STORY

Last blog considered Writing on Water.   This blog is about story.   We live and we die by story.  Stories have a beginning a middle and an end.  They usually have a victim, a perpetrator and a rescuer or some variation of same.  A story does not last long on water.  Perhaps in life it lasts longer or from birth to cradel. Usually when someone asks how you are, you tell a story.  If you are suffering, you are telling a story.

There is a gambling term : Plat it as it lays.  Outside story that!

With a story there is always some place to get.  What if there is no place to get.  How would the world unfold if that were the case.

Wind is blowing today quite industriously, the chimes are making their tunes on the house eaves and the neighbor  dog , January, came for four visits.  Is that a story or wind and weather?

WRITE ON WATER

What happens if we remove the pockets from this pool table?  Is the game over?  There would be an absence of getting somewhere or doing something.  Winning or beating an opponent would be obsolete.  That former game had to do with the individual player’s skill set measured against another skill set.  What would the possibilities be without that?  What is up if you play alone…no pockets?

If there were nowhere to get because the pockets have been removed wouldn’t calling it a game of pool be impossible.  The game is gone.  The competition is gone.  Winning, loosing and beating someone are gone?  What’s left?  Balls awaiting motion.  Vectors which simply are with nowhere to get.

If a person with a cue were to hit a ball and the usual purpose of that action has been removed, what then?  Would it be like writing your name on water?  If there is no place to get what becomes of creativity.  Dolce far niente…the deliciousness of non-doing.  The   pool table, cue ball, pool cue, chalk become?

Light Vectors

Please watch the attached pool video before reading the blog!

View Pool Video HERE!

As I watch the skillful woman at her shots, I see vectors of light connect all the possible shots she might make, infinite paths of light. They create a light show of the possible. I see not only the course of action she selects and creates with her cue…all the unselected possibilities are also visible simultaneously as light paths. Such choices for a player!

From an action point of view, called physics, there is in addition to the vectors, an energy to be transferred via the cue stick to the cue ball to incite movement. Not only is there the intent of path and destination, other complex elements come into play. There is spin, quality of bank bounce and a plethora of choices familiar to a pool player that are condensed and then released as the blue chocked cue strikes the cue ball strike to create the desired result.

The ball follows the selected path which does and does not exists on various plains before and after the strike and then does exist in time*space after the cue ball is set in motion. If another player is added we have the life of relationship.

The thought leading to action arises, is and then “where he go?” My suspicion is back to the spaciousness from which it arose. My suspicion is that this is my life acted out by my friend with the pool cue.

Thunder

WAITING FOR VENUS

It is Lent and 5:21 p.m.  I’m waiting for Venus to appear.  The sun is about to go down.  She’ll be here soon.  A diamond in the sky.  I first see her just after sundown as the light fades and she can present herself.  In the morning she comes before the sun.  When the sun arrives she disappears into the firmament . She reminds me of a diamond.

Worked on an engineering  feat in the driveway.  Large puddle has formed. I am attempting to be an advocate for both the water and my automobile by draining the puddle.  There is a  natural way to do it however there is an ice dam preventing completely free flow.  I am working on it with an axe, a spade and a snow shovel.  The water  has its own lust.

I am still waiting for Venus.  Drank pu-erh (Large Leaf from Old Trees) yesterday a.m. and Japanese sencha from Uji today.  Remember all tea on the web page (whitedragontea.com) is on sale 25% off.  If you need to restock your pantry, this is a most excellent time to do so.

It is 5:30  and I am waiting.  Slight cloud cover, reminds me of marine cover in LA.  Drinking an herbal tea.  Be Well is a favorite right now to stay balanced and healthy as everything begins and proceeds to thaw out.  It’s almost Valentines Day ladies and gentlemen.  I hope you like the day of the heart as much as I do.  I am preparing rack of lamb, greens and purchasing a good red called the Predator.

It is 5:32.  The seasonal spring on my property is running, tumbling down the water fall/gorge.  I can listen to its song from the house.

5;55 still watching the sky.  Cloud wisps now pink variations. Where is Venus.  Did she have an appointment somewhere else?

6:02 Venus has arrived and she is resplendent in her diamond body.

Good evening to all you all.

 

MONKEY LOVE

What do you get when you cross a monkey and a heart?

Ans: A huge 25% off all tea on our webpage for the celebration of the Chinese New Year (The Year of the Monkey) and Valentines Day

Use the code monkeylove  at checkout for your discount. whitedragontea.com  Someone is calling to be your Valentine.  Answer if you dare and if you like natural hot springs.

Love from the Dragon

The Vicissitudes of Travel

It is always confidence building to know where you are going. With travel that might end up being “where you think you are going” rather than where you are actually going.  Denver snowed in.  Durango sketchy.  We rerouted our trip through Phoenix.  I spoke with two different ladies in India to do this.  The first one disconnected me as we were about to reschedule.  The second one sent a receipt that she had charged us $13oo for the change which on the third telephone call, this time with a supervisor, was ‘just the way the did the receipt’ .  It didn’t actually mean what it said.

In Phoenix we had thirty minutes to connect with the Durango flight.  The stewardess asked the folk on the plane to sit tight as there were a handful of us that had to make connecting flights.  Everybody got up and it took ten minutes to deplane.  Other logistics took five minutes.  We had to go from terminal 1 in Phoenix to terminal 4 which included taking the skyway and going through security again.  Security busy, wife lost her sweater we were in such a rush.  Got two rides from men on carts and ended at the wrong gate knocking on the door because I could see the plane was still there even though the door was secured.  The correct gate was across the terminal and the plane had left.

Jasmine of American Airlines got us a billet for lodging.  Matt head of security found the sweater, Eric picked us up for the Residence Inn, Marriott, and we just had free breakfast.  Luckily, the morning of our departure I had packed my cpap to carry along so slept nicely after a hot shower, Downton Abbey and a salad.  This morning  soon another trip to the airport and home.

I don’t know when I travel and that mystery is very good for my spirit to find the way and be celebrated by the kindness of strangers as Tennessee Williams used to say.  The enormous safety net and all the jeweled beings that make it up keep us safe and offer adventure.

I miss my tea hoard in Durango.  Longing for a wonderful cup of Dreaming Awake, Be Well or a luscious pu-erh. whitedragontea.com

Bodhidharma

Look at that face!  Do you notice anything peculiar about Bodhidharma?  Let me tell you the story as I sip my Heavenly Blue Peak to keep me alert or perhaps some herbal Focused Mind.  So here we go.

Bodhidharma was born in Southern India and was on fire to take Buddhism to China, a very long trip in those days. He went to China only to somehow offend the emperor who took a disliking to him and would not aid him in his mission.  He decided to meditate in a cave facing the wall for twelve years.  In the eleventh year he fell asleep.  When he awakened, having failed in his intent, he was furious.  He took his knife out, cut off his eyelids and cast them out of the cave. Ah hah he thought, I’ll never fall asleep during meditation again.  Where the eyelids landed the first two tea bushes sprung up and ever since the monks can use the tea to stay awake and alert in their meditation practices.

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Tsubo…tea storage jars

Tea storage has required vessels over the centuries.  Because tea was so valuable to the growers and other users, it created the culture and beauty of the vessel to store and protect it.  Tsubo is the Japanese word for pot and chatsubo is the specific term for tea storage jars.  I like thinking about sencha stowed away from the spring harvest until fall and then blissfully opened like New Beaujolais and savored by the town folk.  They even have costumes to go the river and a wooden bucket to pull the water up onto the bridge for steeping the aged tea.

Tsubo is also the word for the points on the meridians which Shiatsu addresses and would define  acupuncture points in some systems of Asian Medecine.  The row of tea boxes by Lisa Pedolsky are and will be filled with my treasured teas for the beauty and the joy of using them.  The vessel in the background is a perfect Japanese tea jar.

In China, the tea growers in Pu-erh store their cakes of tea and loose leaf  for several years.  A really fine brick of Pu-erh, considered medicine, can sell  anywhere from $3000 to $10,000.  I think I need a attentively steeped cup or two of Mountain Spring Sencha (aka Uji Kabuse) to settle me down after all this thinking about tea and its preservation and revered care and the glorious vessels that came from that inspiration.

Still in the presence of water.

I am very interested in what the water has done as represented in these photographs.  How did it know where to go?  How did it get there through thick ice?  Did the water know where it was going before it started or did the water take one step at a time?  Why didn’t it go in a straight line like humans do?  You can slip of ice and fall down.  You can’t slip on water nor can you walk on it unless you have the prerequisites like you know who.  You can board or ski on snow.  How does that work.  I think I need a cup of Old Leaf Pu-erh to get a bit of refreshment for all this wondering.

 

White Dragon Tea

WATER WILL HAVE ITS WAY

We live in snow country.  Water right now has all forms.  Water flowing  in the Animas River. Ice on the edges of the river and all around.  Snow piled high in the streets of the city.  Water is coming and going and it has its way if you will watch. It makes little rivers here and there imposing its persistent will.  Birds eat snow at the top of pine trees and Fox has a drink.  I watch and sip sencha, pour after pour,  the first steep is celestial.  Okumidori from whitedragontea.com pleases.  Just add heated water to leaves and there you go.  A lovely pot and a favorite yunomi(small cup) and you are set. A salute to the element of water then.  Thunder