Tea Spirit of June 2018

​June 2018 “Energy” Dian Hong Tea from Global Tea Hut

The 2018 version of the online course I offer, 100 Days of Building Creativity, began on June 16th. Each year I update the course with new daily creative courage quotes (quotes by different people on the subject of creativity), and add more resources, including a new guiding poem. This year we are being guided by the words of Mary Oliver and her poem, Mindful:

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less
 
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
 
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for --
to look, to listen,
 
to lose myself
inside this soft world --
to instruct myself
over and over
 
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
 
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant --
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
 
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
 
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these --
the untrimmable light
 
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

This is what living a life of tea and the daily practice of creativity does for me, it helps me to become more mindful and awake to see and hear the magic in each ordinary moment. When I take the time for tea and meditation and art on a daily basis, I see the world through fresh eyes, appreciating the amazingness of it all. When I wander from practice, I definitely miss wonder.
 
I got to enjoy this month’s tea while camping out in nature. I spent way to long trying to get my first charcoal fire to light in my tea brazier, and the water took way too long to heat, but when it was finally ready, the effort and love that had gone into brewing those leaves made it one of the sweetest bowls. And then, as the ordinary extraordinary sun set, lightning bugs began appearing. I never see lightning bugs in Texas, and they remind me fondly of my childhood on the east coast. Needless to say, that afternoon in that setting spent preparing and drinking tea with loved ones was exceptional. But that was just one day. Most days are spent having tea at home with water heated over my electric stove. But in some ways, they are no less exceptional, because they remind me that none of this life is really ordinary if I am only mindful.

“I think that when one begins exploring tea, the tea ceremony can be about blasting off into shamanic visions from the bowl to great mountain-peak vistas that let us see the pic picture, helping us to understand our relationships to ourselves, Nature and each other. However, the further we travel, the more this practice becomes about capturing the universal and steeping it in the ordinary – gathering the stars like lightning bugs in a net and letting them shine in the simple mason jar of our teapot.”
-Wu De, Global Tea Hut Tea & Tao Magazine June 2018

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