The Way of Tea

I may have posted the above collage already but I had several inquiries after my last blog post for more information about my tea lattes. I am a tea drinker. I collect teas where ever I travel.
I look for exotic teas and lately I have been looking for chocolate teas. The title of the above collage is THE WAY OF TEA. The Japanese strive for harmony with natural beauty. The monk Shuko (1422-1502) is credited with making the tea ceremony into an exemplification of wabi sabi design and refined, graceful living. The tea ceremony is an important part of the Japanese aesthetic.

THE BOOK OF TEA by Kakuzo Okakura is a brief but classic essay on tea drinkers, its history, restorative powers, and rich connection to Japanese culture. Okakura felt that 'teaism' was the very center of Japanese life and helped shape everything from art, aesthetics, and an appreciation for architecture, design, gardens, and paintings.

The black and white photograph is by famous photographer Werner Bischof. He took photographs in Japan over a 2 year span 1951-52. You can find more of his photos in the book JAPAN.. photographs by Werner Bischof and text by Robert Guillain.

The title of the above mixed media work is TEA. It was created by the artist Lissa Hunter.
You can find more of her work in her book LISSA HUNTER: Histories Real and Imagined by Abby Johnston.

Above, is a watercolor painting by Daniel Kelly titled ANCIENT BLUE. He is an American artist living in Japan. You can find more of his paintings and prints at his website here.

Mel Robson is a potter in Australia. She makes functional and non-functional cups and bowls and dishes in porcelain. You can find out more about Mel, and where and how you can get your hands on some of her fabulous porcelain pottery at her blog here.

As you can see in the above image, Mel is obsessed with old maps and text and handwriting.

There is a wonderful blog I want to tell you about. It is Tea for Joy and you can go to the blog here. This blog has things British and vintage, but also features a tea of the week. There are beautiful images and links to other blogs.

There are some wonderful new teas available now that become delicious tea lattes. Go to the Republic of Tea website here and check out their Cuppa Chocolate Tea Collection- a new tea there is Red Velvet Chocolate. Another tea I have is Chocolate Mint Rooibos by TEASE and you can find their website here. I make a cup of tea, add either non-fat milk, or non-fat half and half cream, and a dash of Splenda sugar. Then I use my Milk Frother to 'froth' up the milk and then I add India Tree dark chocolate bits. You can find all sizes, types and prices of milk frothers at Amazon.com. You can find the chocolate sprinkles along with sugars and spices at the India Tree website here.

FLOW with whatever may happen

and let your mind be free:
Stay centered by accepting
whatever you are doing.
This is the ultimate. -- Chuang Tzu

The time has arrived

During the holidays, this past November and December, my mantra was "I will do that in January". I will update my website, I will get caught up in the blog world, I will send out information about my upcoming workshop in April, I will start a new body of work.. so many goals, desires, wishes, hopes... all were put off until January. I have always viewed January as my new beginning-- blank canvas, blank calendar -- the beginning of my new goals. Well, it is now January. The first thing I did was take a look around at some of my favorite things and favorite quotes, looking for inspiration.

Old Japanese books, with worn torn covers

some more old worn Japanese books

DO OR DO NOT. THERE IS NO 'TRY'. - Master Yoda

old typeset wooden letters

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall. -- Ray Bradbury

My collection of beach stones

Alas! must it ever be so? Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go, And fight our own shadows forever? -- Lord Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton

Collection of bird eggs, bird skulls, bones

Be patient towards all that is unresolved in you and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms, like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Live the questions now. --
Rainer Maria Rilke

Old Japanese wooden boxes

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that our aim is too low and we reach it. -- Michelangelo

Old gears, watch faces, rusty metal

You have to be available to the invisible voices that are swirling around you.-- George C. Wolf

Old maps, old scrolls, old papers waiting for inspiration.

I may not know who I am, but I know where I'm from. -- Wallace Stegner

After my favorite tea latte with chocolate sprinkles, and leftover sugar cookies on my favorite plate, I will get to work. I wish all my blog friends a successful, creative new year.

Tis the Season...

This is my Christmas card this year and below are some of my holiday decor and tree ornaments, mostly hand made. What a busy time of the year for all of us. I rush around, trying to do too much. I have to make myself stop, look around, take a few breaths, and quietly savor the beauty around me.

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.

Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we're lying.

If we say No, we don't see it,

That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so

Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,

We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.

When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.
--- Zero Circle by RUMI

Happy holidays, prosperous new year and as always... peace please.

A Blanket of Peace

Since my last post I have been to Hawaii to visit my family. When I returned, winter had come to my zen gardens. We actually had a white Thanksgiving. Yes, snow and ice is beautiful to look at, and very cold and icy if you have to go out and especially drive on snowy, icy roads. But when it is snowing, there does seem to be a quiet silence all around, like the snow is muffling the sounds and a purity is covering everything.


The following art works are by artists who work mostly in wood cut and print making. You can find more of their works at the Ren Brown Collection here. You can also find more of these artists and their works at The Tolman Collection, Tokyo here.

Rei Morimura, relief print/woodblock

Solitude is a way of waiting for the inaudible and the invisible to make itself felt.
-- Peggy Pond Church

Kawase Hasui, woodblock

Werner Bischof, photograph

I await the birth hour of a new clarity.
--- Rilke

Joshua Rome, woodcut

"And remember that the light is within
if it is anywhere
and you must paint from the inside
Start with purity
and pure white"
--Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Saito Kiyoshi, woodblock

Miyamoto Shufu, wood block

"The pure white of gesso
the pure white of cadmium white
the pure white of flake white
the pure virgin canvas
the pure life we all begin with..."
---Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Joel Stewart, aqua tint

Lucy Arai, mixed media/collage/sumi ink

Come away from the din.
Come away to the quiet fields
Over which the great sky stretches
and where, between us and the stars
there, in the stillness
let us listen to the voice
that is spreading within us.
--- Jerome K. Jerome

Peace for everyone everywhere.

Bound by Nature

Autumn has come to my zen gardens.

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
--- Henry Miller

Each of us literally chooses,
by his way of attending to things,
what sort of universe
he shall appear to himself to inhabit.
William James

I found this egret standing in the quiet, still water on the beach below my studio.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child-- our own two eyes. All is a miracle. --- Thich Nhat Hahn

James Blackwell, from Australia, uses mixed media (natural materials) to create nature-based pods and vessels like the one above. Bushwalking in the Blue Mountains has become part of this artist's lifestyle. "I like to think of the valley floor as my art supply store!" You find more of his pods, vessels and baskets at his website here. He also has a wonderful blog here.

A broken bird's egg inspired these fragile paper bowls. Ann Symes lives by "woodland" which inspires her art works. "It wraps itself around me inviting close observation of textures, patterns, shapes, shadows... the opening and closing sequences of the seasons, decay and renewal."

Ann uses rusted papers to create collages for her Autumn series. You can find more of her wonderful art works at her website here.

full moon at dusk (view from my window)

When you start on a long journey, trees are trees, water is water, and mountains are mountains. After you have gone some distance, trees are no longer trees, water is no longer water, mountains are no longer mountains. But after you have traveled a great distance, trees are once again trees, water is once again water, mountains are once again mountains. ---
Zen Teaching