Storied objects

photo credit: Alexandra Hughes

It is exciting to have new students develop a passion for tea.  I have some new students who are so enthusiastic that they have been coming twice a week to keiko.  One of them has a site, Storied Objects, that features artisan handcrafted ware with an aesthetic that appeals to many tea folk.  She is also passionate about telling the stories of the artisans behind the products.  Please go to the site and browse the products.  You might just find something you are looking for.  Christmas is coming!

As part of the backstories to the products on the site, there are interviews with the artists and photos of them in their studios and workshops.  You really get to know the people behind the products and it makes them more meaningful, just as we tell the stories behind the dogu in tea.

The backstory to this student is that she contacted me for Chado lessons in 2020 after I closed the tea room due to Covid.  As I was not taking beginners, I asked if she wanted to put on the mailing list to be contacted when the tea room opened up.  For the next two and a half years, she periodically contacted me to ask if the tea room was going to open and that she was still interested in lessons.  Within an hour of posting the new Introduction to Chado class, she signed up for 10 weeks of lessons.  Then she signed up for another 10 weeks of lessons, and now she is coming twice a week for lessons.

It warms my heart to see her and my other new students hungry for learning about tea.  It is not easy to begin lessons and feel like you will never get the hang of folding fukusa correctly, or not feeling like a cow in the tea room, or which foot do you enter and leave the tea room.  With every new introduction of an aspect of the way of tea, they are eager, humble and willing to learn.  Nothing is beneath them.  They want to clean correctly, and do all the right things in the mizuya.  The student wrote about her experience in the first couple of months of tea lessons here.

Photo credit: Alexandra Hughes

I am almost jealous that they are experiencing  things for the first time.  Making discoveries about how to move their bodies, how to look deeply at dogu, how to express gratitude, all while learning new things about themselves and how they relate to the wider world. The new students attended their first tea gathering at Robiraki last month and it was an event to remember.  Putting it all together for a chaji is inspiring.  It was so inspiring, I recall the first gathering, Robiraki, that I went to almost 40 years ago and how transformative it was for me.

If you have read this far, there is also an interview with me on the site as well.