Yesterday I was lucky to take part in a tea ceremony for the first time. It was held in Kyoto Imperial palace grounds (Kyoto Gosho), in a beautiful traditional building by a pond. Light leftovers from the brief snowfall of the other day still covered some places. It was a rather early wake up for me and I couldn't sleep well the night before.
So my drowsy body and dreamy mind met the crispy and clear spring air in a place where a ritual of revering aesthetics was carried out. Such a hard to name, hard to categorize, hard to describe -event. Ritual, ceremony, service, art happening? Maybe respectful meeting of strangers taking part in a tradition of pleasure made sublime. Hundreds of years of perfectionism for every sense. Maybe sometimes we can create something that has a delicate and certain structure but no name. It's a way as the Japanese name indicates. I felt inspired and refreshed. I felt and still feel it. I also feel like tracing a certain structure my own way with evermore finer and finer line, so in the end the form seems to fade out. Fulfillment lies in innumerable ways. SadÅ is one of those ways.
I have been very lucky to meet very special people here in Kyoto. Without them my stay would have been so shallow. Kyoto is full of everything but empty if not shared. So everybody who have accompanied me and showed me around, I bow to you humbly and thank you from the bottom of my heart. I trust you know who you are.
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