Vortex

Winter arrived early. The polar vortex (perhaps it should be capitalized), which in most years is reserved for January and February, showed its ugly face this November. In the past, the wind that carries the brittle polar air would simply appear without being named, but no longer. The branding of each storm coincides with the drama that the 24 hour news cycle and the insatiable social networks demand.

Nonetheless, the cold is real, and requires an expertise in layering. The drawers that hold the appropriate garments must be searched through and cataloged after a spring-summer-fall of neglect: long sleeved flannel undershirts, tight fitting long johns, heavy pants and shirts, gloves, hats, down and/or wool vest and coats, and boots with knuckled soles are retrieved.

The clothes are invested with a lifetime of hard won experience, knowledge, and money. To find a suitable combination any thought of fashion is forgotten. Practicality rules the day or at least what is left of the day as winter progresses.

The earth’s wobble tilts the planet in such a way that the sun’s warming rays aimed at the north ricochet back into the absolute cold of space. Southern climes are sought for relief, but this realization can prove difficult. The vagaries of the jet stream threaten Florida as well as Chicago. It requires optimism to plan a winter respite months ahead. It is a gamble to drive south, attempt to tan, and then return home unscathed.

To add to the chaos, once a storm is named it invests the populace with mania. Grocery store shelves are emptied, classes are canceled, snow blowers are prepped, and we are asked to check in on the vulnerable.

I am indebted to R. H. Blyth and to his four volumes simply called, Haiku. Each season I take the appropriate volume from its reverential space on the bookshelf and read his commentary. The haiku are interspersed with quotations from Western poets and writers.

Though I have had these books since my early twenties I have never
fully read them. They act as a reference for how to perceive the world, more encyclopedic than novelistic. Japan is an animistic nation, thus haiku poetry is supremely tailored to represent it. For the most part Blyth indexes the poems in a natural order. Birds and beasts, trees and flowers, sky and elements are some of the topics.

I have spent much of my life on the water and much of that on Lake Michigan, so the wind plays large in my perception of nature. Haiku, in a mere 17 syllables, encapsulates the reality of the wind.

Buson writes: The winter storm, The voice of the rushing water, Torn by the rocks. I can see it, I can feel the spray on my face, and I am relieved to be lounging on a comfortable chair in a warm home, and not out fighting the tempest.

Basho on the other hand is not as abstract as Buson. He writes: The tempest is blowing: Someone’s painfully swollen face. Now this describes a winter in our beloved windy city. This is raw and visceral, and even though I am comfortable now, within the poem’s few words, an inescapable truth lies. That ultimately there is no comfort.

I wonder if a warm tropical breeze was bathing me, would I still be as dire. Would a few swaying palm trees uplift my worldview, temporarily I suppose.

A Polar Vortex (capitalize now!), or its equivalent is bound to be lurking out there somewhere. I will be thinking of this when I try to escape from its clutches this February, no matter the inescapable truth.

November 2019

Realization

In the 1980’s, I began my study of chanoyu, the tea ceremony. I am a native of Chicago who after spending many years away for schooling erroneously thought I was through with the Windy City. Thus, for my first job I sought out a position in a beautiful lakeside town in Wisconsin. It did not take long to realize I had made a mistake.

The mistake had nothing to do with the amiable people of this small town but with self perception. Soon I was driving to the larger city up the coast for East Indian music concerts and Middle Eastern food. There were authentic Italian bakeries and delicatessens that needed visiting.

Wander lust set in quickly. Next, I found myself in Chicago reconnecting with friends I had abandoned in my quest for higher education. They were gracious in welcoming me back into the fold.

On one trip “home” I picked up a brochure for adult education at the Latin School. One of the listings was for a four weekend seminar in the tea ceremony. I quickly signed up and found myself driving back to Chicago after office hours to attend the class. It was taught by an imposing man and a diminutive woman both in kimono.

It was obvious from the start that she was in charge. The woman, my future teacher, ran the roost but due to limited English needed a translator. The class started with the basics: how to fold a fukusa, how to handle a chawan, an explanation of matcha and the technique of using a chasen. There was a short dissertation of the history of chado, and then we were all invited to take the chasen in hand and make our partner a bowl of tea.

Years later in medical school where the aphorism “See one, do one, teach one” is paramount, I looked back and recognized the style of my first teacher who was a distinguished internal medicine doctor. Six months later, I took the class again and then to my surprise was asked to take lessons formally.

The year was 1985 and I am still at it. If I am truthful, I have gained a level of competency but nowhere commensurate with the time spent in study. It is as if the more I study the wider the tea world becomes. It is infinite.

That revelation changed frustration into the comforting thought that chanoyu will be forever fascinating. I will never be bored with the process, the history, the arts and crafts, and thus I will never need to move on to another endeavor to satisfy my curiosity. And that is the realization, my realization at least.

October 2019

Senioring

The backs of cars are festooned with many clues as to the type of people that inhabit them. There are political affiliations, union memberships; you can see where most of the money that should have gone in the retirement account went instead to a university. The type of dog that is riding shotgun, and how many family members are shuttled around by mom in the mini van is often evident.

There is on occasion a quirky haiku-like statement about how we are going to hell in a hand basket. And often I am left feeling inadequate because my other car isn’t a Corvette.

I miss the Grateful Dead’s skeletons and bears. Where have all the deadheads gone? And I have not seen the elitist Colorado’s green Native sticker for a while; maybe they have become more inclusive.

The best adherents to bumper sticker culture have to be the drivers of old VW camper vans. The backs of their vehicles, including the window, are covered with every destination in their carefree lives.

I have never participated in this, though I have come close. Stickers collect in the back seat waiting to be affixed but grow old and tattered, and are eventually thrown out. But I think my time is coming.

Not that I want to make a political statement, or advertise a lifestyle. I have no grandchildren that are going to Harvard or Yale, and there are no dogs or exotic cars that the world needs to know about. What I propose to post is similar to the “New Driver, Please be Patient, or “Baby on Board, Please don’t drive me off the road” genre of stickers.

I must have crossed over an imaginary line recently. My neck must have gotten spindlier, my hair sparser and greyer, I must be slumping in my seat or listening to talk and classical radio more. Something has changed that motivates drivers in my rear view mirror to help me along by blaring their horns.

Maybe I am preventing them from getting to the next stoplight quicker, or from making that forbidden right turn on red. I certainly am slowing the progress of every plumber’s van, not that they ever get to my house on time.

Okay, I am comfortable that my time has come to burden the vehicle behind me with guilt by announcing, “Senior On Board, Please Give Me A Break”, or “Senior On Board, What’s The Hurry”, or maybe “Senior On Board, Where The Hell Are You Going Anyway”.

Though when I mention this plan, friends caution that it will make me increasingly vulnerable to the scofflaws that call our streets home, and it will give these hurried drivers more glee in cutting me off the next opportunity they get.

On occasion, I have fun at a stoplight. The unremarkable white Honda I pilot, when dropped into sport mode, will translate its 260 HP to the front wheels in dramatic fashion. I know it is wrong, but when the towering pickup truck that has been tailgating me pulls to my right, I cannot help but accelerate just for a moment. It alters the whole dynamic.

It is juvenile, as it would also be to put the above stickers on my bumper. In the end, better to remain anonymous and keep driving . . . . like an old man!

September, 2019

Bizarre

One morning this first week of August, I was listening to Nino Rota’s film music. It was soothing in an odd way. If you are unfamiliar with him, go to YouTube and listen to the music, and then watch the movies. He is famous for writing the scores for The Godfather and for the eccentric Italian director Federico Fellini’s movies. If you have never watched any of these, you are in for a treat.

It is Italian music at its finest, an offbeat mix of serious and comical, even farcical. It reflects the bizarre world the Italians found themselves in during the 50’s and 60’s: a time not far from the devastation of WWII.

This music is a perfect background for the world we find ourselves in; no, more the world we are trapped in. The country is barely recognizable. Our worst tendencies are sanctioned to retain power at any cost.

America has become a country that sits back and lets its young men slaughter families, friends, and children for no other reason than pure misguided hate. And to make the unthinkable even stranger, we not only continue to encourage them but also to arm them.

Fellini’s films are about the absurd. They are extreme depictions of life that seem unreal at first viewing. But after some thought the tangible world make his films tame.

In my profession, there was the constant threat of malpractice. We armed ourselves with high value insurance and even higher value preventative measures. Of course, the best approach is to strive to do the best job possible: to ignore the threat, and practice responsibly and treat everyone with respect.

I find this lacking in our leaders. They have put the country at risk by ignorance at best and malice at worse.

In my 66 years, the country has been through traumatic events: unjust wars, assassinations, riots, massive economic fraud, homeland attack, political suppression and maleficence, and environmental carnage. A short search of Wikipedia will bring up the specifics. Somehow, this feels different.

Where there was hope and enthusiasm, it seems crushed under a mass of electronic media. Other than reading an opinion piece or watching Walter Cronkite on television, I was left to my own thoughts. Ideas simmered for hours or days. Conclusions were reached, not forced by a millisecond turnaround time.

There was no stress to broadcast opinions because no one particularly cared. Friends reinforced each other, and families did what families always do (or did), stuck together despite differences.

When I tried to write a coherent conclusion to this commentary, I could not. To use logic to ferret out a solution does not seem possible. Of course, we should try but not be surprised if the effort is futile. Now that is bizarre.

August, 2019

Once

Today was one of those days; up at 5:30, a quick breakfast then the pre-cruise inspection. There was 75’ of anchor chain laid out between Cross and Mink Islands, and it needed the mud hosed off most of the chain before our scheduled departure at 6:45.

I said it was one of those days, so the reason for the 6:45 departure was to arrive at the Quoddy Narrows at the last vestige of Maine in time to reach the Lubec Narrows Bridge at 10:18. And the reason for this was (for once) to try to cross from the Atlantic Ocean to the Passamaquoddy Bay at High Slack tide when the water would be calm.

If we reached it at the proper time then the current under the bridge will be minimal. If not then it makes for a hair-raising experience, as the entire bay begins to lower itself by twenty feet and much of its water passes under this bridge.

To reach the bridge at Hugh Slack tide is the theory, alas, we have yet to succeed coordinating the variables involved. Some of these include integrating the low and high slack currents with the timing of low and high tide. Another is the time zone: Eastern Daylight and Atlantic Daylight time, which here exists directly across from each other. And then there is the lack of data concerning the current at the Lubec Narrows. All these make timing the transit difficult to pin down. So far, we have been off by plus or minus an hour.

The timing error becomes apparent as Carrie Rose is being sucked through (if it is low to high tide), or struggles to transit the two bridge pylons of the Lubec Bridge (if it is high to low tide). Of course, it is not quite that simple. There are strong eddies above and below the bridge.

If there is one thing I know about Carrie Rose, if I fully engage the throttle she will plant her stern deep into the water and go straight. I have only had to do this a few times, most notably on the New Jersey coast and now in northernmost Maine.

At this point in my boating career I should know I better, but as we say in the Tea Ceremony: One meeting, one time. Each attempt is unique. I should end this tale now but there is more. Please feel free to stop reading at any time. You will not hurt my feelings.

As I mentioned above, we left Cross Island in Maine early this morning. A horrendous dream awoke me and I got up to look around. The entire anchorage was shrouded in fog. I could barely see the glow from Sir Tugely Blue’s anchor light. I crawled back into bed and I awoke at 5:30.

The surrounding fog was gone, but this was nature being deceitful. It did not take long for the fog to enveloped us once out onto the Atlantic. To add to the fog there was squall after squall. Their only benefit being to temporarily blow the fog away.

More events took place: whirlpools, a pissed off (I did inadvertently yelled at him) hulk-like Canadian border patrol agent, and more cold rain and fog.

Now on our mooring, the rain has stopped, the winds have calmed, and the cloud ceiling has risen. There may even be a sunset, and tomorrow it is predicted to be sunny and in the 70’s. All is well.

Oh, did I forget to mention that the water hose popped off the hot water heater and sprayed 50 gallons of water over the engine room (an easy fix if you can believe it) as we approached the Narrows. I think it is time to have a glass of wine, a bite to eat, and go to bed!

July 2019

Forethought

Every tea/chanoyu event engenders much forethought. Most of the groups that request a tea ceremony demonstration are surprised at the amount of equipment needed to perform the task properly. And they are also surprised to see the number of kimono clad women and men that deliver, unpack, assemble, use the various objects, and then reverse the process.

Along with the equipment is the creation of a mizuya (kitchen). One of the principles of chanoyu is purity, and during tea, the host ceremonially purifies the utensils. But before that, hidden away from the guest in the mizuya, the utensils are cleansed and prepared for use.

Chanoyu is not a preordained event. Each time tea is prepared it is unique. I believe that that is one of the reasons why chanoyu is so engrossing. Many factors are considered when designing (if that is the appropriate word) each event. The season, the availability of tea ware, the level of formality, the space that tea is to be made in, the practitioners level of expertise, all these and more must be considered.

And though we draw upon our training and experiences, another tenet of chanoyu is ichigo, ichie (one time, one meeting). It belies us to consider this presentation of chanoyu as a one and only. In my medical practice, when asked to provide an opinion, diagnosis or medication sight unseen, I would respond that each patient is a custom one off encounter, and in my experience the simpler the problem was made out to be, the more complicated it was.

The lesson learned is never to be complacent. Never to take anything for granted. Plan, plan, plan, and then review the plan. Despite my excellent chanoyu training, I must remind myself of the above. This may be because I know that my teachers will not allow themselves or their students to strive for anything except perfection.

Of course, this striving for perfection is passed down from above. My visits to the Urasenke Headquarters in Kyoto have been a mixture of awe and dread. It is not fear of their reproach, for they are gracious and accommodating, but fear of my insufficiencies.

Alas, the only way forward is to persevere. Riyku, the founder of chado (the way of tea), stated it this way: To become adept at something requires liking it, adroitness, and the accumulation of training. It is the person with all these three who will realize mastery. (Translated by Gretchen Mittwer)

So, the next time you watch the sublime tea ceremony performed, think of the forethought that the scurrying group of kimonos before you put into the planning and implementation. It will make the experience more fulfilling.

June 2019

Clutter

To get as far out of earshot I practice the shakuhachi at the front of the house. I can close a few doors to lessen the sound permeating into the back room where the ever patient Charlotte sits, watching the latest Amazon Prime serial. We have reached a compromise on location as the recent piece I have been practicing has the highest notes possible to be played on this 22” piece of thick bamboo.

In a virtuoso’s hands, these notes would not need volumes of air to reach their peak, but then I am not a virtuoso. The tuner does not lie; I can produce the proper pitch at the sacrifice of increased volume.

The shakuhachi’s five basic notes have simple one syllable names: Ro, Tsu, Re, Chi, and Ri. They are notated in katakana, and when first practicing a tune the notes are sung rather than played.

With other pitches, especially in the third octave, the names become complicated and defy song. It has taken 40 years for me to sound them: Go-No-Ha, San-No-Ha, Yon-No-Ha, or D, D#, and E.

There are others a bit lower on the scale but these three have been fleeting. When I manage to play the note properly, I try to replicate what I have just done. Where was my tongue, how were my lips pursed, what angle was the flute in relation to my mouth, how much air was I forcing into the flute, the list goes on.

Breath is fleeting as well. It should be deep and abdominal, a steady stream of powerful air. But mostly it comes from my upper chest. Halfway into each measure, when it is too late, I remember that this breath should be deep and abdominal. The final notes struggle to survive.

When I sit at my makeshift desk where I practice, and look west into the front and dining rooms, I see clutter. It is not clutter in the negative sense. Most of the objects have a cherished history and their place, but there are still an awful lot of them.

Closest to me there are cigar box guitars and several bamboo komuso figurines. The books and dolls, various wooden and metal objet d’art; paintings and woodblock prints; there is a stereo cabinet with CDs and records, and speakers the size of large picnic ice coolers.

The dining room has the prerequisite table and chairs with the addition of a small shrine to the shakuhachi and chado gods. The walls are cover with home generated prints and watercolors. There is my mother’s maple hope chest and Charlotte’s grandmothers white marble topped dresser, along with a smattering of family and friend's photographs.

The entirety is dusted twice a month on Tuesday, so we cannot be accused of slovenliness. Most of the clutter has been circling the sun along with us for decades. My sister does not have this predilection. She regularly without sympathy redefines her space. In fact, quite a few of the pieces, both large and small, once inhabited her home.

There are moments when I wish it was all gone, and my life was as clean and spare as the furniture ads I see in the Sunday New York Times Style magazine. The people in the ads are as sleek as their surrounds, and I imagine that they have figured out how not to carry any baggage, both spiritual and material, around with them.

Then I relax and realize it is never going to happen. I pity my nephews for somehow I imagine they are going to have to deal with the clutter. But maybe they will wash their hands of it and call 1-800-GOTJUNK . . . not a bad idea.

I turn back to the score. It is time to make some noise. Time to send a few high pitched notes out to interact with the stuff that clutters my life.

May 2019

Resourceful

I have always enjoyed making things, all kinds of things. When I was a kid I enjoyed taking things apart, the problem was, I was not skilled at putting them back together again. My parents were tolerant of this proclivity of mine. In fact, I think my father encouraged it. I never remember him getting mad, even when I took grandpa’s fancy pocket watch apart and ruined it.

That watch still exists. I have lugged it around with me since I first destroyed it. Whenever I unearth it from some drawer or box I have hidden it in, I cannot help but feel guilt. It is a constant reminder of the years it took me to become resourceful enough not only to disassemble, but also to reassemble.

One of the frustrations of practicing chanoyu in America is the lack of appropriate utensils. Granted the Internet has made this less of an issue, but still there are things that are not readily available. I have spent my adult life searching art and craft fairs, and antique and consignment shops for that rare find, a suitable western piece that will work for tea.

Over many years of study, I have developed a sense of what foreign object will work in tea’s highly stratified world. My home is littered with objects that do not make the final step to being useful in the making of tea. Japan has spent close to a millennium defining and refining these objects, so why do I think I will find one willy-nilly while wandering around a crafts fair.

It has happened: a beautiful white tea bowl found in Door County, Wisconsin, and another bowl stumbled upon in a northern Maine coffee shop. But these are the outliers. Other objects I have made, partially out of a sense of frustration but also out of curiosity and a need to be hands on in my personal tea ethos.

This pursuit of a personal identification with the material world of tea is not always met with approval. Tea is a conservative practice in the way that period musicians only use instruments appropriate to that time; no Switched On Bach for them. And so, it is thus with tea.

Change is not bottom up but top down. It is not the purview of the general membership but the responsibility of the few. This is with good reason. As with most earthly constructs, chanoyu is a fragile thing. Change has ramifications, mostly unanticipated. Tea’s oeuvre is firmly set.

That said I have a library of tea books and a basement of tools, neither of which I can ignore. Once I get a design in my head, the above resources are put to work, and sometimes, if I am lucky a useable piece is constructed. Of course, this is an unorthodox approach.

In the book, The Spirit Of Tea, the then Grand Tea Master Sen Soshitsu XV touches on this subject in the chapter titled Selecting. I have read its twelve lines many times to try to understand where the boundaries between seriousness and frivolity lie. In this, I have been unsuccessful.

There are many ways to truth: scholarship, spirituality, physical practice, and the disciplines of arts and crafts. To be successful in the selection, or the design and building of tea utensils requires resourcefulness. But how to keep the ego out of it, well, chado, the way of tea excels at that.

April 2019

Prep

It is winter and I am retired. That means, for the most part, I do not need to leave the house unless I want to. There is comfort in this. It also means that I have the time to prep myself and the house for the onslaught of freezing winds, snow, and ice.

This winter (2019) has had a few particularly nasty days. I did not grow up with the concept of wind chill, so I tend to discount the figures as inflated for breathless weatherpersons, but reports of ten below zero grab my attention.

I retrieve the extra heavy black ski jacket. Next to be fished out of the back of the closet are fleece lined Patagonia pants, wool hats, and recently purchased Thinsulate mittens. I also rummage through the dresser drawer for long sleeved UNIQLO extra warm t-shirts, and just in case put long underwear on alert.

To add to this, I fuel the snow blower and start it to assure that when push comes to shove it will work. Snow shovels are strategically placed at the front, back, and garage doors along with containers of sand to prevent mishaps if the ice proves intractable.

And while in the garage, snowbrushes and ice scrapers along with shovels are placed in the car’s trunks. One car, an overpowered sports coupe, is slippery on anything other than dry pavement, so as a reward for a life spent driving beaters, come around November I fit it with four snow tires.

When the cold materializes windows and doors are searched for air leaks. Various types of barriers are employed to seal what is ultimately an un-sealable house. There is more but at the moment, I can’t think . . . . No wait, I oil the Bell & Gossett circulating water pump on the boiler, and bleed the radiators of accumulated air.

In late September, the storm windows are lowered in place. A portable electric radiator is put in the back porch and the crawl space underneath it is packed with fiberglass insulation. Of course, the front and back water spigots are drained along with what water is left in the garden hoses.

I have a few survivalist tendencies, so I stock up on pasta and canned tomatoes and red wine, and let’s not forget cookies and flour and yeast. To add to the above list, in September I did much the same thing to Carrie Rose, our handsome cruising tug.

Is it any wonder that Chicago’s population shrinks every year. Instead of constantly raising taxes and fees, the city should be paying us a hazardous duty stipend. The block I live on is magnanimous. Once I have the snow blower running I will continue south for three or four houses, and occasionally some gracious soul will clear the snow from the entire block’s sidewalks.

In October, I pull R. H. Blyth’s Haiku Vol. 4 down from the bookcase’s upper shelf, and read Buson’s haiku: My bones feel the quilts; A frosty night. That about sums winter up for me.

Only now can I take the liberty to think of winter’s preparation. It is March, and there is hope in the still frigid air.

March 2019

Boxes

Much of life is tucked away in boxes: hidden in attics and crawl spaces, in storage units and garages. An unofficial duty of mine is to patch together the multitude of boxes that contain the implements of chanoyu, the tea ceremony. Some boxes are pristine, others look like they have been through a war, and maybe they have.

Despite their artistic contents, they can be works of art unto themselves. They are platforms for their own history. The joinery is perfect. The wood is clear, fine grained and pale, though some boxes have the patina of age.

If there is a nail, it is because of an uninformed attempt at repair. For all the beauty and artisanship of their construction, Chicago is not a forgiving place for them. It is toxic. Japan is humid and so is Chicago, but not in winter. Humility disappears in January and February.

In my 1913 bungalow, cracks appear in the kitchen's wooden backdoor despite yearly attempts to mend them. The humidifier is turn up and while this prevents an almost fatal shock each time I touch metal, the humidity still hovers in the low thirties. The leaky storm windows break out in a forest of ice crystals with the added moisture, and still wood shrinks and cracks.

When the straight grained wood that these boxes are made from splits, it does so cleanly. Though I have never heard it happen, it must make a tremendous sound. Maybe it contributes to the constant creaking of my 106 year old house.

My first step in the restoration is to carefully inspect the box, and come up with a plan to mend the damage: less is more when making a repair. Often the wood is split and the dowels that act as nails are damaged. A judiciously sectioned toothpick will replace a dowel. With the new dowel in place, a bit of hide glue is added, and then hefty clamps are applied.

Most boxes have a rim around the bottom with four centrally placed slits. A ribbon is passed, though the middle of each. The middle of the ribbon meets the two straggling ends at the top. These, once tied, hold the lid on. The knot used is similar to tying shoes but of course, as I have learned, Japanese knots are tied opposite of Western knots. I grew up sailing and take pride my ability to tie knots, but these confound me.

Chanoyu uses a plethora of knots, which, of course, I thought I would be able to master. Think again. It is a constant frustration to be confronted by the same knots and fail each time to tie them properly without pedantic instruction.

The lids are made of the same wood as the rest of the box, but because of their construction, they tend to warp instead of split. There are two wooden rails on the bottom side of the lid to keep it in proper alignment. The rails are affixed to the lid with small wooden dowels. The dowels shear as the lid shrinks and warps. It is clever, because if they were nailed the lid would be damaged.

Though the glue sets in twenty minutes, I leave the lid and box to rest overnight. There is no hurry. Once returned to its owner, the box and its precious contents will be put away, and become a memory until needed. It could be months, it could be decades. The renewed box will again protect the little spark of life that went into the creation of the treasure within it: hidden or not.

February 2019

Handmade

I have built a few things over the years and in the process learned many skills: working with wood, metal, and fiberglass, and then often the most difficult, the final finish. This is one of the reasons I was drawn to Japanese culture. It was before I had developed any of the above. I was anticipating, however impossible, that one day I would be able to emulate the workmanship, the craft, and the creativity I saw presented by Japanese artisans.

If I am honest, even though I have built and designed things as disparate as boats and tea tables, I have never realized the competency and artisanship of Japan's craft practitioners. The tradition of arts and crafts in Japan is on such a high level that it is almost unattainable.

Think of a "simple" Raku bowl. It is rough and irregularly shaped, it is grossly black, and it is a bowl with such a specific purpose that it is useless to most. But for tea, it is the perfect vessel. Though it looks heavy, it is light. Fill it with hot water and it is the perfect insulator. Behold it filled with whipped, frothy matcha, the green within the black surroundings, and the natural world is revealed.

This is the same for many of tea’s utensils. Consider the natsume, the tea caddy. Depending on its shape, the matcha within is carefully placed into a steep volcanic peak or a low lying hill. In use, the natsume is placed close to the side of the chawan, the tea bowl. The right hand while grasping the chashaku carefully removes the lid. The matcha now conjures up an image of a tree covered mountain, or a mossy hill.

We learn over time to disturb the perfectly formed mound of matcha selectively, creating a crag in the far off side. The totality remains, if not in reality, then in the minds eye.

Tea utensils have evolved with the practice of tea. The ten craft families that collaborate with Rikyu’s descendants are dynasties of their own. They continue to supply the ceramics; cast iron vessels; pottery; bronze; silk cloths and containers; various wood and bamboo pieces; lacquered paper and wood; and the other paper products that make tea possible.

And though Rikyu stated that, “it is foolish to possess numerous utensils", surely chanoyu would be found lacking without the tradition of design and execution these families bring to tea, to say nothing of their historical significance.

I do not diminish my skills but I am humbled by the art and craft of even the simplest of tea wares. Whenever I am working on a project, their example keeps me honest. Each bowl of handmade tea draws upon this four hundred year legacy, of what Morgan Pitelka calls in his same named book, Handmade Culture.

January 2019