Category: Beautiful Places

Chinese chicken salad @ a gathering – In Japan considered bad luck to stick chop sticks into mounds of food servings but here’s it’s stuck to the side of the box so … not being superstitious.  Rather think it’s a super cute way to dish out this kind of salad.

Farmer’s Market scene …Fall season has arrived.

It’s been a troubled few weeks.  Whether you believe or not, I believe in this scientific reporting/findings.  This.  I also believe a mother, a wife, a professor can be so brave to risk her and family’s safety to speak the truth because anger and fear can move you. And so all the more afraid and yet, to realize how some people just don’t see things the way you do is stressful and a cause of frustrations and great deal of anger … I was reminded of this poem last two weeks.  :

For Someone Awakening To The Trauma of His or Her Past:

For everything under the sun there is a time.
This is the season of your awkward harvesting,
When the pain takes you where you would rather not go,

Through the white curtain of yesterdays to a place
You had forgotten you knew from the inside out;
And a time when that bitter tree was planted

That has grown always invisibly beside you
And whose branches your awakened hands
Now long to disentangle from your heart.

You are coming to see how your looking often darkened
When you should have felt safe enough to fall toward love,
How deep down your eyes were always owned by something

That faced them through a dark fester of thorns
Converting whoever came into a further figure of the wrong;
You could only see what touched you as already torn.

Now the act of seeing begins your work of mourning.
And your memory is ready to show you everything,
Having waited all these years for you to return and know.

Only you know where the casket of pain is interred. 
You will have to scrape through all the layers of covering
And according to your readiness, everything will open. 

May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide
Who can accompany you through the fear and grief
Until your heart has wept its way to your true self.

As your tears fall over that wounded place,
May they wash away your hurt and free your heart.
May your forgiveness still the hunger of the wound

So that for the first time you can walk away from that place, 
Reunited with your banished heart, now healed and freed,
And feel the clear, free air bless your new face.
― John O’Donohue

Genmai-cha:)

Back in Japan ? Rather, it’s Berkeley … a glimpse of lovely tea tasting room.  Beautifully designed to work in the Western setting. While I prefer tatami flooring and rustic woodsy zen space more – the traditional Japanese tea room/house – this design is another take.

Walking into Teance (“tea” + “ambiance”:)Tea after Pescatarian lunch at Iyasare (means “healing”)… It’s sad that the founder of this lovely tea house passed away at the age of only 47 last year … I am moved by this chant offered in her honor:

May I be a guard for those who need protection
A guide for those on the path
A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish to cross the flood
May I be a lamp in the darkness
A resting place for the weary
A healing medicine for all who are sick
A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles
And for the boundless multitudes of living beings
May I bring sustenance and awakening
Enduring like the earth and sky
Until all beings are freed from sorrow
And all are awakened.
~ Shantideva ~
Prayed each morning by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Not all good die young but this one did. It’s thanks to passionate and dedicated people like her, tea, or more specifically Asian tea has become so mainstream these days – check this out – so educational.   Just found this talk she gave – all the more – what a loss … amazing tea educator. (& Business/Entrepreneurship 101 as well).

She risked her life and limb … climbing mountains … “still amazed I’m still alive” – what a quote… (& wonder how the current trade tariffs affects the importers …)A powerhouse.

Sometimes when you are so passionate, so giving, so serving, and so “BUSY” striving to propel yourself, overcoming obstacles after obstacles with powerful surge, you are heated and fired up – literally burning up yang-style.  In the process of “burning up” some may burn-out or some may break or some may ignite the beautiful flames of fire.  In this state, you may not notice or take heed to the signs that your body sends you – or go into a denial mode as overcoming limits has always been your style – but the conscious mind; the sub-conscious mind … we need to awaken to.  We have to pay attention (called wakefulness or mindfulness vs. auto-pilot unconscious mindless doing) to the cosmos, the universe within … at the cellular level with mindful breathing and stretching.  While diet is important, copious amount of green tea, stocking up with super foods with powerful antitoxins still cannot be the only – while predominant – factor in our sense of wellness and optimal health.

Let’s send out that invitation to Self for abundance of time and space to really … truly listen to the inner signs and voices.  Practicing and sharpening our inner listening skills … as we transition to this beautiful Autumn season.  Seasons are fleeting so let’s find what moves you … then, settle into tranquil stillness.  On the mat and off the mat.

Sometimes we surrender into this lovely earth, release into gravity – a stable grounding practice; sometimes we defy that gravity and jump high, lift off into the sky – feeling weightless so light – an adrenaline rush, the natural high.  Between the vast heavens and this mother earth, we abide, we find comfort.

May today bring us comfort and joy as we notice the miracles all around us.

Namaste:)