I don’t know whether I just didn’t notice this before or whether it takes warm, wet weather to bring it out, but the 50 year-old Chadō Kaikan building where we hold our practice chaji smells like the cottage in Sawyer, Michigan where the Boydstons spent many happy, lazy, summer vacation days. No beach within walking distance here, though. And no laziness. 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 »
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 woke up unrested from a long, vivid dream in which I’d been sentenced–I’m pretty sure not because of anything I’d done–to death, and I was to be my own executioner. Read the rest of this entry »
I woke from a deep and refreshing sleep and enjoyed a slow morning before a very late class on dōgu; Tachibana-sensei reviewed the bamboo utensils, all of which must be made with a specific orientation to the way the bamboo originally grew, and then elaborated for us the seven traditional varieties of futaoki and the seven traditional varieties of kensui. Read the rest of this entry »
This afternoon we had a practice chaji, a formal tea gathering sans kaiseki meal like the one we had about a month ago with Tanja as host. Today’s was an especially big deal for me, not just because I was the “first guest,” shōkyaku, with extra things to say and do; but because the host was my senpai, Anita, whose responsibility it’s been to teach me just about everything but what the senseis focus on during practice. Read the rest of this entry »
Pure, sweet distillation of summer: the blaze of eternity visible through the fissures of our time-fettered world. If we’ll pass into the next life to the strains of some heartbreakingly sweet chord, today I could hear the orchestra tuning up. Read the rest of this entry »
Another break from the lecture-lunch-practice norm today, because we’d been invited to a chakai hosted by the 3rd-year Japanese students. So we started the day with practice in our auxiliary space up in the women’s dorm while the gakuensei (Japanese students) cooked and cleaned and prepared. Read the rest of this entry »