Tea and Mindfulness. Drinking matcha and writing a haiku
I’ve been feeling a little lost and lacking inspiration lately. While I was in need of direction and clarity, I found mindfulness to be very helpful. What is mindfulness? If you’re a tea lover, chances are you are already familiar with mindfulness. According to Headspace, the meditation app I use, “mindfulness is the idea of learning how to be fully present and engaged in the moment, aware of your thoughts and feelings without distraction or judgment.”
Being present in the moment, enjoying the beauty of little things, being intentional with one’s thoughts and actions are all things that tea lovers can easily teach themselves by cultivating a tea ritual, however simple or elaborate. To overcome my lack of inspiration, I started researching and found a series of mindfulness prompts by The Good Trade, a resource for sustainable living I read on a regular basis. I selected a few and I’m going to turn them into a “Tea and Mindfulness Series” over the next few weeks. My goal is to practice mindfulness more consistently and explore it in a creative way. I’m hoping to inspire you and get inspired for my future tea endeavors.
The first prompt that caught my attention was “write poetry”. I’ve always enjoyed reading poetry but I had never written poetry, I’m the kind of person who even finds journaling hard. Even though I’m not confident in my poetry writing skills, I thought it might be an interesting challenge. The first thing that came to mind when thinking of poetry and tea was haiku! It’s a traditional form of Japanese poetry. Have you seen the TV show / travel documentary “James May: Our Man in Japan”? British television presenter and journalist James May travels to Japan to discover the beauty of the country and its culture. He himself accepts the challenge of writing a haiku. Anyway, the show is great and very entertaining, I highly recommend it.
I’ve been to Japan twice and it’s one of my favorite travel destinations ever, holding a special place in my heart, not only because of its tea. Traditional Japanese culture is well known for placing an emphasis on concepts like chisoku, feeling fulfilled in the present moment, and ichigo ichie, which is closely connected to the way of tea, more commonly known as the Japanese tea ceremony. It could be roughly explained as “treasure the moment for it may never come again”. It doesn’t get any more mindful that this, does it?
Back to the haiku! Here’s what I came up with:
January in LA,
Palm trees swaying in the fog,
Fragrant tea in my cup.
Definitely not complying with the 5-7-5 syllable structure typical of a haiku, but close enough for a beginner. I like it but I wanted to focus even more on tea, so I tried again.
Afternoon sun,
I smell the scent of cedar wood -
Velvety green foam kisses my lips.
Tea and mindfulness. Drinking matcha and writing a haiku. The Tea Squirrel
The prompt further asked “What do your poems tell you about yourself?”
I guess my poems tell you that I love tea and that tea is a multi sensory experience for me. In the second poem, you can tell that I’m having matcha, right? This particular matcha I’m having is traditionally prepared with a bamboo whisk (chasen) and served in a matcha bowl (chawan). It evokes natural scents of Japan to me like cedar wood and greens and it’s super smooth and velvety in texture. A real treat.
Have you ever written tea poetry? What’s your favorite poetry form?
