Tea & Dialogue Basics

The first practice during a weekend online retreat for a cohort of individuals interested in offering Insight Dialogue was a variation that includes sharing tea first. My introduction to that tea and dialogue practice focused on basics:

  1. Guidelines: While all of the Insight Dialogue guidelines – Pause, Relax, Open, Attune to Emergence, Listen Deeply and Speak the Truth – apply along with an assumption of equality and worth, I decided to emphasize “Open”. That seemed in keeping with the spirit of welcoming everyone to the online retreat.
  2. Generosity: As much as sharing tea, listening deeply and speaking the truth are also generous gifts. As this practice was offered online, each of us must necessity make their own tea. But doing so with respect and appreciation is appropriate especially given how easy it is to forget the importance of self care.
  3. Ichigo Ichi ‘e (One Time / One Meeting in English) – Each meeting is unique and will never recur – is a basic principle of Japanese tea ceremony which applies to every meeting. Whether sharing tea, engaging in dialogue or both, as in this case, it makes sense to pay whole hearted attention to those precious moments.
  4. Elements from Japanese Tea ceremony: These include paying careful attention to all of the senses when drinking tea and thinking with appreciation about all that went into being able to share tea together. Bowing brings in an element of the respect built into formal tea etiquette, and a natural object or an image of one provides a remind of our fundamental relationship with the natural world
  5. Mindful dialogue: Each participant has the opportunity to speak and silently listen to what is arising in the moment on a contemplation topic. In this case, the topic was, “What is arising from the experience of mindfully preparing, drinking, and bowing after speaking?” Participants spoke of the opportunity to slow down and open to themselves, the simplicity, the comfort and warnth and the soft start to the retreat.
  6. Adaptability: Designed to be adaptable to many different contexts, the practice shows promise as means to support purposeful endeavors such as social change efforts as well as creative collaboration. Even without tea, the open caring spirit of this practice can guide how we interact around the kitchen table, with strangers, in times of stress and with those in need of comfort, and hopefully moderate the judgments which can so easily dominate our internal dialogue.
     

Two Pond Walks – Never the Same

Some days I do not take any pictures. Others, I take pictures after every few steps. For better or worse, my sensing there is something worth capturing has become quite intuitive. This surely has as much to do with my mental state and receptivity as it has to do with how patches of sky, reflections, and plants dance together in the changing light as I walk around Hill’s Pond.

There are similarities, but also quite a few differences in the photos below taken during two separate pond walks this past spring. Nature has a way of quietly reminding us that there is also a positive aspect to the continual change that none of us can escape.

Day One:









Day Two:








Five Boxes and a Troll

All four of the carved wooden boxes were described as coming from Norway, and that made sense given the Telemark acanthus leaf designs and the notches in three of their lids that fit over projecting tabs on either side. The smallest of these “tines” was the perfect size to hold one special ring. Perhaps it was my Oslo ancestor, but I could not resist this charming collection.

The fifth quite different box is a model of a Norwegian stabbur. These charming storehouse buildings are raised up on stone or wooden pillars with a gap above the steps to protect their contents from marauding vermin. You can imagine the fragrance upon opening that door from grain, flour, cured meat, root vegetables, dried fish, fruit and sometimes also clothing.

The wall-mounted cabinet was perfect to hold this box collection. Then, at my request, my Aunt brought me a troll back from her travels to Norway. I was glad that I learned trolls come in all sizes from small to gigantic. I sat the troll so he he seemed to be staring into the stabbur’s front window, but as the pouch slung on his back was already full, perhaps he had already completed his troll-like mischief.






Color Changing Rhododendron

By the time the Lily of the Valley is seducing bees with its scented white bells, this one has completed a remarkable progression from deep pink buds to white with pink dots. The first photo below shows the colorful midpoint. The others show the 12-day progression from start to finish.

The last photos shows how it looks most of the year.







Spring Happening

It was quite cold this spring. After several years of very little snow, we had several inches for most of the winter and that took its time melting. Then we still had nights below freezing and cold days for quite a while. Still there were signs. The daffodils started blooming on schedule. There were buds here and there. And when we got a few warm days towards the end of the month it was catch up time.













Melting Art on Cars (Again)

Noticing an icy flower on the car’s roof when I looked out the front door on a chilly morning, I ran for my camera. The last time I saw such large ice crystals on that car was in late November, 2019. Fall and now spring – still, the conditions must have been just right for that to happen.

When the temperature is below 0°C (32°F) and supersaturated humid air flows over a textured surface, ice can be deposited directly without first going through a liquid phase. And as you can see, the results can be quite spectacular.







Melting Snow

The snow had piled on snow this unusually cold winter. I wondered if I might find interesting patterns in the woods or at the pond now that it had finally started to melt.

Slick icy paths could be treacherous, but this year the inches-deep snow was mostly hard and crusty. I did not sink in as I added my prints to those left by dogs, people, rabbits and others.






Ikat (Mudmee) Cloth from Thailand

In contract to Indonesian ikat, Mudmee cloth from Thailand makes use of resist-dyed weft (horizontal) yarns. Originally, special designs were reserved for nobility with simple patterns for everyday use. While Indonesian ikats tend to use fewer colors, modern mudmee can have quite a range of vibrant bright colors, especially when the cloth is intended for use by young women.

Traditional patterns often had strong horizontal or vertical bands, like the silk weaving shown below. Vibrant and highly complex-patterns are created with the help of modern looms, as was the case with the last two examples below.




Ikat Adventures

Betsy White told me that the Indonesian ikat she had listed for sale had been purchased when her family was living on Sulawesi between 1976 and 1978. That island did not seem to be the type of place that the average American tourist would visit, and there was something about Betsy’s few words that hinted there was a great deal more going on.

As luck would have it, Betsy had recently published Balancing Act: Mountains, Family, Career. That proved a perfect way to learn more about what showed every sign of being a fascinating life. It occurred to me that lessons she learned during her many mountaineering adventures must have helped Betsy live her (multiple) dreams. Besides mountain climbing, her husband, Gene, loved textiles including rugs, and he collected them wherever they went during their extensive travels. Betsy also has ikats from India, and central Asia.

When they lived in Indonesia, Gene would travel from island to island working on projects to improve access to fresh water during the long dry season. He would make it a point to visit remote villages and ask if they had any ikats for sale. I could tell that Gene and I appreciated many of the same qualities to be found in these lovely weavings.

The influence from specific island cultures is clear, but each piece also bears the stamp of the individual artist-weaver who put so much time and effort into their painstaking work. In addition to describing the textiles’ varied designs and fascinating cultural contexts, the books below include wonderful stories about individual weavers:

Between the Folds; Stories of Cloth, Lives and Travels from Sumba by Jill Forshee

Textiles of Timor; Island in the Woven Sea edited by Roy W. Hamilton and Joanna Barrkman

Gift of the Cotton Maiden; Textiles of Flores and the Solor Islands edited by Roy W. Hamilton

Ikats I purchased from Betsy are from (top to bottom): West Timor, Sumba, Flores, Sumba, an antique fragment that is likely from Flores, and lastly, an “everyday” sarong from West Timor.




The Many Moods of Snow in My Garden

In a recent talk I gave about Japanese gardens, I did not include many snow images – just the wonderful results of a very light light dusting, and moss peaking out from snow as it melted around a water basin.

Reviewing photos of my Japanese inspired tea garden, I found a variety of different effects from delicate “snow blossoms” to deep mounds of snow left by blizzards.