The answers to the Japanese Ceramics Quiz are posted. You can see the quiz and answers here.
Here is the Intro to Japanese ceramics to help you identify Japanese ceramics.
How many did you get?
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Chanoyu in a time of Corona virus
It has been 65 days since we have been self-isolating here in Portland. Things were already starting to shut down when I decided to cancel all chanoyu classes, workshops, demonstrations and events and close Issoan tea room for teaching.
The tea room feels empty, but not lonely. Everyday, I zokin the tatami, hang a scroll and arrange a flower. When I practice, I put on a kimono and do temae, but nobody is there to drink it. I am getting a feel for how my own tea tastes to the guests.
Improvised tea space for Ryakubon. Bon= pizza plate, glass tea pot, tea can natsume, glass bowl kensui.
On April 1, I began to offer video 1-1 temae classes to my students. Fortunately, I can offer a choice of FaceTime, Skype, Facebook video, and zoom classes, depending the students’ ability to connect. They have each set up a tea space in their own homes and have used their own dogu or improvised from what they have at home. Currently, I am teaching 12 temae classes per week.
Through the urging of tea students, we have zoom discussions twice a week. On Saturdays the choice of discussion is my choice. Topics covered so far: gomei and seasonality, scroll readings and meanings, Japanese ceramics, beyond wabi and sabi, sweets in corona virus time, how to tie knots for chanoyu. Student led topics are discussed on Tuesday nights: Readings from Wind in the Pines; Pointing to the moon, Tea after Rikyu- Urasenke rekidai. We have a list of topics that will keep us going for a long time.
The students really like these discussions and gives them a chance to ask me questions we would not have time for in regular class.
On May 3, I participated in the Urasenke Midorikai Alumni Association’s OneWorld chakai. Midorikai graduates from all over the world participated in a temae relay around the world. There are 22 hours of video you can watch here. It was an affirming and inspiring time that connected more than 300 people through chanoyu, It showed me that you can still have chanoyu in a time of Corona virus.
With that inspiration, I am getting invitations to attend chakai all over the world via video and zoom. We are planning our own chakai here in Portland. We are lucky to be living in a time when technology can connect us and chanoyu can unite us. Though I long for the time when I can serve guests in my tea room, Issoan, until that time, this will have to do. And surely this furthers the mission of “Peacefulness through a bowl of tea.”
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A light has gone out
We live in a time of Corona virus. There is no cure, no vaccine, and we have all been asked to sacrifice by staying at home, social distancing 6 feet or more and wear face coverings. Which seems a small price to pay for staying alive. For more than 50,000 people who have succumbed to the disease and the families and friends of the deceased, they have paid a far greater price.
Yesterday, I found out that a good friend of mine had passed away from Covid-19. She lived alone and I am so sorry that I could not be with her. Just like thousands of other family and friends, so many have passed alone in the hospital or alone at home, and we have not been able to say goodbye, or tell them that we love them one last time.
The pandemic is no longer a stay at home, stay safe, bake bread, or sew masks for local hospitals. It has suddenly become personal for me, and I am grieving my friend. The longer this goes on the greater the chance that you, too will feel the loss of someone dear to you.
So please take care of your health, and the health of everyone around you.
And rest gently, my dear one.
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Japanese Ceramics quiz
I hope everyone is getting along with social distancing. While we are at home, I have devised a short quiz for students. * I have decided to offer prizes for the quiz. This is an open book quiz and I have put together a resource to help you identify Japanese ceramics:
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of ceramics used in Chado, but invitation to explore further on your own. There are many resources on the internet about Japanese tea ceramics.
So let’s get to the quiz. Here are photos numbered 1-25. The numbers appear after the photo. How many of these types of Japanese ceramics can you identify? You can put your answers in the comments, or you can send me an email: margie at issoantea dot com. Answers to the quiz will be posted here on the blog.
*Prizes are limited to current students of Issoan (sorry).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
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21.
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25.
- Kuro Oribe
- Hidazuki Bizen
- Hagi
- Kyo-yaki
- Irabo
- Mishima
- Oribe
- Mokubei Kutani
- Kuro Raku
- Bizen
- Aka Raku
- Chosen Karatsu
- White Shino
- Mishima
- Seiji (Celadon)
- Shigaraki
- Pink Shino
- Iga
- Oribe
- Kyo-yaki
- Bizen
- Kuro Oribe
- Kyo-yaki
- Korai Seiji (Celadon)
- Nezumi Shino
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Willows and flowers
I went walking in the suburban wilderness the other day after being inside for the last couple of weeks. It is exuberant spring everywhere. Daffodils are rampant. There are sprouts of grasses and flowers, new growth on bushes and leaves on trees.
And the willow trees are such a lovely shade of green. I stopped and admired the leaves and hanging branches of the willow tree. It brought to mind memories of the large willow tree by the pond at the Portland Japanese Garden now sadly gone. And there was a willow tree near my workplace when I lived in Bellevue. A huge, old stately presence with the branches like skirts trailing in the nearby creek.
As I kept walking I was surprised to see a camellia just beginning to bloom. It must be a late one because the camellias in my yard are done and the petals and heads have all fallen to the ground.
And the cherry trees are in full bloom across our neighborhood. Weeping cherries came first, but the regular single cherries are great fluffy clouds of pale pink.
In the spring, there is a scroll that is often hung in the tokonoma.
柳緑花紅
Yanagi wa midori hana wa kurenai, “Willows are green flowers are red.”
I first saw this scroll at the very first keiko I attended at Midorikai. Mori Sensei was teaching that day and I asked her what it meant. She said that it is nature as it is. We see the willows in the spring are a lovely shade of green and flowers that are blooming are crimson red. You don’t see red willows or green flowers.
Like any Zen scroll, there are many layers to this saying. We can understand at a basic physical level of green willow and red flowers, but perhaps there is an understanding that applies to life, that no matter how much we wish it otherwise, willows and flowers are as they are. Not only nature, but life is not how we want it to be, but how it really is. When we see life how it really is, when we are clear-eyed, we can begin accept life as it is. Letting go of fantasy and accepting life as it is, is the beginning of finding the joy of living.
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