The World is Our Garden
The world is a garden. In our Garden, just as the light begins to fade, we observe Tea Ceremony. For the last three thousand years, an infusion of yellow Chrysanthemum, wolfberry and honey clears anger and stress and quiets heart and brain. The tea is drunk from translucent porcelain cups with delicate gold tracery. Hot water is repeatedly added until the delicious floral scent is gone. Darkness fall, and we bow to one another before departing. If we can bear it, we touch each other’s hands. #HAIKU; The Chrysanthemum Civility is inherited treasure we did not know we had. This card appears to commemorate the restorative moments in your life. What are your ceremonies? Do they occur at regularly scheduled intervals? How often we put others’ ceremonial needs first; events that are joyous for them can be depleting for us. We need moments of prayer when, instead of wallowing in our own inability or need we can infuse with the infinite power and beauty of eternal love. Is it tea ceremony, the chrysanthemum leaves and petals reflected in the porcelain cup? Is it the moment of contemplation before sleep or after waking when we journal dreams or compose ourselves to face the day? Or is it that quiet walk we take alone in nature, asking “What can you teach me?” These healing rituals must be sacrosanct and inviolate. Any routine can acquire a ritualistic dimension when we in infuse it with a healing rationale. In an action as simple as tooth brushing you can focus your action mentally on the “dirt” or you can focus on the “clean.” We can dress ourselves with love or we can dress ourselves as punishment. I love clothes and I love colors, so merely choosing what to wear always feels like a celebration. Any physical exercise becomes a dance with the universe. Yoga is prayer. When I feel completely down in the dumps there is Tea Ceremony; the beauty of porcelain, the reassuring hiss of steam, the time for steeping allows reflection that is inherently soothing. Mindfulness requires that each morsel of food and drop of drink has a part to play; none can be unconscious, blurred, or forgotten. Shared meals are dramatic ceremonies with the ebb and flow of physical action, mental well-being and spiritual gratitude. I look forward to the daily banana, the daily apple because I feel so much better just anticipating, preparing and consuming them. It measures out a harmony between the earth’s bounty and my own body that feels deliberately loving. When we are in tune in the universe this way we are grounded joyously in our own world.
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