Christin serving tea; Image shared by Christin
What if we paid more attention to what we eat, drink, and breathe?
Instead of looking at the status of what we do as the qualifier of who we are, what if we considered what we are made of, what we take inside our bodies (these moving temples) as our foundation? What are we carrying?
Would the way we live and love life look differently? How would even our thoughts change if we looked at them as guests or inhabitants or expressions of our nature? As shapers of our form? As the messengers they often are?
In many traditions, medicine is anything that puts us in harmony with our highest self and all life on Earth. Tea is one of those simple but potent medicines that bring about great transformation when we drink her in. Tea helps us pay more attention, allows us to steep in our own reflection and slow down. By simply engaging in the practice of drinking tea regularly, we can change ourselves from the inside out. When we look closely at the leaves, we see them in us and us in them. We feel how we are nature taking in and marveling at nature itself. We meet each bowl of tea as a friend, someone who is there for us, who cares. A truly cosmic relationship we have with this leaf. And she gives us so much more than we can ever seem to give back.
Tea has been around for centuries leaving its mark to the point almost every home has some iteration of tea in a cabinet somewhere. Powerful as is, what changes it’s healing potential even more is when we engage with it in a more sacred and ritual manner. When we meet the tea like we would meet a friend. When we gather together and share the experience.
The practice of Chado—the way of tea—can follow tradition and be very formal, involving precise actions by the ceremonialist and the participants, or it could be serving someone out of the only plastic bowl you have in whatever way you can boil water. More often than not, when someone says “tea ceremony” or chado in the formal sense, the imagery of something official and serious comes to mind rather than the latter image. People being quiet and perhaps rigid carrying a sort of judgmental tone or a feeling of “right” doing. While there are similar elements present in the way Christin serves tea at our retreat (the getting quiet and taking respite in the seat of your awareness, the beauty in the unfurling leaves, the appreciation for technique), she will offer you a different, more open experience. While there is ritual and rhythm to the flow of how she shares tea, her practice welcomes you to be who you are in that given moment. No formalities or need to be right are necessary here. Instead, you can let go and notice, while you keep sipping, taking the bowl to your heart, again and again. And you will acquaint yourself with the nectar from inside, that awaits when you visit that quiet space. When you meet yourself like a friend.
The tea ceremony that you will come to know and perhaps love at the Winter Retreat is one that holds space. Space for emotional, mental, and spiritual energies. Space for you to let your body feel what it feels and to cultivate awakened presence, perhaps deepening your meditation practice, perhaps deepening your ability to feel gratitude, joy, and grief, and all inbetween.
To those wondering logistics, there will be a morning and evening session available on Friday and a morning and early evening session held on Saturday. With 4 ceremonies offered during your time, there will be ample opportunity for people to get a chance to sip tea in community, whether you join one or all four. Even in one cermony you may be served between 4-6 bowls of tea on average, so there are a lot of layers you will be able to melt as you meet yourself in this practice.
A big part of the tea ceremony that Christin highlights is that of service and of sharing. A lot of the techniques developed around the practice are not about how to make the tea but how to serve it to others. How to build a culture within the self of giving and connecting to something greater than yourself. In this place, we find it is not from the fancy pot or robes we wear; it is from the heart that we serve from—a perfect reminder and nod to the nature of the community we cultivate during this special weekend.
And with that, we lift the bowl to you and hope to see you soon at our retreat. Registration will close on 12/27 or when it fills.
As the steam rises, in love, written by,
Kali