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Tiny Traveling Tearoom!!!

7/23/2016

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Dear Friends of Traveling Shrine,
My dream that has been 11 years in the making is close to coming true. I am building a tiny traveling tearoom, my real "Traveling Shrine," a place of tea, peace, prayer, and magic ON WHEELS! With this tiny traveling tearoom I will be able to bring my love of tea with me wherever I go, sharing it far and wide. This powerful vision has been circulating round my heart for so long, and now it is becoming palpable and actual. I already have the trailer and the tools, but I need more help.  Please visit my GoFundMe campaign and send your support today.  
Thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart (and from the bottom of my cup of tea!) 
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Was St. Valentine an Aquarius?

2/4/2016

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I have always considered it strange that Valentine’s day happens during Aquarius season.  On the one publically sanctioned holy-day for love, why didn’t we choose a date when the sun is in Libra or Taurus, the two signs ruled by Venus? At least it would be warmer! Yet Valentine’s day is really more about romance--the idealized concept of love, the story of love, rather than Libra’s art or Taurus’ sensuality. Since it’s more about a universal idea than a personal one, it resonates surprisingly well with the humanitarian characteristics of Aquarians. Strangely enough, there are also Aquarian elements in the story of Valentinus of Rome, for whom the holiday is named.

Aquarians are often labeled as being “cool, aloof, detached,” yet Aquarians tend to be some of the most friendly, warm-hearted and romantic folks I know.  Their reputation for aloofness comes from their natural observational qualities in which they are able to view the entire picture from an objective standpoint. Unlike their Leo opposites, they tend not to get dramatic, which can be misinterpreted as “lack of interest” (the cool reputation) but is much more often a result from seeing what’s collectively happening rather than being mired in the personal.

Aquarius is a fixed air sign, which means fixed ideals. Aquarians are the rebels, dreamers, reformers, humanitarians, the romantics. Fixed signs (those that fall in the middle portion of a season) have a quality of steadfastness, stability, and (at worse) rigidity to their element. How could one ever “fix” the air (keeping in mind the definition of fix that means to hold steadily, to set in place definitively)?  Perhaps it is only through the individual breath that air can ever be held steadily, even if only for an instant, through song, through sighs, through the explosion of words. It is the cry of the infant, as well as the rebel, that says “I am here in this world.” Though individually experienced, breath implies presence, connection to a larger sphere, and even the humanitarian ideal that we all have a right to breathe free.

The collective air which we all breathe thus moves in through one’s own unique form, symbolized here by the Aquarius, in whom the personal becomes the universal very quickly again in the outbreath. Aquarians view the world with that particular spirit (or breath) towards making it better, in whatever way that means to the native. Therefore, love is never just love--it is beyond a concept, but always something bigger and fitting with a bigger picture. It is not love embodied or love performed, it is Love with a capital ‘L’ (perhaps ever seemingly out of reach).

Indeed, Aquarian natives generally have strong romantic sides and tend to idealize their mates. They can even become fixated, stuck on the pure vision of their beloved even when the said person falls short. Think knights and their pure chaste love of their ladies, poets spouting forth stanza after stanza for their muses, bards and their love songs. They are the ones who will make the dramatic gesture, the rebellious move; they are the Romeos who will go against their family, the Dantes going to hell and back for their Beatrices.  Our culture is (over-)inundated with these visions of love, and though romantic love is so darn lovely and important, it ought to be balanced by the two other forms of love--platonic and fatuous--in order to make a balanced relationship.  We often fall out of infatuation and are lost, which is when Robert Johnson says that we need a “stirring the oatmeal” kind of love, a love that is about two regular humans not two fantasy characters.

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Though there were various early Christian martyrs named Valentinus, most of our current February 14th traditions follow Saint Valentine of Rome. Legends speak of Valentine as ministering to Christians, converting Romans to Christianity, and performing marriage rites for soldiers--all of which was forbidden under the Roman Empire and thus the grounds for his eventual execution. But before he died, he healed his jailer's daughter of blindness and supposedly sent her the first ever “Valentine’s day card” (at that point just a note signed “your Valentine”).  According to legend, he paper hearts that characterize Valentine's day come from parchment hearts that he would give to those in his ministry to remind them of of God’s love. The love in this story isn't sensual love; it's not about chemistry, physical affection, or even partnership or relationship. It's "pure" love, "chaste" love, poetic love, inspired love--romantic love.

This is what fascinates me about this account: it is still not so much about personal love as it is about the ideal of love--God’s love, even. And yet, the love was very real to Valentine, his personal passion.  Valentine was no Casanova, but he was a rebel, an idealist, a reformer. Like the chivalrous knights that would follow in years to come, he would die for his noble romantic cause. Sound familiar? Though his birthday is unknown, he could very well be an Aquarius.

Speaking of Romans, the word romance comes from 1300 meaning “a story written about a hero or knight,” which can be traced through French back to romanice scribere, Latin, meaning “to write in in the Roman style.” Romance implies story, specifically tracing back to the early transcribed narrative of chivalrous knights and heroes.  Specifically, a fixed story--affixed to the page by writing, affixed by time. (And here I must add the side note that Aquarians are often victims of their own fixed stories!) Yet the root of story is breath moving into form, into ideas, before the written page even existed. The root of story is the hero, the rebel, the one who dares to love despite all odds. Sin bravely! Valentine’s day is too often dichotomized into “have loves” and “have nots”--we all have a fire to steal from the Gods as Prometheus did. What makes your own inner bard sing, your own inner rebel act out, your own inner knight set forth? What are your own heart images to send into the world? ​​

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A Tale of Three Chanoyus

6/14/2014

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    There's a root poetry to place.  Something slightly more solid than the ephemeral everyday etcetera of existence.  Perhaps it is because the land continues on without us, bearing only, if we're lucky, bare bones and tokens. Or perhaps it is because places teach us that we are always, by mere fact of existing, participants in larger, living ecosystems, within myriad circumferences of "where."  Even the constant traveler, claiming no home except for the ever shifting road, comes into and out of life at two particular and precise geographical points, the birth place and death place.  As such, no creature born into this earth can ever really be uprooted from it: we are all earthlings and universelings.  The precise moment that we pour a cup of tea, wherever we are, we are pinning that moment upon the earth, we are drinking in the surroundings, we are creating a moveable tearoom and temple that changes in every new place. 
    Like any being or story, tea is shaped by the environment.  This not only accounts for the variety of tea cultivars and tea characteristics, all of which depend on regional factors for their taste and energy, but the variety of experiences we can have depending on the environment in which we enjoy it.  Long Jing does not come from Japan, nor can true Sencha come from China.  The mountains that give Taiwanese oolongs their lush floral misty lore are different than those that imbue a similar floral taste into the rolled oolongs of China's Fujian province.
In Hawaiian tea, we taste the volcanic soil, the salt air, the minerals.  In Pu Er teas, we taste the wild ancient jungles of Xishuangbanna.  Beyond these considerations of place which shape the tea itself, we must consider the place where these sacred leaves are infused and imbibed. The same tea is apt to taste different if prepared in different locales, or in different ways.  A tea might taste different in the tearoom than it does at home or out on a cha xi adventure. Kakuzō Okakura's seminal text on Japanese tea aesthetics, The Book of Tea (1906), stresses that the setting in which we enjoy tea is almost as important, if not more important, than the tea itself.  This refers to both external and internal places or settings: one has to create the proper mindset in order to truly enjoy tea. 
    This is because we recreate the universe in each Chanoyu: the placement of each instrument is just so.  We set flowers to keep alignment between the inner and outer worlds, between self and nature.  We consciously recognize that we are all guests and visitors in this transient moment, rooted in a tearoom that is also just a transient moment, made of natural materials that decay over time.  The acknowledgement and bowing to place that is so present in the tea ceremony brings an alignment that is so often absent or vastly under-appreciated in our modern Western lives.  While we think of ourselves as living in a certain place, most of us do not bow to the land as we once did, centuries ago, consciously appreciating being a part of it, thanking it for its gift of food, or watching the stars change from a fixed spot in order to understand that the earth, like us, is also living as a smaller part of a much larger existence.  Without these conscious reminders, we are apt to lose perspective.  And without true perspective, we are more apt to hurt each other and the earth.
    To better understand the nature of how place and the tea experience are connected, I performed three chanoyu ceremonies, one on a mountaintop, one at a resevoir, and one by an urban waterfall. 


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Mountaintop: Dragonesque
    These places all have meaning for me, but Camel's Hump has perhaps the deepest root: I have climbed its slopes every year since I was a little girl, and probably also once or twice in utero.  When I made this ascent with my tea gear clanking in my backpack, it was one of those saturatingly humid Vermont summer days, and by the time I reached the top I was absolutely breathless, and not just because of the breathtaking views.  With gummy legs and spiraling head, I tried to find a flat spot for chanoyu that was not too close to the edge but away from the crowd--though the second highest peak in Vermont, Camel's Hump may well be the most popular mountain, and there were several people at the summit.
    There, at the edge of the mountain, where I could feel the humid landscape spiraling beneath me, the tea experience was one that I might describe as "dragonesque."  After only one sip, I was flying! The force of the earth, the power of the winds, and the sheer vertiginous feeling combined to make my frothy green cup a sort of anchor, but an anchor into the air, an anchor into the feeling of powerful flight.  The rocks' lichen were the same color as the tea, and the neighboring peaks seemed to be heaped in the powdery green goodness, an external reflection of the beautiful heaps of matcha in the natsume. Even with the sparse and rather uneven placement of the utensils, with the winds tearing at the fukusa and spinning the chashaku, this ceremony remains singular in my mind as one of the most utterly shamanic tea experiences I've ever had. 

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Reservoir:  Liquid Heart

I spent almost every day of last summer at Essex's Indian Brook Reservoir
, and, as such, it became my "go to" spot for a quick dip, or a long dreamy sunny sojourn.  The waters here are very clean, and always seem to be at a perfect temperature, and it's easy for a good swimmer to swim across the reservoir to the rocks and outcroppings on the other side and back.  I remember one day approaching dusk, I sat quietly, overhanging my feet off a rock and into the waters.  I was singing softly.  Slowly, several (at least ten) rainbow trout began to approach my feet and started giving them soft bites and nips, thinking they were food.  It tickled.  I would have been able to easily snatch one up for dinner, if I weren't vegan: the fish got lucky that day.
    Setting up for the simple ceremony was easy here. I created a flat surface with the help of a lovely granite stone, and the raging winds of the mountaintop were now but mere zephyrs.  As expected, my chanoyu experience was deeply nourishing and peaceful in this place.  The emerald brew in the chawan seemed to ripple with a sweetness matched by the lovely Indian Brook waters, as if they were part of the same essence, and I was drinking from the reservoir itself.  My body felt at ease and relaxed from my frolicksome hours of swimming in which I had just indulged, and the tea imparted a sort of dreaminess, a gentleness inviting me into a more subtle awareness, a more still presence.  Just as all summer I dove into the clear waters and felt them fill my soul up with the blessing of water, of purification and peace, I felt this bowl of matcha fill me up with a liquid-hearted nurturing, a green surrender to peace.

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Waterfall:
Ebullience Centered

The Winooski river is a sacred river.  Once, the Abenaki people had a thriving settlement, named for the wild onions that grew along the banks.  This is why Winooski is called "Onion River City."   In the fertile river valley just below these cascades, in the flood plains of the Intervale, modern farmers benefit from the same flow of the river's water.  However, the waters have not always been beneficent: in the flood of 1927, the waters here rose so high that they obliterated the bridge, ravaged the entire first floor of the woolen mill, and killed 55 people.
    For nearly five years I have lived in an apartment only a few streets away from these captivating cascades, and have been blessed to watch the changes
in the mighty waterfall's flow through the seasons.  In the winter, the ice and snow make long white canyons through which the ever flowing waters glisten.  In the spring, they are furious and terrifying in their bursting forth.  And in the summer, their mellifluous tumbling fills the spirit with a soft laughter and a sense that all things pass into radiance.
    In the full swing of summer, I never let a sunset go by without taking time to soak in some sun, and the Winooski shines with a passion during these golden hours before dusk.  Sweetly, on one of the flat rocks that jut out into its upper rapids, I laid out my wares, without worrying too much about what the Winooski residents along the banks would think of this ritual equipment.  I began, and felt a centering, much like the way one senses the sun from closed eyes:  a warm knowing, an inner reflection.  The little splashes of spray from the falls tickled me as I performed the ceremony, like wee waterfall sprites come to join in the jade green goodness.  Perhaps it was the musky aroma of the water reeds and river muck, but there was something more "alive" to this bowl of matcha: something was moving, changing, growing in the whisked broth.  A flow from stagnant water to bubbling rapids and transformed into pure joy.  As I tasted the fern-green infusion, surrounded on all sides by merry swirls and eddies, I felt the ebullience heightened by this act of centering, the taste more sparkly and yet simultaneously more like a rich verduous silt.  The sun almost setting, the air the perfect temperature for my skin, I sighed into the paradoxical presence of river wisdom: so close to home, so dear to my heart, so clear in its direction, and yet always different, always changing.  The waterfall is a macrocosmic manifestaion of the step in which we let water tumble down from wooden ladle (hishaku) into the chawan, an act of honoring gravity, honoring the way that water descends to fill whatever form it is given.  When water falls, whether in rapids or rain, flowers and onions grow. 

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I invite you to taste the different places in tea, and taste teas in different places.  Before you drink your next cup of tea, be aware of where you are: take note of how the tea cup sits upon the table, the table upon the floor, the floor upon the earth, the earth upon the stars.  What are the smells and sounds and thoughts and presences that are being invited into the tea cup, invited into this moment of tea and being?  Imagine all the places that come together into the singular first sip:  far off mountainsides full of fog, rivers which fed the clouds which fed the leaves, cliffs, terraces, way-stations where the tea stopped over as it was being shipped, a small village, a huge tea factory, all the places visited by the mind as you sip, memories, visions, places real and imagined and the lack of difference between them, landscapes of our emotions, corners of the inner world, tea shrines of the heart and soul. If our minds and hearts can stretch enough, seeing further and further connections of "this place" to all places, and all place, we can realize that all of existence resides in the cup we hold in our hands.
    We can't always make it to a mountaintop, waterfall, or reservoir, though we can invoke these beautiful places in our imaginations.  But rather than trying to be somewhere else,  perhaps there are gifts all around us, right here, waiting to be recognized, no matter where we are.  Notice.  The deeper we connect to where we are, the more we can see how much we all belong to this moment, this lifetime, this universe, this place.


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    Jane Beaumont Snyder:
    writer, tea nerd, opera singer, astrologer, yogini, oneironaut, diverse diviner, vegan, reiki practitioner, massage therapist, gardener, and dancer. Angel-wrestler.  

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