What Does It Mean When We Say That Tea Is Not A Drink?
What Tea Teaches Us About Being An Animist
The first sip of tea—you know the feeling. You can be anywhere in the world, and find yourself more ‘here’, while also elsewhere, when you sit down and take in your first sip of Tea. Tea has a way of opening portals of inter-dimensionality for us, lending her ability to us to better see, hear, feel, smell, taste, and sense in softening and clarifying ways. Your body is comforted, your mind calms, your heart mirrors the filling of your cup, and perhaps for a moment, however fleeting, however subtle, nothing else seems to matter. Tea’s spirit has brought you back to the present moment in such a way, that her channelling of serenity is one that does not require well-studied explanations or proof. Your direct experience of attunement, aliveness, and curiosity is the evidence.
Still, modern humans regard Tea as a beverage, passive and inanimate, something to be consumed and reduced to a nutritional summary of polyphenols, that limits our ability to relate with her (and other plants), and the natural elements with consequences. These consequences of reducing Tea is a form of objectification, a fetishizing, a symptom of domination where we claim we “know” Tea, based on her list of beneficial compounds. Substituting "Tea" with "friend" challenges our anthropocentric view, highlighting our tendency to prioritize self-interest as humans, where we believe we are the main character of the narrative. Would we treat our friends the way we treat a drink? It prompts reflection on genuine friendship and our role as participants.
In my own work, I’m interested in animacy, specifically, reanimating by cultivating an intimacy with the personhood of Tea, in joy, in grief, in all of it. Instead of saying we know anything about Tea, I’m interested in getting out of the way so that her voice can be heard. Why should a human tell Tea about who she is? Can we decentre ourselves and get quiet enough to invite Tea to tell us about who she is? Can a Tea ceremony be about her rather than about us?
My Magick of Tea series is, in essence, a spiritual-somatic journey, initiated and practiced through Tea encounters through the ancient Chinese Five Elements (also known as the Wu Xing) and magickal exploration and practice. An animist’s perspective is a fact of living relationally on this Earth, nothing you can earn or buy or outsource; we all fundamentally were born with this natal tongue, though have forgotten it or have been taught otherwise. Living in understanding and in close bonds with non-human beings, with a sense of greater intuition and creativity are natural states you’ll return to as you embark on this voyage of sitting with Tea each month, and the crucial work that is needed is to unload cognitive baggage at natural points, and at your discretion, along the way, freeing yourself from filters that have blocked out the light of interconnected wonderment.
Interacting with Tea is synonymous with interacting with the elements, all Five Elements, alive, vibrant, and communicative. To drink Tea, to take her in through our mouths, is drinking the threshold of the “here” and all the “theres”, of space, time, and other features of existence. Tea reminds us that we are but tenants of energy (micro beings living in the larger realm of archetypal energy), broken down into the Five Elements, the many sacred beings of this Earth, as custodians and partakers of the life force of this drink that is more-than-drink and more-than-human. When we sit with Tea, when we drink her, it means to receive something that has life, and then to move it into the consciousness we need to keep on living.
I’m reminded of my Nai Nai’s (paternal grandmother) final days in human form. As her body was preparing her for the transition to pass on, she began to eat and drink less, while my dad sang her the same nursery rhymes she sang to him (and me), and when I realized that only those who have the capacity to sustain themselves tomorrow can partake in nourishment today.
What does it mean to drink Tea? When receiving the generosity of this plant, into our cups, into our bodies, it’s important to her to know her history, much like how you would take the time to know the background of someone when first forming a friendship. Because Tea expresses herself through five different facial expressions, the Five Elements, when we encounter the Elements, we are enchanted by a cosmic power that brings us back to our roots, to something ancient within us, and inspire meaning.
Find out what’s coming up next in the Magick of Tea series HERE. Or explore animism in a deeper way, through an 8-week word-crafting and creative writing series through Black Holes Birthing Stars, on until May 27. 2024.
Mimi
Animist spirit medium and founder of Ceremonie