A warm xie xie goes out to the kind soul, JW, who plucked an item from my amazon wish list and sent me some Iron Goddess of Mercy Oolong Tea.
I am sipping it with appreciation right now on this blustery autumn day.
Leaves swirl both in the wind and in my cup.
“Leaves swirl both in the wind and in my cup.”
There’s a haiku in there somewhere.
Somehow, sitting for a moment with a good cup of tea usually produces a mini vacation of peace and tranquility.
Blustery autumn
Oolong tea soothes my body
Leaves swirl in wind, cup
Master. When must I lift the crucible with the inside of my arms?
Douglas Adams wasn’t writing for you then:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A61345
Father,
Are you the interior Ansel Adams?
If so, very nice.
Grasshopper: Master. When must I lift the crucible with the inside of my arms?
If you must ask, you are not ready.
Alas, while you all were waxing poetic, what involuntarily came into my head was Hogey Carmichael singing, So long OOlong, how long you gonna be gone.
I don’t know why this made me think of the phrase “Z Fu”
Which is kind of funny because it sounds like the word I hear in all the Kung Fu
flicks for “Master” (it’s something like “sifu” if I Romanized it).
(Sorry, I’ve been getting ready for the bishop to visit for Confirmations, so
I have been reading too many liturgical directives,so my brain is going all weird)
Father,
Good to know you enjoy a bit of a break. Beautiful photo. Try enjoying the tea very strong, in very small doses, like espresso. That’s the traditional Chinese way to enjoy this tea in southern China where it is produced. It is a potent tea but the sweetness after the bitterness is well worth the shock.
God bless.
The “Iron Goddess of Mercy” (I love the image!) is supposedly the Buddhist bodhisattva Guan Yin, who is a special protector of children and fertility. This past June I was in Macau for a day tour, and when we passed a statue of Guan Yin, the tour guide made special mention of the fact that the statue was deliberately made to resemble the Blessed Virgin Mary in order to express the “East meets West” flavor of Macanese culture.
Here’s a picture of the statue:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:KuanYimMacau.JPG
Peace of Christ to you all!
nursing some ??? myself at the moment, i lift this cup in solidarity!
brings to mind Lu Tong’s poem:
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oops, none of the chinese came out this time…strange. windows vista again…booooh!
‘The Seven Cups of Tea’ – Lu Tong (798-835)
The first cup refreshes your lips and throat,
The second elates you from your lonely mood,
The third searches in your arid intestines* and you realize that you have only 5,000 volumes of literature in your memory,
fourth makes you perspire lightly, and evaporate through your skin the pent-up grievances in your life,
The fifth causes you to feel your muscles are relaxing, and bones losing weight,
The sixth leads you to go on the path to meet fairies,
Oh! The seventh cup! Better not take it! If you had it, the only feeling is an air current passing under your armpits
* ’searches in your arid intestines’ equates to ‘makes you rack your brains’
A wonderfully literal translation, Fr. Z., in the spirit of Liturgiam Authenticam. Sounds like a good idea for a new blog: WDTCPRS? (What Does The Chinese Poem Really Say?)
I always loved this poem of Han Shan which captures the subtle joy of tea and contemplation. (had to create it as a graphic since Vista doesn’t want to play ball with me and my chinese input methods and WDTPRS comboxes this morning for some reason).
A real shame that tea wasn’t introduced to Europe earlier in history, that some of our great saints may have been raised on it!