Lucky

It's still too early
for the comfort of newborn green,
but underneath the leafless cherry blossom tree
there are bowls of tea for the ones who aren't here.

In warmer times

I first learned how a splash of water

can lift a scent high enough to soothe a spirit.

I'd almost forgotten

those earliest days

of fumbling unfamiliarity

and how quietly something can change

from part of the background

to something inviting 

deeper consideration.

There is a hidden path here.

I discovered it by going around

the obvious delights,

of the stone lanterns, the pond, and the maples,

to a dark and overgrown thicket of bamboo.

Today, 

I make sure to pay my respects

there, remembering the first time

curiosity drew me.

I greet the gods I find here.

This time I understand the reason

for smiles and tears.

I cup my hands around 

the memories that brought me here

warmed by today's tea

under the leafless tree

and give thanks.

How lucky I was.

How lucky I am.

Photo by Hiroshi Tsubono on Unsplash

Song Choice: Everything Stays from Adventure Time

Liner Notes For This Groove: If you came around via Poets and Storytellers United, feel free to skip this part because it's a lot longer than 369 words. Though I am elaborating a bit on the prompt I gave this week, "looking back".

So for the last couple of weeks I've been looking over all my old blog posts. It's been an interesting experience, not just in showing me ways I've changed as a writer. There are a lot of other changes too. Last September, we lost my mom-in-law. She was the bedrock of my husband's side of the family and navigating a post-Ellen world is just plain odd (when it isn't deeply sad). 

Tea with Mom Driks

I don't think I mentioned it on this blog, but we also welcomed another corgi into our family, Jelly Bean. Like my dearly departed Kit, she's a rescue. But she's *ahem* a lot more complicated than he was. I think we've finally got her used to the idea that this is her forever home (but she still thinks the ceiling fan is out to get her).

 

Don't let that cute face fool you. 

She's bossy and anxious.

I quipped on PS&U about the change in my all-time favorite book series. But in a lot of ways that change really does represent a lot of the ways I've changed. I was unaware about lot of things. I'd even say that I was a bit naive. Sure, I still love a generous dose of whimsy and magic. But these days, I relate better to sharply satirical (and hilarious) whimsy that isn't afraid to take a hard look at some of the biggest ways our world is broken. (That the author doesn't appear to be a massive jerk is a bonus too.) There's something to be said for whimsy as an act of defiance.

You will not break me

from Dungeon Crawler Carl

by Matt Dinniman

I think in most ways, I've become more solid in who I've always been. So what seem like changes on the outside feel more like coming home to myself.

One thing that absolutely hasn't changed is my love of tea. This piece was inspired by a recent trip to Shofuso, the Japanese house and garden in Philly. I actually haven't practiced tea there in ages. Of course, I've been practicing tea, but my tea teacher had the space to build a traditional Japanese tea room in her house. When changes occurred that limited our use of the rooms in Shofuso, the students of Philadelphia Urasenke just went to their tea teacher's homes instead (we have multiple teachers, all with their own tea rooms).

The reason for my visit was a bittersweet one. There was a memorial to honor the passing of two senior members of our tea school as well as the passing of Hounsai Hanso Soshitsu, the 15th generation Grand Tea Master of the Urasenke School. I never met the Grand Master, but Keijiroh and Terry were always very warm and kind people, thrilled to share their love of tea. Terry was the one who convinced me to step up and do public demonstrations. I'll be thinking of her at this year's Cherry Blossom festival, when I'll be doing a string of demos all day long.

Here are a few pictures of my visit:

So that's pretty much it for me. Thank you for reading this far! Anything new in your world? Let's talk about it in the comments.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Aiming Towards the Sun

 Aiming towards the sun,

the hawk shows dedication.

Cultivating grace

in those who witness her flight.

She shows the path to follow.

Photo by Rachel McDermott on Unsplash

Song Choice: Learning to Fly by Tom Petty

Liner Notes for This Groove: This tanka was written in honor of a fellow student of Japanese tea ceremony. She recently got her tea name. What that means is that she has practiced tea for a long enough time at a high enough skill level that she earned a name that shows she is part of the Urasenke tea school lineage. My tea teacher told me that in older times tanka poetry was sometimes composed in honor of students who achieve a high level of proficiency. I decided to try my hand at it. She seemed quite pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out (she had no idea I wrote poetry at all).

I am years (and years) away from earning my tea name, but I do hope that if I do earn one, it will be as lovely a celebration as we had for her.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Chado

In the sonnet of the ceremony
this restless girl
finds her heart
floating in the moment
water touches tea.

Photo by WELLSTUDIO on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Yume by Kalaido

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings Prompt, Hobby Time

Liminal Tea

I did not have a bowl of tea under the cherry blossoms on my birthday month in the way I had hoped. This spring’s strangeness outlasted both my birthday and those blooms, going past the scent of summer honeysuckle, and likely to linger after the veins of the last red leaf of autumn are crusted with frost. 

But the peace I find in my practice is also long lasting. Though the fall threatens more strange fruit and bitter harvests, though winter is a specter I can’t yet imagine, my battered mind finds a moment of respite in a space apart, created where the scent of matcha rises when water first meets it, and cradled in the sound of the whisk dancing in the bowl. And even if I cannot pass a bowl of tea to another’s appreciative hand, that rest found between the liminal spaces of foam and pouring water can travel freely for miles, any time to anyone who sets aside a corner of their heart for tea. 

I’ve learned to adapt,
mixing matcha for one. But
I can still share tea
steeped in my heart, an ocean
away, yet linked by spirit.

This was taken on the New Year's tea celebration my tea school holds every year.

It feels like a lifetime ago.

Song Choice: While My Guitar Gently Weeps performed by Prince, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and Others

Liner Notes for This Groove: This piece was created for the prompt given at Poets and Storytellers United's Weekly Scribblings #35, The Joy of Rest. It was also inspired by a request from my tea teacher. This September Urasenke North America is holding a chado relay, where they invite members from the different tea schools in North America to share images and words about their practice during these socially distanced times. I am a member of Urasenke Philadelphia and it will be our turn to share from the 7th to the 9th. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Evolution of a Chajin: Blogging Around with Rommy Week 44

Water touches tea

releasing its sweet fragrance.

Today I receive

instead of serve. I find joy

in others’ first tastes of art.

This poem is linked to Poets United's Pantry of Poetry and Prose

Liner Notes For This Groove: I remember when I first started tea lessons. There were so many terms to learn, so many small details of movement and positioning to keep straight. I may have responded in Spanish a few times when I was supposed to answer in Japanese. I may have mangled my Japanese so I told my guests to finish cleaning up for me. But the older more experienced students were there to give me tips on how to remember things, tricks for polishing my techniques, and just be generally helpful.

So recently I had a lesson where I was the most senior student. I did advance clean up to make the lessons flow more smoothly, just the way I remember some of the older students did for me. I lent out some of my tea things so the newer students could practice with them.

Now I’ve been studying long enough to know I’ve made decent progress in my personal practice. But being able to help really made me feel like I was part of the tea school in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I was part of the process of helping others learn, and that felt really cool. Sen Rikyu (the founder of the Urasenke Tea School) wrote many famous poems regarding the art of tea. In his 98^th poem he wrote, “Mastery in chanoyu is a matter of empathy, versatility, and experience. When these three are present and in balance, the person is capable of true understanding.”  I make no claims to mastery but I’m happy in knowing I’ve made enough advances in all three to feel a new sense of place in a larger tradition.

Yummy tea treats. One of the new students was helpful
in finding the best angle to take the picture.

So dear Groovers, what traditions are close to your heart? Talk to me about them in the comments section and do drop a link to your cyberhome if you want to take the conversation to a deeper place.

Song Choice: Be True to Your School by The Beach Boys

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Matcha, Hot: Blogging Around with Rommy Week 27

“When the going gets tough, the tough go to tea.” 
― Js Devivre, The Tea Traveller's Constant Companion: Oregon


Art brewed in the blood
won't lose sharpness or flavor
at temperature's whim.

Liner Notes For this Groove: I take the majority of my tea lessons in one of the prettiest places I know, Shofuso (the Japanese house and gardens in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park). But this last weekend wasn't the best time to practice there. More than half of the USA was going through a scorcher of a heat wave. I wasn't sure if lessons were going to be cancelled outright, so I emailed my teachers to ask if the small utility room we sometimes used in the winter might be a better choice. They thought that was a good idea, so lessons were on.

Even with the venue change, I didn't expect too many people to make it. It was still a nasty day and the room's air conditioner could best be described as well-meaning. But it was a pretty full shed house, with a bunch of newer students (I was actually the most experienced one who showed). Even in a stuffy room, humid enough to make the tea clump and the tools stick to your hands a bit, we all enjoyed our lessons.

So dear Groovers, how was your weekend? Hopefully it was less melty than mine! Let's talk about it in the comments section. As always, feel free to drop a link to your cyber home if you'd like to continue the discussion there.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode

One Seed, Ten Thousand Seeds: Blogging Around with Rommy Week 18

The shade of a blessed tree watches over the seedlings that came from one righteous act. One of six thousand good deeds seems so small against the six million lost in lightning and storms, in the showers that choked. But to see the seedlings growing strong and true to their roots, in this place where my grafted limbs have been trained to do justice to the sublime green—this sends a fresh seed into my heart for me to treasure when I am weary in the fight for the soil I’ve been planted in.

A modest hero

defined by quiet resolve

and strange defiance

inspires my jaded heart

to go and resist again.

Song Choice: The Change by Garth Brooks

Liner Notes for This Groove: I was so very honored to be part of a special friendship tea ritual Urasenke Philadelphia held in honor of the son of Chiune Sugihara (a Japanese diplomat who saved 6,000+ Jews during WWII) and the son of one of the people he saved, Rabbi Shimon Goldman. I’ve often had reason to agree with the quote “Where there is tea, there is hope” by Arthur Wing Pinero. But I felt especially hopeful serving tea that afternoon.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

This was the set up we used for the ceremony. I know it isn't very visible but the script on the tea container translates to "One Seed, Ten Thousand Seeds." Tea tools are chosen very carefully to suit the occasion. I think that this was the perfect tea container for that day.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

This poem is linked to Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads' Tuesday Platform.

How's your week been dear Groovers? Anything making you feel a little hopeful? Catch me up with your world in the comments section. And feel free to work in a link in your comments if you want to take the discussion onto your cyberhome.

Express Yourself: Blogging Around With Rommy, Week 4

I can only art

droplets of my own heart’s blood

to paint full color.

This poem is linked to Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads: Tuesday Platform and Poets United Poetry Pantry 439.

Liner Notes for this Groove:

You might think that studying Japanese tea ceremony only involves the study of tea.

*tries to refrain from laughing and spitting out a perfectly good mouthful of tea*

If, as Mary Lou Heiss said, “A simple cup of tea is far from a simple matter”, preparing a bowl of matcha in the traditional manner is exponentially more complicated than that. Firstly, aside from learning how to whip the perfect bowl of tea, you get an education in appreciating pottery, incense, calligraphy, confection making, flower arranging, poetry and kimono wearing. All these related arts have their own sets of rules and traditions around them.

Take kimonos for instance. You should choose your kimono based on the season and the type of gathering you will be at. But even within the rules, there is room for a self-expression. My tea teacher had a kimono I loved, white with a pretty geometric pattern sprinkled with tiny books. I say had, because last Saturday, she handed it down to me. Now it is a casual kimono because of the print, but I’m going to love wearing it because, well, I kind of feel like it’s another way to bring a bit of who I am to the art form that is Japanese tea ceremony.

I cannot get over how cute this is.

It’s true that some of the best art really requires at least some (if not all) of the artist’s heart to bring it to life. And by heart, I mean feeling. Anyone can truthfully describe a laundry-list of observations they make. Even if it’s all technically correct, it’s about as moving as a dead battery. Show how those things make you feel. As for me, that element of a perfectly suited for me kimono will likely make me smile bigger, and possibly give my wrist a little more happy energy with which to whip the matcha.

So Groovers, how do you like to express your unique style? If you have a cyberhome, elaborate on that in the comments section and be generous and share your cyber address so we can stop by and say hey. As always you can just chat about what’s new with you there too. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Express Yourself by Madonna 

Peace in a Bowl

When you serve tea to your guests, you should simply serve tea from your heart, and think about nothing more.

-Poem 93 of Sen Rikyu

I’ve spent years learning

how to set aside my worries at the teahouse door,

and lose myself

in the sound of pouring water

and the scent of matcha rising from the bowl.

Some days that isn’t easy.

The world likes to devour souls by bits

and I can’t drink enough tea

to wash the bitter taste from my mouth.

It is then I remember

tea bowls were meant for sharing.

The art of tea cannot be measured

by the strokes of my whisk

or the thickness in the folds of my cloth.

But it can be fairly gauged

by the smile on my guest’s face.

The peace that eluded me

roots in them, multiplies,

and finally alights in me.

When we leave the teahouse

we both carry more than enough

peace to share, where before there was turmoil.

Song Choice: I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing by the Seekers. 

This poem is linked up to Poets United, Midweek Motif and dVerse, OLN 234.

Notes from the Real World (if you’re just here for the poetry, feel free to skip this part, though I expect MissWicked ought to read it, since she’s the one who challenged me to do it): This poem was inspired by one of three scrolls that were shared by my tea school last year. They were meant to inspire peace in the hearts of people who saw them. My fellow students and I were tasked with serving tea while visitors came to admire the scroll. I admit my mood was cynical before I walked in the door (because hey, 2017 gave people a lot to be cynical about), but as the day progressed, I found myself becoming more peaceful with each bowl of tea I made, and living up to the words on the scroll—providing a small seed of peace for everyone who walked through Shofuso’s doors, and seeing folks leave carrying a bit of that peaceful spirit that (hopefully) they could share with others.

Now of course, 2017 doesn’t hold a monopoly on my moods of cynicism and doubt. Although I’m just coming out of the experience of finishing and publishing a short story collection, a giant cloud with the words “What’s next?” seems to have followed me around from the moment I clicked the button to officially release the book out into the world. The good news is I have lots of ideas. The bad news is that they all are spinning around me like a cyclone of bright shiny things I can reach towards but can’t quite grab. I’m overwhelmed.

The idea of achieving world peace is exponentially more overwhelming, but in that afternoon at Shofuso, I know that I along with my fellow tea students created a haven where peace could quietly slip into someone’s heart, and that peace could spread to people they interacted with later. If such a simple act can do that, maybe it’s not too far-fetched of an idea to take a moment or two to give myself the gift of tea, savor it, and see what comes from that. It’s worth a shot.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Momentary

Matcha's perfume wafts
from cradled porcelain bowl
tasting of springtime.
My spirit needs this moment
to remember my purpose.

A sketch of one of my newest tea bowls

Song Choice: A Little Too Much by Shawn Mendes

This poem was created from a prompt given by me over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads: Creature Comforts. Hop on to the pond to see what the rest of the toads have to say on the topic of comforts. It is also linked to Poets United Poetry Pantry 380.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Simple Gentility

To discerning hearts,

meek field strewn peasants ascend

to tea house nobles.

 My flower arrangement for tea ceremony. 

Process note: The art of arranging flowers for tea is called chabana, and it is customary to use simple seasonal flowers, even weeds and grass so long as they aren't fragrant, in the arrangement. 

Song Choice: Simple Gifts by Yo Yo Ma and Alison Krauss

This poem is in response to the prompt given at Imaginary Gardens for Real Toads: Weeds in the Garden.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

The S Word

I pride myself on being a relatively intelligent person, but know I can be a stubborn one as well. For some some time now I've been thinking it might be best to go on a s-s- *cough* schedule. *shudders* (OK one of my friends has been strongly hinting it might be a help and I've finally decided to listen).

I don't know why the idea of a schedule (ugh!) makes me cringe so. It may be a tiny bit of defiance left over from my teen years where I insisted I was clever enough to get everything I needed to get done in time (usually at the last minute) and still get A's. My youthful arrogance got a hard smack of reality once I hit college. Oh I still did well, as long as I kept some sort of system to organize things.

So fast forward to today. I have so many things I want to learn and do in this lifetime and it has become sadly apparent I can't do them all. I need to prioritize (*pouts*) and organize (*cries*). I love writing, but I need to keep "office hours" that stay more or less steady and mesh with my other responsibilities (work, being a mom, being a wife). Organization sounds overly confining and limiting, especially when talking about artistic endeavors, but it also is a pretty good way to make sure I have time to enjoy doing what it is I like doing. 

I started feeling better about this whole organizing business when I put down my writing hours for both prose and poetry (as one of the newest Toads in the Imaginary Garden, I'm stoked to regularly participate there and over in Dash of Sunny as well). I scheduled in some review time for my other interests (shimmy drills, Japanese tea ceremony postures, and doodling all get their quick bursts of review time as a reward for other hard work). While a lot of my daily spiritual practices are reflexive at this point, I set aside some time for some extra development of knowledge bases I was interested in exploring. I even managed to formalize the way I do chores a bit better.

Yay, doodle time! 

So yes, I'm still a little leery about the whole schedule thing, but I've promised myself that I can be flexible and adjust things as time goes on. I also plan on giving myself goof off days once a month just to know there'll be one day I can bum around and do nothing if I want to. I'm cautiously optimistic this will all work out and that far from being rained upon, the passions in my life will march on in an orderly parade, rather than bang into each other like angry moshers. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Don't Rain On My Parade

Beauty and Tea

The chajin seeks an atypical sense of perfection, not in symmetry, but in the beauty of nature. Too ruthless a concept of loveliness will keep you from appreciating the charm of an odd shaped bowl, mismatched tea tools and a well-loved vase. There is nothing we can point to as the perfect tree or the perfect flower, but yet we are moved by their beauty even with the lack of a hard measure of it. This concept of beauty applies outside the tearoom as well. To love someone does not require perfection, in lover or beloved, but appreciation of the oddities, quirks and glitches, yet still finding them lovely.

In uneven bowls,

and in my beloved’s smile,

I find perfection

Song Choice: You Are the Beauty by Gungor

I purchased this beautiful tea bowl from Art to Hold. It has it's own bit of history

Process note: Chajin literally means "tea person", one who studies the art of tea

This haibun is inspired by the prompt given over at A Dash of Sunny. This week's topic for Prompt Night is perfection

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

A Thing To Wear

Lately I've been trying to wear full kimono to tea ceremony classes as a way to improve my technique. Some may joke, "How hard can that be? It's just wearing a robe, isn't it?" And I might even laugh back - through decidedly gritted teeth.

There's an art to kimono wearing, and it's a whole lot fussier than it might seem at first glance. A multitude of rules govern the proper wearing of one; there are schools that specialize in teaching people all the smallest details that take months, even years to complete. And if you're woman, the details of proper kimono wearing increase exponentially. Sometimes I look at the guys in my tea ceremony class, wishing I knew the Japanese version of "lucky bastards" so I could mutter it under my breath. They pretty much can stick to the same navy/gray/ brown color scheme year round while I'm scrambling to make sure the motifs in my kimono or it's style don't clash with the theme of the current time of year and coordinate with my obi.

I'm always a little surprised when people can't tell the difference between men's and women's kimono, though then again I've had more exposure to the culture than others have had. When I wrote my first Yuuki story around 10 years ago I played around with the idea of Westerners being somewhat clueless regarding this. I also thought the story was done as it was, until a certain Instigator insisted there was a bigger story in there. I mulled over her input and a.) realized the Instigator was right (stop cackling you!) and b.) while the other characters in the original story could plausibly be ignorant about the differences in kimono, as I expanded out the world it made no sense that no one else knew. 

So I played around with his (yes his) back story a bit, researched some and discovered that while Yuuki generally identifies as male, he's fascinated with onagata of the Edo era, popular male actors skilled at impersonating females. To him, they are sort of kindred spirits, being able to change their appearance if not as easily as a kitsune might, still with a certain level of skill. This draws him to a more colorful and fem aesthetic. That tweaks things only a tiny bit from my original story (which I haven't published here or anywhere as of yet, and as the Instigator suggested might be more novella or even novel length rather than short story length - stop cackling already!) but I'm glad that I took the time to get to understand Yuuki better to give him the story he deserves. It also made me appreciate the prettiness of my kimono more, and I do feel pretty when I wear them. But I still feel exasperated when I have to fold them; there are rules for that too. 

Fan Print #2 (Uchiwa-e) by Toyohara Kunichika (an onigata with a lover)

Song Choice: I Feel Pretty

Update From the Real World

I think this might be my first blog post about real world happenings in a while. I've been really focused on living up to the promise I made to myself to get enough short stories written to have a real *gulp* book ready for publication. I have two stories that need a second run through, a Yuuki story that is ready for another pair of eyes besides mine, a Rina story started and notes/ outlines on a couple more stories, including a Cordelia one. I originally thought I'd have seven in this collection, but that might be too little. I'll have to see what all of them look like once they've been edited at least once before I decide.

In between writing, I've been working on tea and belly dance. I find I can write a bit better if I keep active in between writing sessions. I think I'm finally getting this new tea form, which means they'll be throwing another one at me soon. Also I had the chance to play with my veil fans again on Monday night lesson. I forgot how much I loved working with those props. It makes me want to dust off the routine I choreographed for them awhile back.

I'll be back with a new poem for the blog soon. In the meantime, let me know if you'd like to see more real world updates from me from time to time.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Tea sweets from a recent lesson. The classmate who made them is quite talented!

Song Choice: Here I Am by Sertab (this is the song I choreographed the veil fan routine to)

The Waiting

I am in the process of purging myself of a pesky habit. I wouldn't even call it a bad habit necessarily, but a bit like a bad habit, giving it too much space in my life eats up time and energy better spent someplace else. Habits like that are like little mice in a granary. The whole harvest may not be ruined or lost but those pesky things nibble at the good and poop where you don't want them to.

It's not a big deal. I've done this with little peccadilloes before (I love that word by the way - it makes me think of little sins anthropomorphized to resemble a cross between a woodpecker and an armadillo - yes I am weird). In a month, it won't be a thought. But it's that annoying time between now and the end of the month's waiting, when it's still a thing, when it's still pecking at you - bah! It makes me want to wish the time away to the end of that month.

Which is stupid really. There'd be a lot of awesome I'd miss in that month like:

-playing with the kids
-quality time with the hubby
-a cool day trip into Jersey to a Japanese marketplace with an old friend
-a cool weekend trip to New York where I'll meet a new friend
- books to read (I am loving Stardust!)
-bellydance class
-tea ceremony class

Alas, there is nothing for it but to take the slow path. The month will come and go faster than I expected, with fun experiences to fill it up and the absence of a mutant woodpecker-armadillo to celebrate.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Changing the collar or New Year's Tea

This weekend I had a chance to go to a formal Japanese style New Year's banquet. There was delicious food, all traditionally served at Japanese feasts like this. I finally wore a full kimono for the first time (with a LOT of help from a fellow tea student who took formal lessons in kimono wearing - yes, it's that involved you need a class)

The hearth, where the symbolic laying of new charcoal happened.

No tea is complete without this area, displaying a poem that matches the season and seasonal flowers/ fruit. Yep, some times of year you can even use bare branches, but the orange was more auspicious for the lucky new year's symbolism

There are certain rules about kimonos and kimono wearing (hence why some people, like my classmate, go and take a series of classes on it). The idea shape for kimono wearing is perfectly cylindrical, so if, ahem, one's natural form isn't disposed that way, you have to try to make it so. Ladies with generous endowments on top can wear a sports bra and padding around the middle (yep, you read that right - it's OK to make yourself bigger around the middle to get it to lay right). All the various strings holding the thing together are tied very tight around the middle, with the corset, I mean obi, securing and concealing it all. 

I thought the trouble with getting through the ceremony would be dealing with my knees while kneeling. Nope. It was the top of my feet that hurt most when I was in proper position, with my breathing feeling less than optimal while wearing the tight obi when I shifted to sit side saddle.

There are also rules about what sort of kimonos and obis are right for which occasions. I found it was best to run things past the more experienced students first or  have buyer's remorse later. For instance, I fell in love with and bought a gorgeous obi, only to find it was really not suited for a tea student, but for a geisha. (I may display it in my home in some way - it's too pretty not to).

 The other thing I learned was about the collars on the under kimono. White is more appropriate for tea (white with embroidery is OK). The under kimono I got a good deal on? Black collar - only appropriate for a funeral.

Fortunately that was an easy fix. Collars are made to be removable and therefore easily washable. Considering the year I just finished up, there seemed to me to be something very symbolic about removing a collar meant for mourning to add one on to go to a celebration of new beginnings. There's so very much I had to leave behind last year, so many endings to mourn.

But the new collar went on easily. I got complimented on my kimono and I had a very lovely time discussing pottery, tea and even Magic the Gathering. And the food was amazing.

Here's to the New Year. It's gonna a be a bright sunshiny one, despite the damn polar vortex.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Starry Wanderer or Name That Bowl!

One of the steps in the tea ceremony ritual is to take time to admire the tools used. Called haiken, it's a chance for the guests to take a close look at the items and for the guest to explain a bit about them, how they were made, their history, etc. The last tea ceremony practice I went to I had a chance to bring in a bowl I bought. And it definitely had a story behind it.

I first fell in love with this bowl while browsing the net when my friend Oolong was over.

The picture is from the Etsy shop I bought it from, Art To Hold

 I have a weakness for things with a celestial or star motif and this bowl just called to me. Tea bowls are not exactly inexpensive things, and at the time, I thought I'd put off getting it. But when a few weeks later I was in need of retail therapy (this was about the time my family got the news a very close friend of the family was nearing the end of his battle with Lou Gherig's Disease) I remembered this bowl. My friend loved the night sky as much as I did but for very different reasons (mine more metaphysical and his very strictly scientific). So I bought it.

And I waited...and waited...and waited...

Somehow, for some reason still unknown to me, Etsy grabbed an old address to send it to, my parents' old home half a fair sized state away. Never mind that I had placed an order just a week before and it came to my home just fine, as had the all the other orders I had ever made through Etsy.

I contacted the seller, who was super sweet about the whole thing (really I can't plug his store, Art To Hold enough - if anyone out there is in the market for a Japanese chawan or tea bowl, do check his shop out). He helped me track down phone numbers for the post office to try to sort things out. I got a hold of an actual human being at the post office near my folks old place and she found the package and pulled it so it could be sent to the correct address, no additional charge to me or the Etsy seller.

And then I waited...and waited...and waited...

Somehow, for reasons slightly less obscure but no less frustrating, my bowl got caught up in some strange sorting process based on the bar codes on it and kept pinging back and forth between a few different post offices. It got as close as Philadelphia before it got bounced back to somewhere else it wasn't supposed to go. I got to be quite friendly with the postal employee I has contacted initially. We apparently were both big tea lovers. She collected tea pots and one of her most cherished pieces had come from Japan. I actually talked to her the day my friend died and her kindness then, as well as throughout the whole thing, is something that will stay with me.

Finally - on my son's birthday which happened to coincide with a full moon no less - the bowl arrived in one piece at my home. The first person to drink from it? My friend's daughter, who loves Japan the way I and her mother do and loves the stars the way her father did.

My cha-do set, with it's snazzy new bowl.

So I related this whole story to my tea class and finished with "It really needs a name after all it's been through." (It's pretty common for distinctive tea tools to be given names). I asked the Japanese speakers how they might translate "Starry Wanderer" in Japanese - and got blank looks. Some concepts are hard to translate, but I may play with it it until I find a good translation. In the meanwhile, although it doesn't have a Japanese name, it does have a song.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: The Wanderer by Dion

Frothing maddness

Its not quite yet 90 degrees on this sticky Philadelphia morning. A slight breeze relieves my skin every now and again, but its more of a tease. It comes and then goes quickly leaving me to the not so tender mercies of summer. I squirm slightly; I still lack the discipline to be able to sit seiza for a full ceremony, even a beginner one like the one we are practicing. Sighing, I focus on the anticipation of receiving the bowl of emerald goodness being prepared for me now. 

My love affair with Japan has been going on for quite some time now. Like most Gen-Xers, I can probably trace the roots back to some piece of offbeat bit of animation that distinguished itself from everything else on American TV at the time. Battle of the Planets, Voltron, Star Blazers, Speed Racer, might be the most common titles you hear. My favorite was the genre defining Ribon No Kishi with it's daring sword-wielding and cross dressing princess. But of course, not every Gen-Xer takes it as far as I do.

O-shoban itashimasu (Thank you for letting me join you.)

At some point, I got drawn in by Japan's legends and mythology. I got to appreciating it's ancient stories as well as it's modern ones. Had I been in college when this happened, I likely would have studied the Japanese language formally. But I satisfied myself by buying textbooks, flash cards and learning games to work with on my own. I became interested in Japan's native religion, Shintoism, reading all I could find about it. While that was great, it couldn't give me the full understanding I desired - I felt that would require a teacher (it's one of the reasons that though I like and admire what I've read on Shinto very much, I could not honestly consider myself a Shintoist). The Philadelphia area doesn't have any Shinto temples but it does have a vibrant Japanese cultural society. I had read that formal Japanese tea ceremony lessons were a good way to learn not just a small aspect  of Japanese culture, but also that is was a good way to get a bit of insight into the philosophies and mindset that permeate Japan's religious thought. That attracted me. Well that, and the fact I really like tea.

O-temae chodai itashimasu (Thank you very much for preparing the tea.)

It was a little daunting, learning all the motions at first. There seem to be so many of them, but after a while I came to understand that each of the movements has a purpose; the ceremony was designed to be as efficient as possible. It certainly doesn't feel that way at the start! Aside from the hand and arm motions, it takes quite a bit of getting used to sitting in the proper position and then rising gracefully, so as not to shower your fellow students in warm rinse water as you exit. Also, it's not always easy getting up extra early on a Saturday morning to drive an hour into the city. My mother, who has teasingly called me "Bruce Leroy" after the character in Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon, shakes her head at this latest passion of mine. (Hey mom, Bruce Leroy was technically all into Chinese culture, not Japanese 'kay?).

Yes, it is weird getting up early, driving a good distance to consume a boiling hot beverage on days when even my dog would rather be inside. It isn't logical. But then again, what great passions in our lives really are?  I almost think for it to really be a true passion, there must be just a touch of madness.


Finally it is my turn to get my bowl. I turn it the way I have been instructed after saying the proper polite lines. The tea looks and smells perfect with it's bit of froth floating on top. I raise my bowl, and although this isn't officially part of the ceremony I always mentally say, itadekimasu (literally, I receive). 

This posting is part of the fabulous Mad Tea Party 2013 blog party. Follow the link and take a peek at some of the other amazingly fun postings going on today