April update, a Midorikai interlude

April 18
Midorikai was honored to be invited to Hokoku Jinja Kenchashiki Sanretsu, which is offered every other year. This memorial is to honor Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who has sort of a complicated relationship with tea people. On one hand, he was very important in Kyoto’s history and did a lot of good things for the city. On the other hand, he was responsible for Rikyu having to commit seppuku. image1(2)

We all wore our formal iromuji (one color) kimono and fukuro obi. The men looked very nice in hakama. Even though there was a forecast for 60% chance rain, it didn’t rain on us but it was pleasantly overcast. We enjoyed three seki. The first seki was at the foot of the tall stairs and O’Iemoto-sama offered the ceremonial tea. It was very small and intimate with about 40-50 people on each side of the platform seated in chairs. I was fortunate to not have a pillar blocking my view so I was able to watch everything clearly. The priests purified the guests and the food offerings. It was fascinating. Plus O’Iemoto’s temae was lovely. image2(1)

The second seki was by the older Gakuen students outside on the red felt tables. They served hanami dango – delicious! Each colored ball was a different flavor. After matcha, we went to the third seki. This seki was also small with about 20 Gakuen and Midorikai students, and SURPRISE, O’Iemoto himself came out to give the explanation while a gyotei sensei did temae! I’ve heard that this was quite unusual!

There was so much famous dogu (Tantansai, Gengensai, Ennosai, Daisosho-sama, etc.) but the creme de la creme was a hanaire (flower holder) of a massive bamboo root made by Hideyoshi himself! It was definitely impressive. One could see why a powerful man like Hideyoshi would have been drawn to something as ostentatious as this. It was truely a thing of beauty though.

We had tenshin meal served by the male Gakuen students afterward and that was also very tasty. There were three awesome scrolls, sadly I can’t remember any of them right now in the flurry of activity and things to look at, so I will have to look at the daily practice log to remind myself and make note.

Afterward we (Toni-san and I) had another mizuya toban meeting in preparation for our mizuya week to begin on the 24th. It was nice to be introduced to the 15 other people in our group. What an amazing day!

image1(1)We have also started to do our own haigata, ash forming. Here was my binkake and view. Note: I had some assistance on that front mountain. I’m not that experienced yet and will need lots of practice. Spring rains are always so refreshing and the garden was just lovely.

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Sumi and sumi, a Midorikai interlude

We had our first week of school and I am quite tired. We have had some changes to the program with Midorikai being included more inside the Gakuen. For example, we now attend the morning chorei / role call. This is a great time to practice sitting seiza, which of course means that you are DYING by the end of it. Also, it’s early in the morning, so you haven’t quite gotten warmed up yet and it’s especially painful for me.

Another example is that along with our usual Midorikai duties of preparing our own classrooms, we also have been included in Gakuen Mizuya rotation. This is also a great opportunity to learn how to do things and you are working side-by-side with about 12-15 students ranging from first year to three year. Few of the students speak English, so I’m not so sure how that’s going to go for me. Luckily we have been paired Sempai-Kohai, so I have my Sempai who will help me.

It seems that with the changes to the program, they expect a much higher level of language proficiency then before when we were quite separated from Gakuen. My mizuya week rotation will be the last week in April and after watching how exhausted my other classmates have gotten I’ve started to worry about it. I’m stock piling cooling spray and herbal tea and other homeopathic remedies like candy bars to make sure that I can make it through.

Usually mizuya toban begins at 6 am and you don’t really get a break until 8 pm at night. This goes Sunday through Saturday, though usually the weekend days are only for 4-5 hours. With Midorikai’s usual duties and only 7 of us to do them all, 2 of which are mizuya toban and have to leave to go help the gakuen, well, things have gotten tense. I’m trying to not let it stress me out or overwhelm me since it won’t help me.

On a more pleasant note, we’ve had some interesting lectures and jitsugi this week. We had a lecture on April seasonality and also the mizuya from Hamana-sensei. We had to scribble madly to try and get it all down. Luckily I had read the April chapter from the Japanese Tea Almanac, so I skipped the parts I remembered reading from that.
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We also had a calligraphy lesson. I have always enjoyed calligraphy.
For jitsugi we had warigeko lessons, this time focusing on walking, standing, folding fukusa, handling utensils, etc to prepare us for temae. It’s amazing how much my fukusa folding has improved. I’ve got a whole checklist of things to work on now. My right leg is pretty sore from standing and sitting and my bowing has improved a bit. Lots still to improve upon! We are still in western clothes and when we start wearing kimono, I think things will get a little easier in regards to being in the tea room.
We also had a sumikiri (charcoal cutting) session, which was actually quite fun.IMG_3414

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Midorikai interlude

Karla has agreed to write a few things for the blog during her year in Midorikai.  Here is the first installment:

Greetings!

My name is Karla and I am a student of Margie’s. I am lucky enough to follow in the footsteps of my sensei and attend the Urasenke Midorikai program beginning this April. I feel very grateful and honored to return to the program that she completed 20 years ago. She has kindly given permission to post some of my experiences to her blog so her readers can get an idea of the program today. Unfortunately, I don’t expect to be able to reply to comments but for specific questions, she can pass them along to me. I hope you enjoy reading about my adventures!

April 4

We are getting prepared for school to begin here at Urasenke. Prior to the opening ceremony we have many orientations and things to gather so we are prepared. There won’t be much time to do shopping once classes begin so it’s important to try to prepare as much as we can. Also, that’s just sort of how I am since I’m a school teacher by trade 😛 There is a hustle and bustle among all of the students here. I have three fabulous sempai and three doukyuusei, so there are four of us and three of them! We have been getting along well together and have already started to see the sights of Kyoto.

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Nijo-jo light up

 

This time of year is famous for sakura, cherry blossom viewing. If you walk along the Kamogawa (the famous river in the middle of Kyoto) you often see Hanami (blossom viewing parties) and many of the shrines have light ups, where you can go and view the cherry blossoms at night. There is discussion of taking a field trip on a weekend this month to Yoshino, a very famous location for its cherry blossoms. In fact, “Yoshino” alone makes a fabulous gomei this time of year because of it’s ability to evoke that seasonality. We have enjoyed many bowls of matcha and are SPOILED for fabulous wagashi. (Note: I will not be focusing so much recording the Wagashi here on this blog as some other Midorikai graduates, but I would suggest Drinking Liminality blog by a previous student, if you are interested).

April 9

This has been quite a busy week with the opening ceremony, welcome dinner, trip to Juko-in (one of the two sites for Rikyu’s grave) and a weekend field trip to Yoshino. All the events went well. I’m concerned about the ability to sit seiza already, but I hope that with some tips and tricks from sensei and sempai (and my doukyuusei), I can make it through without long-term injury to knees, ankles, legs and feet.

The opening ceremony had a little over 30 new students entering the four different areas of the school. We four new Midorikai students were part of it. It was awesome to be able to stand up when my name was called and bow to O’Iemoto-sama and his wife, who the gakuen affectionally calls O’Kusama. For this year we are accepted as part of their family.

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Opening ceremony

 

Yoshino was also a highlight, though the blossoms were slightly past their prime. A good gomei for this was “hana fubuki” on account of the many blossoms falling from the branches like a snow blizzard. Quite beautiful!

Yoshino hillside

Yoshino hillside

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New Midorikai student

IMG_3096Our own Karla just flew to Japan to start her year at Midorikai.  She already has met her classmates and sempai. Hanami under the weeping cherry trees.  We wish her the most wonderful year of tea.

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The sound of boiling water

P1000182One of Rikyu’s rules is to lay the charcoal so that it boils the water. I will not be talking about the charcoal, today, but the boiling water.

There are no clocks in the tea room, the kama is one of your timing devices. Depending on how you lay the charcoal — farther apart, the air gets in and the fire burns hotter faster — closer together, there is less circulation, and the longer it takes the kettle to come to a boil. By experience, you want to adjust your timing so the water in the kettle is at just the right temperature when you are making tea.

In the tea literature, there are different stages of boiling water, including poetic descriptions of the size and frequency of the bubbles as the water comes to a boil. When you are boiling water in an iron kettle with a lid on it, you cannot see the bubbles as the water comes to a boil.

In a lecture at Midorikai, Tsutsui-sensei gave us a description of the sounds of boiling water.

At the beginning, when you put the kama on the fire, the water is cold and kettle is wet. At this stage it is silent. You may hear slight hissing as the water is evaporating from the surface of the kama, but then the kama is silent.

As the kama heats up, you will hear the beginnings of occasional sounds (the equivalent of crab eyes bubbles around the rim).

The next stage, he called to nami, or the sound of distant waves. The kettle is heating up and you can hear something coming from the kama like the sound of distant waves.

Next, gyo gan, (the equivalent of fish eyes – larger bubbles coming from the center of the kama) the sounds are getting louder and closer together, more regular.

At the next stage, kyu in mimizu, he called worms crying. Sometimes you can hear a squeaking from the kama which is what I think this means. He likened this stage to the string of pearls bubbles coming from the bottom of the kama to the top.

The next stage is what we are familiar with, matsu kaze or the wind in the pine trees.

And then raime or thunder rolling, the kettle is at full boil, and the steam is escaping from the lid.

Koicha is made perfectly at 80º C (matsu kaze), and usucha at about 70º C. If the kettle is boiling, you can always add water from the mizusashi to adjust the temperature, but if the water is not hot enough, you cannot turn up the charcoal to make the water hotter.  So please pay attention to the sound of the water in the kama as it boils.

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