distinctive scent of Dàyǔlǐng becomes present. Big, clean, a mixture of fresh vegetation and fragrant magnolia. Even before I let the liquid cross by lips, I feel as if I’ve already slacked my thirst.

As I take the first sip, I am met with minerality. Next, sweetness. Cascades of flavors followed by a pronounced lingering mouthfeel. Dàyǔlǐng is a unique tea.

Often harvested in Winter, the leaves produce a markedly sweet, if not cane sugar-like, flavor, which recede and evolve into notes of fresh greens and flowers that bloom on trees. The feeling left over is soft, buttery, almost chewy. The qualities of this tea meld into the environment of the cool climes of my garden-level studio.

I relax more and, as I do, so too does my brewing style. I let the tea steep longer.

The color, accordingly, darkens.

The liqueur seems to glow as the sunlight does against the trees and the mountains in the distance.

As the day fades, so too does the tea. Countless steepings have pushed this tea to evolve into a calm, crisp elixir. Still holding on to its Wintery sweetness, although, gone is the intense complexity that the first infusions produced.

Early Summer, too, feels this way. Gone are the radical shifts that marked the previous seasons. Gone is the ice and the garden locked with snow. Gone is the hardened soil, the bare trees, the dark clouds.

What has come is sweet, mellow, easy. The birds relax, as do the leaves in the breeze. The sound of a frog is heard nearby as creeks throb and gurgle beside willows and rocks in gullies and between homes and hillocks of the Hudson Valley.

The sun has woken this world around me and now it stands tall and shimmers in shades of green. The tea leaves, too, evoke this change, this quality, this coming to life from Winter’s hold.

Cool shadows cast darker and darker shade across the stretch of wood and floorboards of my studio. The ease of early Summer spreads and collects in the cooling vessels of my assembled tea set.

Warm winds and a shallow bowl. Winter’s tea and Summer’s flavor.

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.

Last Days of Grain Rain

The last few days of 穀雨 Gǔyǔ (“Grain Rain”). Here, it feels unfathomable that we are on the precipice of Summer. How would you know as it is raining today in New York? Yet, hints of the incoming warm season are all around.

Blossoms on trees burst. Leaves shine an emerald green. The earth is warm and wet. The insects abound, soon to chime and chatter as they do in the Summer months.

Today, as the world feels cool and refreshing, I sit by my window and enjoy the sound of rain pattering on the plants outside.

Ferns and hostas.

Lilacs and budding flowers.

Water droplets become small jewels as the collect and form bright prisms on velvet foliage.

Old teaware accompanies new vegetation and the awakening of the latent season.

An antique 石灣 Shíwān pot and blue-and-white cup.

Roasted tea beams bright gold liqueur.

Low light filtered through the trees.

The feeling is calm and casual as I spread my wares and body across the surface of my wooden floor.

Birds call outside.

Reflections fade and evolve across the crackled surface of the iridescent glaze of the old teapot.

The flavor of tea lingers even as the scent of it flags.

Cool breeze and the emptiness that’s caused by the sound of raindrops.

Summer is almost here. Can you feel it?

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.

****

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