Saturday Morning Tea

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My daughter gave me a lovely bouquet of tulips for Mother’s Day. This morning I was cutting the stems down and rearranging them in a vase when a petal fell onto the kitchen counter. It cradles this morning’s tea, a Tie-Guan-Yin Oolong called Special Tribute.

There is a legend regarding how this particular Oolong came into being. Many years ago in Fujian Province in China, a poor tea farmer named Mr. Wei would walk by a temple everyday on his way to the tea fields. As each day passed, he noticed that no one cared for the temple so it was becoming quite run down. Inside he found a statue of Guan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion. He did not have the means to fix up the temple but he felt that something needed to be done. One day he brought his broom and some incense. He lit the incense as an offering to the Goddess and swept the temple clean. That night Guan Yin came to him in a dream and told him of a cave where he would find a beautiful treasure for himself and to share with others. The treasure turned out to be a tea shoot which Mr. Wei planted and nurtured into a large tea bush, producing the finest tea in the region. He shared cuttings with all his neighbors and started calling the tea produced from this bush Tie-Guan-Yin. Mr. Wei and all his neighbors prospered and were able to restore the temple to its beauty and many came to gather there. Now Mr. Wei felt joy everyday as he passed the temple on the way to his tea fields.

Isn’t that just a lovely story?

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I steeped the rolled leaf for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water. It relaxed a little after steeping but, for the most part, still kept its curly appearance.

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The pale yellow liquor is smooth and slightly sweet with nutty, woodsy notes and a hint of floral in the finish.

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I enjoyed my cuppa with the last of the blackberry crumble I made the other evening. Crumble is so easy to make and you can substitute your favorite fruit. Mix 1/2 cup each of rolled oats, brown sugar, and flour with a teaspoon of cinnamon. Then cut in 1/4 cup of butter until it’s crumbly. Place your choice of fruit (about 2-4 cups, soaked in sugar beforehand, if you wish) in a baking dish and sprinkle the crumble over it. Bake at 350 until browned. In my oven, it took about 25 minutes. Mmmmm….

“Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.”

~Henry Miller

From the Studio

May15

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Another Ripple scarf!

I love this pattern so much that I’m making another scarf, this time in jeweled tones for a dear friend’s birthday next month. I imagine her wearing it with a vibrant fall colored outfit.

One of the things that I love best about this pattern, besides its wonderful rhythm, is the way you can choose 2 different yarns that coordinate in color but contrast in texture. As you only use one skein of each yarn, it’s also a great way to use up leftover yarn from a bigger project.

I’ve returned to my art journal pages. I put my journal aside for awhile when it was time to create some pages of your home, the one that you’ve felt most comfortable in. I’m sure that the intent was to journal about what home means to me. Well….in the past 6 years, I have faced a lot of challenging questions about that so this was an interesting exercise for me. After putting it off for days and days, I finally sat my butt in the chair and just started drawing a house.

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I’ve created my dream house with big windows and skylights. I love the idea of living in a home filled with light, illuminating my sacred living space in a wash of warmth. I have yet to find this place of my dreams in real life. As my writing states,

“Under an ocean of stars, I hope to find my true home.”

The house itself (on the left) is made of a brown paper bag glued onto my journal page as a pocket. Our assignment was to create some paper dolls of myself and the loved ones I live with. As my kids are grown and I am no longer married, I have decided not to make the dolls but I will place some beloved photos of myself with my family in the house pocket.

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The next assignment was to find a couple of interesting body shapes in a magazine and cut them out precisely. I laid the body shapes onto my page and then, using a makeup sponge, painted around each shape, thus creating a beautiful silhouette. I especially love the shape on the right and thought that she needed some wings. Then, using a gold gel pen, I wrote down as many descriptive words as I could think of. That exercise really sparked my imagination. I found that sitting outside in nature was the perfect setting for accomplishing this.

Visual journaling gives me such a calm, peaceful feeling…

“Every spirit builds itself a house, and beyond its house a world, and beyond its world a heaven. Know that the world exists for you.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy Mother’s Day!

May10

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I love lilacs.

Their heavenly fragrance reminds me of many wonderful days spent in my garden, one of my most favorite places to be. The beauty of a flower reminds us of all that is good in our world, inside of us and outside.

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I’ve finished my Spring free-form bracelet. This bracelet is thinner than the others I’ve made. Keeping in mind the hours that go into creating a free-form piece, I am trying to make a more affordable bracelet, one that takes less time to finish.

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I loved weaving the colors of spring that can be worn upon the wrist.

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I like the idea of letting the colors in the natural world around me inspire my creations.

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Here is the clasp, a simple bead and loop. I’ve built up the loop so that there aren’t any gaps in the flow of the bracelet.

Enjoy the beauty of this day which honors the creativity of all women!

But if you have nothing at all to create, perhaps you create yourself.

~Carl Jung

Saturday Morning Tea

May9

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The air felt very still and heavy with moisture this morning as I walked out onto the back deck and greeted the morning. The birds darted through the trees, twittering and chirping, happy to be back home. I was so glad to see a tiny hummingbird preening itself on the weigela bush, its iridescent back flashing green in the morning light. Two male orioles chased each other through the trees in streaks of brilliant orange. It’s mating season and I’m sure this flying dance was all about territory and one certain lady bird. As I headed back inside to put the kettle on, the sky opened up and let forth a deluge. Perfect timing for a hot cuppa.

In honor of the magnificent green unfolding of spring, I am sipping a beautiful green tea called New Season Top Lung Ching. The flat broad leaf has a silky texture and a slight nutty aroma. I’ve written about and reviewed Lung Ching teas before here and here. The flat shape of the leaf is caused by the motion of the pan when the leaf is heated to stop oxidation.

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I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 170 degree F water.

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Some of the leaves open slightly but most retain their “pea-pod” shape. The pale yellow color of the tea liquor is so light that it reminds me of a white tea. Everything about this tea is gentle, from the whisper of vegetal in the aroma to the smooth buttery corn flavor note. Very soft, very ethereal.

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I’ve been reading A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg. Molly is best known as the author of the marvelous blog Orangette. With each chapter, Molly shares a life story and then a recipe. I love her chatty writing style and I feel like she’s sitting next to me sharing a cup of tea and a piece of cake from one of her mouthwatering recipes. Anyone who knows me well knows about my cooking phobia. So, as this year in my life seems to be all about standing up to my fears, I am taking the plunge and experimenting with baking. My work colleagues are quite pleased as they get to taste and enjoy the results of my efforts. Since my experience with H.H. the Dalai Lama last weekend, I am thinking more and more about what life is all about and what gives me joy. I am discovering that I really like to create something with food.

A couple of evenings ago, I made the recipe found on page 20 for Blueberry-Raspberry Pound cake. I substituted blackberries I found on sale and added some orange and lemon zest. It came out quite wonderful and this morning I am savoring the last piece with my cup of tea. The blackberries lend a moist, jammy quality which I think balances wonderfully with the dense pound cake.

Hmmm, now what recipe shall I try next?

When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and every meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It’s also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be.”

~Molly Wizenberg, A Homemade Life

Tea on Sunday

May3

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This morning has been busy with trying to catch up on everything from the week, especially cleaning. Now that it’s all accomplished, I can sit down with my cuppa and meditate on yesterday’s experience…

I’m enjoying a cup of Formosa Black tea, a very unique tea developed by the Taiwan Tea Research Extension Station. They crossed a Taiwanese tea bush with an Assam (India)/Burmese tea bush to create this particular tea.

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The leaf is very dark and twisted into long thin strands. Now that all of the plumeria and hibiscus plants have made their way out onto the backyard deck, it uncovered this beautiful little tile table perfect for showing off the black leaf and steeped dark amber colored tea.

I steeped the leaves for 5 minutes in 212 degree F (boiled) water.

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After steeping, the leaves plumped up and unfurled into quite the pile of wet leaf. This is only half the leaves!

With my first sip, I detected the slight maltiness of the Assam along with some astringency. That’s where the similarity ended. There were also Oolong flavor notes (sweet, woody) with an interesting hint of chocolate. Despite the astringency, I drank this tea plain and, as it cooled, it smoothed out.

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I love this little table. It’s so colorful.

Yesterday his Holiness gave 2 talks, one on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism and the second on the Path to Peace and Happiness. Throughout his talks, he emphasized that we are all human beings together, all 6 billion of us on this planet. We all have the same goal – to be happy. And we all have the same capacity for kindness and compassion. We learn from our mother how to be warm-hearted. He used that term a lot. To have a warm and open heart recognizes the connection we have with all living beings. I could go on and on with all that he said but I am still absorbing the experience. As I listened to him talk, I felt something shift inside of myself. The message is so simple yet so very profound. Wow. I cried when he walked out and I cried when he left.

There are quite a few books out there written by his Holiness. I highly recommend any of them. I am currently reading “The Art of Happiness”.

Here are some links to learn more.

The Office of H.H. the Dalai Lama

Books in English authored by H.H. the Dalai Lama

From The Government of Tibet in Exile

His Biography

“Whether they be a president, a king, the royal family or a beggar, all human beings are the same.”

“Let us strive for religious harmony, mutual admiration and mutual respect.”

~H.H. the Dalai Lama