A party for my kanreki, 60 years

Drinking tea at class before the party

Last Wednesday, I had a few of my regular students show up for class. This is not unusual as students can come as many times a month with their tuition. Sometimes they come  to make up for missed class or they want to come twice or three times a week.  About halfway through the class, a couple of other students showed up, then a few more, and then a couple of students showed up who are not actively studying, and then my good friend Barbara Walker showed up in kimono! Something was definitely going on.  I was most worried because I had not made enough sweets for all the students who showed up.

But it was a party to celebrate my kanreki, or 60th birthday. Which, by Japanese custom, is the beginning of one’s second childhood. If one measures life in a 60-year cycle — and if you use the Chinese zodiac calendar, you do — then age 60 marks a new beginning or birth: You can be a child once again.

Certificate

I even got presents.  As you can see from the certificate above, a donation was made by the students and friends of Issoan Tea School to the Portland Japanese Garden.  Which will be having a grand opening of the new construction on April 1. As well as a card signed by all the students.

Signed card by all the students

I was served a delicious home made sweet and tea, and then everyone was served sweets and tea.

Homemade sweets candied kumquat stuffed with miso an

Tea and sweets served by Barbara sensei who has studied with me for more than 30 years

Mizuya help

Everyone gets tea and sweets.

And at the end, everyone pitched in and cleaned up the mizuya, took down the tea room and put everything away.  A special thank you to Stephanie Wilson for planning and organizing.  Thank you everyone who came to the party, who contributed to the gift and who were thinking of me for my kanreki.

 

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Late February update – a Midorikai interlude

Hello everyone,
Things have returned to normal here. People are getting along again and we four sempai are finally realizing that graduation is coming up quickly in mid-March. Then just until the end of the month to move out of the dorms and fly to our homes around the world. What a wonderful year we have spent together!

We had Tetiana’s keiko chakai. My role for it was “hanto,” which is the person who supports the host in their activities from the kitchen, mizuya and behind the scenes. Ideally, the hanto should be noiselessly going about the numerous things that require attention. The person needs to spread water along the path and in the garden to make it look welcoming and clean. This was especially amusing because it was snowing lightly the whole time while I was spraying water around everywhere. But it was absolutely beautiful. The guests were enjoying the feeling of warmth in the tea rooms protected only by paper shoji doors…so, that means that they were most likely cold but they were trying to feel the warmth of the fire and in the tea utensils the host selected especially for this event. There was a hand warmer in the waiting area, so I had to make sure we had warm fire for that. Hot water of course to make tea from the back.

Tetiana did a wonderful job and our sensei helped us immensely. Though, Makela-sensei did ask me a few times “Now what should I be doing now?” and he got a few blank stares back… I sometimes had no idea or I didn’t know what I order I was supposed to do things in. Also, I learned a valuable lesson that you always want to bring extras of everything – I accidentally stood with the charcoal basket and out fell two of the expensive white edazumi made from wisteria tree. Naturally they shattered on the ground and we hadn’t brought any extra. In Japan and in a tea building, one can hopefully have someone just run to fetch some more but if this was a demonstration or in a location that we had rented far from any shops, we may have had some difficulties…or some interesting explaining to do during the tea gathering that would have turned in to a funny story.

Sometimes the things a hanto needs to do changes due to the season, so you need to do things for longer, or earlier/later depending on that. It was actually a lot of fun for me to fill this role! I helped unpack all the utensils, cleaned and packaged them all up again after it was finished. I think all the guests had a wonderful time. I heard a lot of laughter from the tea room and I was sad I couldn’t have been in there with them. But I had an important role to play and it was great experience.

I think I enjoy seeing the surprises and participating in the conversation the most out of tea gatherings. It’s sort of like when you know a lot about something and there is a subtle hint or clue and people who know about that really get it and then are excited about it. Sort of like the thrill of doing a crossword or when there is a play on words or even in Shakespeare when the words reference something else. It’s just fun. I suppose it’s an intellectual sort of fun created in a time when people didn’t watch TV. And you have to be knowledgeable. There are connections that our teachers comment on during O’iemoto’s gatherings and I am amazed by the seeming subtlety and complexity involved in the story-telling and emotions created by something as simple as the utensils. Still, these are things I can continue to enjoy in many different ways and in many different topics, not just in Chado.

There was the lovely Baikasai event at Kitano Tenmangu Shrine. I had gone previously to this shrine to see the plum blossoms in the snow. This time people could purchase a ticket to have tea served by the maiko and geiko (Kyoto term for geisha). It was a beautiful sunny day, though it was quite cold. The young, talented women looked so lovely and it was great to be able to examine their clothing up close. Usually you only get to see them on their way to engagements or at the annual shows their houses put on occasionally. As it was, the queue to get in took forever…about two hours if you wanted to sit closer on the tatami space. It was well worth the wait, though people were going crazy with their cameras. Tetiana wore her beautiful embroidered kimono. I thought my friends who enjoy crafting as well as sewing would appreciate seeing it.

Hugs,
Karla

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Early February update – a Midorikai interlude

I finally understand now what they mean by a “Kyoto Winter.” It is COLD! And it’s a new type of cold that is like a damp cold that just seeps in to your bones and chills you much more quickly. I’ve been lucky to have had Kevin treat me to some very fizzy, relaxing bath bombs, so I’ve been taking advantage of enjoying them when I’m feeling a cold coming on. Some of the other students who are from cold climates don’t seem to mind the cold but even they have said on occasion that it might be a bit chilly on some days.

Setsubun February 3rd

To celebrate the last day of winter (called Risshun), Japanese people go to shrines to celebrate setsubun. Though not a major holiday, it is still popular for people to become involved in the festivities. We got a half-day free from school to go around town to participate. It was perfect weather: sunny and dry all day in the mid-40’s. I joined Elise and an Urasenke architect at Yoshida Shrine. It’s the famous one for the day. We brought a bag of “old” temple and shrine amulets as they must be refreshed and repurchased each year. The shinto shrines “purify” the old ones in either fire or water. We didn’t witness the mame maki (bean throwing) but we ate the ehoumaki (the lucky direction role). It’s a giant sushi role and you face a direction (this year it was NNW) and eat the whole thing silently while making a wish and if you can do that then the wish will come true. We also enjoyed some sake. The great thing about this shrine was that it had a special building that was only opened for this one day each year, so we went up to look at it and Tooyama-san told us about all the different architectural features to notice. When you return home, you get beans and you throw them around calling “Oni wa soto! Fuka wa uchi!” or “Demons get out! Fortune come in!” Clearing out the demons from the end of the year and inviting spring and new fortune in to your home.

Other things

We had a nice time learning how to play the game go at a sensei’s house. I enjoyed it immensely and definitely want to keep refining my skills. It’s similar to chess or checkers, where it has a board and you have only one other opponent. The difference being that you are trying to get the most points, firstly by capturing the most area of the board and secondly by collecting your opponent’s pieces. I think I enjoy playing card games (pinochle, rummy, bridge, etc.) more than board games. I just get so impatient and tend to not be able to enjoy board games. Especially if the game in question requires patience, thinking and mental processing. It’s something I can work on: improving my concentration. I also think that I could embrace the fact that I set up a game and then don’t feel compelled to finish it in one sitting. I brought a puzzle from home to do this winter and I completed it in January in about six hours and sadly, when it was completed I had nothing else to be excited about with it. It’s like a good book. If you devour it in one seating it just doesn’t have an opportunity to resonate in your brain or really settle in to my long-term memory.

Since coming here to Kyoto, I’ve been much more aware of my feelings of impatience or frustration and also the fact that I tend to get overly worked up over things that really don’t matter. I even know deep down that 99% of the time these things working me up don’t matter, but I can’t help but get worked up about them anyway. Sometimes I feel much more calm and zen and meditative and other times I am just overwhelmed with anxiety, frustration or impatience. One side of me says “You’re Human!” and the other side just says “that’s great you’re human, but yadda, yadda, yadda…” I’m trying to notice when I don’t feel proud of an action or a thought or something I say and then question either why I did / thought / said that thing and why it created that particular reaction. No one else could ask me “why” with out offending me, I suppose. I’m trying to not be like that. I’m not trying to spring one over on myself with a “gotcha!” or punish myself for something. I don’t think I’m necessarily changing my behavior, per say, but I’m noticing my actions and how I relate to others much more. Usually these internal observations have been fine fodder for some good mental discussion and exercise on my own later. The roots of this wanting to look inward have of course all started by delving deeper in to chado and from meditating, mindfulness and just trying to be more aware.

This week people have been grating on each other’s nerves and just generally when you live with people and work with people for almost a year you are bound to have disagreements and minor differences that work people up. There has been a recent spike in minor group squabbling. Some people taking sides (or purposefully ignoring the situation) and all of it has an impact on the group dynamic. We represent many cultures under one group and with that comes many different personalities, backgrounds and morals. I hope that it’s mostly weather-related and that since we are cold and damp that we are all just crabby and we only need to sleep more. It’s not a bad thing to admit that this is happening, rather a perfectly normal part of the Midorikai process. Hopefully we can all look back on this challenging time and laugh.

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End of January – a Midorikai interlude

Hello all,
The third and final semester has been passing quickly. Almost too quickly! School began mid-January and we were right back at it: chanting sutra and listening to the student speeches at morning role call, taking copious notes during the two lecture periods, scarfing down a hasty (but tasty) lunch and zipping out to begin studying tea in the afternoon in one of the six tea rooms or perhaps on the third floor. We would be doing one of our various jobs: Cho and Cho helper are responsible for taking care of the sensei in the morning classes and also preparing the tea rooms in the afternoon for lessons to make sure that we have everything we need and that they are reset for the next day after class. Hi 1 and Hi 2 (pronounced “he”) are responsible for making sure that we have hot charcoal / fire or “hi” and hot water for each of our rooms. The Hana person sets up the classroom for the morning lectures and is the daily record keeper for the office. They also arrange the flowers in the afternoon for tea practice. These three jobs each have one sempai and one kohai to help and support each other, though now we switch whether it will be sempai or kohai in charge to share the responsibility more. We also have additional jobs as needed: Haigata duty, which is shaping the ash in the brazier for the furo season. We only need to occasionally worry about that this season when we have a special temae procedure we are doing. We also schedule who has the sumi-temae, or the charcoal-laying procedure to do. This is the one most of us really enjoy as it isn’t something many of us have ever done outside of Japan: handling charcoal with chopsticks in very specific ways. I really enjoy it. After we finish with our tea lesson (around 4:30 pm) we are free to eat dinner at the cafeteria, run home to change out of kimono and then run our errands. I wouldn’t normally use the word “run” twice in that sentence, but that’s usually the tempo at which our evenings start at. This time of year the temperature drops so quickly when the sun goes down that it’s better to get the errands out of the way earlier in the evening before it gets to full dark.

Beautiful snow scenery

January was all about the New Year for the first half. The second half of January is delightful for the snow that began falling intermittently. I’ve been around snow before (and I know that many of you have been dealing with large amounts of it, so the newness has worn off). Walking to school wearing my kimono is so much fun since it’s cold but not terrible yet! I’m still delighted by the small things here and nature is so beautiful and wonderful. The days are beginning to get longer again and already one can notice a difference before and after school. The sparrows are nice and fat too and they are back in front of my window, which gives me a deep-seated joy.

Karla in the snow

I’m sure every place in the world has seasonal points that are unique for the region, but the Japanese (not only the traditional arts enthusiasts) have a deep seated regard for nature and they take real delight and joy in enjoying the elements of each period of time. Perhaps it’s because Kyoto understands this and so they plant things in an abundance that they make a real difference. For example in the autumn when the leaves turned red there was a period of about three weeks when the leaves were all red, nearly at the same time and then they were gone. Poof. These visual reminders of the passing seasons reminds me of how fleeting life is. Enjoy each minute of each day because you can’t save it up for tomorrow. Here and gone just like the blooms of a flower or the leaves from trees or the snow melting on the mossy rock.

Love to all 🙂

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Hatsuchakai Issoan 2017

Happy New Year.  Issoan celebrated Hatsuchakai Sunday January 15.   This year table style with tatami tables and guests seated in chairs at the tables.

A light meal was served

Koicha and usucha followed

Hatsugama 2017 Kaiki

Scroll: ??????Meireki reki, rodo do.
Everything is illuminated, everything is clear and distinct, by Kobori Takugan (1931-) Born in Aichi prefecture, he is the chief priest of Koho-an subtemple of Daitoku-ji temple. He practiced under Kobori Jitsudo

Temae tables: Portable black laquer with sunken ro by Craig Tenney

Hanaire: Ichi ju gire, one window cut by Sochiku

Flowers: Seasonal flowers

New Year Display: Kagami mochi, with dai dai and year of the Fire Rooster

Kogo: Made from wood of the Ise Shrine, home of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess

Omogashi: Hanabira mochi, flower petal

Tana: Naga ita so kazari

Mizusashi: Blue and white Sometsuke kaigu

Hibashi: Rikyu konomi, pine cone

Chaire: Shiribukura Chaire, Seto yaki, with shifuku of hoju kinran, the flaming jewel

Koicha chamei: Chiyo no Hikari, Light of 1000 years by Shoraien

Chawan: Red Raku Shimadai set by Waraku

Chashaku: Made by Yosei. Gomei, Yuu kou, ??Infusing light

Higashi: Oike senbei, Kyoto, seasonal wasanbon pressed sugar

Higashi bon, Red lacquer bamboo with pine needle design by Zohiko, Black lacquer yohobon

Natsume: Gold lacquer natsume

Chashaku: Green Glass, made by Hirota, Gomei: miesuku ???? to be transparent; to be easily seen through; to be obvious; to be apparent

Omojawan: Bamboo in green and gold, Kyo-yaki

Kaejawan: Nezumi Shino, Minako’s Hagi,

Kazuchawan: Bamboo Kyo-yaki by Hosai Fujitani

Usucha: Organic matcha from Entsu, Wazuka, Japan

 

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