Animist Thoughts While Drinking Tea
Some esoteric thoughts that came through while drinking tea
What are the differences between craving the unknown and craving adventure, craving chaos, and craving transcendence?
I find myself asking these questions, or perhaps hearing these questions as I drink my daily Tea.
Today, I am reminded that the unknown, adventure, chaos and transcendence are romanticized, as they are often frightening, destabilizing, violent even.
Much like Tea. A plant of grace and medicine, but also filled with heartache and betrayal (referencing the Opium Wars here).
Why is it that human taking human, human taking land, human taking minerals, human taking anything seems to be the only constant?
Maybe Tea represents the persistence of life, how despite life becoming something you don’t understand, humans doing things you don’t understand.
Maybe Tea is soil, blood, sweat, wind, rain, where this plant will always be more than a crop that is packaged and then diluted.
Maybe Tea is the dirt that sprouted leaves where we bury our bodies, transcended in spite of chaos, returning new, returning transformed.
Not my thoughts, but Tea’s thoughts.
I just happened to be around to hear, as I finish this vintage shou Puer cake, where someone was thinking ahead roughly 5 decades ago, and took the time to preserve it for someone else down the road (me) to drink, to learn.
Emily Kendal Frey wrote, “It hurts to be born.” I might just agree. We’re entering into the last 2 creative writing sessions of Black Holes Birthing Stars, and as satisfying and cathartic as these creative-writing-meets-therapeutic-witchcraft sessions have been, I think the group of us are feeling what it means to break open, where dark matter is birthing something fresh, something necessary, something splendorous.
May 27 will be the last day where this 8-part animist, part shamanic writing course series is available as a sliding scale offering. After this date, the collection of prompts, group shares, writing practices, and other artful, Daoist perspectives will be priced as a set price in the Self-Study section of my site.
Sitting to take Tea,
Mimi