Because Hamana-sensei wanted us to have the experience of actually sitting in a two-mat tea room, and because the interior of the original Taian was off-limits to us, we walked in the morning up to Daitokuji, where a replica of the room is housed at the sub-temple Zuihōin. Read the rest of this entry »
If you see a bug flying slowly through the tea room that looks like it might be a mosquito except that it’s a little fat, you’re best off not swatting it when it lands on the tatami, because it probably is a mosquito, and it’s fat because it’s full of blood it sucked from where your cheek is itching, and you’ll have to try to get your own cheek-blood splatter off of the tatami. Read the rest of this entry »
Somehow or another, despite wearing kneepads I’ve managed to rub a good patch of skin off my left knee. It stings something fierce and isn’t in a hurry to heal, with as much time as I spend every day aggravating it. Weekend, come quickly! Maybe I need better kneepads. Also better knees. Read the rest of this entry »
Warm. Which in lined polyester kimono equals hot. And overcast: memories of my first trip to Japan. Seven and a half weeks of summer but I can’t swear that I actually saw the sun even once. Read the rest of this entry »
Japan’s gods: they love tea. Today Oiemoto made koicha and usucha for Tenji Tenno, who built the first clocks in this country and got himself deified for the effort. (Or maybe for something else entirely; what do I look like? A historian?) Read the rest of this entry »
Szymon and I were up early and pedaling south in search of a little building on a little street somewhere off Shijō, having volunteered, at Teele-sensei’s request, to serve tea at an all-day Noh recital. Read the rest of this entry »
Four nights of vivid, weird dreams in a row. Read the rest of this entry »
Nothing I have to report today on my vagabond tea life compares in importance with the news from the States:
MY SISTER IS ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED! CONGRATULATIONS, HEATHER! Read the rest of this entry »
I think back to my first encounters with chadō—The Book of Tea, that first rainy day at Jakuan in Honolulu—and suppose that many people, non-Japanese in particular, are drawn to Japan’s traditional arts by similar experiences; by the flavor of exoticism; the allure of delicate doll-women wrapped in kimono; vistas of tile roofs and torī amongst the greenery; smells of tatami and incense and charcoal; subtle flavors of sweets and tea; ideals of composure, control, elegance, manners, tradition; sound, silence, sense. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m still amazed at the age and value of some of what they let us touch around here. Read the rest of this entry »