Friday Ramble - Tea and Redemption

The world outside is still dark, and the village is a collection of indistinct shapes and muffled sounds. A waning yellow moon is visible behind the whiskery trees in the garden. In the early hours of the day, the kitchen is a place of shadows, and I lean sleepily against the counter, my bones, sinews and joints protesting the weather. Summer seems like a lovely dream from long ago and very far away.

How does one banish inclement conditions at such times? Looking for a fine hot potion to start the day and drown my doldrums, I rattle around in the larder, opening canister after canister and sniffing them appreciatively. Freshly ground espresso? Royal Cream Earl Grey? Constant Comment? Cloudberry (Arpiqutik) or Crowberry (Paurngaqutik)? Rooibos? Ginseng? Lapsang Souchong? Perhaps a simple Orange Pekoe?

The last container is way in the back of the tea cupboard, and it holds little nubbins of dried chrysanthemum buds, rustling gently. When I open it, the dry golden fragrance of last summer wafts out, and for a moment, I hear tinkling bells and exotic musics. I am not sure why, but for some reason, the late Margaret Lawrence's exquisite memoir of her time in Somaliland (The Prophet's Camel Bell) comes to mind. I must locate the tattered paperback copy in my library and read it again. OK, this is the ambrosial stuff we will quaff on this murky morning. Bring on the bells.

The name "chrysanthemum" derives from the ancient Greek word χρυσός, chrysos meaning gold and anthemon meaning flower. No doubt about it, I will definitely be planting more golden "stuff" in the garden this year. Brewed into tea, chrysanthemum flowers light up a bleak morning wonderfully.

Waiting for the kettle to whistle, I do a little whistling of my own and glance at the long shadows falling across a favorite mug and the little bowl of loose tea on the counter. There is chiaroscuro at work, and the shadows contrast wonderfully with the fragile porcelain and its aromatic holdings; there is light on the verges of their inclination. Forget cold weather and darkness, this morning scene is perfect just as it is. Tea anyone?

Wordless Wednesday - Morning Rite

Friday Ramble - Clouds in My Cuppa

Clouds, cooler mornings, rain and fog were our lot this week. Oilskins and rubber boots waited by the door for soggy excursions to the park, and a towel dangled from a nearby newel post, ready to dry Beau's fingers and toes when he came in from the garden.

Through the kitchen window comes the smell of rain and wet earth as I sip my mug of tea, the sound of branches in the garden shedding their cloaks of wetness, jubilant robins in the overstory singing down more life giving precipitation. There is never enough rain for them, and they are singing up a fine, drenching drizzle. 

In the darkling street, umbrellas bloom like peonies, carried by village children off to school with their parents, older siblings, and occasionally the family dog. There is the swish of early commuters splashing through lovely deep puddles when they think nobody is looking, the resonant grumble of village buses, the soft growl of motor vehicles heading uptown for the day's roiling and toiling. 

On our early morning walks in the park, trees float into view like the masts of wooden sailing ships and then disappear again in the mist. Somewhere in the murk, blackbirds and song sparrows are exercising their vocal cords, and an unseen woodpecker (probably a pileated from the volume of its exuberant hammering) is mining a tattered birch for breakfast bugs.

My umbrella has sprung a leak or two, and sometimes we are wet when we arrive home after rainy rambles. I am hoping to find a large green cotton one to replace it, but it has to be something substantial, NOT one of those folding contraptions that succumbs to a good blow at the drop of a hat. If I had a penny for every brolly I have ever owned that preferred spending most of its time inside out, I would be rich.

Leaky umbrellas and wet collars notwithstanding, there is something restful and very soothing about rainy days. If I could climb the old maple in the garden, I would perch right up there with the thrushes, trilling for more days like these fine soggy hours just unfolding. Getting up there in oilskins and wellies might be difficult though, and what would I do with my tea and the umbrella?

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World

When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment.

 Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The World in My Cup

A pure wind envelops my body.

The whole world seen in a single cup.

Kokan Shiren

Some mornings, my cup seems to hold the whole world in its depths. I pour a beaker, look down and fall in love with the tea and the steam rising in ardent curls from it. I fall in love with the earthenware vessel and the wooden surface on which it rests, with the whole wide world and the infinite blue space in which it floats, with my kitchen window and this tattered old life, all over again.

Then I sit down in front of the computer to write about the feeling, and I cannot get the words together to describe it. What to do? I take a deep breath and scribble a rapt but meager little bowl of words, try to describe something vast and beautiful, something sentient and breathing and boundless and inexpressible. Who would have thought a simple cup of tea could enfold such wonders? Emaho!

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World

You really don't have to lose everything and travel to a remote valley to discover that the world is always rushing forward to teach us, and that the greatest thing we can do is stand there, open and available, and be taught by it. There is no limit to what this cracked and broken and achingly beautiful world can offer, and there is equally no limit to our ability to meet it.

Each day, the sun rises and we get out of bed. Another day has begun and bravely, almost recklessly, we stagger into it not knowing what it will bring to us. How will we meet this unpredictable, untamable human life? How will we answer its many questions and challenges and delights? What will we do when we find ourselves, stumble over ourselves, encounter ourselves, once again, in the kitchen?

Dana Velden, Finding Yourself in the Kitchen: Kitchen Meditations
and Inspired Recipes from a Mindful Cook

Sequestered - XVII

Sequestered (III)

Wordless Wednesday - Sequestered

Morning in Bloom

Skies are leaden, and a fine murk wraps the village.  Snow fell overnight and everything is shrouded in white, houses, cars, trees and streets. This is one of those mornings when the village seems to be dancing (or skating) on the edge of the world and the weather and not quite sure where it belongs. 

Adjectives like dark and sunless are evocative, but there are better words for such intervals: bosky, caliginous, cloudy, crepuscular, dark, dim, drab, dusky, gloomy, murky, nebulous, obfuscous, obscure, opaque, overcast, shadowy, somber, stygian, sunless, tenebrous, twilighted, umbral, vague, wintry.

With no light to speak of, this is not a morning for wandering about with camera and peripherals, so far anyway. When Beau and I went out a few minutes ago, an icy wind teased the backs of our necks, and the matter of a longer morning walk was put aside for now. My furry son trotted back into the bedroom and curled up in my warm spot. A single eye peered mournfully at me from behind the patchwork when I entered the room to console him with a tummy rub.

What to do? Upright, but not quite awake, I pulled a canister of Chinese flower tea  out of the pantry and brewed up a pot. As the dried blooms took in liquid and opened out, the kitchen filled with perfume, and home was summery all over again. Vessel, beaker and contents were almost too arty to drink, and I took image after image, posing them on the kitchen counter, on the old oak table in the dining room, on a wooden platter, a bamboo mat. The teapot and cup posed cheerfully, sending up little clouds of fragrant steam and giving breathy sighs now and then. Small wonders amuse small minds on a snowy morning in November.

There is a stack of art books to prowl through, and there is a little Mozart on the CD player (Die Zauberflöte). There is a folio of lovely creamy paper and a box of art pens in splendid Mediterranean shades to play with.  There will be scones this morning, and for dinner this evening, there will be something fragrant and spicy that sings and dances on the tongue. There is room at the table for everyone, and there are enough mugs and cups to go around too, mismatched of course. On days like this, one does whatever she can do to light things up.

Friday Ramble - Hibernate

This week's word offering is rooted in the Latin hībernātus, past participle of the verb hībernāre (to spend the winter) and the noun hiems (winter), also the Greek cheimá (winter) and Sanskrit hima meaning cold, frost or snow. All forms probably originated in the Indo-European form ghei-, also meaning winter. Our word is kin to the mightiest mountain range on the planet, for the name Himalaya means "the abode of snow" in Sanskrit.

Most birds in the northern hemisphere migrate south, but other species of wildlife go dormant through the long white season, and we refer to the process as hibernating.  Bears exhibit an elegant and impressive physiology as they hibernate through the winter in their leaf-strewn dens. Squirrels, prairie dogs, groundhogs and hedgehogs also den up when temperatures fall, sleeping until outside temperatures rise and food becomes available again.  Northern frogs, toads, snakes and turtles are masters of the art of hibernation too.

Humans "do" hibernation too, and we do it in various ways. Some of us migrate to warmer climes to escape ice and snow and cold, but most of us simply withdraw from the outside world to warm dens of our own.  Our protocols for getting through the long white season are highly personal. We retrieve shawls, sweaters and gloves from cedar chests, accumulate stacks of books, munchies and music. We kindle fires in fireplaces, pull the draperies closed and surround our winter selves with things that are warm, embracing, spicy and redolent of comfort. For me, a mug of tea and a favorite shawl in deep, earthy red are the right stuff.

I buy more cookbooks between now and springtime, make endless pots of tea and pummel bread dough, listen to classical music and jazz, pose still life camera compositions on tables and window sills, pile up leaning towers of reading material. The books brought home are usually hardcovers - there is something comforting about holding the real thing in one's hands, the way its thick creamy paper feels, the smell of the ink, the shapes of the illustrations and the typefaces used. I can get totally caught up in the color of a morning cup of tea, and I have to resist the temptation to add cinnamon sticks, anise stars and peperoncino to anything I brew or stir up in the kitchen. At this time of the year, it is almost impossible to pass trees, hedgerows and drifts of fallen leaves without getting lost in their golds and reds  and bronzes.

Hibernation also means wandering around with a camera, trying to capture the light of the sun as it touches clouds, contrails and migrating geese, sparks across frost dappled fields, farm buildings and old rail fences.   It's a meditative process holding out stillness and tantalizing glimpses of something wild, elusive and elemental. Ice, frost, snow and the paucity of light notwithstanding, it's all good, and something to be treasured. Every view is a wonder and no two images are ever the same, even when they were captured in exactly the same place.

Clouds in My Cuppa

Clouds, cold mornings, rain and fog are our lot this week. Oilskins and rubber boots wait by the door, and umbrellas bloom like peonies out in the darkling street. On our walks, tall trees float into view like the masts of wooden sailing ships and then disappear again in the mist.  There is the swish of early commuters splashing through lovely deep puddles when they think nobody is looking, the grumble of buses, the soft growl of motor vehicles heading uptown for the day's toiling.

Through the kitchen window comes the smell of rain and wet earth as I sip my mug of tea, the sound of branches in the garden shedding their cloaks of wetness, jubilant robins in the overstory singing down more life giving precipitation. This is turning out to be one of the coolest and wettest Junes in memory, but there is never enough rain for the robins, and they are giving the day their all.

There's something restful about a rainy day. If I could climb the old maple in the garden, I would perch right up there with the robins, trilling for more days like these fine soggy hours just unfolding. Getting there in oilskins and wellies might be difficult though, and what do I do with my tea and the umbrella?

Wordless Wednesday - The Color of Morning

Darjeeling and Snow

Wordless Wednesday - Cup of Light

Tea and Redemption

The world outside is still dark, and the village a collection of indistinct shapes and muffled sounds. The day is cold and damp, the kitchen a place of shadows in early morning light.  My bones, sinews and joints protest the return of winter, and summer seems like a lovely dream from long ago and far away.

How does one banish winter for a few minutes? Looking for a fine hot potion to start the day and drown my doldrums, I rattle around in the larder, opening canisters and sniffing them appreciatively. Earl Grey? Darjeeling? Irish Breakfast? Lapsang Souchong? Yorkshire Gold? Constant Comment? Chai Latte? Northern Delights Cloudberry (Arpiqutik) or Crowberry (Paurngaqutik)? Rooibos? Ginseng? Japanese popcorn tea? Perhaps a simple Orange Pekoe?

The last container is away in the back of the tea cupboard, and it holds tiny dried chrysanthemum buds, rustling gently and murmuring softly to each other.  When I open it, the dry golden fragrance of last summer wafts out, and for a moment, I hear tinkling bells and exotic music, feel the warm August sun on my face. Oh yes, this is the ambrosial stuff we will partake of this morning.

Waiting for the kettle to whistle, I do a little whistling of my own and glance at the shadows falling across my mug and the little Chinese bowl of chrysanthemum buds sitting on the counter. The shadows contrast wonderfully with the fragile porcelain vessels and their aromatic contents, and light coming through the kitchen window paints their verges pale gold. Forget the the cold weather and short days, this morning scene is perfect just as it is. Tea anyone?

The World in a Cup

A pure wind envelops my body.

The whole world seen in a single cup.

Kokan Shiren

Some mornings, my cup seems to hold the whole world in its depths.  I fall in love with the tea and its earthenware vessel, with the battered oak table on which they rest, with the whole wide world and the deep blue space in which it floats, with my kitchen window and this tattered old life, all over again.

Then I sit down in front of the computer to write about the experience, and I simply can't get the words together to describe it.  I can manage one or two clumsy paragraphs, and that is all I can do - I craft a rapt little bowl of meager and woefully inadequate words to describe something vast and beautiful, something sentient and breathing and boundless and inexpressible. Emaho!

Wordless Wednesday - Summer's Cup

Thursday Poem - Wage Peace

Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings
and flocks of redwing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children
and freshly mown fields.
Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen
and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening:
hearing sirens, pray loud.
Remember your tools:
flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.
Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.
Learn to knit, and make a hat.
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.
Swim for the other side.
Wage peace.

Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.
have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Celebrate today.

Judyth Hill

Winter Morning Tea and Redemption

The world outside is still dark, and the village merely a collection of indistinct shapes and muffled sounds. The day is cold and damp, the kitchen a place of shadows in early morning light.  My bones, sinews and joints protest the return of winter, and summer seems like a lovely dream from long ago and far away.

How does one banish winter for a few minutes? Looking for a fine hot potion to start the day and drown my doldrums, I rattle around in the larder, opening canister after canister and sniffing them appreciatively. French roast? Maxwell House? Earl Grey? Constant Comment? Northern Delights Cloudberry (Arpiqutik) or Crowberry (Paurngaqutik)? Rooibos? Ginseng? Lapsang Souchong? Japanese popcorn tea? Perhaps a simple Orange Pekoe?

The last container is away in the back of the tea cupboard, and it holds dried chrysanthemum buds, rustling gently and murmuring softly to each other.  When I open it, the dry golden fragrance of last summer wafts out, and for a moment, I hear tinkling bells and exotic music, feel the warm August sun on my face. OK, this is the ambrosial stuff we will indulge in this morning.

Waiting for the kettle to whistle, I do a little whistling of my own and glance at the shadows falling across my mug and the little Chinese bowl of chrysanthemum buds sitting on the counter. The shadows contrast wonderfully with the fragile porcelain vessels and their aromatic contents, and light coming through the kitchen window paints their verges pale gold. Forget the the cold weather and short days, this morning scene is perfect just as it is. Tea anyone?