Tana of the Day: sugidana. (Literally: cedar shelf.) Much like the others, except that it has a sliding center shelf that must be slid forward and back to get at the mizusashi sitting below it. Not worth the trouble, in my untutored opinion.

After lunch the Midorikai men dashed back to the dorm to put on hakama. I doubt I can do better than my Japanese dictionary, which defines hakama as “man’s formal divided skirt,” though it does raise the possibly insoluble question of where the line is that separates divided skirts from giant pants. Anyhow, hakama are expensive swaths of pleated fabric that you step into from the top; the seam dividing the skirt pulls the bottom of your kimono up and restores some of your mobility. We only get to wear them for formal occasions, which is sort of a pity, because despite the extra hassle, they look really good. The top edge covers the obi almost completely, and four long fabric ties crisscross around the waist and hips to secure the thing. And then all you have to worry about is stepping on the bottom hem when standing up from seiza, which will happen.

We approached the school again to see the concrete and asphalt outside being watered down in our anticipation of our arrival. In the ideal setting, of course, guests would approach the tearoom through a garden path, which would be likewise sprinkled with water to give a cool, fresh feeling, but tea practice also boasts an ethic of making do with what’s available, and I found charm in the treatment of our unremarkable little urban side street.

We waited in the first floor of the shokudō with the other guests for the chakai, the Japanese 1-year course students, until being summoned. Hamana-sensei explained to us the gifts that guests at such events customarily bring: something edible for the behind-the-scenes helpers in the mizuya, and cash (in uncirculated bills, of course) to help defray the cost of the function. The bills should be put into an envelope with their fronts forward; the envelope can be handed over in a variety of classy ways: on an opened fan, in the fold of a kobukusa, wrapped in a small furoshiki with the folds arranged carefully in a manner traditionally said to prevent good luck from falling out the bottom of the package.

Then we filed across the street to the school building and signed a guest book with brush and ink–as if my Japanese handwriting using familiar media weren’t embarrassing enough. Past the entranceway where we took off our zori and left our bags, the tea rooms where we spend so much time had been made almost unrecognizable. Portable folding walls hid service hallways and mizuya from sight, and the sliding doors separating rooms 5 and 6 had been taken away to create one large, long room to serve first as our waiting place, or machiai.

On the far end of the room, in room 6’s tokonoma, hung a scroll with a spirited painting of the god Shōki, expeller of demons and protector against disease and misfortune, and guardian of children–if I’ve got my facts straight. Here he looked less fearsome than robust and heartily amused: a distant cousin to Dickens’s Ghost of Christmas Present, perhaps, sitting with his hands on his thighs and his head tossed back. (Not that I’d swear to the accuracy of my memory of the thing.) In room 5’s toko hung a simpler scroll, with energetic calligraphy that read katsu, according to Hamana-sensei–though which of the many katsus in the language it was, he didn’t say. (And I didn’t think to ask.)

The tabakobon was a tray of unlacquered wood decorated with cut-outs in the tsubotsubo pattern that the Sen family uses as a sub-crest; on it sat a hiire I never got a good look at and don’t remember any secondhand information about either. While we waited, small portions of hot (well, warm, anyhow) water flavored with what I took to be dried plum were served to us in tiny cups of blue and white sometsuke porcelain in which what might have been plum blossoms floated. (If they were, in fact, perhaps they’d been preserved dry; those blossoms were gone from the trees before I arrived here. Anyhow, I liked the effect. Very fūryū.) While we drank our osayu, one of the 3rd-year students sat in the room as hantō, or helper, and held forth on the dōgu.

After which the doors at the west end of the room were opened to reveal that rooms 3 and 4 had been combined just as 5 and 6 had, to make space for the honseki–the main seating. The items displayed in the tokonoma gave us our first overt indicators of the chakai’s theme. (After Hamana-sensei had explained them to us, that is.) At the heart of the theme was an old legend holding that a lowly fish who could swim upstream past three waterfalls would be transformed into a mighty dragon; the gakuensei used the legend to describe our studies at Urasenke. So the single white tessen blossom, sparkling under a fine mist of water, hung from a chain in a boat-shaped bamboo flower holder called a suribune; its bow faced the “lower” end of the toko, an out-of-the-ordinary signifier of departure: here, our separation from homes, friends, family to study in Kyoto. On a sheaf of thick paper on the bottom of the toko sat a red incense box (indicating that sumidemae, the charcoal-laying procedure, would not be performed) in the shape of a koi, the lowly fish. Us. The scroll, written by Daisōshō, read ryūsui kandan nashi: “in running water there are no interruptions,” perhaps. Don’t look to me to explain this one to you. Perhaps its a Zen counterpoint to the fish-dragon legend. (That is, it’s obviously Zen; I’m making up the rest.) The waterfalls don’t actually exist. There is no spoon.

Then the sweets were brought out, and I thought ruefully of my inability, that day at Oimatsu, to consistently do something as basic as pressing sugar into a mold. The gakuensei had themselves prepared gorgeous kuzu manjū, colored bean paste suspended in a translucent hemisphere made somehow of arrowroot starch, I think; these were named ryūmon, “Dragon Gate,” for the three colors in each: pink, yellow, and green–one for each waterfall.

A young woman entered the room next to prepare usucha using the furo and mizusashi that rested on a long lacquered board called, in Japanese, “long board” (nagaita). (With these two dōgu sitting on the nagaita, I’ll add just because I can, the temae is called futatsuoki: “two things put.” Not everything about tea is as impenetrable as the scrolls.) Now, I sat far from the place of preparation, and couldn’t get a close look at any of the dōgu before we were shuffled to the next room, so much of the following is secondhand. The kama itself was a tall, nearly cylindrical one that tapered toward the top (I’m counting on somebody posting the proper name for this geometric shape in the comments) called–because of shape or finish or what, I don’t know–unryū, “Cloud Dragon.” A kettle optimistic that we’ll achieve transformation, it was! The mizusashi was blue Italian glass with what looked from a distance like wave patterns and, it was said, Daisōshō’s crest on the underside of the lid. The natsume was likewise said to bear a wave design. The chashaku was a rather precious (compared to my 500-yen bamboo special) one made of old wood from Kinkakuji; really wish I’d gotten a close look at that one.

While our teishu made two bowls of tea–first in a black raku bowl made by a (current? former?) student’s father (I think), next in a not-black not-raku (I didn’t get anywhere near these, remember) bowl whose name came to me as aokaede–green maple–the smilingest of all the students here (and a real cutie, I think I can add here without creating trouble for myself) played hantō and said stuff in Japanese while somewhere behind me, but unfortunately just out of earshot, Hamana-sensei provided a certain amount of English. I just enjoyed my tea (brought from the back, like all but the the first two bowls; mine came in a chawan with the glaze done, if I recall correctly, in the technique called mishima) while attempting to ignore the mounting agony in my knees.

On the way out of the room I had time enough only to take a quick peek into the black lacquer tabakakon (style: fumibako, because something about it supposedly looks like a letterbox) to see the green-glazed oribe hiire, made by the mother (I think) of the student whose father (I think) made the black raku bowl. But the last stage of the chakai awaited us: a tenshin meal prepared by the gakuensei and served in the room 5-room 6 complex, which had been redecorated in our absence with an ikebana-style flower arrangement (as opposed to chabana–flowers for tea–which have their own rules) with lotus blossoms floating in water alongside some unidentified flowers (meaning, their names were most likely given but I don’t remember them) in toko #5; and a scroll in toko #6 with a painting of a fish mid-flop, which certainly describes me on my way up–or possibly down–the waterfalls.

I won’t lie: by now my knees hurt far too much for me to fully enjoy the meal. Still, I recognized and admired the skill with which it had been executed. Trays were set down in front of us bearing sticky cakes of rice studded with green peas and pressed into the shapes of gourds; the rice was from some student’s rice-famous home prefecture and the peas were just in season. Also there were choice nuggets of tai fish; bites of bamboo shoot and other tasties I couldn’t identify; flower-shaped dishes full of more delicious mystery stuff. And boiled egg halves, each cooked for exactly nine minutes. Sake was served in the small red saucers that always make me wonder who exactly first thought putting liquid in a basically flat container was a good idea. Taking my etiquette cues from Hamana-sensei, I drank three servings. It was good stuff, from some sake-famous prefecture–possibly the same one the rice came from. And then the nimono came out in covered bowls: delicate sōmen noodles in the mildest fish stock, topped with another chunk of tai and exactly two julienned strips of carrot, and concealing a tiny seed-like granule of I-don’t-know-what that had the most remarkably strong, cleansing, and otherwise indescribable flavor. Though maybe Sen-Sen isn’t too far off.

I’m pretty sure that by this time I’d given up on seiza entirely and was just kneeling upright. As is customary, I pulled tissues out of my sleeve to wipe down all of the utensils I’d eaten off of, starting with the nimono bowl’s cover, to put the condensation on its underside to good use. Into the plastic bag in my other sleeve (the left one, where dirty things go) I put the tissues and the only inedible part of the meal, a decorative leaf. The business ends of our chopsticks, having until now rested over the left rim of the tray in a show of cleanliness, were now rested on the flat of the tray; traditionally, the sound of an in-unison chopstick drop alerts the host that the trays are ready to be collected. One last cup of tea (Bancha? Maybe.) and the event was over. I limped home exceedingly impressed with the gakuenseis’ efforts, and looking forward to writing the thank-you letter I now owed them.

Changed into samue and did pitiful battle with furo ash until just before the cafeteria closed. Ate. Had a couple of drinks. Wondered when Friday nights stopped being occasions. Slept.

A long, broad flight of stone steps climbs the hillside to the tomb, hidden in deep foliage. At its foot sits a spacious wooden pavilion. Today folded white strips of paper hung from a rope strung around the structure just below the roof line to signify ritual purity within its perimeter. On either side of the pavilion, tarps sheltered the spectators’ seats: on one side, wealthy and influential individuals, mostly older men in dark suits (Hamana-sensei pointed out a kama-maker to me); on the other, 3rd-year Japanese Urasenke students and the Midorikai group, five of us still in western clothes, the rest in a restrained kaleidoscope of kimono. The crowd numbered just over a hundred in all.

Beneath the pavilion, an elevated stretch of tatami led to a setup for temae: an stand of unfinished wood called a daisu, bearing on its top shelf two tenmoku chawan–tea bowls, one gold, the other silver, on individual stands–and two natsume enclosed in white cloth covers closed with braided cords, one purple, the other crimson, in elegant knots. On the daisu’s bottom shelf were the fresh water container (mizusashi), a bamboo dipper (hishaku) held vertically in its own rack, and the steaming kama.

To the right of the tatami platform sat several small wooden tables bearing platters of food offerings: fish, fruit and vegetables, mochi, water, sake, rice.

The crowd took their seats and quieted down as Oiemoto, his wife, and a small entourage approached the pavilion and were greeted by a group of Shinto priests in colorful outfits topped by hats resembling oven mitts made of giant avocados. Three musicians in similar attire took their places before ancient, ornate instruments at the back of the pavilion (the side furthest from the steps to Hideyoshi’s tomb, that is) and began to play the ancient music called gakaku on percussion and small wind instruments. (One, a silver-bound cluster of bamboo set vertically, allows the player to maintain a drone of subtly shifting unearthly chords that underpins the arrangements.)

One priest read an invocation, another purified each participant in the ceremony (including us, the witnesses) in turn with a shaggy pom-pom of folded paper strips on a stick. Then Oiemoto, in black kimono, stepped out of his zori and onto the tatami. He approached the daisu, facing Hideyoshi’s tomb, sat, and prepared koicha, thick tea. I could see few of his movements from behind the Japanese students and priests, but I did see him don a white surgical mask just before opening the natsume, not to take it off again until the tea was whisked and he’d re-covered the bowl with a thin sheet of what I assumed was wood; Hamana-sensei explained that human breath would be thought to befoul the tea and make it unfit to offer the kami-sama. I saw enough, too, to begin to understand a bit of tea philosophy that came my way recently.

There is a collection of a hundred short verses attributed to Sen Rikyū that outlines many of the ideals of our discipline. One of them is translated, “Practice constitutes learning from one, becoming cognizant of ten, then returning from ten to one, the beginning.” Which reminds me of a certain Christian philosopher’s (Francis Schaeffer, maybe?) pursuit of “the simplicity on the far side of complexity.” At any rate, I’ve seen clumsy and hesitant temae (heck, I do clumsy and hesitant temae), and I’ve seen confident and elegant temae. But Oiemoto’s movements were so controlled, so understated and precise, that his preparation looked quite effortless–not mannered in the slightest. Someone who didn’t know what he was watching might well think that there wasn’t much to making tea in this fashion. Which, of course, is the whole idea. All the practice, all the discipline, all the kata are ultimately not for performance but for hospitality: one person making tea for another.

Oiemoto went on to make thin tea, usucha, with the variations in technique required, and, of course, with the mask, and both bowls of tea were delivered to the priests, who set them on a table at Hideyoshi’s side of the pavilion and uncovered each briefly to allow his spirit to imbibe. The priests also moved the food offerings from the side of the pavilion to its front, and everything was officially handed over to the kami-sama for his enjoyment.

After another invocation and more eerie music, the ceremony concluded, and as the crowd filed out and the dōgu were cleaned and boxed up, Oiemoto gathered the Urasenke students around him and spoke briefly on the history of the kencha tea offering and the utensils traditionally used. (When performed at Buddhist temples, the preparation calls for fine lacquered dōgu; at Shinto shrines, unvarnished wood ones.) He invited us, too, to examine the dōgu. I admired the bare wood natsume, one’s lid marked with Oiemoto’s crest, the ichō leaf, the other with Okusama’s, a simple spiral.

We repaired to a giant cloth tent erected on a nearby lawn too late to keep the ground from getting soggy, and sat on benches while we were served sweets and tea by girls with muddy tabi. Then Hamana-sensei led us to a tea house neighboring the shrine, where we waited in a little machiai and admired a small collection of dōgu: everyone liked very much the dark red chawan by the ninth-generation head of the Raku ceramics tradition and the broken-and-repaired kettle. Its kantsuki, the small molded rings through which larger rings (kan) are threaded to lift the kettle were shaped like little monkeys with arms outstretched; we heard that this may have been a reference to Hideyoshi, a homely little man whose nickname was “monkey.”

The we were summoned into the tea room. As we began to eat our sweets (hanaikada, slender bars of translucent lavender mochi filled with red bean paste), a quiet gasp ran around the room: Oiemoto had just entered. He told us, apparently, to relax, warned us that the sweets were a bit chewy, and talked at us for a while. (I never did get a translation.) On his way out, he looked at me and asked if the sweets had been okay. I managed a frantic affirmative nod.

After tea, we moved further through the complex of tatami-floored buildings and sat in another room where a light meal, tenshin, was served. If I ever have to feed someone and want them not to linger, I decided, I’ll have them eat sitting seiza. The traditional Japanese food (rice; miso soup; little shrimp with crispy legs and feelers intact, to be eaten whole; assorted little mystery bites of egg and tofu and thins from the sea; tea) was quite tasty, of course, but I had no idea if I was eating it with any degree of decorum. Nor did I remember what Gary-sensei had told us a week before: that at the end of such a meal, the guests are to blot their dishes clean with kaishi paper moistened in the condensation from the lid of the soup bowl. I did this in a panic just before my tray was taken away, and staggered out of the room with knees screaming and suit pockets bulging with dirty wads of paper.

Since we had the afternoon free, Hamana-sensei decided to take us to Ginkakuji, the temple that was once the private villa of retired shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, who took office at age 8 and quit at 29 to become a monk and full-time devotee and patron of the arts. The main temple building was in the third month or so of a projected 26-month renovation, and so was being disassembled under tarps, but the gardens remained stunning, as did the main reason for our visit: tours were being given of one of the complex’s usually-closed buildings, the Tōgudō, besides the tarped Kannon Hall the only structure on the property never destroyed by fire. In the Tōgudō is Yoshimasa’s personal study, a room named Dōjinsai, which is considered to be the prototype for the later development of tea room architecture. It is an old-style shōin room, not a tea room, and so has a built-in writing desk under a window and split-level shelves (chigaidana) instead of a tokonoma, but its four and a half tatami mats and ro, and the fact that Yoshimasa did apparently make tea in the room, make it part of our history.

We hiked up the hillside at the edge of the property to see chanoi, the spring from which Yoshimasa drew his water for tea, and enjoyed the elevated view of the city to the west. Then we exited via the gift shop and Hamana-sensei bought us all green tea-flavored soft-serve ice cream before we took taxis home.

I had stashed some unclaimed sandwiches and ate one for dinner instead of going to the shokudō. Then I met Sean, Szymon, and a few of the others to visit a local kimono shop, where we didn’t buy anything. We took the long way home, stopping by a cheap dōgu shop of Szymon’s recommendation that offers ludicrous discounts to Midorikai students; we picked up cheap chasen and chashaku to practice with, and chakin and little plastic pouches to keep damp chakin in for Monday’s practice chaji, at which we’ll have thick tea, which is served in a common bowl that should have its rim wiped by each guest after drinking and before passing it along. At a shoe store I picked up some zori sandals; thank goodness sizes big enough for my feet are available here.

Buying dōgu is what passes for Friday night excitement around here, so having done that, we were in for the evening.