Men’s Tea Meditation
Meditations on the Men's Tea
The Tea is the ritual and the medium of transformation. Each herb in the blend is a member of our community, each with their own unique character. It is their interaction that gives birth to the medicine. The innate chemistry causes healing, as if an accident of connection, or a side effect of stillness.
The reason for this tea party is both obvious and a secret, like so many ancient gifts brand new to us, but incredibly old. It's like that with herbal tea, and medicines alike, obvious yet containing an incredible depth simultaneously. In unraveling our ideas of masculinity, we find appreciation for the feminine. While understanding ourselves, acceptance of each other.
This tea ceremony is the compilation of so many waves of time, there is always a feeling of serendipity in the air. Because this has happened before, because this practice is so old, each sip is transcendental. Each breath allows us to float above the illusion, and hypnosis of modernity. Here and now we can remember. It is like that when you're in the forest, when you are able to interact with nature, it's like that. A portal of remembrance across incredible space and time.
The tea is incredibly simple but also incredibly deep, no different than existence, both existential and mundane at the same time. Therefore the difference is how we choose to see, yet belief is not really a choice. But rather formed from experience with the other side. For example the greenery that grows through concrete has always been medicine, but does not become medicine until you remember its depth.
In the same way community, and a circle is the most powerful medicine, for this reason I know I will never stop opening this container. As the herbalist only opens the containers, the herbs are the healers, there interaction the medicine, their powers innate, and their lesson tacit. In Fact my job is incredibly easy, when compared to the medicine that is brewed, the exchange takes no thought.
A monk is divine, yet lowly, a fog waitless, and touching nothing, yet nourishing everything in its wake. The fog at the top of the mountain, is lowly and divine. Its process is humble, and its magnificence is enjoyed in silence.
With this same sentiment in mind, one can understand that service is the greatest pastime. I enjoy the pouring of tea and carrying it to each community member, as they peel back the layers of rigid armor to expose human flesh.
By the end of the ritual, I am as grateful and pleasantly surprised as anyone else in the room. As I also witnessed something truly one of a kind.
Men must endure to build durability, sometimes this means hitting the floor like a stumbling giant with no one to help stabilize your shaken mind, or wounded body. However, what if we had the support to catch us before we were broken? How much stronger could we become? And likewise how much higher would we be willing to climb?
