tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648618581431403372024-03-12T19:09:15.270-04:00Urasenke PhiladelphiaA blog about the practice of tea ceremony (chado or chanoyu in Japanese) from Philadelphia members of the Urasenke school of chado.Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-69316323712938519382013-04-28T18:36:00.003-04:002013-04-28T18:40:12.805-04:00The Essential Method of Seated MeditationContinuing our series of excerpts from the Zen Tea Record:
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“Effort to discern your original nature through handling tea
utensils is none other than a teaching of seated meditation. “Seated
meditation,” however, is not still and silent sitting alone. Such practice is
termed “seated meditation of dark realization,” and Tendai sages too have
rejected it. The essential method of seated meditation lies in performing it
whether leaving or arriving, whether sitting or standing. In chanoyu also,
then, you should practice without indolence whatever you are doing.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It
may be doubted that such activity in chanoyu can be [meditation]; ultimately,
however, it depends on the person performing it. For practice of chanoyu is a
matter of striving always—in the same way as when you enter a tearoom and serve
or drink tea—to conduct yourself with all integrity, dedicating your whole
mind, without any negligence whether walking, standing, sitting, or reclining.
If you act employing this attitude, without any lapse, in both the movement and
stillness of daily life, then without any exertion of thought, all matters will
be well disposed; the proper relationships of lord and vassal, parent and
child, and person and person will spontaneously reach their ultimate
fulfillment.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“In
the contemplative method of sitting meditation, a jumble of innumerable
thoughts float up to torment you, but through profound exertion—in that
exertion itself—they may be suppressed so that stray thoughts cease to arise.
Nevertheless, since fundamentally one performs it without relying on any forms,
the single thought of practice may become entangled with other thoughts so that
one falls easily into the distress of confusion. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“With
the Way of Tea, however, you actively move your body and take up various
articles, directing your awareness to them. Thus, you are not overwhelmed by
these diverse thoughts and feelings, and your endeavor is easily fulfilled. It
is the superlative Way that emerges from the wondrous wisdom of Zen master
Ikkyu and indeed deserves our appreciation.”</div>
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I’ve heard people who practice both Zen and chanoyu say the
same thing as above—that doing something while meditating makes it easier to
focus your mind. But it’s something that’s hard to embrace when you’re actually
preparing tea, because there are always so many things around you that need
attention. If you’re focused on meditating, are you also paying attention to
your guests? It is possible, but it’s not easy!</div>
Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-25966451644477073162013-03-07T23:54:00.002-05:002013-03-07T23:54:41.332-05:00Comprehension Requires Resolve<div class="MsoNormal">
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--></style> Here’s another passage from the Zen Tea Record. This is
short, but I wanted to give you this one by itself because there’s a lot of
food for thought:</div>
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“Comprehension requires resolve, not the dogged passage of
months or years in study. Since the thought of aspiration may be shallow or
deep, you must strive with wholeness of heart solely to fulfill your resolution
and practice chanoyu-samadhi.”</div>
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I remember in my early years as a student of chado that I
would often sit in lessons and let my mind wander – as any student does in
class, I guess! – and not pay attention to what was going on. It’s easy to get
out of the habit of focusing on what’s happening, especially if you’re not
learning anything new at the time. Even now I sometimes forget to pay attention
when I should be. That’s the key lesson: resolve never goes out of style!</div>
Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-50473925933697626142013-01-28T23:44:00.003-05:002013-01-28T23:46:22.404-05:00“Immerse your heart and mind fully in it alone…”<div class="MsoNormal">
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Feeling the need for a bit more Zen in my life, I’ve been
re-reading the Zen Tea Record. Here’s a great passage:
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The original significance of chanoyu lies not in appraising
the quality of utensils, not in scrutinizing the circumstances and arrangements
of the occasion for preparing tea, but solely in praxis: entering into the
samadhi of handling utensils and discerning your orignal nature (honsho).</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To
seek self-nature through adopting the forms of chanoyu is none other than
samadhi in which tea utensils are treated with the One Mind, which is lord
alone, undrifting. If you are to take up the teascoop, immerse your heart and
mind fully in it alone and give no thought whatsoever to other matters. This is
to treat it first and last. When you replace it, do so deeply conveying your
heart and mind to it as in the beginning. Such treatment is not restricted to
the teascoop; it applies to all the implements that are handled.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When,
upon putting the utensil down, you release it and withdraw your hand, without
in the slightest dismissing it from your awareness, shift the mind just as it
is and convey it to the next utensil to be treated. Without relaxing the spirit
at any point, prepare tea as the forms (kata) prescribe. This is called
“performing in the continuity of spirit.” It is wholly the functioning of
chanoyu-samadhi. </div>
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This is such great practice. Which is not to suggest that a
state of mind like this is in any way easy to achieve, but achieving isn’t the
point. Making the effort (and then the lack of effort!) is the whole thing. </div>
Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-31073421084751400962013-01-17T23:31:00.000-05:002013-01-17T23:31:26.559-05:00New Year, New Tea!<div class="MsoNormal">
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--></style> We had our New Year’s tea gathering, Hatsugama, this past
Sunday at the Horticultural Center in Fairmount Park. This was our first
Hatsugama as a Tankokai association, and also our largest gathering ever, with
20 guests! </div>
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Here’s a photo of the group together:</div>
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We did our usual full meal, with a tenshin tray, miso soup
with shrimp and mochi, jubako with more traditional New Year’s food, hashiarai
(a light broth to wash off chopsticks) and hassun with lobster and gingko nuts.
And, of course, hanabira mochi to kick off the thick tea!</div>
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So here’s an example of how sometimes we have to improvise
when the unexpected happens . . . tenshin trays (in the photo above) are made
of lacquer, and so you can’t use any kind of ceramic plates on them. We were
going to use little boards made of cedar to put food on, but there was a
miscommunication about who was bringing them, and at the last minute we didn’t
have any. So then we thought, okay, we’re in the Horticultural Center—there’s
got to be leaves somewhere we can use! Off we went to search the building. As
luck would have it, they were having a plant sale that day, and we found a
peace lily with leaves just the right size. Definitely not a traditional
Japanese plant, but I kind of like the idea of starting the year with a piece
of peace!</div>
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Here are a few more photos from the event… </div>
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It was great to see everyone, and we’re already looking
forward to next year!</div>
Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-30524868271764023752013-01-01T17:33:00.000-05:002013-01-01T17:33:31.820-05:00The Year of the Snake<div class="MsoNormal">
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--></style> A happy brand-new 2013 to all of you! This year is the year
of the snake in the Chinese zodiac that the Japanese also use. Throughout the
year, but especially around New Year’s time, we use tea utensils with snake
imagery to celebrate the coming of the season.</div>
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The Chinese zodiac is a rotating cycle of twelve animals,
and people born in the year of a certain animal are thought to have certain
characteristics (just like the twelve zodiac months in Western astrology). If
you are going to be a multiple of 12 this year (24 years old, 36, 48, 60, 72,
etc.), then you are a “snake” person!</div>
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People born in the year of the snake are said to be very
intelligent and wise; they love exploring new ideas and having stimulating
conversations, although they also get bored easily and can sometimes be
impatient with others. They are deep thinkers who tend to act logically and
methodically and are also very determined and ambitious, which can bring them
good fortune in money matters. They can also be very materialistic and love to
have the very best of everything, so they can easily spend to excess if they
don’t watch themselves. They tend to be very self-contained and self-reliant,
although they can also be very caring and compassionate friends. </div>
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Regardless of what year you were born, the year of the snake
is a time for slow, steady progress in both business and personal affairs. It’s
important to maintain your focus and discipline and not take risks, because
this is not a time when they’re likely to pay off. Historically, snake years
have also been times of turbulence, even violence in international affairs,
although this year is also associated with the Chinese element of water, which
tends to bring a calming influence. It may also be a good time to travel, but
choose your destination carefully!</div>
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Wherever you go and whoever you spend your new year with,
have a wonderful, prosperous time!</div>
Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-80923547863421125142012-11-24T20:39:00.000-05:002013-01-08T23:54:44.505-05:00Inaugural Celebration<div class="MsoNormal">
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Well, we did it! On November 10 and 11, we had an inaugural
celebration for our new kyokai (association).
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The first day was a dinner with tea preceding. The event was
held in a private club in downtown
Philadelphia, and because they normally aren’t open on weekends we had the
whole place to ourselves. We had usucha in one of the meeting rooms prepared
ryurei style, which means that the host and assistant were seated at a low
table (one designed especially for this purpose) and the guests were seated at
tables with chairs. Here are a couple of photos of the tea setup. The first one is Drew Hanson, one of our teachers, sitting behind the table (misonodana), and the second is Azusa Matono, one of our senior students, making tea there:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9irgXXDMYWCnVTdzDUEzYj2yvJuoW4F_xEwVfQXF1vCp7LK-CFdkfOnUX_Y2XF5FCx38oN37T2e_NeAyXfVPjgV14CkyMNmDjwb4eI0_PQF2WuTKATf6mVmnLQCz1ruhMVtXSRBYIl8U/s1600/tiazusamm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9irgXXDMYWCnVTdzDUEzYj2yvJuoW4F_xEwVfQXF1vCp7LK-CFdkfOnUX_Y2XF5FCx38oN37T2e_NeAyXfVPjgV14CkyMNmDjwb4eI0_PQF2WuTKATf6mVmnLQCz1ruhMVtXSRBYIl8U/s1600/tiazusamm.jpg" /></a></div>
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In an adjoining room, the Living Room, we had cocktails and
sushi. Like the rest of the club, the Living Room is decorated in colonial
style, with beautiful paintings, mahogany tables, a piano, and other period
furniture. For this event we had a touch of Japanese in that a koto player,
Motoko Yost, very generously donated her time to play for us. </div>
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The dinner was held upstairs in the dining room, where
Kayoko Hirota Sensei, of the Urasenke Tankokai North America Head Office in New
York, presented our president, Dr. Frank Chance, with a certificate showing our
new status and also a gift of money from the Sen family – that is, the grand
master of the Urasenke School, Oiemoto Sen Soshitsu (Zabosai) and the former
grand master, Daisosho Sen Genshitsu (Hounsai), and the rest of their family.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRAasm8-sPtSGBJ2hX68cQla7PCLkiPrvSqzCSCm9P6LFnxJ05WMmobi9w9Yr0fcuFo6CHXUxU87JBkO5-G42cA8JWNdBEbOyhHC39OLiJQSmTqV32ZM5HEqmuTReBIA7IkMrCHcUwewk/s1600/tipresentationmm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRAasm8-sPtSGBJ2hX68cQla7PCLkiPrvSqzCSCm9P6LFnxJ05WMmobi9w9Yr0fcuFo6CHXUxU87JBkO5-G42cA8JWNdBEbOyhHC39OLiJQSmTqV32ZM5HEqmuTReBIA7IkMrCHcUwewk/s1600/tipresentationmm.jpg" /></a></div>
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We had a full house for the dinner, a mix of new friends and
old, including some former students we hadn’t seen in years, two teachers from
the very beginning of our tea group’s establishment at La Salle (Yumiko
Pakenham and Janet Ikeda), and a group of students from the newly established
tea institute at Penn State University. </div>
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On Sunday, we had more formal tea gatherings at Shofuso.
Because the space is fairly small (being a Japanese house!) and we had around
fifty people to accommodate, we broke the gathering up into three separate
groups: Two smaller rooms with koicha (thick tea) and the largest space with
usucha (thin tea). The guests would start with either usucha or koicha and then
switch. Taeko Shervin Sensei was doing koicha in the actual tea room of the
house (also the smallest space); Drew Hanson was doing koicha in a ten-mat room
off of the veranda, and I was doing usucha in the fifteen-mat room, also just
off of the veranda.</div>
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Here’s a picture of the usucha space:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrRIl0C7taT02cdvHxqaoq-8wTin_9-zdGqSxnLu-H6Hv-fXdLRAnMV53bxlDsOpKPMFtiEWl78AamsVkUCSHou24RlcWjbWTsbj0KnhEkNJ7hu2gOn1yUx5bZkPNYE8uPq-s3tsjgzoI/s1600/tiusucharmmm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrRIl0C7taT02cdvHxqaoq-8wTin_9-zdGqSxnLu-H6Hv-fXdLRAnMV53bxlDsOpKPMFtiEWl78AamsVkUCSHou24RlcWjbWTsbj0KnhEkNJ7hu2gOn1yUx5bZkPNYE8uPq-s3tsjgzoI/s1600/tiusucharmmm.jpg" /></a></div>
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We were incredibly lucky in terms of weather. In November
the weather in this area can change very quickly, and of course we had
Hurricane Sandy coming through just two weeks before. It was very cold the
previous weekend, but the weekend of the tea it was not only sunny but in the
60s! The only downside is that the pond off of the veranda, the centerpiece of
the garden, had been drained for maintenance, but the garden was still
beautiful. </div>
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I won’t attempt to describe the utensils we used, because
with three separate rooms going there was so much! But for the sweets, in the
koicha sittings we had kooringiku mochi – red bean paste covered with
yuzu-flavored rice dough (mochi), covered with a flaked type of mochi that
looks like large flakes of snow. For usucha, we had a type of sweet that’s made
of sugar and agar-agar with a jelly like consistency (kangoori) in two shapes:
red maple leaves and yellow gingko leaves (which also had white bean paste in
them). The third sweet was made from a green soybean flour (suhamako) and
shaped like chrysanthemum leaves. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCAtXaK4yt66mfW5XaCGxvVoRQ5sLn4waj56Sc1hlJJs1PePdflYQZvF8E6D8dI-YuxMe8g8Y8LUtLRxsZicTnfz3FURZhC_blyefm0lwzgOAhtjN1suczOnH7na-hFkH2v3hQM0piPGM/s1600/tiokashimm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCAtXaK4yt66mfW5XaCGxvVoRQ5sLn4waj56Sc1hlJJs1PePdflYQZvF8E6D8dI-YuxMe8g8Y8LUtLRxsZicTnfz3FURZhC_blyefm0lwzgOAhtjN1suczOnH7na-hFkH2v3hQM0piPGM/s1600/tiokashimm.jpg" /></a></div>
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We were very lucky to have so many people coming out and
giving us their good wishes, and hopefully they all had a good time! </div>
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(And a big thank you to Miyo Moriuchi, who took all of the photos above except for the first one, which was by Keijiroh Yamaguchi.) </div>
Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-90059290568124878532012-09-01T12:21:00.000-04:002012-09-01T12:21:35.699-04:00We Exist!<div class="MsoNormal">
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--></style> There’s big news for our tea group that as of today is
officially official: We have been approved as a kyokai, that is, a chapter of
our parent school, Urasenke. </div>
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What does this mean in laypeople’s terms? First of all, it’s
recognition for our group. Rather than our tea students and teachers being
members of Urasenke New York, we’re an independent organization, which means
little things like being invited to official Urasenke events in the U.S. and
abroad, and big things like being able to send our students to study in the
main school in Kyoto. It means some responsibilities, like maintaining a high
profile in the Philadelphia area and continuing to reach out and do
demonstrations, gatherings, and be involved in the community. It also means some
benefits, like getting referrals from Kyoto and also support for our classes. </div>
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We’ve been working on this for a while now, and after some
false starts and a lot of preparation, our application was approved this
summer, with our official start date being today, September 1, 2012. </div>
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It’s especially apropos because it was twenty-five years
ago—to the month, actually—that Brother Joseph Keenan officially established
the tea group at La Salle University that would become our kyokai. He passed on
a few years back, but I’d like to think that he’s watching over us, and that
he’ll be there in spirit when we celebrate our inauguration as Chado Urasenke
Tankokai Philadelphia. (I know, it’s a mouthful, right? But that’s the naming
convention established by Urasenke, and if you know anything about Japanese
culture, you know that the keyword is “conformity.” Just call us Urasenke
Philadelphia. It feels good to be saying that after all these years!)</div>
Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-26408516894352417352012-08-01T23:51:00.000-04:002012-08-01T23:51:46.092-04:00Borrowed Water<div class="MsoNormal">
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--></style> In tea ceremony we use a bamboo scoop (chashaku) to measure
the powdered tea into the bowl before adding hot water and whisking it into a
foam. The chashaku is an important part of tea ceremony. Although they may all
look the same at first glance, there are small variations in shape, weight, and
balance that add up to make each one unique.</div>
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If a chashaku has a particularly good character, it might be
given a poetic name (mei). Usually the name is based—as you might have guessed
from the translation!—on an image from Japanese poetry. My sensei told me about
one classic mei that’s especially appropriate for this time of year: <i>morai
mizu</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></div>
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Like most mei based on a poem, this phrase is tough to
translate. This particular one is from a haiku by Chiyojo (1703-1785). The
Japanese version is:</div>
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<i>Asago ni</i></div>
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<i>Tsurube toraete</i></div>
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<i>Morai mizu</i></div>
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Here’s a translation from an anthology of Japanese poetry:</div>
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With the well bucket</div>
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Taken over by morning glories</div>
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I go begging water</div>
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But although it’s very evocative, the translation doesn’t
capture the full meaning of the original. Let’s break it down. </div>
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<i>Asago</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is easy; it
means morning glory. </span><i>Tsurube</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is a
well bucket. </span><i>Ni . . . toraete</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is
a little bit trickier. The literal translation would be “is taken,” but in
Japanese, that particular verb form gives the action a negative feeling – a
sense of being inconvenienced by the action. That’s reinforced by the use of
the verb </span><i>toru</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, “to take,” which
can also mean “to steal.” So you could interpret the first part of the poem as
“a morning glory has taken my well bucket” or, more indignantly, as “that
morning glory stole my well bucket!”</span></div>
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Now we come to the crucial line of the poem: <i>morai mizu</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. </span><i>Mizu</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
is easy enough; it means water. </span><i>Morai</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is a form of the verb </span><i>morau</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
which is usually translated “to receive,” but it suggests gratitude for having
been given something. </span></div>
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So a more literal translation might be something like:</div>
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A morning glory</div>
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Has taken my bucket</div>
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A gift of water</div>
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But to fully understand the meaning, especially in the
context of tea ceremony, we need to visualize the story behind it. The poet
woke one morning and went out to draw some water from her well, but discovered
that a morning glory had wound its way around the bucket. Unwilling to disturb
the flower, she went to her neighbor’s house and asked to borrow some water.</div>
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What a great image for summer! When you’re preparing tea
during a tea ceremony, you want to give your guests a psychological feeling of
coolness, and in this one phrase you’re evoking a fresh morning, water, and delicate
flowers that will fade in the heat of high noon.</div>
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Although it’s not a literal translation, I like using “borrowed
water” for <i>morai mizu</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> because it also
brings up the image of going to a neighbor to “borrow a cup of sugar” – a
visit, a chat, a little gift that makes someone’s day a bit brighter. Just like
a good tea ceremony!</span></div>
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<br /></div>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-33812867096021924742012-07-18T09:54:00.000-04:002012-07-18T09:54:11.401-04:00Together for Tanabata<div class="MsoNormal">
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</style> Tanabata, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is a
Japanese festival. According to legend, there was a princess who used to weave
beautiful cloth. Her father, the sky god, loved the cloth, and she worked hard
every day to make more. However, because she worked so hard, she never got to
go out and meet people. Her father was sorry to see her so sad, and he
introduced her to a cowherd. The two fell instantly in love and married, but
then the weaver stopped making her cloth and the cowherd let his cattle wander
free. The sky god grew angry that he put them on opposite sides of a river (the
Milky Way) and forbade them from seeing each other. This made his daughter so
sad that he finally relented and allowed them to see each other for one day a
year, on the seventh day of the seventh month. This is the date of Tanabata.</div>
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This year our group held its first Tanabata tea, and we were
really pleased with the number of people who came, particularly since it was a
horribly hot day, with a high around 100 degrees and very humid. Fortunately,
our event was in the evening, so it had cooled off at least a little bit. </div>
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The tea was held at Shofuso, and here I need to stop and put
in a photo of the garden in the evening light, taken courtesy of the fabulous
Terry S.:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLWwW-oiFb5o8mt0ecjuQLHc9irUunM5jVmelcJtO0o-2JWiXNcItwAVqsJi0KRd8K7LPAgrNqeml517M6C-5vBui8fupyZ2rYPvkdmxBcLmQL2Ciy9SGsBwyseaYKzWrktHzNoEHFP48/s1600/tbta2012-garden.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLWwW-oiFb5o8mt0ecjuQLHc9irUunM5jVmelcJtO0o-2JWiXNcItwAVqsJi0KRd8K7LPAgrNqeml517M6C-5vBui8fupyZ2rYPvkdmxBcLmQL2Ciy9SGsBwyseaYKzWrktHzNoEHFP48/s320/tbta2012-garden.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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Before the tea started, we had everyone write their wishes
on a piece of colored paper, which we then tied to a piece of bamboo that the
staff of Shofuso had put near the entrance to the house. Of course, this was
modest compared to the type of decorations you’d see in Japan, but by the time
we were done it was full of wishes! Taeko Shervin-sensei also made some
decorations to add.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMk836DcehJ2glNbfqZehmqBapa-6-VzdvuwIsKUHp0fp6Fvj6oGWHSmxq0_IQydPOWnOl6rhcxgoybkVeIOlVKutDwZ2_HMZ5PQVYtDiekv4VWP6S4CegqTWtwGplUTAdZGrdpgvWbEM/s1600/tbta2012-deco.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMk836DcehJ2glNbfqZehmqBapa-6-VzdvuwIsKUHp0fp6Fvj6oGWHSmxq0_IQydPOWnOl6rhcxgoybkVeIOlVKutDwZ2_HMZ5PQVYtDiekv4VWP6S4CegqTWtwGplUTAdZGrdpgvWbEM/s320/tbta2012-deco.JPG" width="206" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6RQuT_WEUvk1LtVJQzVLN6Fq5M2iS86D4DBQCvtNR5bfXQTNCQ5_A9AJG5micKit7wl5gVrPUWAI36Fz6OTQG2iKgeLmIVg1nTEHgACs7Hn9xQwan9dCvswUZrIhva0qCNeYQ39c5xR0/s1600/tbta2012-tree.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6RQuT_WEUvk1LtVJQzVLN6Fq5M2iS86D4DBQCvtNR5bfXQTNCQ5_A9AJG5micKit7wl5gVrPUWAI36Fz6OTQG2iKgeLmIVg1nTEHgACs7Hn9xQwan9dCvswUZrIhva0qCNeYQ39c5xR0/s320/tbta2012-tree.JPG" width="140" /></a></div>
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Once the gathering started, we had the guests sitting so
that they could look out on the pond and the waterfall. We served koicha (thick
tea) and then usucha (thin tea) with sweets for both. The sweets for koicha
were called midori no hoshi (green stars) and were taken from a recipe
developed by Glenn Pereira of Urasenke Boston. My batch came out a little more
blue than green, but this will give you the idea:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-pcec4Q9kI8Oj97cPGf8LcL75er9NVg2ucngH3FXPxyfXxwPtu9uOOZASQmzOfuCjhew0P3rwi7ev9-TEJPJrR_hrsJxfD6r2jim7qwg5NJ16aNq8vxnWyA89qO28lEJcEDY-mAgC9Mg/s1600/tbta2012-okashi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-pcec4Q9kI8Oj97cPGf8LcL75er9NVg2ucngH3FXPxyfXxwPtu9uOOZASQmzOfuCjhew0P3rwi7ev9-TEJPJrR_hrsJxfD6r2jim7qwg5NJ16aNq8vxnWyA89qO28lEJcEDY-mAgC9Mg/s1600/tbta2012-okashi.JPG" /></a></div>
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And here are some pictures of the tea itself:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCwWBX86mHowyXPn0TUqgCTw6NL2SyANdSY7fu2cOm_toPeTBtCiwye2T7c1yGuPtcE5cLgvSaFFKxnk5AN2o6wz-Tmi9_GLeoDiQ_7tLECPSNYSiWOmO37wAwteCZOEXooarwGJlmU0s/s1600/tbta2012-guests.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCwWBX86mHowyXPn0TUqgCTw6NL2SyANdSY7fu2cOm_toPeTBtCiwye2T7c1yGuPtcE5cLgvSaFFKxnk5AN2o6wz-Tmi9_GLeoDiQ_7tLECPSNYSiWOmO37wAwteCZOEXooarwGJlmU0s/s320/tbta2012-guests.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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By the time we were finished it was dark outside, and everyone made their way back to the cars with lanterns (since Shofuso is a traditional-style Japanese house, there are no interior lights). It was a beautiful way to celebrate this holiday, and we were lucky to have such wonderful people to celebrate with!</div>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-65997870730076519022012-05-02T22:36:00.000-04:002012-05-02T22:36:20.209-04:00Empowerment<div class="MsoNormal">
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</style> I was talking to a member of a local taiko drumming group
the other day, and she mentioned that a lot of American women tend to become
interested in taiko because it makes them feel empowered. That really made me
think about tea ceremony in comparison, because I honestly believe that no one,
anywhere, in the entire history of the practice we know as chado, has ever come
out of a tea room and said, “YES! Today I feel powerful!”</div>
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Part of that is by design. The philosophy of chado puts a
lot of stress on the virtues of humility and self-discipline. Students are
taught, from their very first lesson, to sit quietly, to follow a very specific
set of rules, to keep your mind on what you’re doing and treat practice
seriously. Some teachers are stricter about enforcing discipline than others,
but ultimately, it’s about more than rules, it’s about an attitude. At its
heart, tea ceremony is about achieving a state of tranquility – inner balance,
if you will – by taking your focus off of yourself. At first, you focus on the
rules. Then, on your state of mind. Then, on the other people in the room.
Ultimately, the goal is to forget yourself completely. </div>
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That’s pretty much the opposite of empowerment, if you think
about it, and in Western culture we tend to think of that as a bad thing. But
maybe the real message of tea is that there are other goals one can pursue.
Harmony. Tranquility. Respect. Purity of spirit. I guess that’s tea in a
nutshell, ne? The pursuit of inner peace, even if only in moments. </div>
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(Not that I don’t enjoy a good drumming session now and then
– it does get the adrenaline flowing!)</div>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-27204500266250903462012-04-12T00:12:00.003-04:002012-04-12T00:23:42.934-04:00Happy Anniversary, San Francisco!<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal">I was privileged to be able to attend the joint anniversary of two Urasenke institutions in San Francisco: The 60<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the San Francisco Tankokai (Urasenke chapter) and the 30<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the official branch. Being celebrated on a tight schedule, they had a day packed full of wonderful tea events.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The day started out with Zabosai Oiemoto, the 16<sup>th</sup> generation head of the Urasenke school, preparing kencha at a local Buddhist church. Kencha is a tea ceremony where the tea prepared is offered to someone who has passed on, usually a family member, although last year Daisosho (the former head of Urasenke) did an offering tea in Hawaii for the people who died at Pearl Harbor. Oiemoto does these on a regular basis in Japan, but it’s very rare to see one in this country.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s really amazing to watch his temae, the way he prepares tea. It’s hard to put into words, because it’s not just about the movements, but the way that he moves, and the focus and mental attitude he maintains. I think it’s really the sum total of a lifetime of doing tea, the way that the practice just sinks into every part of his body and comes out whenever he prepares tea, without him having to think about it. (We weren't allowed to take photos while any of the tea gatherings were actually going on, but the organizers had a professional photographer taking pictures, so I'll post some when I get them.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">After the kencha we had sweets, thin tea, and thick tea. Not necessarily in that order, because, at a rough estimate, there were about 350 people in attendance, and that’s a lot of tea! I was in the first thick tea sitting, which was preceded by sweets. Because it was the first sitting, Oiemoto was there, and he acted as the first guest, drinking the tea prepared by the host and asking questions about the utensils. He got to drink from a bowl by Ohi Chozaemon IX (the past head of one of the branches of the Raku family), but the rest of us got a treat, too. The person who did the temae, Kinoshita Michiko, made 30 different wood-fired bowls specifically at this gathering.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The organizers of the event made a special effort to choose utensils that reflected the local area, especially for the thin tea sitting. There was a wonderful moment during the preparation of tea, which I need to take a moment to explain for those not familiar with tea ceremony. When the host begins to prepare tea, the front of the bowl is facing the host. (Some bowls, as with the one used for this particular gathering, have designs painted on them with a distinct front and back, and the bowl is intended to be viewed from the front.) So throughout the beginning of the tea, up to the point where the host whisks the tea in the bowl, the front was hidden, and then, just as she was preparing to serve the tea to the guests, she turned the front to face the audience – and we could see that the bowl had a design of the Golden Gate Bridge on it. The bowl was commissioned especially for this gathering from the artist Nakamura Shuho. The association also commissioned a number of copies of the bowl (I would estimate somewhere between 20 and 30) for the guests to drink from.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigVUumen1osB6-uPwNi4S7uNUWLdQorJY67oV_gVvDM27OqozTDmopCgwD_4uIhc3EclSKQNdPkQ7tiSbpAo1o0UzTyX6KosL4hS_A625lSja4Y54O9MGa6YGe9QL1NkkMjNtBfqZ5Zd8/s1600/SF12+bowl.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 256px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigVUumen1osB6-uPwNi4S7uNUWLdQorJY67oV_gVvDM27OqozTDmopCgwD_4uIhc3EclSKQNdPkQ7tiSbpAo1o0UzTyX6KosL4hS_A625lSja4Y54O9MGa6YGe9QL1NkkMjNtBfqZ5Zd8/s400/SF12+bowl.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5730364165091134002" border="0" /></a><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Here's a picture from the thin tea setup:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGYfxANg4HdVw-VCQoB5EaNc-Y0l72QlBNoht-KCfsHrGJrQvzNHvtmavWvjZniU7t1ca8sRikCUL592DsYm-b8OL3PO284KvMBp881R2SnT-Mc91bz8rkgz_m60OrxZLck_Dbd-M6Uvc/s1600/SF12+toko.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 327px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGYfxANg4HdVw-VCQoB5EaNc-Y0l72QlBNoht-KCfsHrGJrQvzNHvtmavWvjZniU7t1ca8sRikCUL592DsYm-b8OL3PO284KvMBp881R2SnT-Mc91bz8rkgz_m60OrxZLck_Dbd-M6Uvc/s400/SF12+toko.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5730364564079131138" border="0" /></a><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"> The calligraphy for the scroll was done by Zabosai Oiemoto; it reads "Shosei keion o fukumu," which means "The pine wind contains auspicious sounds." The incense container (below the scroll and to the left) depicts a Victorian house in San Francisco; the flowers were red camellia and white dogwood in a glass vase made by a studio in Berkeley. In the foreground is the mizusashi (cold water container) in the shape of a bag of treasures.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Following the teas was a lecture from Oiemoto where he talked a bit about the philosophy of tea. Afterward, his daughter, Makiko Sen, prepared tea for the audience, with his nephew, Koichiro Izumi, and his cousin (I’m sorry, I didn’t get a chance to write down his name) as guests. I had seen Makiko Sen do tea in Washington DC, but it was wonderful to see her do it again – like her father, she seems to exude tea ceremony in a way that’s at once beautiful and effortless. While she was doing tea, Oiemoto was providing a commentary on the finer points of temae.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The whole day was capped off by a wonderful banquet, where we had a chance to catch up with old tea friends and meet up with new ones. I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone in the San Francisco tea community who worked on this event, particularly Larry Tiscornia of the San Francisco Tankokai and Christy Bartlett of the San Francisco Urasenke Foundation. I know it must have been a huge amount of work, and I think everyone really appreciated it!</p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-47592553682369327162012-04-01T23:48:00.003-04:002012-04-01T23:57:11.253-04:00Even More Sakura!This was a busy weekend for our entire tea group, but an exciting one.<br /><br />At Shofuso, they’ve just celebrated the opening of the Sakura Pavilion, which consists of two outbuildings that date back to the 1876 Centennial celebration. One of them was renovated into a classroom, and the other will be a storage room. They’ve been working hard to get the area ready for the dedication this weekend, and the classroom is still missing some finishing touches, but it looks lovely. On Saturday they had a sake cask-breaking with the mayor in attendance. The weather took a turn for the colder and it was rainy, but there was still a really good turnout.<br /><br />Today, however, was the big tea day. Based on the early cherry bloom times and the weather, we’d figured that this would be a good weekend to hold our sakura hanami, our cherry blossom viewing tea. As it happened, the cherry trees around the Hort Center hit their peak last week, but there were still a lot of blossoms holding on in the area. It wasn’t as cold today as yesterday, but we decided to hold the gathering indoors at Shofuso, since the ground was still wet.<br /><br />We did, however, try to position the guests so that they could still see some cherries. This is the view from the spot where the guests were sitting:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOtWptfeXP5vMR5fjVZnudDDE_hto2W41dnEqyDN1m-cTImrmTDx5Tu6N1qPAQp77pxL3XPo2UPc7mZPNVHV4l6IUE2B-6Wns_1ull30fmwE4FUpf06ioINVilqDur_m_uh2ud1bymE7k/s1600/SH12+view.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 187px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOtWptfeXP5vMR5fjVZnudDDE_hto2W41dnEqyDN1m-cTImrmTDx5Tu6N1qPAQp77pxL3XPo2UPc7mZPNVHV4l6IUE2B-6Wns_1ull30fmwE4FUpf06ioINVilqDur_m_uh2ud1bymE7k/s400/SH12+view.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5726646872904323506" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The gathering itself was very simple. I did a temae called hana chabako, which is intended specifically for sitting outside under the trees for a flower-viewing, especially at cherry blossom time. It’s a “picnic-style” tea where all of the utensils are smaller than usual, and they’re packed into a little box that can be carried around easily.<br /><br />Chabako is a casual type of tea ceremony, so you can only prepare thin tea (usucha), which is less formal than thick tea (koicha). Because this was a special gathering, though, we had a couple different types of sweets. Brandon Forsht, one of our association vice presidents, made a sweet that looked like cherry petals on the grass (it was very beautiful!), and I made a dry sweet (kangoori, which is jelly-like on the inside but has a crunchy exterior) that was also cherry blossom-shaped.<br /><br />The chabako set I used was a combination of old and new: The box itself, along with two of the lacquer pieces, were ones that I had never used before; they were a present from my mother, and I was saving them for a special occasion. The ceramic pieces, however – the bowl, the sweet container, and the container for the wiping cloth – were all from a set that I had gotten from one of my teachers, that had originally belonged to her grandmother. It was an honor to have the set, and to be able to share it with tea friends.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGUqwZwbKmleCgz6ndEy8VdHZVev8we7X6nz5b2jTKt4E186pFZUi9LyHRAAlxU_aX2IkUtONZIauz9OXev60Tlmua9s5YKJIEOS8UbpytKVNUcc08EYh7dpxMfF9F20BsnZClVF-UYg/s1600/SH12+temae.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 360px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIGUqwZwbKmleCgz6ndEy8VdHZVev8we7X6nz5b2jTKt4E186pFZUi9LyHRAAlxU_aX2IkUtONZIauz9OXev60Tlmua9s5YKJIEOS8UbpytKVNUcc08EYh7dpxMfF9F20BsnZClVF-UYg/s400/SH12+temae.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5726647286468702450" border="0" /></a><br /><br />But that wasn’t the only tea event to happen today. Only a few days ago, Taeko-sensei was asked to prepare tea for a member of the Japanese House of Representatives who was in town visiting. It turns out that he went to Drexel University in Philadelphia, and so he comes back every once in a while.<br /><br />As one of my fellow tea people said, we’re beginning to feel like an official Urasenke chapter already!Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-8419029928766135832012-03-27T08:40:00.009-04:002012-03-27T08:57:37.804-04:00Visit to a New Chashitsu<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-alt:"Times New Roman"; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section</style><span style="font-family: georgia;">This weekend several members of our tea group were privileged to be invited to the opening of a new tearoom in Washington, D.C. The tearoom is located in an office building in the downtown area, a few blocks away from the White House. From the outside it looks like any other office, but once you go down a long hallway and into the tea space, you’re greeted by an open area where they can (and did, while we were there) have a ryuurei tana set up. (Ryuurei is a type of temae where tea is done sitting at a low table, with the host and guests sitting on stools. Because of the weight of the table and chairs and the potential for damage to a tatami mat, this is usually done in a room without tatami flooring.)</span><br style="font-family: georgia;"><br style="font-family: georgia;"><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">In a traditional tearoom, the guests will travel from the waiting area through a roji, a path leading through a garden, and then into the tearoom itself. In this particular arrangement, we stepped outside onto a deck overlooking the city, where a roji-style space had been set up (with the path but no living plants). We walked down the path and then entered the tea space from the outside, coming in and viewing the alcove with the scroll and the kettle and other utensils that had been set out.<br /></p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">The tearoom is set up in two parts; a main eight-mat room with the tokonoma (alcove) and the hearth at one end, and a six-mat room at the other. Removable doors either separate the two rooms or are removed to create one, as they were for the opening tea.<br /></p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfs2weZSHcDFK5lD1Fw5V8ywZWuCV90Gi022YeOp-wPROsdnmvQx2xUQ487coAFh-gVIF5aXAinQc4A1hEOrukEj0-ldY9byy-Aym22a08uxavUA4A8vac1GLxkvE6EnXy4yEG0n3tP9U/s1600/DC+room+full.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfs2weZSHcDFK5lD1Fw5V8ywZWuCV90Gi022YeOp-wPROsdnmvQx2xUQ487coAFh-gVIF5aXAinQc4A1hEOrukEj0-ldY9byy-Aym22a08uxavUA4A8vac1GLxkvE6EnXy4yEG0n3tP9U/s400/DC+room+full.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724556397127592770" border="0" /></a></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">Urasenke provided the resources to build the room, and as a further show of support the head of the school (Oiemoto) sent his wife, daughter, and nephew to celebrate the opening – he himself was unable to come because it’s Rikyuki, the time when tea people remember the passing of the founder of our school (his ancestor, going back sixteen generations) and he’s not allowed to leave Japan at this time. (Someone said that he’s prevented from leaving the country by law, but I’m not certain about that.)</p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">During the opening, we were honored to have Oiemoto’s daughter prepare tea for us, while her mother sat in the room and acted as assistant, and explanations were provided by a gyotei (high-level sensei) from Kyoto who also flew in for the event. In addition to everything else, Oiemoto personally wrote the calligraphy for a scroll that was given as a gift to the Washington tea association.</p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb5EUypf8Qd-YfKQoVxV3SsvYUUxIqAMNHtR8q57mhEsiXsyK-8vmATu4E4sjzB6NxnePtlYW4i-YGg3OIcd-1ZHMEC_roQaJHSB0TW4qmUizxbyIJjwaDAVbR5gNpEVd9Xepul0GWPh8/s1600/DC+room+inlay.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 140px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb5EUypf8Qd-YfKQoVxV3SsvYUUxIqAMNHtR8q57mhEsiXsyK-8vmATu4E4sjzB6NxnePtlYW4i-YGg3OIcd-1ZHMEC_roQaJHSB0TW4qmUizxbyIJjwaDAVbR5gNpEVd9Xepul0GWPh8/s400/DC+room+inlay.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724556952755656194" border="0" /></a></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">After being served tea and sweets, we were given a chance to take a closer look at the details of the room. One very nice touch was that on the crossbeam dividing the room, there are five types of wood. One type of wood was used to inlay cherry blossoms into the wood, so that anyone who visits the room will remember that the room was completed at cherry blossom time.<br /></p><br style="font-family: georgia;"><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">Speaking of, I also got a chance to visit the Tidal Basin area, where the Washington D.C. cherry blossoms are planted. They were just past full bloom when we got there – starting to shed their petals, but still very beautiful. Here are some photos:</p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfpHmESNTlSNrPWR3YVp6nZaTtAVfbOLdvfJv6EecLnQmUb-lU2yXHlJ0D2k_D1kD9NQUXaZJ4xpREfiCyJfaJCf0oKK5OoYVyMAiSvOR9lKnq704MQqIRSDmtd3MQkP-t283CdsQoF-o/s1600/DC+cherry+WM.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfpHmESNTlSNrPWR3YVp6nZaTtAVfbOLdvfJv6EecLnQmUb-lU2yXHlJ0D2k_D1kD9NQUXaZJ4xpREfiCyJfaJCf0oKK5OoYVyMAiSvOR9lKnq704MQqIRSDmtd3MQkP-t283CdsQoF-o/s400/DC+cherry+WM.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724557937130839202" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhvw-bRTntRfkTwlZX16hWcZ9cuIA4_0nZ-0yMV84JnlUStIhjwxLPKJ1hsteQ2m9BtH1ENbeStN_P_Huqa3Tsgigic0lgSowEtYiNKAg53Jki36wVP1kD_h0JIzk9oYhqPEa4b16e3Q/s1600/DC+cherry+water.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhvw-bRTntRfkTwlZX16hWcZ9cuIA4_0nZ-0yMV84JnlUStIhjwxLPKJ1hsteQ2m9BtH1ENbeStN_P_Huqa3Tsgigic0lgSowEtYiNKAg53Jki36wVP1kD_h0JIzk9oYhqPEa4b16e3Q/s400/DC+cherry+water.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724557744931681266" border="0" /></a><br /></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">I’m not sure what type of cherry trees these are, but they’re a bit different from the type we have planted in Philadelphia. Take a look. This first photo is from Washington:</p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCliH4FAT47Ors9kjjC9Bu9A32M2Nah4lS6DTLPqiZEYHpxFIq-_eK87fhyphenhyphenzn6tRdyL3IaFRkpFTdtYQl5oK37yanOra7tRBQAiebtxKqcX6sx0DxAMnXmOhTJrLW4Pk7sgShA6nDNh70/s1600/cherry+closeup.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCliH4FAT47Ors9kjjC9Bu9A32M2Nah4lS6DTLPqiZEYHpxFIq-_eK87fhyphenhyphenzn6tRdyL3IaFRkpFTdtYQl5oK37yanOra7tRBQAiebtxKqcX6sx0DxAMnXmOhTJrLW4Pk7sgShA6nDNh70/s400/cherry+closeup.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724558621611996034" border="0" /></a><br /></p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">And this is from a previous year’s bloom in Philadelphia:</p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZAdNqt055qpxApWqhmV09zelGiywxU9hW0MhdLBhap0jEMzL3yHzSB906c7-KOQ-UIQPf8WumaOudvqDI_Fwunql2RrbcnFY8JcGNlvIz6pPY_pjlFuXowWdPm1BZYCFhdPeineP2po/s1600/DC-Phila+cherry.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZAdNqt055qpxApWqhmV09zelGiywxU9hW0MhdLBhap0jEMzL3yHzSB906c7-KOQ-UIQPf8WumaOudvqDI_Fwunql2RrbcnFY8JcGNlvIz6pPY_pjlFuXowWdPm1BZYCFhdPeineP2po/s400/DC-Phila+cherry.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5724559186845329090" border="0" /></a><br /></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">All in all, it was a wonderful weekend, and we were all thrilled to be invited to this opening and very jealous of the Washington group’s beautiful new tearoom! Hopefully they’ll be able to use it in prosperity for many years to come. </p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-6718804450975215202012-02-23T00:37:00.005-05:002012-02-23T00:45:18.918-05:00Waiting for Cherry Blossoms<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfnXIpVfDeo2naGzymd68jrEX-n8nYBVpMaQj6mqI1c6UgYAo4z2RWSsTk0aYwS-M0MARtrkDdvmyOcO88m_m-v0aUGmqhz-siwUadIcn1CpRliQLCtxqOXjWjPBcOaXw6ZaxowCDTTA/s1600/IMG_2429.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfnXIpVfDeo2naGzymd68jrEX-n8nYBVpMaQj6mqI1c6UgYAo4z2RWSsTk0aYwS-M0MARtrkDdvmyOcO88m_m-v0aUGmqhz-siwUadIcn1CpRliQLCtxqOXjWjPBcOaXw6ZaxowCDTTA/s400/IMG_2429.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5712202297389743826" border="0" /></a><br /><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-alt:"Times New Roman"; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know how many of you are in the Philadelphia area, but if you are you’ve surely noticed how incredibly warm this winter has been. We’ve had a little snow, and short bursts of cold weather, but the majority of January and February has been like today – sunny with high temperatures in the 50s.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">As you can imagine, this has all kinds of implications, but for tea people the big question is what’s going to happen with the cherry blossoms. The mid-Atlantic region has a climate very similar to Kyoto’s, which is great for tea ceremony because our seasonal changes track pretty well with the traditional tea calendar. So at the same time that the cherry trees are blooming in Japan, they’re also blooming here. Of course, cherry blossoms are a much bigger deal in Japan, but we have celebrations here also.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The biggest celebration in the region is actually in Washington, D.C., where they have a lot of cherry trees and a huge annual festival. Philadelphia also has a respectable-size celebration, which I’ve talked about in previous posts. The planners of those events just have to use past bloom times as a guide – in Washington it’s around April 7<sup>th</sup>, and a week later in Philadelphia. But there can be a huge variation in those dates depending on the weather, and calculating bloom times is quite the science. (If you want an idea of how much of a science, check out this <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0027439">open-access research article</a> on calculating bloom times in Washington DC.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Depending on other events, our group will try to set aside some time to get together for a little tea under the cherry blossoms, so right now I’m eyeing our local foliage for blooming clues. I keep a cherry blossom log. There are cherry trees blooming all over our area, especially around the Horticultural Center, where the Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival is held, so as I see trees in different areas blooming I make a note of the date and any unusual weather that may have affected them. I haven’t been doing this very long, so I can’t even claim to be scientific here, but my guess is that we’re going to see peak bloom in the third or fourth week of March. Let’s see how I do!</p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-52954848929025026402011-12-28T18:46:00.001-05:002011-12-28T18:47:58.300-05:00Kimono Season<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-alt:Arial; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal">Tea lessons are done for the year, and we’re on our annual New Year’s break, visiting family and preparing for our first tea of the New Year (Hatsugama), which we hold in late January.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">One of the things I’ve been trying to do during this time is get caught up on altering my kimonos. I’ve talked before about wearing kimonos for tea ceremony, how the tea ceremony was designed to be done in kimono, and even today we practice certain moves and hand positions specifically to accommodate the wearing of kimonos. At the Urasenke head school in Japan (either Midorikai, which is for foreigners, or Gakuen, which is for Japanese), even beginning students are required to wear kimonos every day. Outside of Japan, customs vary by tea group; in our group, students are not required to wear a kimono to class (although some choose to), and those who have kimonos will usually wear them to gatherings like Hatsugama. I always wear a kimono when I teach, and of course to gatherings and demonstrations, so I need kimonos for a variety of different occasions.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is one of those occasions where theory and practice collide. In theory, every kimono I own should be custom-made for me so that it fits properly. In practice, to get a kimono custom-made for you costs anywhere from several hundred dollars (if you have a friend in the business who gives you a huge discount) to several thousand dollars (middle range; of course, a high-quality kimono can cost a lot more). On the other hand, you can buy a used kimono with little or no visible signs of wear for under a hundred dollars.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now I am – shall we say, a tad cubby? Pleasantly plump? Or, as my sensei never hesitates to remind me, in need of some serious dieting? Let’s just say that my body type is far different from most Japanese women. So while I’m short enough that I have little trouble finding a kimono long enough for me, anything I buy needs to be widened before I can wear it properly. This is actually not difficult at all; in fact, kimonos are designed to be easy to widen, and when they’re made there’s usually plenty of extra fabric in the side seams. However, it’s pretty time-consuming, especially with lined kimonos, because they’ve got an extra layer of fabric on the inside that also needs to be resewn. It’s a good winter activity, with it being so cold and dark outside, and it’s always nice to be able to add another kimono to my “wearable” pile. (I probably have about 40 kimonos at this point, but a lot of them still need to be altered.)</p><br /> <p class="MsoNormal">Hope you’re enjoying your winter projects too!</p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-41196247685814110932011-11-27T16:32:00.006-05:002011-11-27T16:41:49.724-05:00Robiraki<style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal">We had our Robiraki gathering, celebrating the beginning of the winter season, at the beginning of November. (Yes, I’m a little late posting… but look, photos!)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">As with previous gatherings, we met at the Horticultural Center meeting room, which is far from being a traditional setting for tea, but in November the weather is so uncertain that we wanted to be sure everyone has a warm and dry place to enjoy their tea. As it turned out, the day itself was beautiful, sunny and warm, and there were still a lot of leaves on the trees, so it made for some beautiful scenery as people were coming in.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">We were also very lucky to have a number of friends from different places join us for the gathering, including a group from New Jersey, some students from Penn State who are working on setting up a tea ceremony program at their school, and of course a number of tea people from our local area. We had sixteen guests in all, which made it one of the largest single gatherings we’d ever done! Luckily, we also had some great help in the kitchen, which is really the key to making everything run smoothly. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">For this gathering, we served a meal as well as koicha (thick tea) and usucha (thin tea). The main part of the meal consisted of rice, sashimi, and seasonal foods in a bento box, and we also served soup with grilled tofu:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNnhWfJsTXaCeXvrE503RmYsWuzuZUK3Wy1WF1ZdEZ5hx80B7zlsStmUPMYJkqnRGGC7dgfY6nSgTZQCOitIL_0fTF5USby6FCg5_JmXCfw_PcWCq0YuPBtU7BEA3WDtS216OEGrnCL6U/s1600/robiraki11food.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 360px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNnhWfJsTXaCeXvrE503RmYsWuzuZUK3Wy1WF1ZdEZ5hx80B7zlsStmUPMYJkqnRGGC7dgfY6nSgTZQCOitIL_0fTF5USby6FCg5_JmXCfw_PcWCq0YuPBtU7BEA3WDtS216OEGrnCL6U/s400/robiraki11food.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679791944618254930" border="0" /></a></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Because we weren’t in a traditional tea space, we had to improvise in a number of ways, one of which was to put the machiai (where the guests gather before going into the room) in one of the greenhouse spaces. Usually the machiai has a hanging scroll and a flower arrangement; there was no place to hang a scroll, but we put a flower arrangement on the path that guests would take to the meeting room, where we had put down tatami mats and set up an alcove space with a scroll:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUq0f7-4Vtts17YRD-wwh3lSa1MRnLyNQuPBdQgB5xMbYU3jNph61GmRfFp3s9a-zU1KRutFjzw0pve3oZX9Kr8SX2I1WuQYZQCYjUiorZpQ5hXQxXhNUD4KtmhhS053DcJZIanXpvSX4/s1600/robiraki11flowers.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 192px; height: 288px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUq0f7-4Vtts17YRD-wwh3lSa1MRnLyNQuPBdQgB5xMbYU3jNph61GmRfFp3s9a-zU1KRutFjzw0pve3oZX9Kr8SX2I1WuQYZQCYjUiorZpQ5hXQxXhNUD4KtmhhS053DcJZIanXpvSX4/s400/robiraki11flowers.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679792392790119906" border="0" /></a><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the tatami space we had a tana, which in this photo is set up in preparation for laying the charcoal fire. This is a Ryuseidana, and if you look closely you can see that the gridwork on the left side is made from used handles from hishakus (the ladles we use to scoop water). The mizusashi (cold water jar) on the bottom is a black Oribe-style, and on the top of the tana is a feather (used to brush stray ash from the sides of the hearth) and an incense container. The incense container was made by Saeda Makoto, one of the artists who exhibited at the Five by Eight exhibition in Philadelphia last month.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAFqyiSw5048JIx7E7W-A8eRbgCRtJfccoI2Io6elL_AT1MfZBw9xOxYLmkXkI5VKxh_Vd5uvHbZ55jpJoGgKcDmLbL7Hc7Td8iPnHBVo88uW_lZgrK4hwKRgFJlLQ826K4RhK_-8guok/s1600/robiraki11tana.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 192px; height: 288px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAFqyiSw5048JIx7E7W-A8eRbgCRtJfccoI2Io6elL_AT1MfZBw9xOxYLmkXkI5VKxh_Vd5uvHbZ55jpJoGgKcDmLbL7Hc7Td8iPnHBVo88uW_lZgrK4hwKRgFJlLQ826K4RhK_-8guok/s400/robiraki11tana.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679793138837674978" border="0" /></a><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In this picture, Drew Hanson, one of our teachers, is making usucha for the guests:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEGfmJn6_UN9h8mHC_KHK96dLAoEH440u2MtQyfO6H8i8icbtGztLKYi6cfhgPA0hlzf-lXthZQnD3isspaiHmlyEMO9dvb01nVQZF5_YWC8XmX_RrmV0aMaiMbIO3jTAU2uhbzJvGw-I/s1600/robiraki11tea.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 360px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEGfmJn6_UN9h8mHC_KHK96dLAoEH440u2MtQyfO6H8i8icbtGztLKYi6cfhgPA0hlzf-lXthZQnD3isspaiHmlyEMO9dvb01nVQZF5_YWC8XmX_RrmV0aMaiMbIO3jTAU2uhbzJvGw-I/s400/robiraki11tea.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679793525500042866" border="0" /></a><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">All in all, it was a wonderful day, and as always we hope that the guests enjoyed it too!</p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-27745072427676430632011-10-12T23:48:00.001-04:002011-10-12T23:50:23.199-04:00Meeting the Artists<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">This past weekend our tea group had a gathering with a group of Japanese ceramic artists who are having a show here. So first I need to plug the show, which is called Five by Eight – five featured pieces from eight different artists – at The Clay Studio on 2<sup>nd</sup> Street in Philadelphia. They all have very different, very contemporary styles… here’s a <a href="http://www.theclaystudio.org/exhibitions/5x8.php">link to the exhibition</a>, where you can see photos.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">On Saturday, the exhibition organizer, Makiko Maki, arranged with Taeko Shervin-sensei do to a tea ceremony exchange of sorts – one of the artists in the exhibition would do tea for us, and we would do tea for the group. They very kindly brought their pieces to use – two or three teabowls from each artist (none of which were in the exhibition, so we got an exclusive look), plus a ceramic natsume (tea container), mizusashi (cold water container), and kensui. One of the most impressive things to me – in a long line of impressive things – was that the brazier that held the fire (furo) and the kettle for the water (kama) were also ceramic. Ordinarily they would be metal, particularly the kettle, and they’re fairly big – the furo was probably about 15 inches in diameter and the kama was made to sit on top of it, so maybe 9-10 inches in diameter. It must have been hard to make something that fit together so perfectly.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The tea was a treat to watch because the person who did it was from the Sohen-ryu school, one that doesn’t have a huge presence outside Japan and one that I’d personally never seen before. The host was very skilled, and it was so interesting to see the differences.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The bowls were amazing, of course. They brought bowls out from the kitchen so that everybody had their own, and once we drank the tea we passed them around so everyone could have a look. The main bowl (the one that the host used to prepare tea) had overlapping geometric shapes that looked a bit like a checkerboard; the second bowl was white with a pattern of autumn grasses in orange. The others varied from a sculptural white bowl to a couple with a highly textured black finish, and probably the most popular one was a bowl with a light blue-green, translucent ash glaze.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">(I know, you’re probably saying, “Where are the photos?” I’m so sorry, I don’t have any – if I get some, I will post them.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was a beautiful day all the way around, and I’m so grateful to all of the artists involved, and especially Maki-san, who worked so hard to make this and the exhibition itself happen. </p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-75719256551011888682011-09-14T23:39:00.001-04:002011-09-14T23:40:33.368-04:00Tea by Moonlight<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">On Sunday I got to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time – tea under the full moon.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is one of a set of three traditional outdoor tea ceremonies: One for cherry blossom viewing in the spring, one for the first snowfall, and one for the full moon in the autumn. Even though there’s a special temae (tea ceremony) dedicated specifically to doing tea during this full moon, and we practice the form, our group rarely ever actually does it for real. The last time I did it, it wasn’t a formal gathering; Shofuso was having a moon-viewing party, and my teacher spontaneously brought a tea set and had tea while the party was going on. It was so beautiful that I decided I was going to do one myself someday, but it’s been many years in the making!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So when my fellow teacher Drew agreed that we should go for it, I researched when the full moon was happening, when the moon would rise, the time of sunset, etc. Sunset time was particularly crucial because Shofuso (which, in case you haven’t seen it yourself, is a replica of the 16<sup>th</sup> century Japanese house) has electricity but no interior lights, so we wanted to get the bulk of the work done before it got so dark we would need artificial lighting.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I was a little bit nervous the day of because, first of all, I had a minor crisis with the sweets I was planning to make -- one of the key ingredients was nowhere to be found at any of our local Asian grocery stores, and the alternatives I tried weren’t working. Thankfully, my fallback plan worked, and I was able to come to the gathering bearing little mochi bunny rabbits.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The other wild card was the weather. They were calling for thunderstorms that evening, and it was ominously cloudy early in the day, but we really lucked out. In late afternoon it cleared up, and by the time the gathering started at 7:30, the moon was just peeking over the treeline! Shofuso is fortuitously oriented so that the main part of the veranda, overlooking the koi pond, is facing east, so by the time the tea was over the moon was high in the sky and reflecting beautifully off the pond.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The gathering itself was small, and we had a great group of guests. Some of them were volunteers at Shofuso who had seen us do demonstrations and classes, but never had time to sit and drink tea with us, and it was a lot of fun to be able to serve them tea and answer their questions.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the end, I think everyone had a good time, which in tea is the most important thing. I’m really psyched to do it again next year!</p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-10403797496373789572011-09-06T23:42:00.000-04:002011-09-06T23:43:25.537-04:00The Rain in September<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">Between Hurricane Irene last week and another day-long storm blowing through today, we’ve been getting hit with a lot of rain lately, and it made me think about rain in the context of tea. There’s the obvious angle, of course – it’s nice to have a bowl of hot tea on a wet day. But there are also a lot of seasonal variations on rain. For example, there are gentle showers in the spring, and afternoon thunderstorms in the summer, and in this area there are the tropical storms that blow up the coast starting in August.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Looking through my tea books, I found a great word – nowake. It literally means “field dividing,” meaning a wind that blows through a field and divides the crops. Here, for your wet weather enjoyment, are a couple of poems:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Inoshishi mo</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Tomo ni fukaruru</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nowaki kana</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Even the wild boars</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Are blown away by the autumn storm</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Diligence is needed</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">-- Basho</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Oharame ya</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Nowaki ni mukau</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Kakae-obi</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Female peddlers from Ohara [Kyoto]</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Have hitched up their kimonos</p> <p class="MsoNormal">To do battle against nowake</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">-- Sonojo</p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-73902529409058064152011-08-04T23:58:00.002-04:002011-08-05T00:07:20.860-04:00Trying Too Hard?<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">How Japanese do you have to be to study tea ceremony? It’s a question that pops up from time to time – at least for me, and I suspect for other tea ceremony practitioners as well.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">On the face of it, it’s a simple question. There’s nothing about the mechanics of tea ceremony that limit it to any one nationality or ethnicity. Anyone can learn the movements, and I’ve seen people of all ages and backgrounds relate to the philosophy. It’s something that touches all types of people, and that’s a beautiful thing to watch.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">But there’s another aspect to it, which is that tea ceremony comes wrapped in Japanese culture like a ball of sweet bean paste wrapped in mochi. The two of them look like two distinct things, but try to separate them and things get sticky. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made some horrible social faux pas because of some aspect of Japanese culture I just wasn’t familiar with. The discussion from my last post about teachers made me think of it – one time, as a tea student, I ran into another student who went to Urasenke New York, and innocently suggested that she should come and take lessons with us, too, which (I now know) is a horrible breach of tea etiquette.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think that people who tend to be attracted to tea ceremony are very aware of this gap, and for the most part work hard to be respectful and to follow the rules, written and unwritten. I’ve been thinking about that recently, too. At the intensive a few weeks ago, I observed one of the students, an American who had been studying tea for a long time. She was very deferential to the teachers, and very respectful, but as I watched her interact with them, it occurred to me that she was almost too deferential – to the point where she was making the teachers a little uncomfortable. It forms a social barrier that can become a barrier to learning.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Don’t get me wrong, I think that being respectful to one’s teachers is very important, and I’ve also seen situations where a student was being so informal with a teacher that is was bordering on outright disrespect. Courtesy is important, and sometimes being paranoid that you’re breaking some rule that you never knew existed is appropriate, because you are.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think this instance really struck me because I saw myself in that student – times when I’ve tried too hard to compensate for the fact that I’m not Japanese, like I don’t want to be one of “those” Americans who comes in and acts in a completely offensive and insensitive way. Looking back, I can think of times I’ve probably made my teachers and others uncomfortable because I was overdoing the courtesy to the point that it was a distraction.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The reality is, I’m not Japanese, and I will probably never know all of the rules that are second nature to Japanese people. To a large extent, I don’t think they expect me to, just as most Americans don’t expect foreigners to understand every nuance of American language and culture. But that doesn’t stop me from psyching myself out sometimes, and I think that it’s a problem for many Americans who pursue Japanese cultural activities.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Having thought all of this, the conclusion I came to is that the real lesson is one that tea practice teaches us – don’t spend so much time and energy worrying about yourself that you forget about other people. Relax, focus on what’s right in front of you, be open to your surroundings, and act from your heart. </p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-55583745065652665952011-07-04T00:24:00.001-04:002011-07-04T00:26:06.282-04:00Getting Intense about Tea<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">Recently I was at an intensive tea study (koshukai in Japanese) held at the New York branch of our tea school, Urasenke. They have these frequently in Kyoto, at Urasenke’s headquarters, but this is the first time that there’s ever been one in North America. It was a really fantastic opportunity to come together with tea people from all over the country and hone our skills.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Urasenke headquarters sent two high-level teachers (gyotei senseis) to lead the seminar. One of them, Izumimoto sensei, had come to New York twice before to lead seminars. The difference is that in previous seminars, there was a large group of people who, with a few exceptions, were listening to lectures or observing while only a few people participated in lessons. At this intensive, we were broken into groups of five or six, and we were all give multiple opportunities to take lessons, including one session with each of the gyotei senseis. The other classes were taught by the heads of the North American branches of Urasenke, including two of the teachers from New York.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So what do you do at a tea intensive? The first day, all twenty-six of us were in the same room, and the training was in warigeiko, which are the basic movements of tea ceremony – the first thing that a beginner would learn when they start taking lessons in tea. Now mind you, many of the people who were taking part in the intensive were teachers in their own right; some of them have been doing tea ceremony for 20 or 30 years or more. Why start at the beginning?<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Someone who studies any type of art knows that every once in a while you have to go back to basics to refine your technique, and that’s especially true of tea ceremony. Even after sixteen years of study, I’m constantly learning new things, even about the very basics, and I’m really grateful to have that opportunity. Because just like any art, there’s no standing still – if you’re not getting better, you’re going backward.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">After the first day, we broke up into our separate groups, and for the next two and a half days, we spent each morning and afternoon with a different teacher. We were given a general category for each class – for example, “hakobi,” which is a type of basic temae (procedure for making tea). Within that category, students could choose what they wanted to study; of course, the teacher could tell you to do something different, but in my class that didn’t happen. It was good, because it gave people a chance to study in advance. That may sound odd, because isn’t the point of lessons to learn how to do something? But in intensives like this, the teachers assume that you’re already familiar with the temae you’re studying. The purpose of the lesson is to make sure that you have all the details straight – sometimes, especially with the more obscure temae that we don’t practice very often, there are small details that we forget – and also to check your form. I’ve found that every teacher has a specialty, so to speak – they’ll pick out problems with your movements or technique that other teachers might not notice. And the gyotei senseis, of course, are the best of all for things like that.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Going into the intensive I was really a bundle of nerves, worried about making mistakes or embarrassing myself even more than I usually do. But one thing that surprised and impressed me was that the gyoteis were actually very nice. Not that they weren’t strict, and sometimes they can be harsh in their comments, but for the most part they were very patient, and really focused on helping people learn.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">At the end of the day I think the biggest single lesson I learned was that the way you do temae is a choice. There are certain small points that very from teacher to teacher; one person will tell you to do it this way, and another will tell you something different. At the beginning level, this can be really confusing, and it’s one reason why students are not allowed to jump from teacher to teacher. But if you’ve been practicing for a while, going to an intensive like this gives you a chance to see the way that other teachers do things, and to think about your own temae and what works. Sometimes a correction is a correction, and you really need to fix your movement. And in the context of a lesson, no matter what, you do what the teacher says. But sometimes, when a teacher tells you to do something differently from the way you learned it, it’s up to you to figure out which way to go. It’s trickier than a simple correction, but worth the effort.<span style=""> </span></p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-15336874581682410852011-06-20T23:33:00.001-04:002011-06-20T23:35:20.665-04:00A Great Day for a Great Cause<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">Yesterday our tea group held a benefit for the earthquake victims of Sendai, Japan. Even though it’s been several months since the tsunami hit that region, the cleanup continues, and the people are still struggling to put their lives back in order. More than 23,000 people died as a result of the earthquakes and the tsunami, and countless more were affected. It’s hard to comprehend the scope of the tragedy, and even though our efforts were pretty small in comparison to what needs to be done, we were happy to be able to do something – particularly for the people of Sendai, who have been so generous to us in the past. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">We did six sittings total – three for thin tea (usucha) in the 15-mat room that looks out over the garden, and three more thick tea (koicha) in the actual tearoom, which is 4 ½ mats including the alcove (tokonoma). In my mind, I’m seeing some of the people from the large Urasenke branches who do tea for hundreds of people in a single day saying, “Ha! That’s nothing!” But for us, it was a big day. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The credit for putting everything together goes to Taeko Shervin sensei, who came up with this idea back in March and has spent the past couple of months putting everything together, including making all of the sweets herself (a hundred each of two different kinds of dry sweets for thin tea and 50 moist sweets for koicha; her friend Wada-san also made dry sweets for us). But the staff at the Japanese House, where the benefit was held, also deserve a lot of thanks for all their hard work in making it happen. They really helped to promote it, and of course did a lot of work getting the house ready and managing all the visitors. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">People were so generous, it really blew us away. There was one man from a tattoo shop in Philadelphia who raised $2,300 for tsunami victims, but wasn’t sure what to do with it; when he heard about this event he decided to give the money to this fund. There was also a little girl who, on her birthday, asked people to donate for the tsunami victims rather than getting presents; she brought her money to the event too. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">At the end of the day, there were about 250 people who came through the house (though not all of them had tea; there was an artist named Aaron Mannino who did an art installation on the house grounds, and there were a number of visitors who came specifically to see that), and the event raised about $7,000, including donations that came in from people who couldn’t make it on that day. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">To everyone who helped and everyone who came, thank you so much!</p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-23098030476888726652011-06-02T21:54:00.001-04:002011-06-02T21:56:21.647-04:00Tea Ceremony Benefit for JapanApologies for the late notice, but please spread the word to anyone that you think might be interested:<br /><br />The people of Sendai have had a close relationship with the Japanese community of Philadelphia for many years. Sendai is known as Mori no Mikyo, the City of Trees, because of the large number of trees within its city limits -- something it shares with Philadelphia, which has more parks within its city borders than any city in the United States.<br /><br />Volunteer groups from Sendai have helped to raise money to repair and maintain the roof at Shofuso, the Japanese House and Gardens in Fairmount Park, and many times have come to Philadelphia to help celebrate Tanabata, the Milky Way festival in July.<br /><br />In honor of this relationship, and to express our deep sympathy for their suffering following the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan, the Chado Association of Philadelphia is hosting a benefit tea ceremony, with proceeds going directly to the people of Sendai.<br /><br />Date: Sunday, June 19th (Father's Day)<br />Time: Seatings for usucha (thin tea) at 12:00, 1:30, and 3:00 p.m.<br /> Seatings for koicha (thick tea) at 11:30, 1:30, and 3:00 p.m.<br />Location: Shofuso, the Japanese House and Gardens in Fairmount Park<br /> Horticultural and Lansdowne Drives, Philadelphia, PA<br />Fee: $25 for Shofuso members; $30 for non-members. Additional donations are gratefully accepted.<br /><br />Reservations are recommended. To register, visit www.shofuso.com or call 215-878-5097Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-4624713070001645712011-05-03T23:45:00.002-04:002011-05-03T23:48:14.665-04:00The Fallen Blossom<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">I recently read a tea story from the early seventeenth century in Japan. There was a priest at the Daitokuji temple in Kyoto who happened to see a particularly beautiful camellia blossom in the garden, and he decided to send it to his friend, the tea master Sen Sotan. He carefully picked the flower and gave it to one of his disciples, with strict instructions to handle the gift carefully on his way to Sotan’s residence. Despite the messenger’s best efforts, however, the blossom fell off of the stem before he could give it to Sotan. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The messenger wondered what to do, and finally decided to take the flower and its stem to Sotan and offer his abject apologies. Sotan accepted both the apologies and the gift. Instead of throwing the flower away, he placed the stem in a hanging vase on the pillar of the tokonoma (the alcove where the scroll is usually hung and a vase of flowers is arranged), and he placed the blossom beneath the vase as if it had fallen there naturally.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> As I read this story, it reminded me of a time when I was in my teacher’s tearoom during a lesson, and I noticed that the head had fallen off one of the flowers in the tokonoma; it was lying there, under the vase. There was something really profound about the visual impact of that. I was still thinking about it after I went home, and I even wrote a little poem about it. But it’s really hard to put that feeling into words. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /> </p><p class="MsoNormal">I think that it says something about the transitory nature of life – it’s not a bud, with all the potential of life; it’s not a flower in full gorgeous bloom. It’s come to the end of its existence; no longer an object of admiration, but something that most people would toss into the trash. The moment when the blossom falls is a moment of transition, and I think Sotan was trying to convey, with his action, that that moment is when we should be paying the most attention. There’s beauty in all moments, in all phases of existence, in endings as well as beginnings. If tea is about noticing things and feeling things, then surely the moment when the flower falls is a crucial moment to capture. </p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-864861858143140337.post-91390289200566647502011-04-21T00:14:00.005-04:002011-04-21T00:22:03.424-04:00Sakura Time!<style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: S</style><span style="font-family:times new roman;">The past couple of weeks we’ve been caught up in cherry blossom (sakura) time. The weekend of April 9</span><sup style="font-family: times new roman;">th</sup><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> we had our usual demonstration at Shofuso, the Japanese House, and then the following day was Sakura Sunday, the big celebration in Fairmount Park. The timing was absolutely perfect – the blossoms were just coming into bloom. Here’s a view from one of the main plantings of cherry trees:</span><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIkaxxOnm3Fm67lQ2ussHVLs7l-n4se8Tf7wiQ7E75S4b0HqYF_RI6rhP2EDLHxNOcM1n5UbR-odxXr0WpiJjnA3RmAkfv0KfUMsORUezSua-wqmOt6LP-7xoCtG3iLXKJF10cyDvieXo/s1600/sakura+11-trees.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIkaxxOnm3Fm67lQ2ussHVLs7l-n4se8Tf7wiQ7E75S4b0HqYF_RI6rhP2EDLHxNOcM1n5UbR-odxXr0WpiJjnA3RmAkfv0KfUMsORUezSua-wqmOt6LP-7xoCtG3iLXKJF10cyDvieXo/s400/sakura+11-trees.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597885926264688290" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">We didn’t have a formal demonstration that day, but one of our students, Mary Lynn, set up under one of the cherry trees and did chabako, a picnic-style tea, for anyone who happened to stop by and want some tea. …<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmlzbyjOS6cf1Ll-sEpwpOMR4uQ_dv6OIDnOIy5yXBwvH8qG54GjhJt_nZMGWv-AVQ9Eq-98WE7aDcxRr_DwlBeUiCLyT4lEsLLey96aMXJgHWnmYWQp0lVGbD9Yh_e20uDeWdFrXNtzg/s1600/sakura+11-tea.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmlzbyjOS6cf1Ll-sEpwpOMR4uQ_dv6OIDnOIy5yXBwvH8qG54GjhJt_nZMGWv-AVQ9Eq-98WE7aDcxRr_DwlBeUiCLyT4lEsLLey96aMXJgHWnmYWQp0lVGbD9Yh_e20uDeWdFrXNtzg/s400/sakura+11-tea.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597886324826961874" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The following week, we had another tea gathering, this time for members of the Chado Association. This was something new for us – even though chabako is especially designed to be done outdoors, we rarely plan outdoor gatherings for logistical reasons. Even for a simple tea, when you’re serving a dozen people there’s a fair amount of stuff to carry out to the site, and of course you have to plan for rain or other contingencies. I’m very happy to say that the weather was mostly good. “Mostly” in that it was sunny and reasonably warm, but it was also very windy, which made it a little on the chilly side and caused some complications in making the tea.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">There were little things – for example, the tea whisk kept blowing over – and then there were the messy things: every time I opened the lid of the tea container, a gust of wind came up and blew a cloud of powdered tea all over the place. The tray with the tea items was a mess!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">However, the really important thing in any tea gathering is that the guests have fun and enjoy each other’s company, and on that score I think it was a success – everybody seemed to have a good time, and we got to see some old friends we hadn’t talked to in a while.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here’s a picture of us under the cherry trees:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLV0jNLu0YQL1wjYpjAkdpxvaQ2vADitAOcgcgQiOQgwNSVxcBWGQseBiJwiCJBdrBqznJlj2nMcLN3878iX3lrzTvSSSwm4AYlB9If5hoK_K9wlszBk43NcFivqtOA9o0v5A2B7lHV-M/s1600/sakura+11-hanami.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLV0jNLu0YQL1wjYpjAkdpxvaQ2vADitAOcgcgQiOQgwNSVxcBWGQseBiJwiCJBdrBqznJlj2nMcLN3878iX3lrzTvSSSwm4AYlB9If5hoK_K9wlszBk43NcFivqtOA9o0v5A2B7lHV-M/s400/sakura+11-hanami.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597886619402392850" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">(This, by the way, is the same place Sakura Sunday is held.)<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Even though we look like we’re all alone in the photo above, there were actually a fair number of people in the park, and as I walked around before and after I got a lot of questions about what we were doing.<span style=""> </span>That’s another fun thing about doing an outdoor gathering – we get to talk to people about tea ceremony, and maybe share some things with them that they didn’t know before. All in all, it was a good day. </p>Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14906012607093939874noreply@blogger.com0