Tea Mind, Be Kind

Friday, September 29, 2006

THE TEXTURE OF BEING ALIVE... THE BEATING OF THE BUTTERFLY'S WINGS...

An Evening Dessert Tea To Relish: Black Forest Cake, Flavored Black Tea ...

"Schwarzwerkirschtorte, say that three times as fast as you can! That is why we call it Black Forest Cake Tea instead! The brew meister (that would be moi) has done it again. Taking chocolate to all new heights. We start out with our scrumptious best selling sinfully dark Royal Chocolate flavored black tea, add creamy bits of caramel topped off with sour summer cherries and then our own special twist! We've tossed in a few sweet cherries, oranges, rosehips and hibiscus to give it that extra special cherry twang!" From SBS Teas.

To say, in a work of nonfiction, "I was born in such and such a place, in such and such a year" seems pretentious. It makes one's individual life appear very important -- when what matters are not the facts of a life but the quality of the feelings and affections -- what is universal, that is, instead of what is merely local and historical. My individual life could not be more insignificant, and I venture to speak about it not because anything particularly interesting has happened to me but simply because life has happened to me, and it has happened as well to everyone who reads these words. Every book that I care to read or write is a book about the texture of being alive, and only incidentally about the facts of a particular historical moment... Yet the facts of a life are strings that hold it to the ground.

From The Barn At The End Of The World:
The Apprenticeship Of A Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd
by Mary Rose O'Reilley

The texture of being alive. Ah, those words riveted me to the page of this book I so dearly love and will soon reread. It is an amazing book, and my copy is "textured" indeed. Dog-earred, full of underlinings, notes in the margin, turned down pages. A well loved book. And so tonight I sat paging through this fat paperback book sipping this most delicious tea. If you click on the SBS Teas link above it will take you right to the page this tea is on and you really should just peek at it. It is such a beautiful tea to look at, and it is so delicious it tends to lead one into a reverie of sorts. Tonight I think about life, and how it happens to us all, and how it moves and shapes and forms us, and how all the insignificant little lives add up to an astonishingly large whole. It is like looking down at people on the ground as you start your ascension into the sky on an airplane. The people on the ground look like ants and then soon disappear. But they are there, and each moment of their lives, of our lives, matter.

If you have ever sat in a group -- and we most of us have -- like a meditation group, or a yoga class, or even in church on Sunday in the moments of silence when one is deep in prayer and contemplation, what you feel all around you is the energy of a sea of people you do not know (for the most part). You do not know their lives, their longings, their heartaches, their political beliefs, if they have recently lost someone they love, if they are about to take a journey of significance in their lives and you are in this group with them just as they are on the precipice of this life changing event, no, you simply feel the hum, the pulse of the group of people around you. And if you are very quiet, and close your eyes, and breathe slowly and meditatively, and just, if only for a moment, feel -- not thinking, not moving, not lost in your own life -- you will feel one of the greatest miracles any of us might experience, the bodiless embodiement of life, where all the drops of water in the sea become one great ocean, where the individuals in the group don't so much matter as the larger group itself. It reminds me of a Navajo chant that I sing softly to myself often, We are one with the Infinite Sun, forever and ever and ever.

And so I sit, on this night, on the 29th of September, in the year 2006, in a little cottage on the coast of North Carolina, drinking my tea, and I am alone, and yet part of the flow of life, of all of human existence. And I am acutely aware of the significance, even in my insignificance, of sitting here with my tea and writing, sharing my thoughts with you, as I have read O'Reilley's words tonight and been deeply moved. It is the neverending ebb and flow of life. And so my family and friends scattered hither and yon, and someone that I do not know who might be reading this, and all the peoples of the world living their lives, in wars, with sadness, grief, fear and death all around, and those that are starting new lives, new marriages, new relationships, babies born, feeling joy, and love, being awe-filled and astonished at the deep pleasure of being alive, exist together on this planet all in the same moment. And how is it not possible that if we live our lives as best we can, with all the love and compassion and kindness that we have in us to give, if we each do what we can each and every day, how can it not matter? We are all threads in the tapestry of life, and each of our lives lend texture, color, grace.

It is especially easy in this war torn world we are living in today to give up hope, to feel too insignificant to do anything that might matter, but this would be wrong, and it would be a very sad way to live. I cannot, from my little cottage, change the world all in one fell swoop, but I can be loving and kind and generous of heart, I can reach out in whatever way that I can, as you can, as we all can, and if we are all one under the sun, if the beating of the delicate wings of a butterfly can affect the weather patterns around the world, how can human kindness, compassion, and love not do the same?

I take one sip of tea. I hold it in my mouth for several seconds feeling the wet, warm sensation, and swallow very very slowly. I note the flavor left on my palate. I breathe in deeply and think about what I have just experienced. This tea with deep dark chocolate, caramel, cherries, oranges, rosehips, hibiscus have all become one flavor, none of the individual elements distinguishable. Of all of the ingredients just listed what I am experiencing is one tea, the coming together of all that is in this one small cup, the pieces and parts become the whole. So, too, each and every one of us in this world, on this planet, in this moment, now.

It matters not the color of our skin, the country of our origin, the spiritual path we follow, or what we had for dinner. It matters that wherever we are we live fully awake and alive and aware of our singular responsibility to be all that we can be, because the rest of the world and all of its people are depending on us as we depend on them. Let us not, for one moment, think that we do not matter. The minutiae of our lives may not matter, but how we live our way through all the small moments of our days certainly does.

Live your life, have your tea, and bring all the kind compassion you can to every single person in every single moment. There's no one person who can save the world, we all must, in our own way, do our part. And there's no time to waste. Start now, feel the ebb and flow, breathe with it, become aware of it, feel the whisper of air of the butterfly's wings against your cheek as it travels the world. Be quiet, be still, do you feel it? It's there...

Maitri

Posted at 10:17 pm by maitri
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Thursday, September 28, 2006

ON COMPOSTING, BEING AN INTROVERTED ARTIST, AND DRINKING PEACH MELBA BLACK TEA IN THE EARLY HOURS OF THE MORNING...

Late Night Tea While Working: Peach Melba, Flavored Black Tea ...

"Another romantic European classic steeped in vivid history! Peach Melba is a wondrous combination of fresh peaches, sweet raspberries, and creamy vanilla ice cream. We dedicate this tea to the creator of this sumptuous dessert Georges Auguste Escoffier! Swan ice sculpture not included! Indulge your taste buds today." From SBS Teas.

Being an artist is doing something, making something, or trying to be ready to make something. On this subject there are several metaphors valuable to me. One is Gary Snyder's idea of composting; that's what the introverted artist does with experience; take it in and grow something different from it."

From an interview with Ursula Le Guin, in On Women Turning Sixty: Embracing The Age Of Fulfillment, interviews and photography by Cathleen Rountree...

I am an introverted artist, a metaphorist, a Teaist, and they all come together, often, late at night, past midnight, during what is called, much to my delight at the mere sound of the word, the weesmas, meaning the wee small hours. I find one of the things that menopause has given me is an interesting time table in which to live my life and days, with Circadian rhythms all askew, and as an artist it is a gift. Sipping this sumptuous peach tea (And I promise! I have the next several teas picked out and none are peach!) seems to open up the portals of my mind and allow things to flow that wouldn't at an earlier hour, when, too wide awake, thinking of too many things, my brain may have been too scattered to allow the composting to happen that would allow me to take experience and turn it into something more.

I am already an odd duck at best. My business cards for many years simply said my name and under it one word, Metaphorist. I was not trying to be facetious, not cute or funny, I merely felt it the best explanation of who and what I was and how I processed the world. Like Snyder's composting, once I got the metaphor, I understood the experience and could write about it. Enlivened and yet soothed by the incredible blending of peach, raspberries and vanilla in this, one of my new favorite teas, my brain both exploded with a kind of fourth of July fireworks display and brought me to a place of calm and refinement in my mind when the metaphors ran clear and I could see what I needed to see.

I am an introverted artist living a cloistered life, by choice, chance, and circumstance, and I spend much of my day composting in Snyder's sense, trying to make sense of a world often confusing to me, a world that looks to me, often, as though I were seeing it through funhouse mirrors. I have to put it through my own filters amidst much silence and feel it, sense it, from my toes all the way up to my brain. No t.v., few phonecalls, and I don't answer those if I'm writing unless it's one of my children, no music, just the twittering, singing and chirping of my birds and my own breath on the waves of the quiet room I am working in. This is the time for tea, for it soothes the body and fuels the brain and allows me to see, not through funhouse mirrors but as if through a kaleidoscope where the world turns different shapes and colors until it comes clearly into vision. I feel very close to Wordsworth when I read his poem, The World Is Too Much With Us. The world is always too much with me, and it takes this silence and solitude to allow the world to move through many filters so that I might digest it and have a story to tell. Today I celebrate the joys of introversion.

I find it strange that my introverted quiet life so unsettles people. They want to "get me out," and feel that there is something terribly wrong with the fact that I spend most of my days in my little cottage reading, writing, and doing my work. It is true that other than taking care of my animals, eating, tending the garden and doing what needs doing here, most of my life is spent writing and doing my art and it is a very deep thing for me, deeply spiritual, the glue that holds the fabric of my being together, that keeps all the myriad and sometimes confusing parts of my somewhat peculiar being woven all of a piece. Perhaps that is why I am a serious weaver, because in warping the loom and weaving the weft I somehow keep myself woven firmly enough to walk in the world, somewhat like the scarecrow in the Wizard Of Oz who had to keep stuffing his straw back in. I have to keep weaving so my stuffing doesn't fall out. And all this work is done quite nicely with a good cup of tea at hand.

This Peach Melba tea is divine, the sounds of silence and a house put to bed around me are comforting. The birds are asleep in their dark corners, Moe is asleep on his dog bed, only the air filter makes any sound at all and it is a soft comforting sound. One thing I know to be true is what Emerson wrote some long time ago, "The one thing in the world of value is the active soul." Yes, that is what people don't understand. Sometimes I think I do more in a day sitting at my desk than a runner in a marathon. I travel a million miles through countless books, pages of notes, things written, revised, tossed, and begun again, studying, always studying, my active soul in search of my quiet mind where all things are revealed and the compost heap turned over.

Most people seem terribly afraid of the soft still silence of my world, as if if they are not running running running, doing doing doing somehow the world as they know it will collapse around them. I don't expect anyone to live this peculiar life of mine, but it wouldn't hurt to let a few walls collapse. Taking time to sip a good cup of tea, breathe in and out, out and in until the body stops and the mind settles, and allowing for time to stuff the straw back in and become whole again is a worthy pursuit. Come. Let me pour you a cup of tea, and we will settle into composting and weaving ourselves back together so that we might see what we need to see and move forward again. If not now, when?

Maitri

Posted at 01:36 am by maitri
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Sunday, September 24, 2006

DURING TIMES WHEN WE MUST BE EVER SO GENTLE WITH OURSELVES ~ PEACH BLOSSOM WHITE TEA...

For a very soft soothing evening: Peach Blossom White Tea ...

"This is a high-grade China white tea. Flavored with delicious creamy peach taste. It maintains all the health benefits of white teas. This tea is mellow, with a round, slightly sweet and subtle flavor with hints of honey. Unlike other types of tea, it is also delicious at room temperature." From SBS Teas.

With the scent of peach-blossoms
The sun rises suddenly
Over the mountain path.

Matsuo Basho (1644-94)

There are many great teachings to be had in a fine white tea. Each step is about mindfulness and gentleness. The water must not come to a full boil. If it says steep two minutes that's what it means, two minutes, and maybe even a hair less. It means watching the tea and being very present with it. The ultimate Zen mindfulness training, making a cup of tea.

And so I watched the kettle carefully, the tea leaves spooned out into the brewer, ready for the water to come. I found myself breathing, in and out, out and in, as the water heated, the stove coils glowed, the soft aroma of peaches rose from the dried leaves, waiting, just waiting, the tea leaves and I.

It has been an especially difficult two weeks here. Hard to explain. A cocoon time, much going on under the surface, not especially visible to others but tumult and exhaustion at the same time, focus gone, a time-out-of-time experience when one falls out of time and space. I now realize these are precious times, though not easy ones, because they are the times our subconscious mind takes the time it needs to work out things we have been unable to handle. Rather than fight it, one must just be very gentle with oneself and let it wash over and out to sea. It is the perfect time for a gentle cup of tea like the Peach Blossom White, nothing too startling, simply soothing, softly flavorful, every sip a pleasure, and one more easing of the soul into a deeper relaxation, where the work inside one's body and soul can be done, and we can do our best to stay out of the way and not interfere. We want so to interfere, and we do such damage along the way when we do.

I am reminded, every year at this time, living here on the coast of North Carolina, where we have often and will be hit by hurricanes. While the sea that we love and are drawn to with some deep primal longing can also destroy, kill, wipe clean away that which was. And each year there are numerous reports on television about what to do if you are caught in a rip tide. People die in them every year and there's no need for it to happen. One gets caught up in the swirling angry ocean's spinning seemingly out of control, carrying one out alarmingly further and further. People die when they frantically try to swim straight into shore, but there is no need for this to happen. A rip tide actually only covers a small area, and if one is caught in one instead of trying to swim straight in to shore with the rip tide pulling at you, you swim parallel to the shore and out of the rip tide and then you can swim safely in. It is very much like these time-out-of-time experiences when our souls can do their work in gentle silence and calm, but the harder we fight the uncomfortable changes, the more likely we are to drown in the middle of them. And so I have learned to drift slowly to a safer place, and swim in, when the time is right, to a safe haven.

When this is happening in our lives we must turn to the things that sustain us. I have been drinking gentle teas like this lovely Peach Blossom White, a lovely rooibos or two, fruity tisanes and herbal blends, all the while drawing and sketching, watching no t.v., listening to the sounds of silence, or perhaps at most some soft classical musical, or even Celtic. One day I played a beautiful rendition of Danny Boy by a Celtic group, the singers lilting Irish voice rendering my heart more broken with every note, having just talked to my mother whose cancer seems to be bringing her into another shore, coming closer and closer, one we can no longer see. And yet the music was the perfect kind of music that massages the soul, so much pain, tears running down my cheeks, and somehow, amidst the worst of the cutting pain, my soul opened wider to allow it to flow through and out to sea. With each new starting of the song yet again, my heart opened wide and the tears fell and I held my cup of tea to my lips sipping slowly for long periods, and I thought of my little Irish mother dying, climbing slowly toward the ascension into grace, and I thought that there could have been no more perfect song than this, certainly no more perfect tea, for the gentle white peach tea did soothe my soul and steady me on my course, as my subconscious did open wide and do the work that cannot be done when one is truly present to the world.

I shall order more of this tea. It is a lovely tea and feels as if it is one for special passages in one's life. The tea to ease the way. The tea to ease the heart. And one day as the peach blossoms fall around me, I shall sing an Ave and be deeply at peace.

Maitri

Posted at 11:14 pm by maitri
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Saturday, September 16, 2006

LIGHTER, FREER, FLOATING, FLYING, FINALLY AT PEACE... DOVE'S DETOX TEA

A Lovely Tea To Soothe, Cleanse, Relax, Find Peace, and Fly Free: Dove's Detox Tea ... From SBS Teas...

"When you need peace within, use Dove's Detox tea. Much more than an olive branch! This is an excellent all over body detox blend. It helps promote regular bowel movements without the severe laxative effects of other bowel blends. Helps to purify and cleanse out the liver and purify the blood. It also has stimulating properties and makes an excellent coffee substitute. A proprietary blend of Burdock root, dandelion root, chicory, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger root, orange peel, vitex, licorice, red clover and a hint of spearmint. Not for children! "

"I wish I had the wings of the dove so I could fly away."

Henry James

There is nothing more gentle and soulful than a dove. I have raised doves of all sorts and today I terribly miss my tiny diamond doves and would love to have some again. The gentle coo, the gentle lilting tones, soothing, peaceful. And so, as we all get from time to time, heavy with life, not feeling so well, a general un-wellness, when nothing specific ails you, but you know you need a cleansing, something to help you feel lighter, freer, able to fly again, I was wondering what I might take or do and I came across this wonderful tea, Dove's Detox Tea, in SBS Tea's offerings. I had hoped for a cleansing tea, and it is all of that, but I was not prepared for how utterly delicious it is. I have just ordered my second pound and make it several times a week. It's very good hot, and I've come to really love it iced, in fact it is one of my favorite teas for any reason!

I have had teas meant for a cleansing that made me ill, tasted horrible, and gave me you-know-what that's not so pretty to talk about! Dove's Detox does not do that at all. It is amazingly gentle, incredibly delicious, and I will not be without it in this little cottage of mine.

I am coming into a time in my life when many changes are occuring and I feel an intense need for both internal and external cleansing. In my body, in my home, and in my life. What can one let go of, both inner and outer, to free oneself of the heavy weights that have held one earthbound, like the albatross around the sailor's neck (where that common phrase began) in the late 1700's poem, Rime Of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, when the sailor has shot an albatross that has led the ship to safety, and once the albatross had been killed the weather turns deadly and the sailor's angry crewmates make him wear the dead albatross around his neck.

Too many times our bodies feel leaden, weighted down, and we crave that lighter freer feeling in our bodies. Dove's Detox is definitely a tea for that, a tea to be enjoyed, a tea that will once again have you lighter, freer, flying, soaring!

And so I put the kettle on to make enough for two days and I will drink it, and as I shed the layers of life held inside of my body and draped around my shoulders like the albatross, I will be preparing myself for a time when once again I might fly, and fly I shall. On the wings of a dove, I will fly.

Maitri

Posted at 10:45 am by maitri
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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

A TEA COLETTE WOULD HAVE LOVED... "EARTH MOTHER PU-ERH"

A Late Evening Tea With Colette: Earth Mother Pu-erh Tea ... From SBS Teas...

"Pu-erh is very popular worldwide where it is being used as a slimming tea, diet aid and to lower cholesterol.

Earthy Pu-erh and sweet rose petals are melded together and smoothed out by the very exotic nature of this blend. If you find plain Pu-erh to be a bit too earthy, this is an excellent alternative.

Ingredients:
Pu-erh and organic rose petals and buds."

"You must be calm, garden, calm and sensible! Don't forget that you are going to feed me ... I want to see you adorned, yes, but with a fruitful beauty. I want to see you covered in flowers, but not in such tender blooms as a single summer day of sizzling crickets will scorch up. I want to see you green, but away with the relentless green of palm and cactus ... Let the arbutus burst into flames beside the orange tree, and let there be sheets of purple fire dripping down my walls: the bougainvillaea! And at their feet, let the mint plants, the tarragon, and the sage push up their spikes, just so high that a dropping hand, as it crushes their slender leaf stems, can set free their impatient scents. Tarragon, sage, mint, savory, and burnet opening your pink flowers at noon, then closing them again three hours later, I love you certainly for yourselves -- but I shall not fail to demand your presence in my salads, my stewed lamb, my seasoned sauces; I shall exploit you. But all I have in me of disinterested botanical passion I shall keep for that other flower, over there, for her -- honor of every climate favored by her presence -- the queen, the Rose."

Colette

And so this September night, between summer and autumn, when roses bloom on my patio and others are ready to burst into fall bloom, those that can't bear the dismal, heavy heat of our coastal summer, but once the weather cools will bloom into December, and wrapped in my shawl with my old, worn, tattered volume, Earthly Paradise, the collected writings of my muse Colette, I sit drinking this earthy Pu-erh tea, laden with pink roses. Just to see it in the brewer with the pink roses floating in the earthen-colored translucent brown tea was a thing of beauty.

I know a great many tea lovers that do not like Pu-erhs, but I have always loved them for the earthy richness which seems to sooth and ground me. But I think this beautiful floral Pu-erh might enchant the most reticent tea drinkers who steer clear of this amazing tea. Even while earthy it is sweet and gentle, a perfect tea for Colette's earthly pardise.

I have been feeling very melancholy and sad the last week or so, but there's nothing for it but to put the kettle on and go to work. Sitting amongst my books with my animal companions and my fiber work all around me, with dogged determination and clutching my prose bible, this book of Colette's, I knew that one must forge on and she would have little pity or respect for one who simply sat and mucked about in misery. No! She would not bear it for a moment.

When I get in this state I always think of that line of Colette that I am certain I have used here before, as I've used it often in my writings and even put a post-it note on my computer with this brief, powerful phrase. Colette wrote, "Who said you should be happy? Do your work."

And so now as I settle in amongst my books, sipping a tea that celebrates mother earth, and earth mothers, I lift my cup to Colette who is likely bending over one of her beloved plants in a garden in the heavens, picking herbs for her supper, and gazing, lost in thought, at a single, perfect rose.

Maitri

Posted at 10:40 pm by maitri
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Monday, September 04, 2006

AN ODE TO LEMONS, AND, LEMON COCONUT CREAM TEA...

A Lovely Tea On A Monday Afternoon: Flavored Black Tea, Lemon Coconut Cream ... From SBS Teas...

"And now to dessert. Here's the lemon's shining moment. Lemon ice, lemon pound cake, and lemon pudding cake. Lemon squares, bars, and shortcake. Lemon fluff, Madeira cake (with lemon in it), lemon jelly, plain lemon cookies. Besides chocolate, the longest entry in many cookbook indexes is for lemons. I adore a recipe from Jane Grigson's Good Things. New Years Eve I try out her lemon rice pudding (see: "After The Holidays"), which you make with cream (or half and half), rice, sugar, and lemon peel. You bake it slowly in the oven, adding a drop or two of lemon juice, and stir it up from the bottom from time to time. The resulting pudding, served very cold with a couple of blanched pistachio nuts, will make rice pudding lovers crumble into bits. The rice almost dissolves on the tongue, but is not mush. It is suave, sophisticated baby food with a wonderful lemon taste. The tiny pieces of peel have cooked to a candy. This dessert is innocent and wicked at the same time, the ideal end to a dinner welcoming in a new year."

Laurie Colwin, More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns To The Kitchen

And so a love affair with lemons is nothing new and quite widespread, throughout history, as it would seem. It is useful in all manner of cooking and old timey/herbal medicines, and most spectacularly, when teas have been turned into dessert in a cup, scintillating brews with evanescent and then lasting impressions, when one can close their eyes and remember the lemon coconut cream still rolling across the palette and, at the same time, house a deep desire for a lemon poppy seed muffin, or Jane Grigson's delightful lemon rice pudding, a lemon pound cake, and more, one thinks that they could be quite happy no matter WHAT their circumstance might be if a lemon tea and sweet were at hand.

I had an odd thought when I started writing this piece. I was thinking of the popular saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I thought about that and then I thought, well, life hasn't exactly given me lemons, but it forgot to put the sugar in the lemonade. Which only goes to show that we can't expect life to do everything but must play our part. Do we need to think more positively, see the good side of things and not always the bad? Pehaps we need to work very hard at the glass half full moments in life rather than the glass half empty. So things don't always turn out the way we would wish, well, what then? What if we add our own sugar and make sweet lemonade (still tart, as lemons always will be, to remind us of the balance, the yin and the yang of life...) but that it is always within our power to shift the landscape before us with a tiny change of viewpoint.

I added a bit of sugar to my tea, I longed for a lemon poppyseed muffin but instead made cinnamon toast, which was just perfect anyway. I sipped the tea slowly and I felt enlivened and refreshed. It was not too sweet, not too tart, smooth and creamy with the secret ingredients SBS Teas added, and it opened my eyes a little wider to see off into the vistas of the whole new world before me.

Lemon tea is a wake up call. There are many delicious desserts we might add into the mix that would be a fine compliment to the tea, but if we are going to lead a life with tea guiding us down paths we need to go, if we are going to give ourselves over to life's lessons rather than sit hard and fast in our own solidly black and white way of looking at things, never budging from a rigid viewpoint, we will live sad lives, never quite full, never quite able to see all the colors of the rainbow, in our hearts, and the world around us. The bright yellow of the lemon, the sparkling awakening on my tongue and down my throat, wake me UP and I am given a chance to turn the kaleidoscope and see a new view of life.

I hope I am always open to new people, places and things. I hope I always live with a heart wide open, leaping into the void of uncertainty with courage and fortitude. No, I don't buy that life only gives us lemons. Life gives us opportunities, and it is up to us to do what we must to sweeten the pot. And what an exciting way to be. It really is all in our hands.

I wish you could be here with me so that I could pour you a cup of this delectable lemon tea, and we could talk about lemons and their lessons. And we could dip our paintbrushes in yellow paint and paint the way before us a wide sweep of golden yellow. We've always time to change no matter how old we are. The tea is in the cup, the paintbrush in our hand. Follow the yellow brick road...

Maitri

Posted at 02:46 pm by maitri
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Thursday, August 24, 2006

SELF CARE, A DIFFERENT CELEBRATION & KAHLUA COFFEE TEA...

On A Night When You Need To Feel Soothed: Flavored Black Tea, Kahlua Coffee ... From SBS Teas... : "Creamy lush coffee taste with a subtle rum flavor. This tea is as close to a well known favorite alcohol blend as you can get. We thought but in a tea? Yep, in a tea, add cream and topped with a bit of whip and a cherry."

"She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaving them gratefully into a single cloth --
it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it's you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you."

Rainer Maria Rilke

In the last entry I wrote about the practice of becoming no one special. I stand behind this with all my heart, and will follow this practice all the days of my life. But at the same time, I know that we are each special and as unique as a snowflake. My dear friend Katya and I wrote about this back and forth the day after I wrote the last entry.

What it boils down to is this. In the Buddhist sense being Nothing Special is about egolessness, the kind of ego that leads us to believe we are bigger and better and more than anyone else. By my definition we are also special in that whoever we are we bring to this planet our God-given gifts and talents, our strengths and our weaknesses. Sometimes in our strength we can help someone else. At other times, in our weakness, we allow someone else to let their strong side come to the fore, affording them the lesson of strength while we are helped in the process. It is yin and yang, and we are never always strong and we are never always weak. We are always both, and the two sides cycle on throughout our lives. In the Buddhist sense it matters not whether we are President of a country, waitress in a diner, corporate executive, housewife, gardener, artist, teacher or any of the other myriad paths one might take. In this we bring our unique gifts to bear on who we are in our lives. What we must caution ourselves against is thinking that we are better than or not as good as someone else. That is all ego. We are not more special if we are President and less if we are a street sweeper. When the God within me meets the God within you we have found the great equalizer, where there is no shame or pride, where we just are. Nothing special. Absolutely special. A great Zen Koan, a puzzle, a teaching, a prayer.

One of the things that is certain about me is that among my gifts and talents there lies a dark side when I fall into anguish and despair, depression and anxiety. It is at these times that I have consciously learned to take care of myself so that I don't go hurtling over the rails of life, and there is nothing better than the ritual of making tea to bring me home. The last two days, after having been off one of my medications for several days, my body went through re-entry with the drug and my head ached and I was barely out of bed when I could hardly keep my eyes open. I slept for four hours two afternoons in a row. I was aghast, but my body needed to readjust, to come back into balance with the important drug back in place. I had to allow myself days of grace, like grace notes on a page in a musical score. Pauses in the day to allow my body to do it's work, and upon awakening from my drug induced sleep, as the chemicals re-entered and helped stabilize my brain, I began to re-enter my body, slowly, ever so slowly.

One of the saddest things in this modern age is that we are supposed to pretend that everything is always fine, we are not allowed to have moments of spaciousness to allow ourselves to find our equilibrium, and so we get further and further away from our center until we are barely holding on by our fingernails, all the while saying, "I'm okay, I'm okay." Well, somedays we are not okay, and these days are gifts, when we find the stuff we're made of, where we can be nobody special and let the world carry on without us for awhile. Amazing isn't it? The sun still comes up, and then the moon in its turn, and one day turns into another, and the world has gone on just fine without our being whoever-we-are, the almighty indispensable one, and those who could not live without us, those whom we were afraid to let down lived their lives and let us be. We are usually the last ones to see, admit, realize the depth of our need to be nothing at all, to float, to drift, to dream, to drink our tea and let the world be.

And so I put the kettle on, and while the water was coming to a boil I sorted through my teas. I needed something that would both soothe me and give me a lift. I wanted a black tea to revive my sleepy brain, and something soothing as well. I will admit that while I am not much of a drinker, one of the things I do love, though I seldom have, is Kahlua. I like it in coffee. But the idea of Kahlua and coffee flavors in a tea seemed impossible to me. I was skeptical, but as I opened the bag of loose tea the aroma made me audibly sigh. It smelled heavenly. I sniffed about the brewer like a bloodhound as it was steeping, and I put a bit of milk and sugar in which I seldom do in my tea anymore. Oh, Heaven! This is the most delicious tea. After the first sip I sank back in my chair with the tea in my hands and just allowed the warmth to spread through my hands, up my arms, in my belly, throughout my insides, and the very air was perfumed around me with the delicious sweet fragrance of the tea. The ritual of the tea-making and the tea itself brough me back to myself, my nothing special/special self, and in that moment it mattered not who I was, what roles I had in life, what gifts or talents or not I possessed, it was simply tea and me and a moment sublime. I had given myself over to the much needed empty space where I mattered not at all in the universe, where I floated in my own emptiness and let myself fill up with air, with prayer, with sleep, with a good book, with my dog, and my birds, and the argiope spider I've named Louise who has built a beautiful web outside just over my little front garden.

I was nothing special and everything special all at once as I sipped my tea and felt all the wonders and glories of the universe. I was empty and I was full and the tea was good and I felt full in my emptiness. And when we can find that we have found grace. And when we have found grace in emptiness, we can re-enter the world with our equilibrium intact and be somebody/nobody in a world where nothing/everything matters, and we can sigh with relief because we don't have to hold the world up with our own two hands, and finally, just maybe, we can find a comfortable place in the universe to walk amongst our fellow men and women, and not have to be anything other than what we are, but simply be.

I shall think about this a little more as I prepare to make this evening's tea, and work on the book, and perhaps knit a little, and feel comfort in the silence of this dark room around me, where the birds are sleeping and Moe is belly up with his paws in the air, more at peace than I think any of us will ever know. Dogs just are. I envy them, we have to work at being that relaxed in the world, but tea comes close to bringing me to that place, and the kahlua tea was so smooth and such a delight, I felt at peace in this little bubble of time, and woke up today more prepared to face the world. Self-care is not selfish. Self-care sustains us, and makes us whole. Pour yourself a cup of tea...

Maitri

Posted at 09:05 pm by maitri
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Monday, August 21, 2006

BECOMING NO ONE SPECIAL... OR, THE PRACTICE OF LEARNING TO LIVE IN THE PRESENT MOMENT...

A Tea For Bringing One Back To The Present Moment: Ginseng Oolong Tea ...

"Soothing and sweet, with a cooling sensation in your mouth," write the purveyors of this fine tea, and they are right. This is a lovely tea from The Tea Farm. They also write, which I think is instructive and helpful on our path to learning about teas, "Oolong tea is processed by using a tray and sun dried for a few hours before the rolling process. It is allowed to be oxidized for a short period of time thus creating this semi-fermented tea. There are many factors that contribute to the quality of the Oolong tea, such as the region the plants are grown in and tea plants can only be produced into Oolong tea in a few areas in China and Taiwan. Oolong tea is favored by many tea drinkers because of its digestive functions, and it is the only type of tea that is thought to be good for your stomach. Besides being good for your stomach, Oolong tea possesses all the antioxidants and health benefits as other teas." Oolong has longsince been one of my favorite teas, and the more I find out about the health benefits, the more grateful I am to be able to sip this tea, a fragrant elixir as well as a soothing balm to the spirit.

In the eating hall, a stuffed parrot hung from the ceiling, and from its golden beak dangled a card that read, "We are in training to be nobody special." I had often repeated this to myself, working against my need for achievement and recognition, and the discontent that could engender. "I am in training to be nobody special." Saying the words in my mind, I felt how they redirected me from a certain seductive struggle and excitement and disease, into a more stable focus: forget what others think of you, forget the future goal of achievement; arrive instead in this body/mind, attending to this present moment. This is the whole of practice.

Hidden Spring: A Buddhist Woman Confronts Cancer
Sandy Boucher

In Boucher's book she begins, "Like most American Buddhists who did not grow up in Asia or in Asian-American homes, I came to Buddhism as an adult..." I found this a stunning remark because I, too, having been raised Catholic with twelve years of Catholic education under my belt, and then leaving the church, and then on a path of searching, going to this church and that, finally came to Buddhism in my early twenties, a young adult, at the beginning of what would be a lifelong journey. At 52 I still consider myself a student of Buddhism, and will be a humble student all the days of my life. Not having been raised Buddhist, and having only the Westernized version to fall back on, I am most grateful not only for the many Asian teachers who came to this country bringing their knowledge, their wisdom, and leaving us their teachings in their books -- jewels in my firmament -- but I am most grateful for the Westerners like myself who have taken Buddhism deeply into their hearts and lives and try to follow the daily practices, always a struggle for a mere human, still learning and growing with the knowledge I gain, all the while knowing while it's good to read books it is the practical practice that gets you there. And practice is continual, it never ends.

I wear three things at all times -- my sterling silver dragonfly necklace with an aquamarine set in the center on a heavy silver chain (My last name, Libellule, means dragonfly in French, and the dragonfly is also my totem animal in the Native American sense.); my beautiful mala (prayer beads, used to chant one's mantra), roughly 40 inches long, made for me of lovely beads of rose quartz, aventurine, and amazonite, with beautiful sterling silver Bali beads by my dear lovely friend Victoria; and a beautiful little heavy silver hand-carved mindfulness bell with an amethyst set in the top that I wear on a heavy sterling silver snake chain. These two necklaces as well as my mala are so much a part of me that one day when I babysat my near 2 1/2 year old grandbaby, Lucas, he asked, "Where's your bell?" He loves to sit on my lap and play with my necklaces and beads. But it is the bell that is most actively a part of my practice. When I walk it makes a tiny little tinkle, bringing me back to the present moment and a state of mindfulness, to live and practice, continually, forgetting and remembering over and over, that the goal is one of becoming no one special. Only in becoming no one special can we let go of the things of the world that weigh us down, whether things that are ego based, material things, or worldly ambitions that take us away from our True Nature, our Buddha Nature, something that few attain but many strive for. I fall quite a bit on the path, I become ashamed of myself, and then realize that that is ego too. Living in a house full of parrots, most especially ruled by my grey parrot Henry, a great teacher and friend, I am constantly brought out of my self as I watch these amazing creatures who live solely in the present moment and make my fears and concerns and ego-based thoughts fall away, at least for a moment, and then I walk and my bell tinkles and I remember. And then I prepare to make a cup of tea, the mindful meditational ritual that nightly brings me back to my goal of becoming nobody special..

There is nothing special about making tea, and in that nothing-specialness we find the sacred moment, the present moment, the ordinary, the sublime. I love the ritual acts involved, the filling of the kettle, measuring out the loose tea into the brewer, fixing my tea tray, fingering my mala beads while I wait for the water to boil, pouring the water over the leaves, and bringing the tray into sit, mindfully, watching my breath, feeling my body relax, knowing that the tea brings health to both body and mind.

I feel my muscles relax, I see, more clearly, the day that has gone before me, and note, without judgment, the events of the day, and where I might have been gentler with myself or others, and where I created my own impediments, for nothing and no one can create those for me outside of myself. I am learning this more and more. I am not that special, and there is deep comfort in that.

And so past ten tonight I am sipping my tea and writing here, and I realize that my whole body has sunk deeply into this moment, and I feel gratitude, and I know it will not last. But that is not really my business. My busines is to be here now, fully present with my tea, and know that if I am fully present in this moment, I have a greater chance of being more fully present in the next. Moment to moment, like my fingers moving from bead to bead around the circle of 108 beads on my mala, are these precious, ordinary moments, continually circling the labyrinthine path called life, and never becoming lost if we only take one step at a time. Let the next step, tomorrow's steps, next year's steps take care of themselves. As Ram Dass wrote, Be Here Now. And I am trying. And even while I am remembering I am forgetting, and I am learning to be very soft and gentle with myself as I stumble and fall, and the softer I fall the less I get hurt. I am in training to be nobody special. I will keep on training steadily, as I sip my tea and listen to the tinkling of my bell...

Maitri

Posted at 10:23 pm by maitri
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Thursday, August 17, 2006

DRAWING BOOKS, DRINKING TEA, FLOATING IN APRICOT DREAMS...

A Tea For Drawing & Dreaming Books: Apricots and Cream Tea ... From SBS Teas...

"Remember, you don't have to make a career of it. Be a Dabbler! Sign up!

No talent.
No money.
No time.
Play Devil's Advocate.
Why are these limitations?
Why are they not?"

The Creative License:
Giving Yourself Permission To Be The Artist You Truly Are
Danny Gregory

And so it's tea time and book time. Tea time, book time, and drawing time. Drawing, collaging, mixed media, words on tea stained pages, Japanese rice papers, tea bags, notes from anywhere, quotes from everywhere, exuberant flashing thoughts and quiet moments, this is the book that I am writing. Tea Mind, Be Kind has become so much more than a book and a blog, it has become a way of life and the coming into the fullness of my being, both human and artistic. Drawing on more than three decades of writing, publishing, making art in many genres, and having had three small presses, all hand done, each page will be scanned into the computer rather than typewritten. The typed words on the page will be part of a larger picture, as surely words on a page always are.

"The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning; once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?"

Chuang Tzu

I am fully aware that some people won't like this format, those that want black and white words on a page in neat little paragraphs, and I appreciate and read quite a few myself. But like the apricots bursting forth in full flavor on my tongue from the exuberance of this flavored black tea, my spirit is soaring and it won't be held back.

I have always loved books whose spirit was larger than life, starting back in the 70's with books by Shambhala like The Rainbow Book printed on bright colored paper, each section a different color and full of wild artwork and rainbow colored thoughts, arcing into the future and still alive today more than three decades later. Then there was Ram Dass's Be Here Now, a revolutionary book graphically, rubberstamping instead of fonts on paper the color of a brown grocery store bag with a brilliant blue cover. BE HERE NOW. You might not have liked it, you might not have understood it, but you will never forget it once you've even seen it and held it in your hands. I take a sip of tea. I am thinking...

More than a decade ago I fell in love with Dan Price's Moonlight Chronicles, all hand done, drawings, photographs, hand-written words on a page. Then there came SARK in all her rainbow-colored glory, with color so alive it would shatter a rainbow, like Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy's very words and art did break open my heart, and clear the clouds from my eyes so that I could see the world in a whole new way. Sabrina Ward Harrison came along with journals so wild and wooly and full of life, art on a page, words as art as words, that you could never look at a book the same way again, and Nick Bantock's magical book series about Griffin and Sabine shook me to my core. Today I have his marvelous book, Urgent 2nd Class: Creating Curious Collage, Dubious Documents, And Other Art From Ephemera. Is not tea, art? Can I not write a book by dipping my pen in a cup of tea and dreaming the words onto the page? Collecting the history and lore of tea, the physical aspects of tea life, the collage of teaware and words and sodden tea bags with drooping tags, and tea boxes with some of the finest art you'll find today all over the outside. Can you read my tea leaves? Can you put them on a page in a book about tea? It's all like a Zen koan. It is all inspired by tea and art and life and a pen in my hand, and a room around me messy and colorful, and a life lived in books, life as art as life.

If I know one thing I know that I am a Domestic Mystic. I am a Wizard and a Shaman. I know that I can fly. At least I can with a pen in my hand. Colette asked, What's the point of this wish, this journey, this extravagant flying carpet? I know in my heart that she meant the journey of writing, living as artist, a peculiar life at best, and lest I get too caught up in magical realism, she turns around and brings me back to earth when she says, Who said you should be happy? Do your work.

For more than a decade my work and life have been centered in the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi. The imperfect-perfect. And Domestic Mystics don't come close to being perfect. Some of us live in messy houses, many of us would rather drink tea than mop the floor, a good deal of us are dreamers, and there are those of us who are writers and artists as well. We, perhaps, lead the most peculiar lives of all.

I have always thought that my life was best captured in a poem by one of my favorite poets, Lucie Brock-Broido. This poem, Domestic Mysticism was published in a book of poems in 1988. The book was called A Hunger. She had me with the title. The first poem, whose title I have given above, has a few lines that make me laugh, that make me feel as if I am looking into a mirror into my very own life. She writes,

This work of mine, the kind of work which takes no arms to do,
Is least noble of all. It's peopled by Wizards, the Forlorn,
The Awkward, the Blinkers, the Spoon-Fingered, Agnostic Lispers,
Stutterers of Prayer, the Flatulent, the Closet Weepers,
The Charlatans. I am one of those...
...I've got this mystic streak in me.

I've got this mystic streak in me as do most Teaists if they allow themselves to fully be. To become the tea is to become the moment and nothing more. When I write here, when I draw in my sketchbook, when I pick up my fiber work and create wild, colorful beings, when I kiss my grey parrot on the beak, I feel this mystic streak shooting through me, oozing out of my pores, and I feel joy. I look into my tea cup as if into a deep reflecting pool and I see not the lumpy, bumpy, lopsided, cattywompus, middle-aged woman that I am, I see a reflection of my own soul. Tea takes me there. Tea takes me everywhere.

In closing, I will leave you with a few lines from this same book of poems by Brock-Broido. The title of the poem is Jessica, from the Well and refers to the little girl some time ago who fell down the well and it took a valiant effort to save her, and they did. Brock-Broido ends the poem in this way, and I shall end this piece this way as well...

...Given my character, I will always be mercurial,
a little sentimental, star-shaped & terrestrial
divine by water, healed by air
luminescent, inconceivable, a prayer
... I sing.

Maitri

Posted at 07:59 pm by maitri
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