We are all seated around the Tea table, where the gong fu 工夫茶 tea Master Brewer presides.
It is rowdy. We are all chattering away and getting to little nuggets of information about each other and how we came to know the Master, along with soundbites on the current climate of national politics and the weather.
If you stayed still enough, you might just glimpse, out of the corner of your eye, the Master settling in without a word. Without tarrying, with one swift move, he has fluidly poured Tea out of his zhi sha teapot through the five elements of one swift gesture.
He hands out a tiny teacup to each of us, saying quietly that these are relics from the Ming dynasty.
With reverence we all pick up our cups in silence and take a deep inhale and savouring sip.
This is my favourite moment: all of us, traversing with Tea Spirit as our Qi is enlivened by the mystical Leaf, all the elements embalmed in the golden liquid, enfolding us in remembrance of our soul.
Not judging, not criticising, not improving, not being anything.
We are just here in the Dao together, sitting in this one whole breath we took in together with Tea.
The Master, the axle of this great big wheel.
Us, the mandala, each petal, each hand, forming the beauty of the whole wheel of life.
It is here we remember the law of polarity.
Where there is darkness, there is light.
Here we wander freely and easily
Accepting all that we are.
Accepting all the vicissitudes that life brings us, like a shaman with her nose to the wind.
It penetrates deeply so you can see a smidgen of that heavenly light piercing through your heart.
Sometimes, if your mind is still enough, you can see clearly the lights that guide you to the centre of your heart.
It is the flutter you get in your belly when you notice evening coming.
It is the flow of abundance when you become aware of midnight leaving.
It is the calm joy that floods you as you dance with the Universe － it is the pure essence of you playing with the clouds and swimming with the stars; flying with the wind and dancing in the rain; drinking in the sunlight and bathing in the moonlight and starlight.
The extraordinary lies in the ordinary.
Perhaps it is time to get together around the Tea space once more.
What do you think? 😉
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